The Great Depression and The Stock Market:
A Multi-genre Project
LIT 507: Dr. Irminger April 22, 2007
Katherine Yaksich
Part One: The Living History Project
http://www.uen.org/utahlink/tours/tourFames.cgi?tour_id=6043
From the Utah Education Network (a Utah Challenge Grant)
This part of the “paper” includes a website where past generations and relatives have been able to leave a part of the past behind in their own first person point of view. Here students can read all about what life was like during the Great Depression; jobs, food, money, family, and what people had to do to survive this terrible time. When you dig further on this website, you can find other virtual tours of real people and real places from the time period. This part of the “paper” brings a down home view to students. They can see that everyone was affected by the Great Depression all over the country, and even into Canada. Here people show off their past with pictures, diary entries, past and present pictures of what people and places looked like. Really this website is a huge treasure trove to show students how everyone can be affected by a disaster, even them. At some point during this activity, students will be completing a living history about themselves and their current family. They will be contributing to the ongoing “Classroom Living History Project”, which will be completed throughout the years that I teach and hopefully afterward.
Part Two: Art from the Great Depression
“Modern American Poetry” A Depression Art Gallery http://www.english.uiuc.edu/MAPS/depression/artgallery.htm
For many students, reading can be difficult if not impossible. I plan on teaching upper level high school students, and sometimes this reading problem can be taken for granted in the upper grades. This section of the “paper” will look at the art that was made during the Great Depression. During this time period there were many different feelings of anger, sadness, distrust, and overall feeling of misery. Even though a student may not be able to read, he or she can certainly look at pictures and paintings and understand that these feelings existed, and that the Great Depression was a very fitful name to describe this terrible time. I would use this website as a start off point and use other hardcopy sources such as books and posters to also show the students other visual examples. It would be fun to have the students’ pair up and assign them each a piece f artwork to study and discuss among themselves. Then we could come together as a class and discuss each of the groups’ pieces, and what everyone thought about them as they discussed each piece. As a final part to this activity, I would have the students draw a picture of their own depicting their view of society as they know it today. This could possible be a good activity for bringing the class together to see where all of our mindsets are now. Social Studies is the study of history, but it is also developing how we interact as individuals to make new history that is yet to happen.
Part Three: Stock Market Project
The purpose of doing this kind of an activity is really more of a game for the students to have a good time with. The first part will be learning about the causes to the Great Depression (it wasn’t all just the stock market crashing). Then we will go on to learn about what happened exactly when the stock market crashed and why this affected so many people. Then we will move towards exploring the stock market a little bit. We will understand the different markets on which stock trade, what important stock symbols are, and what it means for the United States when there are significant changes in the stock market. Groups will be formed and each one will be given a certain amount of money to be able to start their brokerage with. The students will then over the course of the next two months, develop a stock portfolio amongst their group members; the goal is to make the most money in a two month period. Students will be competitive but they do not know that everyone will be receiving some kind of custom award at the end of the game. The students will use real, daily newspapers and internet guides to determine what stock prices are going for presently. Success will depend on how much time they put into this competition. At random times, the instructor will impose “hardships” on the students to simulate what different stages in the business cycle they are possible in. At the end of the game there will be categories for winners such as; Highest Overall Profit, Biggest Loss, Best Company Pick, and the Safe and Sound Award. By completing this activity students will see the real world correlation between the stock market and the rest of society.
Part Four: The New Deal
“Alphabet Soup Timeline”
During the 1930’s the United States was rocked with the Great Depression. Newly elected president, Franklin D. Roosevelt ushered in an ear in American history known as the New Deal. During this time, dozens of new programs began to help American citizens. The three important ideas to remember about the New Deal were relief, recovery, and reform, this are ideals that Roosevelt felt needed to be reached if the United States was going to come out of the Great Depression. One example of such an agency was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), created in April of 1933. The purpose of this group was to take inner-city young men, and put them to work out west, in states such as Colorado, Washington, and Oregon. My grandfather was a member of this agency when he was 16 years old. This group made $30 per month and they had to send $25 back to their families because they needed it more. This group was also governed by the U.S. Army so the young men had housing and food paid for, unlike their families back home who could find no money, food, or jobs. Students will be placed into strength based groups, or pairs and they will explore and research, in any way possible, information about an assigned agency from the New Deal Era. We will then present our findings to the class so that we all can get a glimpse of what kinds of help the government offered at a time of need for our citizens. Then we will construct a giant timeline around the classroom where we will place all of the agencies that we have discovered that were created during this time.
Part Five: Fieldtrip to the Grain Elevators
I am from the Western New York Area, Buffalo to be exact and the industry that revitalized our city was the institution of the grain elevators to the waterfront. Buffalo is now loaded with these unused relics of our past, the past that is the reason why Buffalo was able to survive and come out of a period of great despair. Currently most of the elevators are closed to the public; however, there is a historical boat tour through the Buffalo River that is about three hours long. This boat tour explains the history of the grain elevators in Buffalo and what they meant for the community. There are videos playing on the boat as well as an extensive collection of photos from the Great Depression and decades that followed. Even though this is a lost industry in the area, students can see the implication of what a great commodity it was to have the grain elevators in Buffalo. This type of field trip could be used in a variety of ways, depending on what city or state you happened to be in or near. History is everywhere and will continue to be developed. Because it is such a boring subject for students, activities should be presented that are as interesting as possible to really grab the motivation and attention of the students.