The purpose of this unit is to provide the students with an understanding of the Depression Era through various language arts and social studies activities, while at the same time integrating available technology to enhance their learning experiences.  The students will read two books about the Depression Era, A Long Way From Chicago and A Year Down Yonder, both by Richard Peck.  Each book depicts the life of one family during the Depression Era.  The main character, Grandma Dowdel, is not a typical grandma.  She teaches her grandchildren about survival in difficult times, often with humorous results.  Upon conclusion of these books, the students will have a sound understanding of the Depression Era and the people that lived during that time.

Before beginning the first book, students used a graphic organizer to generalize a typical grandmother (see exhibit 1).  They compared their generalizations to Grandma Dowdel as we read the stories.  To provide the students with primary sources from the Depression Era, I had them write questions and we e-mailed these questions to a person who lived during that time period (see exhibit 2).  Following a chapter about a tornado in A Year Down Yonder, students used the internet to research tornadoes, and then wrote an informational report about tornadoes (see exhibit 3). At the conclusion of A Year Down Yonder, students used Kid Pix to illustrate the literal meaning of various idoims from the stories (see exhibit 4).  Also, each student wrote  book reviews and submited them to Amazon.com (see exhibit 5).

Forms of assessment included, but were not be limited to, written questions for our primary sources, written reviews of our Depression Ear books, interpretatios of idioms, and class discussions.