Top of page

Lesson Plan Personal Stories and Primary Sources: Conversations with Elders - Unit Three

Teachers

Learning history from real people involved in real events brings life to history. This project provides a means to learn about the twentieth century from real people and primary sources. A 1913 newspaper provides a view of the world on the brink of a World War. An interview with a grandparent or significant elder provides a human face for life in the twentieth century. Through researching primary and secondary sources, students become conversant with significant aspects of twentieth century history.

Lesson Units

Objectives

Students will learn:

  • that each person contributes to the world's story;
  • how to differentiate between primary and secondary sources and how to assess the relative importance of each in the study of history;
  • how to access, interpret, analyze, and evaluate primary sources of various kinds;
  • how to conduct an interview;
  • effective use of questions in doing research;
  • techniques and skills of research;
  • the importance of accuracy and honesty in research;
  • how to "write history" clearly so that it communicates to others;
  • how to teach others the topic on which one has become an expert; and
  • techniques for effective oral presentations

Unit 3: Gathering Information from Primary Sources

Students learn to discriminate between primary sources and secondary sources and how to use them to learn history. Students research family life during the Great Depression as a model for focused research. This unit can be used independently.

Information comes from many sources and different media such as written documents, visual images, audio recordings, and films. Sources are usually divided into two main types: primary and secondary. In researching a topic, primary sources provide original, firsthand information. A transcript of an interview is an example of a primary source. A written summary of that interview is a secondary source.

In these activities, students focus on learning how to use primary sources. The topic is family life during the years of the Great Depression. Have students take this opportunity to think about their family and how it compares and contrasts with the families of friends and neighbors. Consider housing, rituals, diets, attitudes, customs, dress, etc. and how they are indicative of present-day life. Using primary sources, students learn similar details and facts from the Great Depression era.

Gathering information about a topic from sources requires the use of certain skills:

  • observing;
  • posing of questions;
  • locating details and facts;
  • evaluating the reliability of a source;
  • learning new vocabulary;
  • using prior knowledge;
  • making associations;
  • making deductions; and
  • drawing conclusions.

Students investigate the topic, "Family Life during the Great Depression in America." They observe photo images, study a document, listen to a sound recording, and read secondary sources about the Great Depression. By the end of this investigation, they will have developed a core of information and will have useful research skills.

To learn more about primary sources and the ways to analyze them, consult Using Primary Sources.

Lesson Preparation

Materials

  • Primary Source Analysis Tool
  • Student Lessons:
    • Lesson One: What can be learned from a photograph?
    • Lesson Two: What can be learned from a document?
    • Lesson Three: Gees Bend
    • Lesson Four: What can be learned from a sound recording?

Resources

Lesson Procedure

Lesson One: What can be learned from a photograph?

  1. This lesson may be done online or offline, depending on the available equipment. If time or equipment constraints exist, do this exercise as a class, using a projector.
  2. Direct the students to the student lesson What can be learned from a photograph? for the exercise on primary source photographs. The lesson uses the Dorothea Lange photographs of the migrant woman with her children.
  3. Using the Teacher's Guide to Analyzing Prints and Photographs and the Primary Source Analysis Tool, ask the students: "What do you see?"
  4. Ask the students: "What do you see?" and direct them to record their answers on the Primary Source Analysis Tool. Select questions from the Teacher's Guide to Analyzing Prints and Photographs to guide further observation and discussion.
  5. Point out to the students that they each observe different things and have different perceptions of the same thing. Intense disagreements may occur when the students look at the various photographs.
  6. As a conclusion to this lesson, the class as a whole should discuss what this series of six photographs by Dorothea Lange reveals about family life during the Great Depression.

Lesson Two: What can be learned from a document?

  1. This lesson uses the same document, "Women and the Changing Times," a transcript of an oral interview, that was used in the interview unit. If you have completed Unit 2 with your students, direct them to locate the document and their notes from the earlier lesson, both of which should have been placed in the project folder.
  2. Direct the students to the student lesson What can be learned from a document?.
  3. In this lesson, students learn about the Great Depression from a primary source document. It is best if students record the details that they learn from the interview on the Primary Source Analysis Tool. Before the students begin, select questions from the teacher’s guide Analyzing Books and Other Printed Texts to focus the group work, and select additional questions to focus and prompt a whole class discussion of their analysis.
  4. The printed document may also be used to teach annotation.
  5. A class discussion on what this document reveals about family life in the Great Depression is very valuable

Lesson Three: Gees Bend

The students' challenge is to use their new skills of observation and deduction to learn about family life in the community of Gees Bend, Alabama, during the time of the Great Depression. The lesson also challenges the students to expand their research skills.

