Dear Mrs. Rosevelt

Letters

Reading Strategies Project Dear Mrs. Roosevelt: Letters from Children of the Great Depression I will be using the book Dear Mrs. Roosevelt: Letters from Children of the Great Depression, edited by Robert Cohen, to express to my students to feel the deep effect that the Great Depression had on the people of the time. Normally textbooks just say it was hard for the people and they suffered, but I want my students to know how bad they suffered and how hard it really was. This was one of the toughest times for people to get by in America and the way our economy has been looking people say that we might be headed for another Great Depression. So students should know some recent happenings in the newsthese things to be able to understand what the news is talking about. To be able to understand what's going on today they must understand the past. The mistakes that we have made, the lessons that we have learned, the obstacles that we, as a country, have overcome which is what history is all about. The Great Depression is a perfect display of each of those. The students will be taught a brief lesson on analyzing letters and then proceed into reading the letters to Mrs. Roosevelt. Letters are a great documentation of our worlds history and the letters in this book are very powerful, mostly because they're from children, but also because they express the depth of the effects of the nations economic crises. Letters are also a more interesting read than a text book, scholarly essays, or a long novel of someone from the times that only expresses one view. The students will be looking at the reasons why these children wrote these letters to the first lady. They will be formulating assumptions of the children and the times based on the letters. The class will be figuring out if a certain group dominated, for example girls, and why that might have been. I will be asking the students if they have ever written to a person of importance and what compelled them to do so; in turn then ask them what they think compelled these children to write these letters to Mrs. Roosevelt. I chose this book, because I feel that since a lot of these children whom have written these letters are around the same age, it’s something that they can relate to more. Also, children don’t feel afraid or embarrassed as much to ask for help or be compelled to write to the First Lady for a lending hand. So this is a not only a good look into what was going on, but in a way that these students will understand a little bit better. This is a nice point, I like it. This lesson will hopefully give them some good analyzing skills, some drawing conclusion skills, and the ability to take something out of letters, with some given background, to get something out of them (using them as a primary source). The class will be faced with some questions and discussions to make sure that they are practicing the skills being emphasized in this lesson. They will also be tested on comprehension based on those questions and discussions. This is better – definitely more thorough and developed than the original, especially your discussions about the letters/text. I think you still don’t address the question of “why teach about the Depression?” as much as you could. You focus more on why teach letters/these letters, and that is GOOD. But, I think you still needed to do a little more with the Great Depression, and talk about why students should learn about that period in history. Teaching and Learning Sequence The Great Depression “Dear Mrs. Roosevelt Letters from Children of the Great Depression” Edited by: Robert Cohen Exercise One: Explanation: Because the letters in “Dear Mrs. Roosevelt Letters from Children of the Great Depression” have a lot to offer if you look deeply enough we will be practicing analyzing letters. I will be having them read a random letter that I have written that has nothing to do with the Great Depression and then a fake letter to President Obama with the same idea as the problems in the book, but with the problems that we are facing today (this will come in handy in a later project). The students will be doing a highlighter exercise and then discuss what it’s about. For the first step we will be looking at the fake letter to a random person, we will be doing a read aloud highlighter exercise with the questions “Who? What? When? Where? Why?” (the 5W’s) on the board for them to look at. With the second step they will be working with the fake letter to President Obama and they will be doing a graphic organizer using the 5W’s with a highlighter exercise. They will then go into groups and discuss what they found in the President Obama letter. Afterwards the class will come back together and we will discuss why we think the person in this letter was writing to President Obama; this way I can check for understanding before I move on. I am hoping that the 5W’s and explanation of them will give the students a good idea of what they are looking for. Example for step one: Random letter: Dear Mom and Dad, College is going good and my classes are great! I have made a lot of friends! I have been keeping up on my homework and I’m hoping to get all A’s and B’s. I really miss you and can’t wait to see you over winter break! I am writing, because I have no money left and have yet to find a job; although I have been looking. So I was hoping that you could send me some money. I need kind of a lot so that I can buy more school supplies, put some on my laundry card, and some extra money for food because the cafeteria food sucks here! If you could send it ASAP that would be GREAT! – letter totally cracking me up. I love you and can’t wait to see you! Your loving daughter, Rebecca -Read this letter with a highlighter and highlight the areas that you feel are important, please! Add comments on the side if you’d like. Think about the purpose of this letter so that