Dear Mrs. Roosevelt:
A lesson on The Great Depression
Grade 5

Focus & Review
The teacher will lead a review and discussion of the book, Mississippi Bridge, by Mildred Taylor.  Students will be encouraged to remember important themes and ideas from this book regarding the Great Depression.

Objectives
Social Studies:
11.1 Identify and describe changes which have occurred in ways of living in the U.S, Canada, and Latin America.
11.3 Evaluate the effects of change on the lives of the people of the U.S., Canada, and Latin America.
12.2 Associate and event of phenomenon in the history of the U.S., Canada, and Latin America with a current situation or practice.
12.3 Trace an economic, political, or social development through the history of the U.S., Canada, or Latin America and judge its impact on society.

Language Arts:
2.2 Interact with the text before, during, and after reading, listening, and viewing by: making predictions, formulating questions, supporting answers from textual information, previous experience, and/or other sources, drawing on personal, literary, and cultural understandings, seeking additional information.
2.5 Evaluate inferences, conclusions, and generalizations and provide evidence by referencing the text(s).

Teacher Input
Teacher will tie in the discussion of The Great Depression to tell about President Roosevelt, Mrs. Roosevelt and the New Deal. Discuss with students how the depression affected children during this time. http://newdeal.feri.org/eleanor/er2a.htm offers information and pictures on this topic.

Guided Practice
Reproduce copies of the 19 letters and responses to Eleanor Roosevelt, located at
http://newdeal.feri.org/eleanor/er3a.htm. (Two sample letters are attached)  Provide each group consisting of  four or five students with a copy of each of the letters.
· Ask each group to identify the young people who wrote to Mrs. Roosevelt by gender, age, race, religion, geographic region, education, or the apparent socio-economic status of their parents.
· Ask students to discuss the characteristics of those who wrote the letters. They are likely to notice that most were girls. Ask them to consider why girls might be more likely to write to Mrs. Roosevelt than boys.
· Invite students to comment on the replies Mrs. Roosevelt sent to the children's letters. Ask students how they would feel had they received the "secretary's letter."
· Since most students will not study the complete set of letters at the Web site, ask each group to select the most convincing one and read it aloud to the whole class.

Independent Practice
Ask students to imagine that they were one of these children, now grown. Keeping this role in mind, have each student write a follow-up letter to Mrs. Roosevelt, explaining how his or her life unfolded since the first letter. Have the students read their letters to the class. Ask students if the tone of each imaginary letter reveals a pessimistic or optimistic view of the opportunities available in the United States since the Depression.

Closure
Ticket out the Door Activity: In order for students to leave for next activity, they must tell the class one important idea about the Depression that they learned from this lesson.

 
Works Cited

http://newdeal.feri.org/eleanor/index.htm

Taylor, Mildred D., Mississippi Bridge, Skylark : 1990.