As students ask questions and seek answers, the teacher and the librarian provide helpful instruction on how to look for information. This lesson involves information access, search strategies, and use of information that is located.

  1. Direct students to the student lesson Gees Bend.
  2. The students start with a selected group of Twenty Photographs of Gees Bend, Alabama. Explain that the photographs were taken during the Depression by Marion Post Wolcott and Arthur Rothstein, two photographers who were part of a project sponsored by the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives of the New Deal.
  3. Students search online and print resources for information about Dorothea Lange and her photography of Depression farm communities.
  4. Students use maps from reference sources, print and online, to locate Gees Bend.
  5. Students use research sources, print and online, to learn the reason why the town is named "Gees Bend."
  6. Students research the history of this community in its plantation period.
  7. The students compile their research and create oral presentations. These ten to fifteen minute presentations may be recorded or performed live.

Lesson Four: What can be learned from a sound recording?

This lesson uses the song "Sunny California."

  1. Direct the students to the student lesson What can be learned from a sound recording?.
  2. The students listen to the recording several times in order to understand all of the words. Students analyze the sound recording, recording their thoughts on the Primary Source Analysis Tool. Before the students begin, select questions from the teacher’s guide Analyzing Sound Recordings to focus and prompt analysis and discussion.
  3. The teacher may need to acquaint the students with the "ballad" form so that they are better able to understand this song. If students are acquainted with other ballads such as Barbara Allen, they may be more receptive to this song and the lesson.
  4. The teacher explains that this woman's song is a type of ballad in which she tells the sad story of her move to California.
  5. The teacher may find that providing a transcript of the song is useful. To accomplish this, a student or group of students can be assigned to listen to the song and create a transcript. The teacher should check and edit the transcript before copying and distributing it to the class.
  6. After completing the lesson, the class should discuss what the words of the song reveal about family life during the Great Depression.

Lesson Five: Focused Research Essay

  1. Using all the information gathered about family life in the Great Depression from documents, photographs, and sound recordings, assign the students to write an essay about family life in the Great Depression.
  2. Students form a thesis about family life in the Great Depression and support this thesis by drawing upon specific details learned from the study of the primary source materials. The thesis should be a main question about family life in the Great Depression. Discuss with students that in writing the paper, they are creating a secondary source by using the results of their focused research.
  3. Teachers usually ask students to write a thesis statement and think of a thesis as a declarative sentence not as an interrogatory one. In this project, the approach is different. Students are asked to begin with a main question, an interrogatory sentence. The interrogatory sentence becomes transformed into the thesis. This approach is purposefully taken in this lesson and throughout the project because learning how to ask good questions leads to better student research and writing. The use of questions as guiding tools continues in Unit Four: Conducting and Presenting Research.

Lesson Six: Secondary Sources

As a conclusion to this unit, direct the students to read a secondary source essay or article about the Great Depression from a reference or textbook. The secondary source reading may be duplicated and distributed to the class or read directly from the source.

Students should take notes and/or annotate the article. The notes should focus on life, particularly family life, in the Depression. Students should focus on the following questions:

  • What and who were the sources for information in the article?
  • What differences do you notice between the information in the primary sources (the photographs by Dorthea Lange, the interview with Mrs. Blount, the photographs of the Gees Bend community, and the sound recording of "Sunny California") and the article?

Conduct a class discussion on the differences between the information learned about the Great Depression from the primary sources and that from the article/entry (secondary source). Creating a board or overhead chart may add clarity both to this discussion and to student understanding.

Lesson Evaluation

  • Students research the town of Gees Bend, Alabama, using primary and secondary sources, and create oral presentations. These presentations may be taped or presented live.
  • Students write an essay about family life in the Great Depression, using information gathered from documents, photographs, and sound recordings.

Credits

Deborah Dent-Samake and Carolyn Karis, American Memory Fellows, 1998

Students

Lesson One: What can be learned from a photograph?

