Browse lesson plans

Analyzing children's letters to Mrs. Roosevelt

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

Format: lesson plan (grade 11–12 Social Studies)

By Angie Panel Holthausen.

And justice for all: The Trail of Tears, Mexican deportation, and Japanese internment

Many textbooks mention the Trail of Tears, but fail to mention that this early displacement of an ethnic minority is only the one of many legally-sanctioned forced relocations. This lesson will address the displacement of American Indians through the Trail of Tears, the forced deportation of Mexican Americans during the Great Depression, and the internment of Japanese American citizens during WWII.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8–12 English Language Arts and Social Studies)

By Patricia Camp.

Canning for country and community

In this lesson plan, students will use primary source documents to evaluate the technological challenges of food preservation in the 30s and 40s, compare food preservation in the first half of the twentieth century with today, and consider the political role of food in the community.

Format: lesson plan (grade 9–12 English Language Arts and Social Studies)

By Melissa Thibault.

The effects of the Great Depression in North Carolina

This lesson is designed to give the students a better understanding of the personal effects of the Great Depression on the people of North Carolina. It also uses the student's creativity to help others understand these effects.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8 Social Studies and Theater Arts Education)

By Yvonne Carroll.

The Great Depression: Impact over time

In this lesson students listen to oral history excerpts from Stan Hyatt from Madison County and evaluate how the Great Depression affected one North Carolina family over time.

Format: lesson plan (multiple pages)

Live-at-Home in North Carolina

In this lesson students will examine pictures and documents relating to the Live at Home program started in North Carolina by Governor O. Max Gardner to help North Carolina farmers refocus on food crops rather than cash crops during the Depression. These photographs, from the Green 'N' Growing collection at the North Carolina State University, will help students draw conclusions about the culture of North Carolina in the early 1930s and understand how they overcame the hardships of the Depression.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8 Social Studies)

By Loretta Wilson.

Mountain dialect: Reading between the spoken lines

This lesson plan uses Chapter 13 of Our Southern Highlanders as a jumping-off point to help students achieve social studies and English language arts objectives while developing an appreciation of the uniqueness of regional speech patterns, the complexities of ethnographic encounter, and the need to interrogate primary sources carefully to identify potential biases and misinformation in them. Historical content includes American slavery, the turn of the century, and the Great Depression.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8 English Language Arts and Social Studies)

By Kathryn Walbert.

Paired writing: Hoover and FDR

Taking on the persona of FDR and Hoover, students will write responses to citizens seeking help with real world problems.

Format: lesson plan (grade 9–12 Social Studies)

By Angie Panel Holthausen.

Primary source letters lesson plan

In Tobacco bag stringing: Secondary activity two, page 1

This is one of a series of activities that will help educators use the Tobacco Bag Stringing project materials in their classrooms. Throughout the series students will learn about tobacco stringing, study primary source...

Format: lesson plan

By Pauline S. Johnson.

Tobacco bag stringing: Elementary activity four

In this activity for grades 3–5, students will read and evaluate a primary source letter from the Tobacco Bag Stringing collection. This should be done after Activity one, which is the introductory activity about tobacco bag stringing. Students will investigate the influence of technology, and its lack, on the tobacco bag stringers. They will do a role play/debate in which they will assume the roles of owners of companies and other people that were involved in the issue.

Format: lesson plan (grade 3–5 Social Studies)

By Pauline S. Johnson.

Tobacco bag stringing: Elementary activity one

This activity for grades 3–6 will help students understand what tobacco bag stringing was and why it was important to communities in North Carolina and Virginia. Students will read and analyze an adapted introductory article about tobacco bag stringing.

Format: lesson plan (grade 3–5 Social Studies)

By Pauline S. Johnson.

Tobacco bag stringing: Elementary activity three

In this activity for grades 3–6, students will read and evaluate primary source letters from the Tobacco Bag Stringing collection. This should be done after Activity one, which is the introductory activity about tobacco bag stringing.

Format: lesson plan (grade 3–5 Social Studies)

By Pauline S. Johnson.

Tobacco bag stringing: Secondary activity five

In this activity for grades 7–12, students will evaluate primary source photographs from the tobacco bag stringing collection and some of Lewis Hine's photographs.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8–12 Social Studies)

By Pauline S. Johnson.

Tobacco bag stringing: Secondary activity four

In this activity for grades 7–12, students will examine primary source photographs and biographical information that were collected for the Virginia-Carolina Service Corporation to set up a data record.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8–12 Social Studies)

By Pauline S. Johnson.

Tobacco bag stringing: Secondary activity one

This activity for grades 7–12 will help students understand what tobacco bag stringing was and why it was important to communities in North Carolina and Virginia. Students will read and analyze an introductory article about tobacco bag stringing.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8–10 Social Studies)

By Pauline S. Johnson.

Tobacco bag stringing: Secondary activity six

In this activity for grades 7–12, students will read and evaluate primary source stories from the Federal Writer’s Project.

Format: lesson plan (multiple pages)

Tobacco bag stringing: Secondary activity three

In this activity for grades 7–12, students will evaluate primary source photographs from the Tobacco Bag Stringing collection.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8–12 Social Studies)

By Pauline S. Johnson.

Tobacco bag stringing: Secondary activity two

In this lesson, students will read and evaluate primary source letters from the Great Depression about the effects of the Fair Labor Standards Act on North Carolina's tobacco bag stringers.

Format: lesson plan (multiple pages)

Resources on the web

The Great Depression and the 1990s

Students frequently echo sentiments such as, “The government is too big,” or “The government should make welfare mothers pay for their own needs.” It seems that many citizens, high schoolers included, have begun to believe in reduced... (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 Social Studies)

Provided by: Library of Congress