Lesson Planning
December 12, 2009
Novi High School in Novi, MI
PART I: Explanation of the Concept under Study
On October 29, 1929, the United States Stock Market crashed, casting the nation into its worst economic depression in history. As a result of the crash, the United States faced widespread unemployment, as well as a severe drop in personal income and international trade. However, the collapse of the American Stock Market and the resulting depression had worldwide costs and influenced countries all across the globe.
Throughout this lesson, we are investigating the following question: what were the global impacts of the Great Depression? Essentially, by examining how individual countries—such as the United States, Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan, and China—were influenced by the Depression, it is clear that the Great Depression was a worldwide phenomenon that left the world in devastation. But what caused the Depression to be so widespread? Why wasn’t the Stock Market crash in the United States an isolated incident?
In the decades leading up to the Depression in 1929, the world entered into a period of globalization. With increasing technology and modernization, there was an increased dependence on foreign markets, exchange, and alliances. Thus, nations across the globe became so interconnected that the events in one nation had worldwide detrimental effects.
The experiences of the Great Depression differed country by country. In the United States, the economic depression led to increased government control through Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. In Germany, severe hyperinflation allowed for Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party to gain power and influence, while similarly, Italy saw a rise in power from fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Russia, under Soviet control, was seemingly isolated from the collapse of the global economy, and China, new to international trade, was only minimally affected by the loss of foreign markets. And in Japan, an increase of production, trade, and militarism seemed to only increase the nation’s prosperity and growth amidst the global crisis.
The Great Depression was a worldwide phenomenon that had detrimental effects on nations across the globe. Through this lesson, we will examine the global impacts of the Depression and how each nation’s experience was unique or similar compared to the experiences of other nations.
PART II: Assessment of the Students, their Literacy Abilities and their Social Studies Knowledge
For this lesson, we were at Novi High School in Ms. Bryen’s eleventh-grade world history class. At Novi High School, the majority of students (76%) are white, with another 17% Asian-American, 6% African-American, and 2% Hispanic. Most of the students are from middle-class families from the surrounding affluent community.
The students in Ms. Bryen’s classroom were representative of the overall student body, with the majority of students being white, as well as several Asian-American and African-American students. Since our time in the classroom was limited, many of the other socio-cultural factors were hard to determine without directly asking the students, such as sexual orientation and religion. In terms of the student’s reading levels, Ms. Bryen told us that there were no English language learners (ELL) present in the classroom, and that most students were at an age-appropriate reading level. With no ELL students and no students below age-appropriate reading level, there will be less need for scaffolded instruction during our lesson. While planning our lesson, this knowledge greatly shaped the way we constructed our activities and expectations.
In her article Racial Identity and Young People’s Perspectives on Social Education, Terrie Epstein claims that “[b]y understanding how young people from different racial or ethnic groups interpret history…teachers can make more informed decisions about what and how to teach social studies subjects” (Epstein, 42). Thus, it is important to recognize that students’ backgrounds, cultures, and races will influence how they view history. By being cognizant of Epstein’s argument during our lesson, we can better respond to the needs of all of our students.
Since this was our first lesson plan with these students, we felt it was appropriate to try and strengthen the already-learned skills from prior lesson plans taught by Ms. Bryen. At the beginning of every class period, for example, Ms. Bryen has the students write in their journals; these journal entries typically respond to a thematic question that Ms. Bryen poses for the lesson, following the ideas of Bob Bain from his article ‘They Thought the World Was Flat?’: Applying the Principles of How People Learn in Teaching High School History; according to Bain, “most attempts to reform history education urge teachers to begin with ‘big’ questions…[as] students might find history engaging, relevant, and meaningful if they understood the fundamental problems involved” (Bain, 182). So, following the example of Bryen and utilizing the ideas of Bain, we decided to begin our lesson with a journal entry responding to a thematic question.
Throughout our rotation in Ms. Bryen’s classroom, we have observed the students writing in their journals every day; from our perspective, the students are very accustomed to this type of writing activity, and would require no additional help or scaffolding instruction. By introducing the journal topic, and then walking around the room to answer any questions (as Ms. Bryen typically does), we felt that the students would be able to be successful during this part of our lesson.
Students in Ms. Bryen’s classroom are also very familiar with working with primary and secondary sources. Throughout our rotation, we have observed students reading and responding to texts on multiple occasions, with seemingly-little difficulty. Based on our previous observations and from Ms. Bryen’s recommendations, we felt that the students were skilled readers. This knowledge helped us while choosing the texts for our lesson, as we felt that students could handle reading relatively challenging texts.
Furthermore, it is clear that students are comfortable working in small groups to complete assignments and activities. From our observations, students use group-work time effectively and efficiently, by sharing ideas and learning from each other. As Ms. Bryen’s world history class requires students to research specific countries and regions in groups throughout the semester, it is clear that students have had adequate experience and practice working with their classmates. Thus, we felt that a small-group activity during our lesson would be appropriate and effective.
In previous lessons, we have observed students utilizing historical terms and vocabulary, indicating their understanding of history. During a class debate at the beginning of our rotation, for example, students made impressive connections between historical events and topics, without the guidance of Ms. Bryen. From our perspective, this shows that students have a solid knowledge of history and are comfortable utilizing what they know to form arguments, opinions, and ideas. This is important to know, as it will shape how we incorporate class discussions during our lesson; by recognizing the students’ relatively-deep level of understanding, we can draw on that knowledge to create interactive, engaging discussions. While it would be beneficial to know what specific content the students have covered in class (and in previous history classes), we feel that we have a basic understanding of what material the students should know.
More specifically, it is important that we draw on their personal experiences during the lesson. Although the Great Depression happened over seventy years ago, the topic is currently relevant. Our country is facing a very similar economic crisis that has negatively affected millions of Americans. Other countries are now suffering as well because of the interconnectivity of today’s markets and foreign relations. In an area like metro-Detroit, which has been hit hard by the collapsing auto-industry, it is likely that many students have experienced firsthand the effects of an economic recession. This may cause the material to become more relatable to students, which could help students truly engage in our lesson. If given more time in class, we would consider having the students compare and contrast the Great Depression of the 1930s with the present-day economic crisis. This would further stimulate interest amongst the students and help them better understand the historical significance.