Not all primary sources are documents with words that provide details and stories. Some primary sources require observation. You can learn about family life during the Great Depression from photographs. By carefully observing photographs, you can learn details and facts about a time period.

Carefully study and observe the first Dorothea Lange photograph of the migrant woman with her children.

  • What do you see?
  • What do you infer?
  • What questions does this photo spark?
  • What questions do you continue to have about this photo? Are there any facts or details that you cannot learn from the photo itself?

Record your thoughts about the photograph on the Primary Source Analysis Tool. Your teacher may have additional questions to guide your analysis.

Now study the other pictures by Dorothea Lange of the same woman and her children. Think about the following questions as you observe and study these photographs.

  • How do these pictures add to your understanding of this woman and her situation?
  • What do the photographs reveal about family life in the Great Depression?
  • What do you understand about the Great Depression from your observations of the photos?
  • What additional information is provided by the title and details about the photos?
  • What more do you want to learn about the life of this woman and the time in which she lived?

What else would you need to know in order to understand how this woman's life fits into family life during the Great Depression?

If you were to summarize what you learned from these photographs to another person, what would you say?

Lesson Two: What can be learned from a document?

In Unit Two: Interviewing, you read "Women and the Changing Times," a transcript of an interview with a Mrs. Blount, from American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940. As you read this primary source document you made some notes. Review your notes on these questions about the interview.

  1. Where and when did this interview take place?
  2. Who was the interviewer?
  3. What questions do you think the interviewer asked Mrs. Blount in order to elicit the information in this document?
  4. What additional questions would you ask Mrs. Blount if you were conducting the interview?
  5. What aspect/topic of this interview appeals to you most?

Now, you are going to observe and study this interview in greater depth. Record your thoughts about the interview on the Primary Source Analysis Tool. Your teacher may have additional questions to guide your analysis.

What does the interview reveal about family life during the Great Depression? Answer the following questions about Mrs. Blount, a woman who lived during the Great Depression:

  1. Make a list of the details you learn about Mrs. Blount and her family. For example, how many people were in her family? What kind of work did the family members do? What do you learn about the type of family? About the children? About the town? About business? About school, etc.? Read the document very carefully. Make notes and write annotations in the margins.
  2. What do you notice about the way the informant, Mrs. Blount, responds to the interviewer during the interview?
  3. What are her attitudes towards other people?
  4. What more do you want to learn about the life of this woman and the time in which she lived?
  5. What else would you need to know in order to understand family life during the Great Depression?

If you were to summarize to another person what you learned about family life in the Great Depression from this document, what would you say?

Lesson Three: Gees Bend

You are a TV reporter who has been hired for a presentation on Gees Bend, Alabama. You must research Gees Bend for this presentation. Start with a selected group of Twenty Photographs of Gees Bend, Alabama, taken during the Great Depression.

You may wish to access other photographs of Gees Bend found in the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives. These pictures show life at home, at work, at school, and at play during the Great Depression. There are more than sixty images, taken by two photographers, that depict life in Gees Bend, Alabama.

Studying the twenty photos, what can you learn about this community? What observations can you make? What conclusions can you infer from the details you observe? Record your thoughts on the Primary Source Analysis Tool. Your teacher may have additional questions to guide your analysis and discussions.

Develop a list of at least six questions from which you can provide answers during your presentation on family life during the Great Depression in Gees Bend. The answers should be based upon the information you learned from your research. Note that Gees Bend may also be found as Gees' Bend and Gee's Bend. The presentation should be about ten to fifteen minutes.

Lesson Four: What can be learned from a sound recording?

Not all primary sources are documents or photographs that can be read or seen. Some primary sources require careful listening.

You have learned about family life during the Great Depression from documents and photographs. In this section, learn details and facts about the time period by listening carefully to a sound file, a song by Mrs. Mary Sullivan about the travels of her family to "Sunny California." The song is part of the Voices from the Dust Bowl, 1940-1941.

Listen carefully to the song "Sunny California."

Listen to the song more than once and answer the following questions:

  1. What can you tell about the family life of these people during the Great Depression?
  2. Recall the questions you used when studying the interview with Mrs. Blount. Try to answer some of the same questions about Mrs. Mary Sullivan and her family.
  3. If you were to summarize what you learned from the song to another person, what would you say?