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Grades: 6-12 Overview: Teachers can help bring the Great Depression to life through guided discussions and by providing audio and written accounts of the period.

Materials: Books, recordings, videotapes. All the books listed below should be readily accessible at your local library, as should the tapes/CDs mentioned in Number 3. The three films mentioned in Number 8 are available for rental in most well stocked video stores.

Teacher Preparation: Obtaining recordings and books from the library. Queuing up recordings and selecting readings (suggestions listed below).

2. An excellent resource for presenting voices and experiences from the Depression is Studs Terkel's HARD TIMES: AN ORAL HISTORY OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION (Pantheon, 1986). It presents the individual histories of dozens of people who lived through this period, relating their experiences in their own words. Although it is written for an adult readership, it can be excerpted easily for ages 10 and up. For example, you may choose several of the following histories for classroom reading:

• "Lily, Roy and Bucky," from the chapter entitled Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, pages 22-23: Young people reflect on their parents' and grandparents' experience of the Great Depression.

• "Marshall and Steve," from the same chapter, pages 26-28: Young people looking back, as above.

• "Tom Yoder, Jane's Son," from the chapter entitled God Bless' the Child, p. 87: A young man imagines his uncles' experience of the Great Depression.

• "Robin Langston," from the same chapter, pages 89-92: Robin Langston, a middle-aged African-American, "a social worker by day, jazz musician by night," remembers being a child during the Depression.

• "Dorothe Bernstein," from the same chapter, pages 99-100: A woman who grew up in an orphanage during the Depression describes her lack of fear.

• "Phyllis Lorimer," from the same chapter, pages 101-103: Phyllis had to leave boarding school when the Depression struck, but many of her relatives remained wealthy throughout the period. Phyllis explains how she learned to be proud of "doing" instead of "having."

• "Oscar Heline," from the chapter entitled The Farmer Is the Man, pages 217-221: Farmers lost more than their land during the Depression, and Oscar describes some of the desperate measures taken. [This is rather long; may want to excerpt from it.]

• "Ruth Loriks, His Wife," from the same chapter, pages 229- 230: Grasshopper blight and losing everything.

• "Emma Tiller," from the same chapter, pages 232-234: An African-American woman tries to get relief in Texas.

• "Harry Hartman," from the chapter entitled Evictions, Arrests and Other Running Sores, pages 403-407: Harry Hartman worked for the Chicago Bailiff's Office during the Depression and had to go into people's homes to repossess their goods.

• "Emma Tiller," from the chapter entitled Strive and Succeed, pages 447-449: An African-American cook gets even with her employer.

• "Virginia Durr," from the Epilogue, pages 461-462: The suffering she witnessed during the Depression ended her days as a "Southern snob."

3. Have your students read Chapter 9, "Dust Pneumonia," from WOODY GUTHRIE: AMERICAN BALLADEER, by Janelle Yates (Ward Hill, 1995), which describes the drought and dust storms that plagued the Great Plains regions during the Depression. Then play the cuts entitled "Talking Dust Bowl Blues" and "Do-Re-Mi" on WOODY GUTHRIE: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS RECORDINGS (Rounder Records, 1988). Guthrie has a distinctive speaking and singing style and an easygoing way of relaying information. Students should have little trouble understanding what he is saying, as he speaks rather slowly. Even so, few of them will have heard voices like his before, so you may encounter a number of surprised looks. The reading selection will help establish the context for the recorded material and give students a taste of Guthrie's personality so that they are more prepared for the sound of his voice. The first cut, "Talking Dust Bowl Blues," a blues spoken to the rhythmical strum of a guitar, is sure to entertain them. It is followed by a few minutes of Guthrie talking about California during the 1930s. "Do-Re-Mi" is another of his more popular songs from the period.

4. Ask your students if these accounts (i.e., the oral histories and the Guthrie material) have changed their understanding of the period. Have them elaborate on their responses.

5. Ask your students to imagine how their lives would differ if the Great Depression were to occur today. Have them talk about the ways it would affect their housing, food, family life, education and future prospects.

6. Have your students interview their grandparents or other senior citizens about the Great Depression period and write up a summary of what they learn, emulating the style of Studs Terkel in HARD TIMES.

7. Bring in other books about the Great Depression and keep them on hand for a week or so in the back of the classroom for perusal during quiet times. A number of suggestions follow:

• A collection of photographs from the period, particularly those of Dorothea Lange. An especially fine collection is entitled DOROTHEA LANGE: PHOTOGRAPHS OF A LIFETIME (Aperture, 1996).

• There are many excellent biographies about people from the period available for this age group, such as the Guthrie biography cited in Number 3 above, which includes photographs from the period (and for which a teacher's guide is available). Others include FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT, PRESIDENT, by John Devaney (Walker and Co., 1987), ELEANOR ROOSEVELT: A LIFE OF DISCOVERY, by Russell Freedman (Clarion, 1993), MOTHER JONES: ONE WOMAN'S FIGHT FOR LABOR, by Betsy Harvey Kraft (Clarion, 1995), DOROTHY DAY: WITH LOVE FOR THE POOR, by Jim O'Grady (Ward Hill, 1993; teacher's guide also available), DOROTHEA LANGE, by Robyn M. Turner (Little, Brown, 1994); and Beverly Cleary's memoir, A GIRL FROM YAMHILL (Camelot, 1996).

• Young adult fiction set in the period includes the timeless BLUE WILLOW, by Doris Gates (Viking, 1940), a Newbery Honor Book; NO PROMISES IN THE WIND, by Irene Hunt (Chicago, 1970); and BETWEEN DARK AND DAYLIGHT, by Crystal Thrasher (Encore Editions, 1979).

• An excellent young adult nonfiction title is Jerry Stanley's CHILDREN OF THE DUST BOWL: THE TRUE STORY OF THE SCHOOL AT WEEDPATCH CAMP (Crown, 1993).

• John Steinbeck's THE GRAPES OF WRATH and Woody Guthrie's BOUND FOR GLORY are two adult-level classics.

For further information on any of the items listed above, please send an email to wardhill@interport.net with "Depression Info" in the subject line, or write to:

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