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Teacher's Guide
The Grandparent/Elder Project consists of five
main parts or units:
- Using World War I and the Great Depression
as the topic, students learn to locate primary and secondary sources,
discriminate between the two types of sources, and use them to study
history.
- Students conduct and record an interview with
a grandparent or elder.
- Students select a topic concerning twentieth
century history events and perform research on the topic using primary
and secondary sources.
- Students write a four to six page formal history
research paper and make an oral presentation of their research.
- Students use material that they have researched
to create timelines of twentieth century American History.
Procedure
Project Overview
Introducing the Grandparent/Elder Project
- Direct the students to read the Student
Introduction to the Grandparent/Elder Project.
- Discuss the project that your students will
undertake.
- Discuss the concept of each person being significant
in history/herstory.
- Provide this definition of "elder"
for the purposes of the project:
Elder--Person who lived during an earlier period. One who is
older and whose age and experience confers a special dignity upon him
or her. For this project, the student should select a relative or friend
who was born before 1940.
Unit I: Through the Eyes
of Contemporaries, 1900-1919
Students study the presentation of events both
in a newspaper of the early twentieth century and in a contemporary newspaper
to learn the process by which events are written down and become history.
Students locate materials in the American
Memory collections to further explore primary source materials, and
then study secondary resources to enrich their background in twentieth
century American History.
Unit II: Interviewing a
Grandparent/Elder
Students are introduced to the Grandparent/Elder
Project and the concept that each individual creates and contributes to
history. They study the transcript of an interview, learn how to conduct
an interview, and conduct and record the interview with his or her grandparent
or elder.
Unit III: 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.
Unit IV: Conducting and
Presenting Research
Students learn how to choose and limit a research
paper topic, perform research, write a formal outline, write drafts of
the research paper, and document their sources. They also make an oral
presentation of their topic to the class.
Unit V: Creating Web Page
Timelines
Students learn how to compile and organize information,
develop timelines, and create Web pages.
Evaluation
Newspaper Project
- Students working in groups create topical
charts based on information found in the 1913 New York Times
and supported by research in secondary sources.
- Students working in groups create topical
charts based on information found in a current newspaper and supported
by research in secondary sources.
- Each student creates a secondary source,
writing a letter explaining what s/he would like her/his grandchildren
to know about this day in history.
Interview
- Students conduct an interview with a grandparent/elder,
asking the questions assigned, and taking extensive notes.
- Students type a minimum four-page transcript
of the interview.
- If the interview is extremely long, this
requirement may be limited to a major section of the interview. If
only a section of the interview is transcribed, the student must hand
in the notes or tape from the entire interview.
Focused Research on Gees Bend and the Great
Depression
- Students research the town of Gees Bend,
Alabama, using primary and secondary sources, and create oral presentations
ten to fifteen minutes long modeled after the segments of the television
program 60 Minutes. These presentations may be done as
videotapes to simulate the television program.
- Students write a five-paragraph essay about
family life in the Great Depression, using information gathered from
documents, photographs, and sound recordings.
Focused Research History Paper
- Students produce a four to six page focused
research paper. Students are expected to formulate their thesis as
a question, rather than as a statement, and to support their thesis
using material on family life in the Great Depression gathered from
primary and secondary sources.
- The topic should relate to the grandparent/elder's
role in history and the influence of that history on the grandparent/elder's
life.
Oral Presentation
- Students create and present oral reports
based on their focused research papers.
- Oral presentations must include a visual.
Web Page Timeline
- Students create Web page timelines on a common
topic including important events in the lives of the grandparents/elders
and in their own lives, as well as important events and people from
the research projects. A timeline index page with links to the theme
timelines should unite the timelines created by the class groups.
Student Assessment
- Students complete and turn in a self-assessment
sheet.
Extension
The lesson may be further extended by creating a class archive of transcripts,
history research papers, and visuals. For example, students may:
- Create a file or a Web site of the interview transcripts.
- Photograph the posters or models created by students as visuals
for the oral presentations and add them to the archive.
- Use a digital camera or scan photographs of the visuals, and add them
to the Web site archive.
- Prepare a presentation or display for "Grandparents' Day,"
in your school, using the archive of transcripts, history research papers,
and visuals.
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