Unit 3

Role of Government

Overarching Inquiry Question:

How did the federal government impact the everyday lives of American citizens?

Unit Overview:

In this unit, the students will use inquiry to examine the role of the federal government in the lives of its citizens. By examining the role of the government in the lives of people during the Second Industrial Revolution, World War I, the Great Depression and New Deal, students will be able to evaluate how the government impacted the everyday lives of American citizens. Students will be actively engaged in hands-on learning through analysis of pictures, gallery walks, inquiry-based learning through research, creating and collaborating on timelines, open debates, and speech writing.

Unit Theme:

Political Ideas and Institutions

Standards & Skills

Compare: Compare the cultural and economic impacts of the 1929 Stock Market Crash on the United States and South Carolina.

Cause and Effect: Examine the primary causes of World War I and the events that led to the United States’ involvement.

Context: Contextualize the post-war economic climate on the cultural landscape throughout the United States and South Carolina.

Continuity and Change: Examine the continuities and changes that resulted from New Deal programs and the impact these programs had on various groups throughout the United States and South Carolina.

Periodization: Summarize how the role of the federal government expanded during this period

Evidence: Evaluate multiple perspectives from the period, including the economic, political, and social impacts of World War I, the 1920s, the Great Depression, and the New Deal using primary and secondary sources.

  • It is important that the teacher incorporate the historical thinking skill vocabulary in their classroom on a daily basis. Modeling is essential for student understanding of these skills.


Standard 2: Demonstrate an understanding of how international events and conditions during the early 20th century (i.e., 1910–1940) affected the United States and South Carolina.

5.2.CO

5.2.CE

5.2.CX

5.2.CC

5.2.E

5.2.P

Instructional Guidance:

Comparison: Generate comparisons based on common or differing characteristics or contexts.

Causation: Analyze multiple causes and effects, to include distinguishing long-term and short-term examples.

Contextualize: Place events in the proper context, allowing students to understand the historical period.

Summarize: Structuring historical periods to group information and to establish key events as turning points and beginning/ending points.

Evidence- Identify, source, and utilize different forms of evidence, including primary and secondary sources, used in an inquiry-based study of history.

Periodization: create a historical narrative to summarize major developments within a given time line.

Skills:

I Can Statements:

  • I can organize a historical narrative of the role of the government during this time period.

  • I can examine the primary causes of World War I and the events that led to United States Involvement.

  • I can contextualize the post-war economic climate on the cultural landscape throughout the United States and South Carolina.

  • I can compare the cultural and economic impacts of the 1929 Stock Market Crash on the United States and South Carolina.

  • I can examine the continuities and changes that resulted from New Deal programs and the impact these programs had on various groups throughout the United States and South Carolina.

  • I can evaluate multiple perspectives from the period, including the economic, political, and social impacts of World War I, the 1920’s, the Great Depression, and the New Deal using primary and secondary sources.

5th Grade - Unit 3 - Teacher

Student Materials

DBQ Options

Link to all DBQs digitized | What is a DBQ? | How to DBQ

  • What caused WW1?

  • What caused the Great Depression?

Picture Books:

  • On Our Way to Oyster Bay: Mother Jones and Her March for Children’s Rights, by Monica Kulling

  • A Brave Soldier by Nicholas Debon

  • Diana’s White House Garden by Elisa Carbone

  • Uncle Jed’s Barbershop by Margaree King Mitchell

  • Survival in the Storm: The Dust Bowl Diary of Grace Edwards Dalhart, Texas 1935 (Dear America Series) by Katelan Janke

  • Rose’s Journal: The Story of a Girl in the Great Depression by Marissa Moss

  • Children of the Dust Bowl: The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp by Jerry Stanle

  • The Dust Bowl by David Booth

  • The Only Woman in the Photo: Frances Perkins & Her New Deal for America by Kathleen Krull

Chapter Books:

  • Dog 4491 by Sneed B. Collard III

  • Witness by Karen Hesse

  • When Christmas Comes Again: The World War I Diary of Simone Spencer (Dear America Series)

  • Sugar Hill: Harlem’s Historic Neighborhood by Carole Boston Weatherford

  • Marcus Garvey by Suzanne Francis-Brown

  • Macaroni Boy by Katherine Ayres

  • What Was the Great Depression? By Janet Pascal

  • Turtle in Paradise Novel by Jennifer L. Holm

  • Potato: A Tale from the Great Depression by Kate Lied

  • Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis

  • Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse

  • FDR's Alphabet Soup: New Deal America 1932-1939 by Tonya Bolden