Brenda Koch Jefferson North Elementary
Introduction Overview Narratives Exhibits Reflection
The purpose of this unit was for the students to demonstrate their understanding of the depression era through various language arts and social studies activities. The students read two books, A Long Way From Chicago and A Year Down Yonder, by Richard Peck. Each book depicted life for a family during the depression era. The main character, Grandma Dowdel is not the usual type of grandmother. She teaches her grandchildren about survival in difficult times with humorous results. At the end of both books the reader will understand the character, Grandma Dowdel, and the era in which she lived.
 

At the beginning of the first book, A Long Way From Chicago, the students were asked to fill out a graphic organizer on their thoughts as to the characteristics of an elderly person or grandmother. With these ideas the students were able to come up with a generalization of what traits an elderly person might have. After reading part of the book they used the internet and e-mail to find primary and secondary resources about this time period. In the second book, the students read about a tornado that struck the community and used the internet to research more information about tornadoes. As the class read both books we kept a list of the humorous idioms that we found. With this list each student drew a humorous picture and the literal meaning of the idiom to compile into a book . To complete the unit the students wrote book reviews about one of the books to submit to an online bookstore.

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