Topic for the Lesson: The Crash of 1929
Grade Level/Course: 9th Grade U.S. History
Unit: The Great Depression
Date: 12/10/11
Lesson Objectives (information, disposition, and skill objectives):
Students will be able to identify the causes of the stock market crash of 1929 and the
Great Depression. Students will be able to examine different sources and answer questions about
them as relating to the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression.
Content expectations:
7.1.2 Causes and Consequences of the Great Depression – Explain and evaluate the
multiple causes and consequences of the Great Depression by analyzing the political, economic,
environmental, and social causes of the Great Depression including fiscal policy, overproduction,
under consumption, and speculation, the 1929 crash, and the Dust Bowl
(National Geography Standards 14 and 15; p. 212 and 214)
Assessment:
First day: paragraph write-up at the end of the lesson describing the causes of the stock
market crash and the Great Depression
Second day: successful completion of the stations activity worksheet
Initiation or start of lesson (activating strategy):
Video recapping some of the previous lesson's information
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccNilnpvbJg&feature=related
Teacher activities:
First day: direct instruction via lecture about the stock market crash and the financial collapse
that followed
Second day: students will work in small groups and travel from station to station completing
different activities and filling out a guided worksheet/packet
Station 1: students will listen to two songs, one from before the depression and one from
during, students will then be asked to compare the songs and answer questions on the guided
worksheet
Station 2: students will examine newspaper headlines from before and after the crash of
1929, they will answer questions on the guided worksheet
Station 3: students will read an article looking back on the crash of 1929; they will
answer questions on the guided worksheet
Station 4: students will examine pictures from the crash of 1929 and the Great
Depression; students will answer questions on the guided worksheet
Station 5: students will use prior knowledge and knowledge from lecture to
construct/order a timeline of the stock market as it related to the Great Depression
Station 6: students will look at a chart of dow-jones averages and be asked to graph them
into onto a line graph; students will then be asked to answer questions on the guided worksheet
Student activities:
First day: students will be responsible for taking notes on the PowerPoint presentation
and writing a paragraph at the end of the day
Second day: Students will be responsible for working in small groups and traveling to
each of the six stations in order to do the activities and complete the stations worksheet.
Closure:
Students will list one interesting, new thing they learned from the lesson.
Assumptions:
Students will be able to work in groups to complete the stations activity, students will be
able to follow directions and complete a line graph from a chart
Materials and resources:
- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/timeline/crash/
- http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/Bierman.crash
- http://www.pbs.org/fmc/timeline/estockmktcrash.htm
- http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/index-1929-crash.html
- http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-chicagodays-stockmarketcrashstory,0,2095507.story
- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/crash-headlines/
- song #1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovndTa7hQDE
- song #2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7cPcEa4e8I&feature=related
- guided worksheet for stations activity
- resources for stations activity including lyrics, songs, pictures, graphing paper, newspaper
headlines
-guided notes handout for lecture