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Subjects
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Grades 6-8, 9-12 |
Brief Description
This lesson introduces students to the minds and thoughts of presidents through their actual letters.
Objectives
Students
Keywords
biography, diary, journal, letter, president
Lesson Plan
This lesson by seventh-grade teacher Steven Vetter comes from American Presidents: Life Portraits, a companion Web site to C-SPAN's 20th Anniversary Television Series American Presidents: Life Portraits. In the activity, students learn about the presidents by touring the American Presidents Web site. Then they choose one president and read a letter written by him. They use the letter to respond in writing to a set of questions that deal with its components and what it reveals about the writer. As a wrap-up to the activity, students create essays in response to one of five assignments.See the complete lesson at Using Primary Sources: Letters from the Presidents. There Vetter shares his rationale for the lesson and for using primary source documents in Using Letters of the Presidents in the Classroom.
Assessment
Evaluate students' written compositions.
Lesson Plan Source
American Presidents
Submitted By
Cara Bafile
National Standards
LANGUAGE ARTS: English
SOCIAL SCIENCES: Civics
SOCIAL SCIENCES: U.S. History
SOCIAL SCIENCES: World History
TECHNOLOGY
See more lessons at Presidents' Day Activities!
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