by Kaisha Dunne

Created on: April 20, 2009

Here's an Example of a Reading Strategies Project for a High School History Class with "Dear Mrs. Roosevelt: Letters from Children of the Great Depression" edited by Robert Cohen

By using the book Dear Mrs. Roosevelt: Letters from Children of the Great Depression, edited by Robert Cohen, I can 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 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 these things to be able to understand what the news is talking about.

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 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).

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