Analyzing children's letters to Mrs. Roosevelt

Students will analyze letters that children wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt during the Great Depression.

A lesson plan for grades 11–12 Social Studies

By Angie Panel Holthausen

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Related topics

• Learn more about American history, Eleanor Roosevelt, Great Depression, United States, history, letters, oral histories, poverty, and social studies.

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Learning outcomes

• Students will read letters children wrote to Mrs. Roosevelt.
• Analyzing the documents, the students will identify facts from the letters, make inferences about the writer, and evaluate possible responses.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

1 hour

Materials/resources

• A photocopied class set of the 19 letters available from the Letters to Mrs. Roosevelt website.
• it is best to number these letters and put them together in a packet
• copies of Student Worksheet.

Pre-activities

Students should already have studied Hoover’s presidency, the causes of the Great Depression, and the election of FDR.

Activities

1. Give each student a packet of the letters. Explain what they are, and tell students they will be analyzing a few letters in particular in groups.
2. Divide students into groups of three or four. Assign each group a different set of letters (Group A takes letters 1-3, Group B, 4-6, etc.). Some groups might analyze the same set of letters.
3. Hand out the questions. Tell students to answer them as a group, making sure to put everyone’s name on the paper. In addition, tell them to choose one of the three letters to read to the class and to pick a spokesperson who will read it. Give them 10-15 minutes to complete this task.
4. When they are done, have each group read a letter and explain how they answered some of the questions. There will usually be some debate about what Mrs. Roosevelt’s answer should have been.
5. Finally, ask:
• How should Mrs. Roosevelt have responded?
• What adjectives would you use to describe the people who were affected by the Great Depression?
• Which would be the best use of Mrs. Roosevelt’s time, responding to each of these letters, or working to establish programs like the NYA and CCC?
• Have any of you ever written to prestigious people about a particular problem? What response did you get?
6. At the end of the lesson, explain how Mrs. Roosevelt did respond to these and other similar letters.

Assessment

You may determine a group grade based on the answers to the questions which each group submitted. I generally don’t grade this assignment; it maintains the student’s interest well, and the concept load is light, so I usually don’t feel the need to check their comprehension.

Supplemental information

I received some original letters to Mrs. Roosevelt from Sue Liner at Orange High School. Using those, I developed the questions which are in the attachment. Upon discovering the web site that had some transcribed letters, I borrowed some questions from it for the discussion. You can find them here. I extend a warm thank you to these fine teachers!