Lesson Plan

Lesson Title:​ The New Deal: A Structured Academic Controversy

Grade Level and Course: ​Grade 11
Time Segment of Lesson:​ 100 - 100 minutes

Standard(s) Addressed in Lesson:

I have provided the curriculum connections for both Common Core and AERO. A teacher
should adjust the learning objectives depending on the curriculum.

Curriculum Objective of the Lesson/Students will be able to:

Framework

Common Core Integration of Knowledge and Ideas:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.8​ Assess the extent to which the
reasoning and evidence in a text support the author's claims.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.9​ Compare and contrast treatments of
the same topic in several primary and secondary sources.

AERO Standard 6 - Government

6.12.c. Evaluate issues regarding distribution of powers and
responsibilities within political systems
6.12.f Analyze how and why political institutions distribute benefits and
burdens.

ISTE for Empowered Learner:

Educators 1c - Use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their
practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.
Creative Communicator:
6d - Publish or present content that customizes the message and
medium for their intended audiences.

Lesson Driving Question: ​Was the New Deal a success or a failure?

Formative and/or Summative Assessments

The following activity can be used as either formative or summative assessment. During the
lesson, students in groups will develop (1) a series of extended responses on the debate
platform Kialo. The concluding assessment will prompt students to develop an extended
response (either typed or verbal) using Go Formative. To assess the quality of those extended
responses, refer to the rubric below. The rubric was developed by the University of Maryland,
Baltimore County. UMBC developed this rubric based on the Historical Thinking Skills Rubric
developed by the Stanford History Education Group. ​Click here​ to read further about those
rubrics and the research supporting them.

1
 Historical Thinking Skills Rubric

Required Prior Knowledge

● Students should be able to:
○ Describe the circumstances that led to the Great Depression
○ Identify the circumstances and events that led to the election of FDR as president
○ Identify and describe New Deal Programs
○ Demonstrate an understanding of relief, recovery, and reform

Discussion Questions
The following discussion questions should be used to check for student understanding during
and at the conclusion of the lesson.
1. What role should the government play in times of crisis?
2. Does the government have a responsibility to help the poor?
3. In your opinion, what was Roosevelt’s most effective (best) program?
4. Should Roosevelt have done more to advance the rights of blacks and women during
the Great Depression?
5. In what ways might the New Deal be relevant to today’s government? What group of
people might need more assistance?
Materials and Resources for Lesson (Provided by Sheg)
● EdPuzzle Pre-Training Video (​click here​)
● Sheg Stanford New Deal SAC Documents A-G (​click here​)
● Sheg Stanford New Deal SAC Graphic Organizer (​click here​)
● Laminated Conversation Starter Cards (​click here​)
● Laminated Turn & Talk Cards (​click here​)
● Kialo & Go Formative join links available for students

Teaching Strategies and Related Student Activities:

Plan of Instruction:

The following plan of instruction follows the proposed lesson plan offered by the Stanford
History Education Group. Any modification to the proposed lesson plan will be labeled to
facilitate identification.

1. MODIFIED: ​Divide the class into heterogeneous groups of 4 students. Each group
should be mixed in ability or readiness based on formative assessment data collected in
previous classes. Given that this class is a discussion based lesson, it is important that
the teacher also consider peer relationships based on subjective collected observations.

2. MODIFIED​: Pre-training activity. (This step of the lesson plan could be assigned as
homework). Ask the students to find their assigned groups. Individually, each student
should access their laptop device and access the ​EdPuzzle link provided​. The Ed Puzzle
link is a segmented video with embedded multiple choice and open response questions.
As students complete the video, the teacher should provide feedback to the open
response questions. Once each student has completed the video, host an entire class
discussion using the following Discussion Questions. Allow students to opt-in to
participate by raising their hands.
a. How would you describe the New Deal?
b. What do you think were some of the main objectives of the New Deal programs?
c. Why might some people be critical of the New Deal?
d. Are there any New Deal Programs that still exist today? Why do you think that is?
e. Do you know of any current government project or program that may be similar to
the New Deal?

3. MODIFIED:​ Assign each of the groups to be either Team A or Team B. Ideally, the class
should have equal numbers of groups as Team A and Team B. Assign each group a
Discussion Leader who will help ensure that each member of the group is actively
recording the information on their graphic organizer. This student should ideally be a
student who demonstrated ability and success in the discipline.

4. MODIFIED: ​Pass out the Primary Source Documents and the Guiding Questions. Inform
the students that within the group, each student will be responsible for becoming an
“expert” on one of the documents from the document set. Some students, ideally the
higher performing students, may need to become an expert on two documents. Each
 student will read the document they have been assigned and complete the
accompanying guiding questions.

5. MODIFIED: ​After each group has finished the graphic organizer, instruct the class that
they will engage in an online structured academic conversation using an online platform
called Kialo.
a. Instruct the students that, in their groups, they need to develop three claims that
argue, using the evidence, whether or not the New Deal was successful. Show
the students the rubric and remind the class that their statements should:
i. properly source a document
ii. summarize the main idea of a document being referenced
iii. connect their previous knowledge to the document
iv. pose an additional question for other members in the class.

6. MODIFIED: ​Allow the students time, usually this takes about 20 minutes, to formulate
their statements and post them onto the Kialo debate platform. While the students are
working in their groups, the teacher should circulate the working space to check for
understanding.

7. MODIFIED: ​Once each group has completed their posts, instruct them that they now
must respond to the other posts on the debate thread. The students must respond to
both posts with a similar or different perspective. Provide the students with the sentence
starters below to help them formulate their responses. These can be provided as
laminated cards or projected on the whiteboard. Remind students that this should be
done as a group. Thus, the discussion leader should (1) read the statement posted by
another group, and then (2) prompt the group to formulate possible responses. Once
each member has contributed, the group should respond together.
8. MODIFIED: ​Upon completing the online discussion, the entire class will engage in a
discussion with one member from each group sharing the general conclusions or an
observation they found interesting or relevant. Use the discussion questions provided
above to guide the discussion.

9. MODIFIED:​ To conclude the lesson, each student will individually summarizing their
actual opinion on whether or not the New Deal was successful using Formative.
Formative allows for the students to either type their response or record audio. The
individual responses should be 2-3 minutes or 5 to 8 sentences summarizing their ideas.
As an extension, the teacher could prompt further elaborative interrogation by asking the
students to answer the one or more of the following questions in their final reflection
video.
a. What are the most important concepts to remember from this lesson? (Example:
the growth of the federal government)
b. What are some specific ideas that are related to each of these concepts?
(Example: the federal government created programs that took power away from
the states)
c. In what ways were the main ideas from this lesson related to something else that
we have learned in class?