We've been doing a lot of writing lately- using persuasive essays to make a claim and to prove/support a claim. I wanted to try something a little different (and less difficult to grade). So, Monday I had my kids collect information about the election of 1932 from their book in a graphic organizer. They had to find and provide examples of ideologies and actions, and then evaluate the prospective president from a 1930s perspective and one from today. On Tuesday, to demonstrate their learning, the students created 2 positive presidential campaign posters for 1932. They had to show that they understood why Hoover might be a good choice as a traditional, capitalist, laissez-faire guy (despite history evaluating him quite negatively) and also decide why the people may have been drawn to FDR and his promised "change." Students had to look at Hoover less emotionally and evaluate his attempted policies in context of not knowing the Depression would be so bad.
After they completed the activity and we discussed why people might actually have voted for Hoover, we looked at the electoral college map of 1932 to show the landslide; kids wondered why, and I followed up with a documentary on the Bonus Army March which turned public opinion away from Hoover just before the election.
I think they learned a lot and liked the change of visually representing their thinking, rather than having to write and fully explain it.
This sounds like an interesting and effective way to have students consider perspective and historical thinking. I think I will try this next year.
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