Grade 8 – ELA-- Technology Project for To Kill a Mockingbird
Directions
Essential Questions
What was life like in the 1930s?
What are the causes and consequences of prejudice and how does an individual’s
response to it reveal his/her morals, ethics and values?
GSEs: Writing in Response to Literary or Informational Text
Analysis and Interpretation of Literary and Informational Text, Citing Evidence
Technology Standards
•
Select and use applications effectively and productively
•
Interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts or others employing a variety of
digital environments and media.
•
Contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems.
Objective: To research an aspect of the 1930s in order gain an underst
understanding
anding of the
setting in terms of time and place of the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.
Requirements: Students will research an aspect of the 1930s and create a magazine article
based on their research. The magazine article will be created in Publisher and will resemble an
authentic article both in appearance and in writing style.
STEPS: Part One – Writing Articles
1. Choose a topic from the novel relating to the 1930's.
2. Research the topic using the sites that are provided and your graphic organizer.
3. Apply
ply the knowledge gained through research to write the magazine article.
4. Create the article using iimages and the appropriate formatting.
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Possible topics:
All topics relate to the United States in the 1930s. Suggested topics are listed, but more may
be sought out. Narrow down your topic and get approval from your teacher.
Women of the 1930s
•
Description/details about traditional "Southern Belles"
•
Fashion, careers, family roles, taboos for women, the work place, wages
•
Gertrude Stein, Mrs. Wallis Simpson, Margaret Mitchell, Jane Addams, Pearl S .Buck,
Amelia Earhart
Economic Concerns of the 1930s
•
President Hoover
•
President Roosevelt’s "New Deal," social security
•
Wall Street
•
Statistics: population, wages and salaries, costs of home, food, cars, rent
Education in the 1930s
•
Educational Reforms: John Dewey - "Experience and Education"
•
Level of education - State Laws
•
Colleges and Agricultural colleges, trade schools
•
Literacy
Status of African -Americans in the 1930s
•
Jim Crow laws, voting rights, civil rights, education, occupations in North and South
•
Discrimination, treatment by white people.
•
Housing, neighborhoods
•
W.B. Dubois, George Washington Carver, Booker T. Washington. Marian Anderson,
Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Bessie Smith, Lena Horn
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Popular Entertainment of the 1930s
•
Movies, Hollywood Stars
•
Dance
•
Radio Programs
•
Popular music: "The Cotton Club" Shirley Temple, Charlie Chaplin, Benny Goodman,
Glenn Miller, Judy Garland
The Headlines of the 1930s: What and Who Made the News
•
Sports, disasters, "big" events, 21st amendment, crime
•
Howard Hughes, Charles Lindbergh, Knute Rockne, Joe Louis, John Dillinger, George
Eastman
Political Concerns of the 1930s - International Relations
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•
Relationships with other world leaders
•
League of Nations
•
Hitler, Churchill, Stalin, MacArthur
Guiding questions for research:
Discovery Questions
Explore your topic by answering the following questions:
a) Can you discuss an incident about it?
b) What causes it?
c) What can you describe about the topic?
d) What results from it?
e) How does it compare to something else?
f) What are its parts, sections, or aspects?
g) What do you remember about it?
h) Why is it valuable or important?
i) Are you for or against it? Why?
j) How do you respond or feel about it?
Journalistic Questions
Ask "Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?" about your topic.
Journalistic Questioning is a way of thinking of ideas. You need to ask these questions:
Who - is doing this? - is going to do this? - did this?
Why - are they doing it? are they going to do it? - did they do it?
What - is it for? - will it be for? - was it for?
Where - is it happening? - is it going to happen? - did it happen?
To whom - is it happening? - is it going to happen? - did it happen?
When - is it happening? - is it going to happen? - did it happen?
How - are they doing it? - are they going to do it? - did they do it? about your topic.
Answer each question as completely as possible.
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Research Links
TIMELINE S OF THE 1930s
1930s Timeline
1930 - 1939 Timeline
1930s Cultural Timeline
1930s Timeline with Primary Sources
WOMEN OF THE 1930s
Comment [jlo1]: These sites have been cleaned
up and are all working well.