According to Elizabeth Moje in her article Learning from Kids, “good teaching…should draw from and expand on the experiences, texts, values, and ideas that adolescents bring to school” (Moje, 2). In other words, responsive teaching is extremely vital in order to build a classroom community that promotes active learning. As teachers, we must be responsive to the experiences, needs, and culture of our students. If we don’t understand our students, we won’t be able to effectively teach them.
If the students in Ms. Bryen’s world history class had not shown prior success in writing journal entries, reading primary and secondary sources, and participating in class discussions, then our lesson plan would include different methods. By utilizing our observations of the class, and by incorporating the skills that Ms. Bryen has already built upon, we feel that our lesson will be responsive to the needs and abilities of the students.
Part III: Student Learning Objectives
By the end of the lesson, students should have learned the following objectives:
1. Students will be able to explain the global implications of the Great Depression.
Through their journal entries (responding to thematic question, “What was the global impact of the Great Depression”), we will be able to assess if students understand this learning objective. While at the beginning of the lesson, students will only be making educated predictions, at the end of the lesson, we will revisit these journal entries to assess student learning and understanding.
2. Students will be able to outline their specific country’s reactions to the Great Depression, supporting their claims with evidence from the sources we provided.
To accompany the readings, we are providing students with a worksheet (see attachment), through which we will assess student understanding. One of the questions on the worksheet specifically asks the students: “How did the Great Depression affect your country?”. Through students’ responses to this question, we will be able to assess if students understood the readings and the material.
3. Students will be able to assess how their country’s experiences fit in with the global experience during the Great Depression; students will be able to explain how their country’s experiences was similar to other countries’ experiences, as well as how their country’s experiences were unique and different.
After reading and completing the worksheet, students will form small ambassador groups (see Part 5) and discuss their country’s experiences; through this discussion, students will (hopefully) be able to exhibit their knowledge about their country’s reactions to the Great Depression
4. Students will be able to make a claim about why the Great Depression was so widespread. In other words, students will be able to make a claim about why the Stock Market crash in the United States led to an economic depression that affected countries around the world.
During a class discussion at the end of class, students will be asked why the Great Depression was so widespread. We will assess students’ understanding through their responses.
The material covered in this lesson directly follows the World History High School Content Expectations (HSCEs) listed in 7.2.2 part 1; this HSCE expects students to be able to “[a]nalyze the transformations that shaped world societies between World War I and World War II by...examining the causes and consequences of the economic depression on different regions, nations, and the globe” (HSCE). However, by looking at the deeper implications and causes of the global Great Depression (such as globalization and interconnected markets), students will learn more than the simple HSCE on the global economy. Instead, students will able be learning the skills necessary to make connections and to approach these events from the perspective of a historian or an economist.
Furthermore, the material covered in our lesson will set the stage for Ms. Bryen’s planned lesson for the following day. According to Ms. Bryen’s plan, students will draw on the knowledge they gained during our lesson to complete a project analyzing the rise of cult leaders during the 1930s. This accompanying project will address the following HSCEs: 7.2.2 part 2, which states “describe and explain the rise of fascism and the spread of communism in Europe and Asia”, as well as 7.3.3, which has students “analyze the political, social, and economic transformations that occurred in this era, including Japanese imperialism, Chinese nationalism, the emergence of communism, and civil war, and nationalization of foreign investments” (HSCE). Drawing from the skills and knowledge gained from our lesson, students will be prepared to complete their cult leader projects and to fulfill these HSCEs.
Part IV: Analysis of Texts and Other Resources
Our lesson revolved around the following question: “What was the global impact of the Great Depression?” Essentially, to answer this question, we wanted students to examine various texts that corresponded with the country they have been researching all semester (the United States, Germany, Italy, Russia, China, and Japan). Thus, each group of students needed different resources and texts to aid in their research of their specific country.
To help us prepare for our lesson, Ms. Bryen supplied us with resources for the United States, Germany, Italy, and Russia, leaving us responsible for finding appropriate materials for China and Japan. Our materials for those two countries came from secondary sources, from college and International Baccalaureate (IB) course textbooks. (See attachment for texts)
In particular, the text we chose for China is a passage from The Cambridge Illustrated History of China and responds to the over-arching question we established for the lesson; in particular, the text gives background information about the context of China’s economy and society, and acknowledges the (somewhat minimal) impacts of the Great Depression. The text focuses on the key ideas of modernization and industrialization; it discusses the rapidly-growing industry of the Chinese cities, and the nation’s attempts to follow Western technology and philosophy. Key terms of the text include “standard of living”, “Nationalists”, “consumer goods”, and “textile mills”.
However, these key ideas and terms may be lost on some students, as they are well-integrated into the text, with no supporting explanations or definitions; essentially, the text assumes that readers will know what these key terms and ideas mean. Furthermore, while the textbook that the students typically use in class explicitly outlines the main ideas at the beginning of each chapter and the key terms in the glossary, this text gives no background information or reading support. This may be challenging to some students, especially struggling readers, who may not have the skills necessary to pull out key ideas or to utilize context clues to figure out key terms. One possible solution to these challenges could have been to have the students do a “List-Group-Label” activity, which would activate prior knowledge and “provide students with an opportunity to synthesize their understanding of how words are related” (Pearson, 85).
Similarly, as the text is from a college-level textbook, the tone is descriptive and informative; however, compared to the kind of textbook reading that the students may be used to, this text is relatively direct, with little background information or colorful, explanatory language. Similarly, the structure of the text is much less broken down as a high school textbook would be; instead, this text has no introduction, conclusion, or summarization of key ideas. The organization of the text is also much less clear and obvious as a high school textbook would be, having no section titles or a clear beginning, middle, and end; instead, there are long paragraphs and lengthy sentences, which may cause some students to grow frustrated and lose interest.
