Propaganda is the manipulation of information to convince others to believe one way or the other. The time period of 1919-1929 is an excellent example. Life in the U.S. was portrayed as carefree, exciting and changing. New technology allowed more leisure time and financially "everyone ought to be rich". Propaganda was used to cover up the problems that lay underneath. These problems included excessive borrowing, debts from World War I, and surpluses in agricultural production. The purpose of this unit is to discuss the types of propaganda and how it was used and still is used today.  

Math 

The students will discuss of history and literature of the era after World War I. Students will compare and contrast the statistical data from the 1920's and the 1990's and create a project from their findings.  

Music  

Folk music, music of the peasant class, is distinguished by the way it is taught and learned, by its relative simplicity, and by its association with an ethnic or national group. Indigenous to all folk music is the characteristic of the oral tradition of passing it down from generation to generation, or the communal recreation of it (described below) . There are many different types of folk song, but among the best known kinds of folk music is the ballad. Most of the best known from a collection of English and Scottish ballads are "Barbara Allen" and "Lord Randall". Many of these English ballads were preserved in the Appalachian Mountains. Another form of more recently composed ballads were called broadside ballads because they were written down on large sheets called broadsides and then passed on orally, many times using tunes in major or modern Protestant hymn styles.  Their texts concerned unhappy love, murders, events of war, and tragedies such as railroad wrecks. Broadside ballads were more specific and consistent in giving names, places, and dates, at one time serving as a way of disseminating news. Another type of narrative folk song is the epic, a drawn-out account focusing on the exploits of a heroic figure in wars and other conflicts. Another type of folk song often associated with agricultural activities and other work had the purpose of building solidarity of the working group. They included sea chanteys, cowboy songs, and railroad songs, many of them narrative, and also ballads.  

Folk music is often thought to be closely associated with such life activities as ritual, work, and child rearing. Folk music is said to be the music of largely rural, untutored masses in societies where and educated, economic, political, as well as musical, elite also exists, the music of the latter, by contrast, is called "classical" or "art music."  

When a folk song is passed from singer to singer, it tends to undergo change arising from creative impulses, faulty memory, the aesthetic values of those who learn and teach it, and the influence of the styles of other music known to singers. A folk song thus develops variants, gradually changing-- perhaps beyond recognition-- and existing in many forms. Since many people participate in determining the shape of a song, this process is called communal recreation. Folk music is normally affected by the art music of nearby cultural centers (for example, cities, courts, monasteries), and it frequently functions as a kind of cultural backwater that retains characteristics of older art music for long periods.  

Printing and mass media have given folk songs access to urban culture. Members of folk communities have moved to cities and continued their traditions in changed form. Urban music has been affected by folk music. Popular music makes use of folk styles, and mixed styles such as country and western music, folk rock, soul, and gospel music have emerged. The character of folk music has greatly changed since World War II, and the lines separating it from other kinds of music have become blurred.  Nevertheless, folk music as a worldwide phenomenon, although changing, shows no sign of disappearing.  

Visual Arts  

The poster is a medium of communication using visual symbols. The importance of the poster reached its zenith from 1914-1918, when governments used it as a major means of propaganda and visual persuasion during World War I. This unit will explore the uses for, characteristics of, and artists who designed propaganda posters for the Central Powers and the Allies during World War I.  

English/Language Arts  

The Great Gatsby  

As the voice for "the lost generation," F. Scott Fitzgerald presents the American Dream of the 1920s as a world in which class distinctions remain unalterable amid both the ashen heaps and the excesses of materialism. The use of Nick Carraway as the first person narrator in The Great Gatsby allows for an objective point of view of a naturalistic world controlled by fate.  
 

The student should be able to:  

• Define propaganda 
• Distinguish between fact and fiction 
• Use deductive reasoning skills 
• Understand the impact of conflict on society 

Numerical calculations

Percentages

Ratios and proportions

Simple interest formula

Calculator skills

• Students should have a working knowledge of perceptive listening skills: Internal (aural): Means, Expression, Order; & External (social): Use, Origin. 
• Students should be able to complete research in the library. 
• Students should be able to distinguish between whole, half, quarter, eighth & sixteenth notes and rests (visually and aurally).
• Students should be able to notate same. 

The student should be able to:  

Critique a work or art 

Identify and use the Elements and Principles of Design 

The Great Gatsby  

The student should be able to:  

• Identify elements of plot, language, diction, character development , and setting; 
• Recognize symbols and motifs, themes, and irony; 
• Determine aspects of naturalism (fate, socioeconomic determinism, realism, and the "underbelly of life"); 
• Specify point of view; and 
• Understand the historical context for both the Age of Reason and the Jazz Age.