Hi everyone, my name is Grace Walker and welcome to my first blog post! Since the first time I was introduced to the literary era of the “Roaring 20’s” in my high school American Studies class, I knew I was hooked. From the exquisite lifestyles, flashy clothing, and captivating music, the Jazz Age is often represented as a time of excitement for most Americans. The book that truly embodied and rightfully introduced this literary era to the world was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s modernist novel The Great Gatsby. As my class dipped further into the novel and the Jazz Age, it became apparent how passionate my classmates and I were about this time frame in America. Prior to studying this era, I had already been introduced to novels such as Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Crucible, yet in my personal opinion none of these texts were as rich with allusions and symbolism as The Great Gatsby.

While The Great Gatsby’s take on the Roaring 20’s piqued my interest, when teaching it to elementary students, I would take broader historical approach. To fully educate a young class on the culture of the 20’s, it is essential to teach about the Great Depression. While F. Scott Fitzgerald mainly highlights the time as one of lavish parties and old and new money, he also begins to foreshadow the darker side of America in the 20’s by having his characters travel the road between rich and poor, from Old Egg, Long Island to the NYC.

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To teach young children about the Great Depression, I would first teach them about the prior newfound prosperity in our country, freedoms for women, and economic growth. I feel like this is a crucial era to teach young students about because it shows that no matter how great life may have seemed for most Americas post WWI, nothing is permanent. To highlight this lesson to my student, I would start by reading a book such as The Roaring Twenties: A History Just for Kids!, which teaches all about the new life of the 20’s in America and all of the technological and economic advancements our country made during this time. I would try to spend a couple classes really focusing on these major changes in our country and how lifestyles shifted drastically for many. As a follow up lesson, I would then transition into the late 20’s and early 30’s, introducing The Great Depression. I would do this with another book such as the children’s novel Rose’s Journal, which depicts the life of a young girl’s struggles during the peak of the Great Depression. To tie in both lessons, I would have my students compare and contrast the two distinct, yet linked decades in our nation.