Promoting Critical Thinking and Thoughtful Discussion

1. Promoting Critical Thinking and Thoughtful Discussion • Response Groups: Reaction to the New Deal • Editorial Cartoons: The Immigrant Experience

2. Promoting Critical Thinking and Thoughtful Discussion • Persistent Issue: What should be done to help those who are poor and needy? • Central Question: Was the New Deal the appropriate • response to the Great Depression? • Unit Placement: After examination of the various New Deal programs • Lesson Goals: • Empathize with multiple views on ND policies • Evaluate arguments and make own assessment

3. Response Group Strategy: Two-tiered discussion • Four-person heterogeneous groups • Provide with stimulus material and foundational knowledge • Series of critical thought questions • Small group discussions; appoint different presenter for each question • Presentation of small group conclusions; whole class discussion

4. Lesson Introduction • Was the New Deal the appropriate response to the Great Depression?

6. Hewey Long: New Deal does not go far enough • Share the Wealth Plan • Re-distribute the wealth • Every family: House, car, • ed. for children, pensions, • $2,000-3,000 guaranteed income • Other Critics • Father Charles E. Coughlin • Take action against banking & • money interests • Dr. Francis E. Townsend • Pay everyone over 60 $200/month

7. Why do you think FDR did not take the more • radical course of action proposed by Long and • others to combat the problems of the Depression? • What do you think would have happened • if he had?

9. What is your interpretation of this cartoon? • What is the cartoonists’ point of view? • What sectors of American society do you • think opposed the New Deal? • For what reasons?

10. Conservatives/Republicans: New Deal is an excessive intervention in the free market • Cripples business with heavy taxes and regulations • American Liberty League: Combat radicalism; • preserve poverty rights • Alf Landon, Governor of Kansas: Republican • opponent in 1936 election: FDR becoming a dictator • like Adolf Hitler in Germany. He was over powering • the legislative and judicial branches.

11. Whom does the Forgotten Man represent? • In what ways has FDR remembered him? • What do you think is the cartoonist’s intended message?

12. What do you think is the artist’s intended message?

13. FDR and Court Packing • Supreme Court struck down NRA, AAA, and three other ND laws - fed going beyong Constitutional limits on regulating economy • FDR threatened to increase from 9-15 justices if refused to retire at age 70 • Split Democratic Party, cost FDR support • Plan rejected by Senate, SC did change mind

15. Depression much worse for blacks • Last hired; first fired • New Deal effects mixed • Thousands employed • Some discrimination allowed in programs • FDR appointed some black advisors • FDR denounced lynchings; refused to support • federal anti-lynching law

16. If you were a black citizen living during the • Depression, would you have supported FDR?

17. Lesson Closure • Summarize differing viewpoints • and arguments • Draw an editorial cartoon taking a • position on the New Deal

18. Comparing Eras with Editorial Cartoons

19. Scaffolding • Understanding • Of Editorial • Cartoons • What is missing?

20. Using Personal Accounts: Oral History • The power of the personal account- • Zellner case • Two types of accounts • Teacher-collected • Student-produced • Using personal accounts in class