Similarly, the text we chose for the group researching Japan also came from a college-level textbook 20th Century World History. Focusing mainly on Japan’s rising global influence and increasing markets during the time of the Great Depression, this text also responds to our central, thematic question; through this text, students should recognize the unique nature of Japan’s economy during the 1930s, and how that relates to other world powers. This textbook brought similar challenges as the one for the China group; similar in tone, organization, structure, this text gives very little reading support to high school students. Furthermore, this text also utilizes a variety of key terms, such as “markets”, “tariffs”, “autonomy”, and “radicalism”, which the text assumes the reader is familiar with.
To help students overcome the challenges of reading from a college-level textbook, we provided basic instruction before, during, and after reading, just as Dixie D. Masey and Tina L. Heafner suggest in their article Promoting Reading Comprehension in Social Studies. This type of scaffolding instruction “allows students to accomplish a task they might not have been able to accomplish without additional support” and it “helps students recognize that reading is an active procedure throughout” (Masey, 27). Thus, before reading, we had students draw on their prior knowledge and make predictions about our thematic question (What was the global impact of the Great Depression?). Then, during reading, we provided students with an accompanying worksheet. The worksheet was designed to keep students focused and to help them pull out the main ideas; following Benjamin Bloom’s taxonomy of the Six Levels of Thinking—knowledge, understanding, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation—the questions on the worksheet would, theoretically, help students “analyze information, identify problems, develop original solutions, and formulate opinions” (Pearson, 268). And finally, after reading, students applied what they learned back to our thematic question, and investigated how their country’s experiences during the Great Depression differed from the experiences of other countries.
Furthermore, we helped students navigate through the texts by pointing out the importance of sourcing. According to Bob Bain in his article ‘They Thought the World Was Flat?’: Applying the Principles of How People Learn in Teaching High School History,”[m]uch of high school history finds students exploring vast evidenceless and authorless expanses of curriculum that promote…a ‘credulous allegiance’ to some version of the past”; in other words, too often do students read history textbooks and documents as sheer facts, rather than questioning that authority of the author and identifying potential biases, agendas, or contexts that may have influenced the author (Bain, 185). Thus, before students began reading their texts, we informed them where the texts came from and advised them think about possible biases that the texts may have. According to Bain, this should help students think critically about history and to form their own opinions and interpretations about historical events.
Despite the potential challenges of a college-level textbook, we hope to ensure that the texts we chose are manageable for high school students. We feel that our scaffolded reading instruction and our guiding questions will help students navigate the texts, think critically, and make connections.
PART V: Lesson Activities and Integrated Literacy Routines/Strategies
1. Journal Entry
Ms. Bryen begins every class period with an over-arching question to focus students’ thoughts. Students respond to the question in their journals. For continuity, we decided to also begin class with journals and asked students to respond to the following question: “What was the global impact of the Great Depression?” As students at Novi High School should already be familiar with the Great Depression from the United States’ perspective (as American History is a required class from ninth-grade students), we felt that this question would prompt students to recall their prior knowledge and would allow students to make important predictions and connections.
2. Brief Discussion of the Students' Responses
Utilizing the over-arching question, we felt it important to have the students share their predictions about the global impacts of the Great Depression. Thus, in a way, this brief discussion became an informal assessment, as we recognized what the students already knew, and more importantly, what they were unclear on. During this discussion, we asked guiding questions to push students to make connections, such as “Why, if the Stock Market crashed in the United States, was the Great Depression so widespread?”, “How did globalization from the previous unit affect the spread of the Depression?”, and “In what ways did WWI and the Versailles Treaty influence the Depression?”. While this discussion was brief, it was a good way to have students share their ideas and build upon their own thoughts and predictions.
3. Documents Activity
In Ms. Bryen’s world history class, the students are broken up into groups and are assigned a country to research and investigate throughout the semester. These groups include: USA, Germany, Italy, China, Japan, and Russia. For this lesson, we had each group read a secondary source document about the Great Depression and how it affected their country.
Before students began reading the documents, we briefly discussed the importance of sourcing. While Ms. Bryen typically assigns students sourcing roles (such as Sourcerer, Bibliophile, and Corroborator) to ensure that students properly analyze the context, purpose, and audience of the text, we felt that the students had enough experience with sourcing throughout the semester; thus, instead, we mentioned these roles and brought to the students’ attention where the documents came from.
To guide students’ reading, we prepared a worksheet for each documents, with questions based off of Bloom’s taxonomy. Thus, each question corresponded to a different level of Bloom’s forms of thinking, such as Knowledge, Understanding, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. These questions served as a reading guide prompting students to read critically and effectively.
4. Ambassador Activity
As each student will only be reading information about one specific country, we thought it important that students shared what they read about. Similar to a jigsaw activity, one student from each country would form a new group and discuss the various documents. We prepared the following questions to guide their discussion:
1. What is different about each country’s experiences during the Great Depression?
2. What is similar?
3. What else is going on in each country that would have influenced how they responded to the Great Depression?
4. Why was the Great Depression so widespread?
This discussion activity would allow students to share their ideas and to make connections between texts and countries. Ultimately, students should be able to recognize over-arching trends, differences, and important contexts that are unique to each country.
5. Return to Journals
During the last few minutes of class, we asked students to return to their journals and response to the following question: “How was your country’s experience during the Great Depression compare to the experiences of other countries?” By returning to the journals, we are utilizing instruction before, during, and after reading, as Masey and Heafner suggest. While at the beginning of the lesson, students were thinking on a larger scale, the documents narrowed the focus onto a single country. This second journal question prompted students to apply what they learned from the documents and small-group discussions to the bigger trends and ideas.
PART VI: An analysis of the implementation of our activity.
Beginning class with a thematic question as Bain suggests helped ensure that students understood the purpose of the lesson; thus, from the very beginning of class, students were (theoretically) thinking critically about the material and drawing from their prior knowledge. Furthermore, by writing the class agenda on the board before class started (as Ms. Bryen always does), students were aware of what activities we were going to be doing and how everything fit together. Throughout the lesson, students seemed to understand our lesson objectives, as they independently began each assignment or activity with little instruction or direction from us.
