1920s Lesson Plan

Quick Write – respond to the Prohibition quote from John Haynes Holmes quote (below).
(10 minutes)

Dry vs. Wet Debate

Guided Discussion/Notes – the teacher will read aloud page 235 – 36 about the flappers.
The class will come up with a definition (don’t forget that they were considered athletic)
and discuss the difference between the Victorian woman (traditional) and flapper. (10
minutes)

Guided Discussion/Notes – the teacher will ask the students whether the US should not
allow immigrants to come from another country who cannot read or write in their own
language. This will lead into what the US did prior to WWI and the nativist movement.
Have the students define what a nativist is. Answers should be about how it limits
immigration and how it wanted to keep out “revolutionary ideas” and agitation. (10
minutes)

Guided Discussion/Notes – the teacher will define rural and urban. The teacher will
describe how people were moving to the cities for jobs in manufacturing and leaving the
farms. (5 minutes)

Short Video – the teacher will show a clip from “Inherit the Wind” and lead a discussion
about fundamentalism vs. modernism. (20 minutes)

Assignment – the students will work in groups of three to complete a make and break on
these five themes. (30 minutes)

Assignment – the students will complete the worksheet on the five themes and fill in the
correct answer.

Day 2
Review – flapper, traditional woman (Victorian), Nativist, rural vs. urban, prohibition,
Creel Committee, Food Administration, Red Scare (communist influences affecting us),
influenza, Selective Service Act, modernism vs. fundamentalism

4th hour – they need to complete both assignments from the make and break organizer of
the 1920s and the quiz.

Guided work – the students will use the T-Chart in their School Loop that sorts the
examples, negatives and positives of the changes in the 1920s. The students will read
with the teacher one example of assembly lines on page 212 – 13. The class will fill out
the boxes together as well as communication, which is not in the book. The students will
then fill out the rest of them in small groups. (40 minutes)
Communication – do together (not in book) and talk about the telephone, radio, movies,
national magazines
Technology – Inventions in the School Locker
Travel – page 214
Leisure time – pages 231 – 233
Credit buying – page 215 – 16

Guided work/Review – the teacher will review the graphic organizer from the 1920s and
compare it with the T-chart the just completed. Are there differences? Discuss the
changes in their society with each category. (15 minutes)

Assignment – the teacher will then ask the students to flip over the assignment and to
look at the information of Analyzing Changes in the 1920s. The students will then write
a five-sentence paragraph after they have analyzed the different scenarios above. (20
minutes)

Traditional – a Victorian woman who had strict morals (values) and believed the woman
should be in the home

Flapper – a progressive, liberated woman who wore shorter dresses with a bob hairdo and
wanted equal rights with men

Nativist – a person who wanted to limit immigration because they were afraid of
“revolutionary ideas” and “agitators”

Day 3

Review – KKK, Race Riots, NAACP, Tuskegee, Great Migration (5 minutes)

Focus Question – what is the biggest racial achievement in your time? When there is still
so much inequality, why do you think there hasn’t been more? (10 minutes)

Reading/Class Discussion – the teacher will read aloud the quotes from Booker T.
Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois and discuss the answers to the questions in their School
Locker (15 minutes)

Video/Discussion/Assignment – the class will view “Birth of a Nation” and explain that
this is a racist movie from 1915 and about what could have been if the blacks had the
power after the Civil War. This was a very controversial movie even back in 1915. The
class will discuss this and then complete “Evaluating a Significant Event”. (30 minutes)

Silent Reading/Discussion – Divide the class into two groups. They will read about the
East St. Louis and Chicago riots. What was the root cause? They should talk about the
Great Migration. (10 minutes)

Assignment – hand out Developments in US Race Relations and have the students
organize the timeline into five categories: thinkers, violence, reform, culture and moving.
If some go into two categories, that is fine. Model a couple of examples. (25 minutes)

Day 4

Focus Question – how does the music of the day affect society? Clothes, fashion, style,
sports, writing…
Responding to arguments that Prohibition limited a person's
freedom of choice, clergyman John Haynes Holmes said in a 1924
New York City debate, "We all agree, do we not, that the liberty of
the individual must bow in a complex society to the safety and
happiness of all of us together?" Holmes continued, "Liquor is
dangerous to public safety because it creates poverty, it cultivates
crime, it establishes social conditions generally which are a burden
to society."