Alabama Social Studies SS24.5.7a
The Standard
- SS24.5.7
- Describe the economic developments in the United States during the Roaring Twenties that caused the 1929 stock market crash.
Explain how the Great Depression impacted Alabamians and the nation, including increased labor tensions.
2024 Alabama Course of Study: Social Studies
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students explain how falling cotton prices and lost jobs hurt Alabama families. They connect those hardships to unemployment and bank failures nationwide. They explain why wage cuts and layoffs led to conflicts between workers and employers.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can explain how a lower cotton price meant less income for an Alabama farmer and less money spent in town. They can describe job losses across the country and explain why workers organized or struck when wages fell.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think the Depression affected only Wall Street, not Alabama farms, mines, and mills. Some confuse a strike with a layoff, or assume workers and owners agreed about pay cuts.
How to Assess It
- On an exit ticket, ask: How did falling cotton prices hurt an Alabama family? Name one effect felt nationwide, then explain why a pay cut might lead workers to strike.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs a paper farm budget with cotton income cut in half; have them revise spending and explain one choice.
Ask students to write why mill workers might strike after a pay cut while mill owners say they cannot pay more.
Play a cause-and-effect card sort with cotton prices, layoffs, bank closures, pay cuts, union meetings, and strikes.
Show a grocery receipt and ask how a lost paycheck changes what a family buys, then compare that choice with the 1930s.
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- SS24.AS.23
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