Alabama Social Studies SS24.5.6

SS24.5.6 is a cluster heading. These are the individual standards under it.

• SS24.5.6a

  Explain how overcropping, the boll weevil, and low cotton prices affected farmers in Alabama.

01

What Students Need to Do

Students name Alabamians in sports, film, and music and tell what each did in the early 1900s. They connect blues to the Jazz Age and the Harlem Renaissance. They explain how worn-out soil, boll weevils, and low cotton prices hurt Alabama farmers.

02

What Mastery Looks Like

A student identifies Jesse Owens as an Olympic runner, Tallulah Bankhead as a film actor, and W. C. Handy as a blues composer whose music influenced jazz. The student explains that repeated cotton planting weakened soil, boll weevils damaged crops, and low prices cut farmers' earnings.

03

Common Misconceptions

Students may think boll weevils damaged cotton after harvest, rather than while it grew. They may think a large harvest always meant good pay, even when cotton prices were low. Some confuse the Harlem Renaissance with a place in Alabama.

04

How to Assess It

On an exit ticket, have students match Owens, Bankhead, and Handy to their fields. Then ask them to explain how worn soil, boll weevils, and low prices each hurt a cotton farmer.

1. 01

   Give groups paper cotton bolls and farm income cards; remove bolls for worn soil and weevils, then lower the sale price.

2. 02

   Play a clip of W. C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues" and ask: What might Jazz Age musicians have borrowed from it?

3. 03

   Have pairs race to match Jesse Owens, Tallulah Bankhead, and W. C. Handy cards to a photo and a contribution.

4. 04

   Show a $20 grocery receipt and compare it with cotton earnings of $30 and $15; ask which farmer can pay the bill.

• SS24.US2.3b

  Explain how art, literature, and music, including that produced by Alabamians, influenced both the Harlem Renaissance and the broader culture of the 1920s.

• SS24.5.12e

  Identify Alabamians who contributed to concurrent civil rights movements in the United States during the decades following World War II.

• SS24.4.15d

  Recount the contributions of Alabamians who helped shape their state during Reconstruction.

• SS24.5.11a

  Identify Alabamians who contributed to the growth of American culture post-World War II into the 1970s.