To help students clearly understand the purpose for reading the documents, it may have been beneficial to include an “Everybody Reads To…” statement with all of the documents. According to Masey and Heafner, “[b]y establishing the purpose of reading, teachers help model how to focus on the important aspects of the text”; and while they claim that this is a beneficial activity for struggling and ELL readers, in my opinion, this is a good strategy for any student, regardless of ability (Masey, 29). However, we felt that students grasped what the lesson was about and why we were learning about the Great Depression.
Furthermore, our lesson on the Great Depression fit in with Ms. Bryen’s lesson from the day before. During a lecture the previous day, Ms. Bryen had outlined the end of World War I and the changing global economy. This made is so students were familiar with the topic before delving deeper into the material. Also, the day after our lesson, Ms. Bryen had planned for students to investigate how the Great Depression had led to the rise in cult leaders, such as Hitler, Mussolini, Mao Zedong, etc. Thus, our lesson fit within the larger unit, promoting continuity and comprehension.
Overall, from my perspective, the lesson went very well. Students seemed engaged with the material, as they provided thoughtful responses to our questions. For the most part, the lesson was well-organized and drew from previous lessons that Ms. Bryen has already taught. Students were comfortable sharing their ideas and opinions with us, and responded well to our teaching methods (see Part VII: Assessment).
However, despite our planning and despite our organization, it was clear that some of the countries’ documents were simply too long. Although students had little difficulty reading the text itself, the length of the text presented a barrier. While students continued to work hard throughout the class period, it was evident that many students were growing frustrated and overwhelmed; several students began talking amongst themselves, clearly disengaged with the material. Other students repeatedly asked us if they had to read the entire document; and one student even asked us to condense the reading for her by pointing out the important parts of the text.
As pre-student teachers, we took full responsibility for the challenges that students faced while reading some of these texts, as the length of the texts had absolutely no bearing on the students’ abilities, motivation, or work ethic. Looking back, it would have been beneficial to follow Masey and Heafner’s advice; in their article, they claim that “the appropriate amount is typically one to two pages from a textbook” (Masey, 29). To help students overcome this challenge, we pointed out where in the text they should spend most of their time and focus, as that material was more important to the purpose of our lesson.
Another challenge we faced was when we passed out the documents. Having one student from each country group come and grab the materials was definitely a mistake, as this created a lot of chaos and confusion. It would have been much more organized and efficient if we had the students form their groups, and then we went to each group individually, passing out the appropriate materials. Quite frankly, this mistake was due to our own inexperience; as this was our first time teaching a classroom of students, we learned from our mistake and moved on.
After reflecting on the lesson and its outcome, there are a few minor changes that I would have made. First and foremost, I would have included more discussion activities for the students. As these students are relatively talkative and outspoken, it may have been beneficial to prepare more activities where the students can interact and discuss ideas with other students; thus, by allowing more time for the ambassador activity or having the students do a “turn and talk” to discuss their journal entries, the students’ conversations in class could be more productive and beneficial.
Also, I would provide students with more (and shorter) documents, which would allow students to make connections and read a variety of different perspectives and accounts. With more documents, an Inquiry Chart would have been a useful tool, and would “help students keep track of what they are learning and begin to make associations between the texts” (Masey, 35).
Part VII: Assessment
Throughout the lesson, we informally assessed the students’ understanding and learning of the material. Due to our limited amount of time in Ms. Bryen’s class, much of our assessment techniques were formative assessments, as we analyzed student learning through their responses to journal entries, worksheets, and class discussions. While this form of assessment does not provide us with concrete data of the students’ learning (as a summative assessment would), it serves as an indication of how well students understood the material.
First and foremost, their responses to the journal entry were a form of pre-assessment, we as evaluated students’ prior knowledge on the topic. This informal pre-assessment became the basis for the rest of our lesson, as we drew from their prior knowledge and predictions to shape the lessons’ discussions and activities.
Furthermore, while the students read their documents, they were expected to fill out a worksheet. This worksheet, following Bloom’s Taxonomy of the Six Levels of Thinking, was designed to push students to think critically and display their comprehension of the material. While completing the worksheets, we observed students asking each other questions and building from each others’ ideas. While students have yet to turn in the worksheet (as Ms. Bryen wanted them to hang on to it to help them with their cult leader projects), from our observations during the lesson, it appeared that students were giving thoughtful answers reflective of clear understanding. After the students complete their cult leader projects, Ms. Bryen will collect and grade the worksheets and will be able to properly assess the students’ learning.
During class discussions about the documents, it was very evident that students understood the material. Due to our limited amount of time, we assessed students’ understanding through retellings, by having one person from each group “retell” the unique experience of their country. According to the Pearson text, “rather than mere recognition, retellings require recalling knowledge from the reading selection”; thus, retellings are a way to analyze the student’s comprehension of the content during reading (Pearson, 237). Students did a good job of describing the main idea of their readings, illustrating that they were able to pull out the key points and recognize what was important. Also, during their retellings, students utilized many of the historical vocabulary words present in the documents, such as “markets”, “demand”, and “tariffs”; this indicates, in my opinion, that students truly understood the material.
It was also evident that students were engaged in the class discussion. While students express engagement in different, unique ways (such as eye contact, taking notes, participating, asking questions, etc.), the vast majority of the students were showing signs of engagement is some way or form. Many students raised their hand to add to the class discussion, while other students sat (somewhat) quietly, with their eyes following the person speaking. In my opinion, these actions indicate that the students were engaged.
Through these formative assessments, we conclude that the students achieved the learning objectives (outlined in Part III) of our lesson. Although summative assessment would have given us much clearer, more concrete evidence about the students’ learning, due to time constraints, we were unable to evaluate the students in such a way. However, through the students’ cult leader projects and the test they will take at the end of the unit, Ms. Bryen will properly be able to assess the students based off of summative assessment.
