5th Grade: Standing Up for Equality, Justice, and Freedom in 20th Century America

The teacher will introduce the unit project of a photo essay. Just as the FSA created and documented the state of the nation and local communities during the Depression, students may do the same thing today. Students are “commissioned” by the teacher to obtain photographs of the local community or nation that reflect whether they currently live in a depression, a boom, or both.

Students will share the three photos they gathered for their photo essay. In small groups they will discuss what the messages of the images are. Students may jot down notes and feedback during their small group discusses to help begin creating their rationales for their pictures.

Students will exchange and view each other’s photo essays. They will be required to fill out a feedback form for at least two other classmates. Students will then divide into three groups: those who think the community/nation is in a state of depression, a boom, or combination. Students will then discuss their reasoning in a fish bowl group and finally in a whole group discussion.

Going further

Making connections

Taking action

Fish bowl group discussion

Taking lecture notes
Targeted Skills:
Gathering and Recording Information:

Observing, Reading pictures, Taking notes

Skills for Communicating

Discussing, Listening, Writing

Making Sense of Information

Analyzing, Comparing and Contrasting

Skills For Working With Others

Giving and receiving feedback, Challenging and justifying

Skills for Examining Beliefs Opinions and Values

Identifying, Justifying, Showing evidence, Expressing an opinion

Skills for Reflecting

Reflective writing, Presenting a point of view, Generalizing

Website: http://www.nypl.org/press/wpafsa.cfm

Website: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fahome.html

FSA-OWI Photography. Retrieved October 10, 2005 from Arthurdale Hertigage, Inc.

Website: http://www.arthurdaleheritage.org/loc/fsaphotography.htm
This website has background information on Roy Emerson Stryker who lead the FSA Photography Project and some minor background information on some photographers that participated in the project. There are some pictures of the photographers and Roy Emerson Stryker and are some FSA photographs.
Every Picture Tells A Story: Documentary Photography and the Great Depression. Retrieved October 10, 2005 from the Center of History and New Media at George Manson University.

Website: http://chnm.gmu.edu/fsa/index.html

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  Lecture note outlines, graphic organizers, or hand outs the teacher may require for students
  
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  Students will need pens or pencils and paper for note taking
  
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  FSA photo for lecture opening on print outs or overhead
  
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  Worth a Thousand Words Rubric for each student
  
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  Possibly news papers and magazines, art supplies, and computers with internet access and printing capabilities for students to find pictures for their photo essays if they are not using cameras.
  

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  Students will need their three photo essay pictures
  
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  Students will need pens or pencils
  
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  3 picture analysis sheets for each student
  

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  Students will need pens or pencils
  
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  2 peer evaluation sheets for each student
  
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  Classroom arranged in for a fish bowl discussion (chairs arranged in a circle with a second circle of chairs surrounding the first circle)
  

1. 
   Teacher gives a mini lecture relating how the New Deal included employing artists like photographers during the Great Depression.
   
   1. 
      Open lecture with showing students a FSA photo
      
      1. 
         Recommend Dorothea Lange's 1936 portrait "Migrant Mother" that may be found at the FSA Administration-Office of War Information Collection  http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/128_migm.html
         
      2. 
         Questions to ask before lecturing:
         
         1. 
            What is the purpose of taking pictures of daily life during the Great Depression for Americans who live during the depression, Americans today, and Americans in the future?
            
         2. 
            What sort of statements do photographs make about history that written primary sources cannot make?
            
   2. 
      Lecture points to cover:
      
      1. 
         1935 the photo documentary project begins under the Resettlement Administration (RA).
         
      2. 
         1937 the project becomes the Farmer Security Administration (FSA) Photography Project under Roy Emerson Stryker and twenty men and women.
         
         1. 
            See the Arthurdale Hertigage, Inc. FSA-OWI Photography website and the Every Picture Tells A Story: Documentary Photography and the Great Depression website.
            
      3. 
         Project goal: “Middle-class Americans who lived in cities far from the locales depicted in the photographs and who comprised the vast majority of the readers of the newspapers and magazines in which the FSA pictures were reproduced. FSA photographs presented their rural subjects in ways that middle-class viewers could recognize and sympathize with.” - Every Picture Tells A Story: Documentary Photography and the Great Depression website
         
      4. 
         Geographic locations the photographers were commissioned to document America life. Particularly, Illinois and Midwest locations.
         
         1. 
            See the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information Collection geographical index at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fsageogindex1.html
            
      5. 
         FSA photography department moved to the Domestic Operations Branch of the Office of War Information in order to document American life on the homefront during World War II.
         
