Lesson Plan: New Deal “Alphabet Soup” Agencies
Grade level: 9 th grade/U.S. History
Melanie Borson
Objectives:
1.
Students will work in groups to research one New Deal agency made within the First
Hundred Days by FDR’s administration and become experts on their agency and understand why it was necessary and its impact on American society.
Assessment tools:
KWL chart and answered guiding questions.
Groups briefly present to class.
“Exit card” with one prediction.
Activities:
Opening: analyze propaganda cartoons about FDR’s First Hundred Days and the general concerns and expectations expressed by the public (5 min).
Teacher activities: Introduce assignment and divide class into groups. Agencies listed on the board and assigned on first-come-first-serve basis. Handouts given pertaining to each group along with guiding questions, and assign KWL chart to get groups started (5 min).
Student activities: Briefly make KWL chart. Use the handouts information, and other sources online if needed, to answer guiding questions. Come up with conclusion about why this agency was an area of concern and if it served its purpose at the time. Make other suggestions to solve the problem or other predictions to what may happen or what could have happened. Elect one member of the group to present to the class (20-25 min).
Closure: Class comes back together and one member from each group presents their findings. Other groups take brief notes (their overall findings will be posted so the entire class can have access to it). Short feedback and discussion of the First Hundred Days and if the agencies were purposeful to resolving major issues in American society. As the class ends each student will turn in one “exit card” of a prediction for how this will affect society even further past the First Hundred Days.
Pre-planning:
Materials: o Handouts (cartoons, information packets, guiding questions) o “Exit cards”
Instructional strategy to be used:
Student-directed investigation
Discovery learning (problem-based learning)
Reflection:
Extension of a teacher-based lesson in which the students take leadership and become experts on one pressing issue (a closed topic) during this historical time and show why it was an issue and how this particular agency helped to resolve it. Teacher then evaluates their overall process and the skills they used to execute this.