For more information about Novi High School, visit their website.
Novi High School in Novi, MI
PART I: Explanation of the Concept under Study
On October 29, 1929, the United States Stock Market crashed, casting the nation into its worst economic depression in history. As a result of the crash, the United States faced widespread unemployment, as well as a severe drop in personal income and international trade. However, the collapse of the American Stock Market and the resulting depression had worldwide costs and influenced countries all across the globe.
Throughout this lesson, we are investigating the following question: what were the global impacts of the Great Depression? Essentially, by examining how individual countries—such as the United States, Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan, and China—were influenced by the Depression, it is clear that the Great Depression was a worldwide phenomenon that left the world in devastation. But what caused the Depression to be so widespread? Why wasn’t the Stock Market crash in the United States an isolated incident?
In the decades leading up to the Depression in 1929, the world entered into a period of globalization. With increasing technology and modernization, there was an increased dependence on foreign markets, exchange, and alliances. Thus, nations across the globe became so interconnected that the events in one nation had worldwide detrimental effects.
The experiences of the Great Depression differed country by country. In the United States, the economic depression led to increased government control through Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. In Germany, severe hyperinflation allowed for Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party to gain power and influence, while similarly, Italy saw a rise in power from fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Russia, under Soviet control, was seemingly isolated from the collapse of the global economy, and China, new to international trade, was only minimally affected by the loss of foreign markets. And in Japan, an increase of production, trade, and militarism seemed to only increase the nation’s prosperity and growth amidst the global crisis.
The Great Depression was a worldwide phenomenon that had detrimental effects on nations across the globe. Through this lesson, we will examine the global impacts of the Depression and how each nation’s experience was unique or similar compared to the experiences of other nations.
PART II: Assessment of the Students, their Literacy Abilities and their Social Studies Knowledge
For this lesson, we were at Novi High School in Ms. Bryen’s eleventh-grade world history class. At Novi High School, the majority of students (76%) are white, with another 17% Asian-American, 6% African-American, and 2% Hispanic. Most of the students are from middle-class families from the surrounding affluent community.
The students in Ms. Bryen’s classroom were representative of the overall student body, with the majority of students being white, as well as several Asian-American and African-American students. Since our time in the classroom was limited, many of the other socio-cultural factors were hard to determine without directly asking the students, such as sexual orientation and religion. In terms of the student’s reading levels, Ms. Bryen told us that there were no English language learners (ELL) present in the classroom, and that most students were at an age-appropriate reading level. With no ELL students and no students below age-appropriate reading level, there will be less need for scaffolded instruction during our lesson. While planning our lesson, this knowledge greatly shaped the way we constructed our activities and expectations.
In her article Racial Identity and Young People’s Perspectives on Social Education, Terrie Epstein claims that “[b]y understanding how young people from different racial or ethnic groups interpret history…teachers can make more informed decisions about what and how to teach social studies subjects” (Epstein, 42). Thus, it is important to recognize that students’ backgrounds, cultures, and races will influence how they view history. By being cognizant of Epstein’s argument during our lesson, we can better respond to the needs of all of our students.
Since this was our first lesson plan with these students, we felt it was appropriate to try and strengthen the already-learned skills from prior lesson plans taught by Ms. Bryen. At the beginning of every class period, for example, Ms. Bryen has the students write in their journals; these journal entries typically respond to a thematic question that Ms. Bryen poses for the lesson, following the ideas of Bob Bain from his article ‘They Thought the World Was Flat?’: Applying the Principles of How People Learn in Teaching High School History; according to Bain, “most attempts to reform history education urge teachers to begin with ‘big’ questions…[as] students might find history engaging, relevant, and meaningful if they understood the fundamental problems involved” (Bain, 182). So, following the example of Bryen and utilizing the ideas of Bain, we decided to begin our lesson with a journal entry responding to a thematic question.
Throughout our rotation in Ms. Bryen’s classroom, we have observed the students writing in their journals every day; from our perspective, the students are very accustomed to this type of writing activity, and would require no additional help or scaffolding instruction. By introducing the journal topic, and then walking around the room to answer any questions (as Ms. Bryen typically does), we felt that the students would be able to be successful during this part of our lesson.
Students in Ms. Bryen’s classroom are also very familiar with working with primary and secondary sources. Throughout our rotation, we have observed students reading and responding to texts on multiple occasions, with seemingly-little difficulty. Based on our previous observations and from Ms. Bryen’s recommendations, we felt that the students were skilled readers. This knowledge helped us while choosing the texts for our lesson, as we felt that students could handle reading relatively challenging texts.
Furthermore, it is clear that students are comfortable working in small groups to complete assignments and activities. From our observations, students use group-work time effectively and efficiently, by sharing ideas and learning from each other. As Ms. Bryen’s world history class requires students to research specific countries and regions in groups throughout the semester, it is clear that students have had adequate experience and practice working with their classmates. Thus, we felt that a small-group activity during our lesson would be appropriate and effective.
In previous lessons, we have observed students utilizing historical terms and vocabulary, indicating their understanding of history. During a class debate at the beginning of our rotation, for example, students made impressive connections between historical events and topics, without the guidance of Ms. Bryen. From our perspective, this shows that students have a solid knowledge of history and are comfortable utilizing what they know to form arguments, opinions, and ideas. This is important to know, as it will shape how we incorporate class discussions during our lesson; by recognizing the students’ relatively-deep level of understanding, we can draw on that knowledge to create interactive, engaging discussions. While it would be beneficial to know what specific content the students have covered in class (and in previous history classes), we feel that we have a basic understanding of what material the students should know.
More specifically, it is important that we draw on their personal experiences during the lesson. Although the Great Depression happened over seventy years ago, the topic is currently relevant. Our country is facing a very similar economic crisis that has negatively affected millions of Americans. Other countries are now suffering as well because of the interconnectivity of today’s markets and foreign relations. In an area like metro-Detroit, which has been hit hard by the collapsing auto-industry, it is likely that many students have experienced firsthand the effects of an economic recession. This may cause the material to become more relatable to students, which could help students truly engage in our lesson. If given more time in class, we would consider having the students compare and contrast the Great Depression of the 1930s with the present-day economic crisis. This would further stimulate interest amongst the students and help them better understand the historical significance.
