K-6 Lesson Plans (World War I Period)

The Birth of Jazz

In this lesson student, will be introduced to the birth of Jazz in America, will research key Jazz musicians and literary artists of the Jazz Age. They will provide the economic, social, political and geographical importance of these individuals. They will appreciate the contribution that jazz made to the social stature of the African Americans and how it enabled the culture to be accepted by mainstream society.

The Chicago Black Sox

The baseball scandal of 1919 and the story of one of the great baseball players of all time.

The Chicago Black Sox PowerPoint

The Great Migration

In this lesson, students will use a sophisticated computer webquest to examine primary source documents related to the Great Migration. Working independently and in groups under a ‘jigsaw model,’ students examine the push and pull factors that faced African Americans contemplating migrating from the rural South to the more industrial North. In addition, students will scrutinize living conditions found by African Americans who did opt to relocate to the North. Each student group will then assume the role of an African American living in the South during the early 1900’s. A letter is received from a cousin who has already located to the North. Each student group must use their research to reach a consensus about what they would have done if faced with such a decision.  The lesson culminates with students independently writing a friendly letter to the cousin which contains their decision on whether or not they will migrate and delineates the reasons for the decision. 

Pancho Villa

This lesson students will use character traits to compare and contrast positive and negative attributes of Pancho Villa and Robin Hood. 

The US Treatment of German American in WWI

Using an excerpt, students will be introduced to the treatment of German-Americans during WWI.   Students will be asked to complete a written assignment using words of foreign origin. The same paragraph will be rewritten without using words of foreign origin.