School/District
Riches to Rags (1920s and 1930s)
Conceptual Lens: Leadership and Change
Grade Level/Course: 10th grade/ American History II
Author: Thomas Scott, Alaina Casebolt, Maurice Goodall, Kelly Jones, Lindsay
Howell, Coach Tarrus Carr
Unit Overview: The US began the 1920s as a world power with a booming
economy, an isolationist mentality, and a diverse cultural explosion. But, due to a
series of foreign and domestic economic, political and social missteps, the country
ended the 1930s struggling to find its national identity and its world standing in the
global climate.
[Unit Planner]
History
-
Great Depression (change)
American Dream (patterns)
FDR (Leadership)
Lifestyle changes (Identity)
Republican- Democrat shift (rule of law)
Fundamentalism (values and beliefs)
Consumerism (need/ want)
Civics and Government
-
Presidents of the 1920s and 1930
(Leadership)
Prohibition (18th Amendment, Volstead
Act) (Rule of law)
New Deal (Domestic Policy)
Return to Normalcy (Leadership)
Isolationism (Foreign Policy)
Kellogg Briand Pact (Foreign Policy)
Geography and Environmental Literacy
CONCEPT/CONTENT WEB
-
Riches to
Rags
(1920s1930s)
Economics and Personal Financial Literacy
-
-
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Great Migration (settlement patterns)
Dust Bowl/ overproduction (Human
Environment)
Okies (settlement patterns)
TVA, CCC (Human Environment)
Rural to Urban (settlement patterns)
Great Depression (needs/ wants)
Materialism, speculation (needs and wants)
Hoovervilles (resources)
Black Tuesday/ bank runs (market
economy)
Laissez- Faire, volunteerism, pump
priming, trickle- down economics
(economics systems)
Dawes Repayment Plan (reform)
New Deal (reform)
Hawley Smoot Tariff (market economy)
Culture
-
-
Red Scare (values and beliefs)
Harlem Renaissance (identity)
AIM (identity)
Flappers, “New Woman” (identity)
Immigration (identity/ diffusion)
Hoovervilles (quality of life)
Literature: Lost Generation, Imagism, Modernism (Identity)
Bonus Army (quality of life)
Fundamentalism (identity)
“New Celebrity” (identity)
Prohibition Culture (values/ beliefs)
New Deal/ WPA (quality of life)
KKK (values)
Other Subjects
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Essential Understandings (Generalizations) and Guiding Questions:
Generalizations
Guiding Questions
History
Changes in cultural patterns and the
availability of resources shape the needs
and wants of a society.
History
Geography &
Environmental Literacy
Settlement patterns and movement are often
influenced by human interaction with the
environment.
Geography &
Environmental Literacy
Civics & Government
Changes in leadership may cause fundamental
shifts in policy making- both foreign and
domestic.
Civics & Government
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1. How did the consumerist culture in
the 1920s influence the scarcity of
resources in the 1930s (Great
Depression)? (F)
2. Is the American Dream still
accessible? (PF)
3. How do changes in cultural patterns
and the availability of resources
shape the needs and wants of a
society? (C)
1. In what ways can poor
environmental practices and poor
resource management cause
settlement patterns to shift? (C)
2. How did environmental policies in
the 1920s contribute to a depletion
of resources? (F)
3. In what ways did the New Deal
policies attempt to redress the
negative impacts of 1920s land
management policies? (F)
1. Why did America return to an
isolationist policy following WWI? (F)
2. Why do crises allow leadership to
move in more progressive
directions? (C)
3. Does the rule of law limit or expand
the power of government in the 20s
and 30s?
Economics & Personal
Financial Literacy
Economic crisis often forces leadership to
follow new and innovative patterns.
Economics & Personal
Financial Literacy
Culture
Cultural identity and values are often shaped
by technological innovations.
Culture
Other Subjects
Critical Content and Skills
Students Will Know… (factual content)
1.
1. How does leadership impact
economic policy? (C)
2. Why does government response to
economic conditions lead to
innovative policies? (C)
3. What caused the economic policies
of the 1920s to fail when faced with
the unprecedented magnitude of the
Great Depression? (F)
1. Why did consumerism flourish in the
1920s? (F)
2. How do new technologies lead to a
national identity? (C)
3. Why do technological innovations
cause generational divisions, creating
tensions between those who wish to
remain more traditional and those
who want to “move with times”?
Other Subjects
Q = Quizzes
T = Tests
P = Prompts
AC
AC = Assessment Codes
SA = Student Self-Assessment
WS = Work Samples
PT = Performance Tasks
Students will be able to do… (key skills)
1.
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O = Observations
D = Dialogues
AC
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Performance Tasks and Scoring Guides/Rubric
Performance Task #1 including Scoring Guide/Rubric
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Performance Task #2 including Scoring Guide/Rubric
Suggested Learning Experiences
CORRELATIONS →
Enduring
Understanding
1.
2.
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Critical Content
Key Skills
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Unit Materials/Resources
Teacher Notes
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