According to Elizabeth Moje in her article Learning from Kids, “good teaching…should draw from and expand on the experiences, texts, values, and ideas that adolescents bring to school” (Moje, 2). In other words, responsive teaching is extremely vital in order to build a classroom community that promotes active learning. As teachers, we must be responsive to the experiences, needs, and culture of our students. If we don’t understand our students, we won’t be able to effectively teach them.
If the students in Ms. Bryen’s world history class had not shown prior success in writing journal entries, reading primary and secondary sources, and participating in class discussions, then our lesson plan would include different methods. By utilizing our observations of the class, and by incorporating the skills that Ms. Bryen has already built upon, we feel that our lesson will be responsive to the needs and abilities of the students.
Part III: Student Learning Objectives
By the end of the lesson, students should have learned the following objectives:
1. Students will be able to explain the global implications of the Great Depression.
Through their journal entries (responding to thematic question, “What was the global impact of the Great Depression”), we will be able to assess if students understand this learning objective. While at the beginning of the lesson, students will only be making educated predictions, at the end of the lesson, we will revisit these journal entries to assess student learning and understanding.
2. Students will be able to outline their specific country’s reactions to the Great Depression, supporting their claims with evidence from the sources we provided.
To accompany the readings, we are providing students with a worksheet (see attachment), through which we will assess student understanding. One of the questions on the worksheet specifically asks the students: “How did the Great Depression affect your country?”. Through students’ responses to this question, we will be able to assess if students understood the readings and the material.
3. Students will be able to assess how their country’s experiences fit in with the global experience during the Great Depression; students will be able to explain how their country’s experiences was similar to other countries’ experiences, as well as how their country’s experiences were unique and different.
After reading and completing the worksheet, students will form small ambassador groups (see Part 5) and discuss their country’s experiences; through this discussion, students will (hopefully) be able to exhibit their knowledge about their country’s reactions to the Great Depression
4. Students will be able to make a claim about why the Great Depression was so widespread. In other words, students will be able to make a claim about why the Stock Market crash in the United States led to an economic depression that affected countries around the world.
During a class discussion at the end of class, students will be asked why the Great Depression was so widespread. We will assess students’ understanding through their responses.
The material covered in this lesson directly follows the World History High School Content Expectations (HSCEs) listed in 7.2.2 part 1; this HSCE expects students to be able to “[a]nalyze the transformations that shaped world societies between World War I and World War II by...examining the causes and consequences of the economic depression on different regions, nations, and the globe” (HSCE). However, by looking at the deeper implications and causes of the global Great Depression (such as globalization and interconnected markets), students will learn more than the simple HSCE on the global economy. Instead, students will able be learning the skills necessary to make connections and to approach these events from the perspective of a historian or an economist.
Furthermore, the material covered in our lesson will set the stage for Ms. Bryen’s planned lesson for the following day. According to Ms. Bryen’s plan, students will draw on the knowledge they gained during our lesson to complete a project analyzing the rise of cult leaders during the 1930s. This accompanying project will address the following HSCEs: 7.2.2 part 2, which states “describe and explain the rise of fascism and the spread of communism in Europe and Asia”, as well as 7.3.3, which has students “analyze the political, social, and economic transformations that occurred in this era, including Japanese imperialism, Chinese nationalism, the emergence of communism, and civil war, and nationalization of foreign investments” (HSCE). Drawing from the skills and knowledge gained from our lesson, students will be prepared to complete their cult leader projects and to fulfill these HSCEs.
Part IV: Analysis of Texts and Other Resources
Our lesson revolved around the following question: “What was the global impact of the Great Depression?” Essentially, to answer this question, we wanted students to examine various texts that corresponded with the country they have been researching all semester (the United States, Germany, Italy, Russia, China, and Japan). Thus, each group of students needed different resources and texts to aid in their research of their specific country.
To help us prepare for our lesson, Ms. Bryen supplied us with resources for the United States, Germany, Italy, and Russia, leaving us responsible for finding appropriate materials for China and Japan. Our materials for those two countries came from secondary sources, from college and International Baccalaureate (IB) course textbooks. (See attachment for texts)
In particular, the text we chose for China is a passage from The Cambridge Illustrated History of China and responds to the over-arching question we established for the lesson; in particular, the text gives background information about the context of China’s economy and society, and acknowledges the (somewhat minimal) impacts of the Great Depression. The text focuses on the key ideas of modernization and industrialization; it discusses the rapidly-growing industry of the Chinese cities, and the nation’s attempts to follow Western technology and philosophy. Key terms of the text include “standard of living”, “Nationalists”, “consumer goods”, and “textile mills”.
However, these key ideas and terms may be lost on some students, as they are well-integrated into the text, with no supporting explanations or definitions; essentially, the text assumes that readers will know what these key terms and ideas mean. Furthermore, while the textbook that the students typically use in class explicitly outlines the main ideas at the beginning of each chapter and the key terms in the glossary, this text gives no background information or reading support. This may be challenging to some students, especially struggling readers, who may not have the skills necessary to pull out key ideas or to utilize context clues to figure out key terms. One possible solution to these challenges could have been to have the students do a “List-Group-Label” activity, which would activate prior knowledge and “provide students with an opportunity to synthesize their understanding of how words are related” (Pearson, 85).
Similarly, as the text is from a college-level textbook, the tone is descriptive and informative; however, compared to the kind of textbook reading that the students may be used to, this text is relatively direct, with little background information or colorful, explanatory language. Similarly, the structure of the text is much less broken down as a high school textbook would be; instead, this text has no introduction, conclusion, or summarization of key ideas. The organization of the text is also much less clear and obvious as a high school textbook would be, having no section titles or a clear beginning, middle, and end; instead, there are long paragraphs and lengthy sentences, which may cause some students to grow frustrated and lose interest.