      6. 
         All original photographs and negatives are now kept in the Library of Congress. They may be accessed by the public at the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information Collection at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fahome.html
         
2. 
   Teacher introduces the unit project of creating and analyzing primary source pictures.
   
   1. 
      Explain to students that they are being commissioned by the teacher to document if the community or nation is experiencing a depression, boom, or both through pictures like the photographers of the FSA during the 1930s.
      
   2. 
      Hands out rubric with project directions. Explain each component of the rubric.
      
      1. 
         Students must have 3 pictures that depict the community or nation in a depression, boom, or both. Pictures are encouraged to be photographs taken with a camera and cut out from current events magazines or newspapers. Other options include printing from online or drawing pictures.
         
      2. 
         Students will give each of their three pictures an appropriate title and labeled date.
         
      3. 
         Students will paste the picture on a white sheet of paper with the title and date underneath.
         
      4. 
         Students will write a one to two page rationale that addresses:
         
         1. 
            Are we currently in a depression, boom, or both?
            
         2. 
            Justification for the above answer with evidence from each of your pictures and titles.
            
         3. 
            How do your photo essay and your classmates’ photo essays serve as a primary source for today and the future?
            
      5. 
         Students will turn in as their final product: A cover (with name, date, class, assignment, and appropriate title for their essay), three pictures with titles on separate pages, 1-2 page rationale, and two peer evaluations forms.
         
   3. 
      Teacher says students are to find pictures over the course of the next two days in preparation for the second part of the lesson where pictures and shared in small groups and they begin to write rationales. Students may collect more than three pictures and narrow their choices for their photo essay later.
      

3. 
   Teacher asks students to take out their pictures and a writing tool. The teacher informs students that they will be looking at each other’s pictures today to begin formulating answers to point #1 and #2 of their rationale statement.
   
   1. 
      Give each student a copy of the picture analysis sheet. Students will analysis their own pictures with the input of their group mates.
      
   2. 
      Explain how to fill out the sheet.
      
      1. 
         Photo name and date
         
      2. 
         Depression, boom, or both
         
      3. 
         3 pieces of supporting evidence drawn from the picture.
         
4. 
   Split students into groups of three or in pairs.
   
   1. 
      Circulate the room and listen to conversation and help students who are struggling to analyze their pictures.
      
5. 
   When students finish filling in their analysis sheet they have two options:
   
   1. 
      They may begin to draft their rationale
      
   2. 
      They may find a new partner and get a second opinion about their pictures.
      

6. 
   The teacher tells students they will be sharing their final photo essays and discussing whether the community/nation is in a depression, boom, or both.
   
   1. 
      Explain the peer evaluation form to the students.
      
      1. 
         Name of student and name of evaluator.
         
      2. 
         Check list of all items completed.
         
      3. 
         Position of the author (depression, boom, or both).
         
      4. 
         Comment about the pictures.
         
      5. 
         Comment about the written reflection.
         
         1. 
            *Remind students that comments need to be specific and insightful! Comments such as “good job!” or “I like your pictures!” will not suffice.
            
7. 
   Put students in groups of three and give each student two peer evaluation forms (one to evaluate each group mate).
   
   1. 
      Circulate the room to listen and assist students as students share their essays.
      
   2. 
      As students complete their peer evaluations, attach them to the back of their rationales in the photo essay.
      
8. 
   Arrange the room for a fish bowl discussion (chairs in a circle surrounded by another circle of chairs).
   
   1. 
      Split the class into two groups (one to sit in the inner circle and discussion and one to sit in the outer circle to listen)
      
      1. 
         *Be sure there are a variety of students with the opinion of depression, boom, or both in each circle.
         
   2. 
      Discussion should focus on the question: Is our community/nation in a depression, boom, or both? What sort of evidence do we have in our photo essays to support our positions?
      
      1. 
         Depending on students’ experiences with discussion, the teacher may need to facilitate the conversation. The teacher should also try to keep a good balance of student voices by informally encouraging new voices or employing a system like chips or tokens (one comment for each chip or token a student has).
         
      2. 
         Some examples of scaffolding questions:
         
         1. 
            Can there be depression in some parts of the nation or a community and not in some parts? What are some examples?
            
         2. 
            What were some of the criteria you used when determining if your photos represented a depression or boom?
            
         3. 
            Do you photos have commonalities through out or not? (i.e. all about children, all about families, all about retail, etc.) Does this affect your opinion of whether we are in depression or not?
            

The following two worksheets will serve as a summative assessment of student learning.

3 photo or pictures

Each photo or picture is separately and neatly glued on a piece of paper

Title for each photo or picture

Date for each photo or picture
Student rationale addresses each of the following points:

Are we currently in a depression, boom, or both?

Justification for the above answer with evidence from each of the pictures and titles.

How does the photo essay and classmates’ photo essays serve as a primary source for