you can participate in the class discussion. Think about the 5 questions on the board while you read (Who? What? When? Where? Why?). We want to know the purpose of this letter and why they are taking the effort to write the letter to this person. Example for step two: Dear President Obama, I write to you in hopes that you can help me out. I am a 17 year old boy and my father just lost his job at the factory. We knew it was coming for a while, I guess, and we tried to save for when it happened, but it was hard. My father worked for GM and got laid off when they joined in the “Bailout.” He has worked there making cars since high school. It’s all he really knows. He wanted me to have a better life and because of that I am writing to you. I want to go to college so bad and so does my Dad. My Mom died in a car accident when I was little and we’re all each others got. When my father lost his job at the factory I told him to pull out of my college fund so that we could keep our house, even though now I don’t think that we’ll have enough to send me. I know that with the money we got left and some financial aid maybe I could go to a community college, but I want to go for Politics somewhere and I’ve gotten excepted into a lot of big schools for my grades. At the same time though, I want my father to be okay and for us to be able to keep our house that him and my mom built. Please if you could help me in some way, grants, loans, some kind of aid, anything really at all that would be great! Thank you sir! You say that you can bring change and good things and I have faith that you can. Thank you- Krillon Bob Daiton, Ohio, March 2009 -This letter is a letter written ‘today’ to President Obama from a kid about your age going through the economic hard times that our country is facing today! Please read, highlight the important parts and fill out the double-entry journal given as much as you can. Please Fill this out: Name:________________ Five W’s Chart Fill in each row with details from the letters. Who is writing this letter and to whom? What is being talked about in this letter? When is this letter being written? Where is the recipient or writer? Why are they writing this letter? Exercise Two: Explanation/ opening: The times are bad. The economy has gone down hill. The people of this very country have little to nothing left. Food pantry and soup kitchen lines rap around for blocks, from city to city all across the U.S.. The West is hidden under the dust as the black clouds continue to roll in. Children, in fear that there was no hope left, turned to writing letters to one woman that they thought could possibly help them in this economic crisis. These letters to the First Lady Mrs. Roosevelt are clear primary documentation of the pain and suffering that these children were facing. By looking at this book, full of those letters, we can see the effects of the Depression first hand through the writings and accounts of the children of the times. Before the students have looked at the assigned letters and have done the 5W's they'll be assigned a reading of a small piece on Mrs. Roosevelt so that they can better understand why shes so impotant. Here’s a question/topic you might consider [it is fine that you are not tackling it here, but, in a real life study of this, it might be worth exploring]. Why Mrs. Roosevelt? Why did they write to the first lady rather than the President? What was it about her? She was special, somehow. Might be worth exploring that, building something about that into a study of the letters to her. And, while I am thinking about this, do you know that there are (at least) two kids books about her? “Amelia and Eleanor Go For a Ride” [Amelia Earhart], and a Barbara Cooney book called Eleanor. Example for step one: *assigned letters* -Like we did in the letters before and with a highlighter in hand: please read through the letters on pages 35-59 and highlight like I have demonstrated in the read-aloud highlighting activity we did in class with the letter on pages 48-49 and with the previous letters we worked on with the past letters from the class before. Keeping those 5W’s in you’re mind while you read and highlight. Example for step two: *assigned letters* -You have been given post-it notes and as you read the next set of letters on the pages 60-87. The post-it notes are for you to take notes on if you would like, but at the end of each letter I would like you to put a post-it note there and write on it why you think compelled this child to write this letter; what their reasoning might have been. This has already been demonstrated for you in our class discussion with the letter on pages 83-85 from your reading last night. Now I feel as if you are ready to try this on your own. Feel free to also to use the post-it notes to include questions on the readings to talk about in class. Enjoy and remember that these are kids around your age. After they've looked at the article/ background of Mrs. Roosevelt and the letters they will be asked to answer a set of questions on why they think these children chose to write to her instead of FDR to write to. These questions will be used in a big class discussion to try and figure out why Mrs. Roosevelt over any one else. Name: _________ Questions on Mrs. Roosevelt Why do you think that these children chose her over FDR? Do you think the fact that more of the writers are girls plays a factor? Do you think that she played as a motherly role to the country and that these children felt safe writing to her because of that? Do you think the new access to being more involved in the Political realm helped any (such as the radio and more newspaper focus on such issues)? Very nice job with the teaching and learning sequence, Kaisha. You are clear and thorough and provide good explicit instruction: models/examples, focus questions, good overview information and instructions. Very nicely done.