Alabama Social Studies SS24.US2.5b
The Standard
- SS24.US2.5
- Identify economic and social effects of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl on American society and describe how individuals addressed the challenges and sought to help others in need.
Analyze the impact of the Great Depression and the resulting social programs on the American family and minority groups.
2024 Alabama Course of Study: Social Studies
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students explain how lost wages changed families' choices about food, housing, and work. They show how New Deal jobs and aid helped some households while rules and discrimination limited help for others.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can explain how a WPA paycheck could help a family pay rent. They can also explain why early Social Security excluded many farm and domestic workers, and how Mexican repatriation separated families.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may assume every family received New Deal aid. Some think Social Security covered farm and domestic workers from the start, or that everyone sent to Mexico was a noncitizen.
How to Assess It
- Give students two cards: a WPA paycheck for an unemployed parent and a notice that domestic workers were excluded from early Social Security. Ask them to write one family benefit and one unequal effect.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs job loss, WPA paycheck, farmworker exclusion, and Mexican repatriation cards; have them sort the cards by effects on families.
Read a short account of Mexican repatriation, then ask: How could a forced move disrupt a family with U.S. citizen children?
Run a paper-money budget game with rent, groceries, job loss, and WPA work cards; have students revise family spending after each draw.
Compare a 1935 Social Security exclusion card with a current coverage page; have students note how coverage for domestic workers changed.
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Related Standards
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Critique the effectiveness of the New Deal in managing problems of the Great Depression through relief, recovery, and reform programs; expansion of the executiv...
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- SS24.US2.5
Identify economic and social effects of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl on American society and describe how individuals addressed the challenges and sou...
- SS24.US2.8
Analyze the domestic, economic, and civil rights impact of World War II on United States society.
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