Woody Guthrie and
The Dust Bowl
A Social Studies Lesson using
Folk Music as a Teaching Tool
Folk Music in the Elementary
Social Studies Classroom
• Presents subject matter in a more
relevant, intimate and emotional manner
• Varies the lesson approach and classroom
environment
• Accommodates students’ musical
intelligence
• Helps infuse social studies with music,
bringing it back into the curriculum
Woody Guthrie
Dust Bowl Maps
The Lesson
• Introductory Lesson
• Focuses on key vocabulary terms (terms
are in yellow during playing of song)
• Collaborative AND independent work
• May also employ primary sources and
photographs
• Music in the classroom
On the fourteenth day of April, of 1935,
there struck the worst of dust storms that ever filled the sky.
You could see that dust storm coming, the clouds looked deathlike black,
and through our mighty nation, it left a dreadful track.
From Oklahoma City, to the Arizona line,
Dakota and Nebraska to the lazy Rio Grande
It fell across our cities, like a curtain of black rolled down!
We thought it was our judgment, we thought it was our doom!
The radio reported, we listened with alarm,
the wild and windy actions of this great mysterious storm.
From Albuquerque and Clovis, and all New Mexico,
they said it was the blackest that ever they had saw.
From ol’ Dodge City, Kansas, the dust had rung their knell,
and a few more comrades sleeping, on top of ol’ Boot Hill.
From Denver, Colorado, they said it blew so strong,
they thought that they could hold out, but they didn’t know how long!
Our relatives were huddled, into their oil boom shacks,
and the children they was cryin’ as it whistled through the cracks!
And the family it was crowded, into their little room,
they thought it was their judgment, they thought it was their doom.
The storm took place at sundown, it lasted through the night.
When we looked out next morning, we saw a terrible sight!
We saw outside our window, where wheat-fields they had grown,
was now a rippling ocean of dust the wind had blown.
It covered up our fences, it covered up our barns.
It covered up our tractors in this wild and dusty storm.
We loaded our jalopies, and piled our families in.
We rattled down that highway, to never come back again.
California Standards
California Content Standards for History/Social Science
4.4 Students explain how California became an agricultural and industrial power,
tracing the transformation of the California economy and its political and cultural
development since the 1850s.
4. Describe rapid American immigration, internal migration, settlement, and the growth
of towns and cities (e.g., Los Angeles).
5. Discuss the effects of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and World War II on
California.
6. Describe the development and locations of new industries since the nineteenth
century, such as the aerospace industry, electronics industry, large-scale commercial
agriculture and irrigation projects, the oil and automobile industries, communications
and defense industries, and important trade links with the Pacific Basin.
National Standards
National Center for History in the Schools: Standards in History for Grades K-4
Standard 5 : The causes and nature of various movements of large groups of people
into and within the United States, now, and long ago.
Sub-standard 5-A: Identify reasons why groups such as freed African Americans,
Mexican and Puerto Rican migrant workers, and Dust Bowl farm families migrated to
various parts of the country. [Consider multiple perspectives ]
National Council for Social Studies Curriculum and Content Area Standards
Thematic Strand III. People, Places, and Environments (Early Grades):
Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of people,
places and environments, so that the learner can:
• examine the interaction of human beings and their physical environment,
• the use of land, building of cities, and ecosystem changes in selected locales and
regions;
• observe and speculate about social and economic effects of environmental changes
and crises resulting from phenomena such as floods, storms, and drought.