MATTHEW HAMMOND
Aspiring Social Studies Teacher,
former Antitrust Enforcer & Dad
The Northern Lights near Reykjavík, Iceland (Feb. 2023, MCHammond)
The Great Depression: Tell a Story
Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California. Migrant mother. (1936)
As part of our examination of the Great Depression, each of you is going to take a photograph from that era and use it as as inspiration to tell a story. The story will be about Americans and how the Great Depression impacted them.
​​
You are not expected to figure out the identity of the people in the photograph and tell their life story. Instead, you will examine your photograph and the limited information available about it to you know about to tell a story
For example, look at the picture on the left. You have an agent from the "Resettlement Administration" visiting a "rehabilitation client" in Ohio in 1936. The Resettlement Administration bought poor farmland that was no longer productive, trained farmers (i.e., rehabilitation clients), and resettled farmers on better land. While you may not know who the agent is or who he is visiting, you could tell a story about what it means when a Resettlement Administration agent visits a rehabilitation client.​​​
Resettlement Administration representative at door of rehabilitation client's house, Jackson County, Ohio (1936)
-
​​Is it good news?
-
Is it bad news?
-
Did rehabilitation clients and their families look forward to, or dread, such a visit?
-
Could it mean that the family was going to travel to another state and learn to farm new crops?
-
Would that be a new adventure?
​​​
Your story could answer one or more of those questions as you try to capture what it was like to live in that moment in the circumstances of the people in your photograph.
​
You are going to progress through this assignments in 3 parts—
​​
-
Pick a photograph and learn what you can about and think about who and what you see in the photo and what questions you have about them. Then over the course of the unit, you will work on finding possible answers to those questions.
-
Then you are going to think about the story you want to tell and create a storyboard laying our the key parts of your story.
-
Finally, you will create a multimedia presentation of that story to share with the class.
Below are the procedures to complete this assignment.
Step 1: Pick a Photograph (Week 1)
You will choose a photograph from a set of photographs gathered from the Library of Congress and the National Archives. You should pick one of these photographs.
If you want to use a different photograph, it must be approved by the teacher. It will have to be a photograph of people that relates to the Great Depression. And you need to provide information about where the photograph came from.
​
Click on "Choose a Photograph" to go choose a photograph.
Now take some time to look at your photograph. What do you notice first? What do you see? What does it tell you about the people in it? What does it tell you about the Great Depression?
Take some time to look closely at the photograph and complete this photograph analyzer. Complete it before moving to the next step and submit a copy on Canvas.
Step 2: Plan your Story (WEEK 2)
You chosen a photograph and looked at it closely. Not is time to plan your story about the people or a person in the photograph. The story should give the audience insight to the life of the people in the photograph or people like them.
What is their typical day like? - How did they get to the situation they are in? - Where do they go from here? - How has the economic and social upheaval of the Great Depression changed their lives? - Did the government or others provide them help? - Did it make a difference?
​
As you ponder these questions, here is a Storybook Planning Sheet that will help you plan. In addition, you should watch this video about the 7 major plots in storytelling:
-
Overcoming the Monster
-
Rags to Riches
-
The Quest
-
Voyage and Return
-
Comedy
-
Tragedy
-
Rebirth​​
​​Pick a plot that works for your story, and plan out your story using a storyboard. There should be at least one board for each stage of the chosen plot identified in the video, and the storyboard should identify images, music, etc. that you may want to use and include every major point in the story. Storyboards include illustrations. You may create the storyboard in whatever medium you prefer. Here are two digital storyboarding tools that you could use.​​
You should complete your storyboard before moving to the next step and submit it on Canvas.
Step 3: Tell your Story (Weeks 3 & 4)
Now you are ready to tell your story about the people in the photograph which explains something about the Great Depression. Your story should have audio and video. It can live action or animated. Remember that you don't need to include everything to tell a good story. In fact, not include everything usually makes for a better story because the audience then uses their imagination to fill in the gaps.
​
The Tools for Digital Storytelling will take you to a page with a variety of tools that can help you create your story. And Rubric for Digital Storytelling is also available below.
When your digital story has been completed, submit a link to it on Canvas. Then get ready for some popcorn.
D.C. Social Studies Standards
-
US2.39 Analyze the reasons for the Great Depression, including the impact of underlying economi and social of the 1920, and evaluate it impact on different groups of people in the United States, with special attention to race, ethnicity, religion, gender and class.
-
US2.40 Analyze conditions the causes and consequences of the Dust Bowl, comparing it to other natural disasters and its impact on Americans across race, ethnicity, gender and class groups.
-
US2.42 – Evaluate the domestic response to the Great Depression, including the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, assessing the impact of and resistance to New Deal programming, including its impact on the economy and different groups of people.
Office of the State Superintendent of Education. (2023, June). Washington, DC K-12 social studies standards: 2023 standards. Government of the District of Columbia.
© 2024 Matthew C. Hammond