Lesson Plan #: CC-0071

Lesson 2: Drawing Conclusions about Reform


Objectives: The student will be able to:

1. review knowledge about reform in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

2. apply this knowledge to a modern problem.

Description of lesson/activity:

1. The teacher should review the variety of political and social problems faced during the lives of Theodore Roosevelt, Jane Addams, Booker T. Washington, and Woodrow Wilson, and ask students to explain the actions taken by each of these reformers to chan ge conditions for the better.

2. The teacher should then ask the class to list current political and social problems. From a list on the board, the teacher should ask students to prioritize these problems and choose one to three that they believe are the most pressing problems of the day.

3. The rest of this activity may either be done as a whole class activity or by students in small groups. Students should choose an important current problem and act as a group of reformers to try to develop solutions to that problem. Their task should be to study the problem, develop a series of alternative actions to solve the problem, and choose the best alternative. Students could choose to create posters to describe the problem and solutions they have chosen or they could write letters to the editors with their reform suggestions.