The Great Depression had far-reaching and devastating impacts across the United States. Many parents, business owners, government agents, workers, children, and countless other groups experienced significant changes. This inquiry gives students the opportunity to explore the complexities of a difficult time in history and invites conversations about varying circumstances based on opportunity, race, and economic circumstance.
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About the inquiry
Compelling Question
How does hardship impact society?
Standards
C3 Framework: D2.His.14.9-12. Analyze multiple and complex causes and effects of events in the past.
Instructional Snapshot
advertisement, and interview excerpts from the Great Depression. Students may annotate on the sources directly or use pre-cut cards to identify as many people or groups impacted as they can infer, along with what the sources suggest about their lives during this time. Students should be given more than one card per source so they may infer multiple groups impacted within one source.
Students then work in small groups to brainstorm the causes of the situations they previously identified with a fishbone diagram (as used by The University of Utah and State of Iowa).
Finally, students craft a response to the compelling question, “How does hardship impact society?” To achieve a more complete and complex response, students may create their claim in groups, working to condense and synthesize the various cause-and-effect relationships they have analyzed.
Formative Tasks
COLLABORATE: Identify the differing people and aspects of society impacted by the Great Depression.
DELIBERATE: Create a set of causes that correspond to one of the impacts.
PRODUCE: Craft a claim to answer the compelling question.
Sources
Source Set: Great Depression First-Person Accounts and Photographs
Summative Performance Task
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Taking Informed Action
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