Similarly, the text we chose for the group researching Japan also came from a college-level textbook 20th Century World History. Focusing mainly on Japan’s rising global influence and increasing markets during the time of the Great Depression, this text also responds to our central, thematic question; through this text, students should recognize the unique nature of Japan’s economy during the 1930s, and how that relates to other world powers. This textbook brought similar challenges as the one for the China group; similar in tone, organization, structure, this text gives very little reading support to high school students. Furthermore, this text also utilizes a variety of key terms, such as “markets”, “tariffs”, “autonomy”, and “radicalism”, which the text assumes the reader is familiar with.
To help students overcome the challenges of reading from a college-level textbook, we provided basic instruction before, during, and after reading, just as Dixie D. Masey and Tina L. Heafner suggest in their article Promoting Reading Comprehension in Social Studies. This type of scaffolding instruction “allows students to accomplish a task they might not have been able to accomplish without additional support” and it “helps students recognize that reading is an active procedure throughout” (Masey, 27). Thus, before reading, we had students draw on their prior knowledge and make predictions about our thematic question (What was the global impact of the Great Depression?). Then, during reading, we provided students with an accompanying worksheet. The worksheet was designed to keep students focused and to help them pull out the main ideas; following Benjamin Bloom’s taxonomy of the Six Levels of Thinking—knowledge, understanding, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation—the questions on the worksheet would, theoretically, help students “analyze information, identify problems, develop original solutions, and formulate opinions” (Pearson, 268). And finally, after reading, students applied what they learned back to our thematic question, and investigated how their country’s experiences during the Great Depression differed from the experiences of other countries.
Furthermore, we helped students navigate through the texts by pointing out the importance of sourcing. According to Bob Bain in his article ‘They Thought the World Was Flat?’: Applying the Principles of How People Learn in Teaching High School History,”[m]uch of high school history finds students exploring vast evidenceless and authorless expanses of curriculum that promote…a ‘credulous allegiance’ to some version of the past”; in other words, too often do students read history textbooks and documents as sheer facts, rather than questioning that authority of the author and identifying potential biases, agendas, or contexts that may have influenced the author (Bain, 185). Thus, before students began reading their texts, we informed them where the texts came from and advised them think about possible biases that the texts may have. According to Bain, this should help students think critically about history and to form their own opinions and interpretations about historical events.
Despite the potential challenges of a college-level textbook, we hope to ensure that the texts we chose are manageable for high school students. We feel that our scaffolded reading instruction and our guiding questions will help students navigate the texts, think critically, and make connections.
PART V: Lesson Activities and Integrated Literacy Routines/Strategies
1. Journal Entry
Ms. Bryen begins every class period with an over-arching question to focus students’ thoughts. Students respond to the question in their journals. For continuity, we decided to also begin class with journals and asked students to respond to the following question: “What was the global impact of the Great Depression?” As students at Novi High School should already be familiar with the Great Depression from the United States’ perspective (as American History is a required class from ninth-grade students), we felt that this question would prompt students to recall their prior knowledge and would allow students to make important predictions and connections.
2. Brief Discussion of the Students' Responses
Utilizing the over-arching question, we felt it important to have the students share their predictions about the global impacts of the Great Depression. Thus, in a way, this brief discussion became an informal assessment, as we recognized what the students already knew, and more importantly, what they were unclear on. During this discussion, we asked guiding questions to push students to make connections, such as “Why, if the Stock Market crashed in the United States, was the Great Depression so widespread?”, “How did globalization from the previous unit affect the spread of the Depression?”, and “In what ways did WWI and the Versailles Treaty influence the Depression?”. While this discussion was brief, it was a good way to have students share their ideas and build upon their own thoughts and predictions.
3. Documents Activity
In Ms. Bryen’s world history class, the students are broken up into groups and are assigned a country to research and investigate throughout the semester. These groups include: USA, Germany, Italy, China, Japan, and Russia. For this lesson, we had each group read a secondary source document about the Great Depression and how it affected their country.
Before students began reading the documents, we briefly discussed the importance of sourcing. While Ms. Bryen typically assigns students sourcing roles (such as Sourcerer, Bibliophile, and Corroborator) to ensure that students properly analyze the context, purpose, and audience of the text, we felt that the students had enough experience with sourcing throughout the semester; thus, instead, we mentioned these roles and brought to the students’ attention where the documents came from.
To guide students’ reading, we prepared a worksheet for each documents, with questions based off of Bloom’s taxonomy. Thus, each question corresponded to a different level of Bloom’s forms of thinking, such as Knowledge, Understanding, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. These questions served as a reading guide prompting students to read critically and effectively.
4. Ambassador Activity
As each student will only be reading information about one specific country, we thought it important that students shared what they read about. Similar to a jigsaw activity, one student from each country would form a new group and discuss the various documents. We prepared the following questions to guide their discussion:
1. What is different about each country’s experiences during the Great Depression?
2. What is similar?
3. What else is going on in each country that would have influenced how they responded to the Great Depression?
4. Why was the Great Depression so widespread?
This discussion activity would allow students to share their ideas and to make connections between texts and countries. Ultimately, students should be able to recognize over-arching trends, differences, and important contexts that are unique to each country.
5. Return to Journals
During the last few minutes of class, we asked students to return to their journals and response to the following question: “How was your country’s experience during the Great Depression compare to the experiences of other countries?” By returning to the journals, we are utilizing instruction before, during, and after reading, as Masey and Heafner suggest. While at the beginning of the lesson, students were thinking on a larger scale, the documents narrowed the focus onto a single country. This second journal question prompted students to apply what they learned from the documents and small-group discussions to the bigger trends and ideas.
PART VI: An analysis of the implementation of our activity.
Beginning class with a thematic question as Bain suggests helped ensure that students understood the purpose of the lesson; thus, from the very beginning of class, students were (theoretically) thinking critically about the material and drawing from their prior knowledge. Furthermore, by writing the class agenda on the board before class started (as Ms. Bryen always does), students were aware of what activities we were going to be doing and how everything fit together. Throughout the lesson, students seemed to understand our lesson objectives, as they independently began each assignment or activity with little instruction or direction from us.