I may add to them
Distinguished Women of Past and Present
American Women's History: A Research Guide Education
American Women's History: A Research Guide Women's Rights
History of Fashion: 1930's - 1940's
American Women's History: A Research Guide
Women in American History
FAMOUS PEOPLE OF THE 1930s
Jane Addams Hull
Hull-House Museum Home Page
Thomas Edison American Inventor 1847 –1931
The Wizard of Menlo Park
Salvador Dali 1904
1904-1989
Pablo Ruiz Y Picasso (1881
(1881-1973) Images Only
The World of Gertrude Stein - Writer
Pearl S. Buck - Writer
Amelia Earhart - A Timeline
Amelia Earhart 1897-1937
1897
Franklin D. Roosevelt: Thirty-Second President 1933-1945
1945
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Comment [jlo2]: Should we annotate these links
so that the kids know more about what they are
ar
researching.
I may add to these links as well.
Joe Louis
Joe Louis' Biggest Knockout
John Dewey (1859
(1859-1952)
Herbert Hoover Thirty
Thirty-First President 1929-1933
Herbert Clark Hoover
The Lindbergh Case -The Crime of the Century
The Kidnapping
ECONOMICS IN THE 1930s
Modern world history: The Wall Street Crash
Voices from the Dust Bowl
1920s & 1930s: The Depression & The New Deal
I remember . . ." (Reminisce
(Reminiscences
nces of the Great Depression)
Then and Now: Prices Compare Prices During the Great Depression to
Prices Today
The Great Depression and the New Deal
The Great Depression and WWII, 1929
1929-1945
POLITICS IN THE 1930s
Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations
The History Place - The Rise of Adolf Hitler
Winston Churchill Homepage
Sir Winston Churchill Biography
Joseph Stalin (1879
(1879-1953)
Stalin Biographical Chronicle
Chroni
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)
(1889
Important Events - President Roosevelt
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Comment [jlo3]: This link refers to the 1940s so
????
EDUCATION IN THE 1930s
The Center for Dewey Studies
John Dewey (1859
(1859-1952)
John Dewey
AFRICAN-AMERICAN
AMERICAN LIFE IN THE 1930s
Race Relations in the 1930s
"Jim Crow" Laws
The African
African-American Mosaic
Encyclopedia Britannica Guide to Black History
The Scottsboro Trial
Issues of Race in the 1930s - the New Yorker
Eleanor Roosevelt’s Article on Lynching - Primary Source
THE ARTS and Entertainment IN THE 1930s
American Cultural History 1930-1939
1930
Great Site
The Authentic History Center
Greatest Films of the 1930's
America in the 1930's
The Headlines
dlines of the 1930s: What and Who made the News – General Information
World's Fair and Exposition Collectibles
Images From A Century of Progress
The Nobel Foundation
Golden Gate Bridge
Boulder Dam
Smithsonian: Transportation History
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The Depression News: The 1930's
The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Museum
Library
Kingwood College Library: American Cultural History : 1930 - 1939
The New Deal Network
Social Security Administration: History Page
Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century
Interview: Growing up White in the South in the 1930s
Interview: Growing up Black 1930s in McCulleys Quarters,Alabama
Eleanor Roosevelt - Primary Sources
Documenting American History in Photographs
1930s Slang
The 1930s in Print
Magazines of the 1930s - Great Advertisements
Saturday Evening Post
New Yorker Magazine
Fortune Magazine
Marie Claire Magazine – Fashion Magazin3
American Women through Time 1930s
Women's Fashion in the 1930s
The Great Depression - 1930s Eleanor Roosevelt
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PROJECT TIMELINE
Day One – Establish Goal - choose topic
Go over research options
Distribute graphic organizer and model using deterring importance – as a class
Day Two - Research
Day Three – Research – Begin writing article
Day Four – Instruction on writing a magazine article - modeling
Day Five - Continue Writing
Day Six – Publisher Instruction - Create Article
Day Seven – Create Article and begin peer review and step two
Day Eight - PART TWO – EDITING STEPS –Collaboration to edit and compile magazine
Assign various editors and their roles. Students will be working in groups by department.
WE NEED TO WORK ON THIS PART
Come up with a name for the magazine – Review LIFE, LOOK and POST
Brainstorm components of a magazine that should be added to the writing pieces.
Cover design, table of contents,. Advertisements, music, novels, movies, people, comics
Day Nine - Complete additional pieces
Day Ten
Day Eleven
Day Twelve – Complete assignment and all pages of the magazine should be submitted to the
STUPublic.
PART THREE – EDITORIAL to be completed by the students after the novel has been read.
(Narrative writing piece)
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