To help students clearly understand the purpose for reading the documents, it may have been beneficial to include an “Everybody Reads To…” statement with all of the documents. According to Masey and Heafner, “[b]y establishing the purpose of reading, teachers help model how to focus on the important aspects of the text”; and while they claim that this is a beneficial activity for struggling and ELL readers, in my opinion, this is a good strategy for any student, regardless of ability (Masey, 29). However, we felt that students grasped what the lesson was about and why we were learning about the Great Depression.
Furthermore, our lesson on the Great Depression fit in with Ms. Bryen’s lesson from the day before. During a lecture the previous day, Ms. Bryen had outlined the end of World War I and the changing global economy. This made is so students were familiar with the topic before delving deeper into the material. Also, the day after our lesson, Ms. Bryen had planned for students to investigate how the Great Depression had led to the rise in cult leaders, such as Hitler, Mussolini, Mao Zedong, etc. Thus, our lesson fit within the larger unit, promoting continuity and comprehension.
Overall, from my perspective, the lesson went very well. Students seemed engaged with the material, as they provided thoughtful responses to our questions. For the most part, the lesson was well-organized and drew from previous lessons that Ms. Bryen has already taught. Students were comfortable sharing their ideas and opinions with us, and responded well to our teaching methods (see Part VII: Assessment).
However, despite our planning and despite our organization, it was clear that some of the countries’ documents were simply too long. Although students had little difficulty reading the text itself, the length of the text presented a barrier. While students continued to work hard throughout the class period, it was evident that many students were growing frustrated and overwhelmed; several students began talking amongst themselves, clearly disengaged with the material. Other students repeatedly asked us if they had to read the entire document; and one student even asked us to condense the reading for her by pointing out the important parts of the text.
As pre-student teachers, we took full responsibility for the challenges that students faced while reading some of these texts, as the length of the texts had absolutely no bearing on the students’ abilities, motivation, or work ethic. Looking back, it would have been beneficial to follow Masey and Heafner’s advice; in their article, they claim that “the appropriate amount is typically one to two pages from a textbook” (Masey, 29). To help students overcome this challenge, we pointed out where in the text they should spend most of their time and focus, as that material was more important to the purpose of our lesson.
Another challenge we faced was when we passed out the documents. Having one student from each country group come and grab the materials was definitely a mistake, as this created a lot of chaos and confusion. It would have been much more organized and efficient if we had the students form their groups, and then we went to each group individually, passing out the appropriate materials. Quite frankly, this mistake was due to our own inexperience; as this was our first time teaching a classroom of students, we learned from our mistake and moved on.
After reflecting on the lesson and its outcome, there are a few minor changes that I would have made. First and foremost, I would have included more discussion activities for the students. As these students are relatively talkative and outspoken, it may have been beneficial to prepare more activities where the students can interact and discuss ideas with other students; thus, by allowing more time for the ambassador activity or having the students do a “turn and talk” to discuss their journal entries, the students’ conversations in class could be more productive and beneficial.
Also, I would provide students with more (and shorter) documents, which would allow students to make connections and read a variety of different perspectives and accounts. With more documents, an Inquiry Chart would have been a useful tool, and would “help students keep track of what they are learning and begin to make associations between the texts” (Masey, 35).
Part VII: Assessment
Throughout the lesson, we informally assessed the students’ understanding and learning of the material. Due to our limited amount of time in Ms. Bryen’s class, much of our assessment techniques were formative assessments, as we analyzed student learning through their responses to journal entries, worksheets, and class discussions. While this form of assessment does not provide us with concrete data of the students’ learning (as a summative assessment would), it serves as an indication of how well students understood the material.
First and foremost, their responses to the journal entry were a form of pre-assessment, we as evaluated students’ prior knowledge on the topic. This informal pre-assessment became the basis for the rest of our lesson, as we drew from their prior knowledge and predictions to shape the lessons’ discussions and activities.
Furthermore, while the students read their documents, they were expected to fill out a worksheet. This worksheet, following Bloom’s Taxonomy of the Six Levels of Thinking, was designed to push students to think critically and display their comprehension of the material. While completing the worksheets, we observed students asking each other questions and building from each others’ ideas. While students have yet to turn in the worksheet (as Ms. Bryen wanted them to hang on to it to help them with their cult leader projects), from our observations during the lesson, it appeared that students were giving thoughtful answers reflective of clear understanding. After the students complete their cult leader projects, Ms. Bryen will collect and grade the worksheets and will be able to properly assess the students’ learning.
During class discussions about the documents, it was very evident that students understood the material. Due to our limited amount of time, we assessed students’ understanding through retellings, by having one person from each group “retell” the unique experience of their country. According to the Pearson text, “rather than mere recognition, retellings require recalling knowledge from the reading selection”; thus, retellings are a way to analyze the student’s comprehension of the content during reading (Pearson, 237). Students did a good job of describing the main idea of their readings, illustrating that they were able to pull out the key points and recognize what was important. Also, during their retellings, students utilized many of the historical vocabulary words present in the documents, such as “markets”, “demand”, and “tariffs”; this indicates, in my opinion, that students truly understood the material.
It was also evident that students were engaged in the class discussion. While students express engagement in different, unique ways (such as eye contact, taking notes, participating, asking questions, etc.), the vast majority of the students were showing signs of engagement is some way or form. Many students raised their hand to add to the class discussion, while other students sat (somewhat) quietly, with their eyes following the person speaking. In my opinion, these actions indicate that the students were engaged.
Through these formative assessments, we conclude that the students achieved the learning objectives (outlined in Part III) of our lesson. Although summative assessment would have given us much clearer, more concrete evidence about the students’ learning, due to time constraints, we were unable to evaluate the students in such a way. However, through the students’ cult leader projects and the test they will take at the end of the unit, Ms. Bryen will properly be able to assess the students based off of summative assessment.
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