Lesson Plan 3: The Letters from Lincoln

Letters From Lincoln

Lesson Plan by Sally Ball
Nora Elementary School, Indianapolis

Designed for 4^th Graders

Description:

This lesson is designed to help students become familiar with Abraham Lincoln's childhood as a pioneer in Indiana between 1816 and 1830. Even though he did not have the opportunity to attend a formal school very often during this time period, he developed a strong love of reading and writing. Students will explore Lincoln's love of learning as well as his life in a pioneer community in Indiana. They will work with literature about Lincoln's childhood, read imaginary letters from Lincoln as a child, make a timeline of Lincoln's life, write their own historical fiction letters as if they were pioneer children, and explore some of Lincoln's actual writing from his adult years. Through these activities, students will discover how Lincoln's childhood in Indiana and his love of reading and writing influenced and prepared him for his later role as President of the United States.

Objectives:

1. Students will explore the childhood of Lincoln and pioneer life in early Indiana.

2. Students will respond to literature in writing.

3. Students will write in the style of historical fiction.

4. Students will identify Lincoln as a writer.

5. Students will explore samples of Lincoln's writing.

6. Students will explore how the pioneer community in Indiana influenced Lincoln.

Academic Standards:

Social Studies Standards Covered:

4.1.6 Explain how key individuals and events influenced the early growth of the new state of Indiana.

4.1.9 Give examples of Indiana's increasing agricultural, industrial, and business development in the nineteenth century.

4.1.13 Organize and interpret timelines that show relationships among people, events, and movements in the history of Indiana.

4.1.14 Distinguish fact from opinion and fact from fiction in historical documents and other information resources.

4.1.15 Using primary source and secondary source materials, generate questions, seek answers, and write brief comments about an event in Indiana history.

4.5.1 Identify ways that social groups influence individual behavior and responsibilities.
Example: When people belong to a group they usually interact with each other frequently and follow the rules of the group.

4.5.3 Define the term cultural group and give examples of the challenges faced by diverse cultural groups in Indiana history.
Example: Quakers faced religious and social differences. Recent Asian and Hispanic immigrants face the challenge of adapting to a new language and culture.

Language Arts Standards Covered:

4.1.1 Read aloud grade-level-appropriate literary and informational texts with fluency and accuracy and with appropriate timing, changes in voice, and expression.

4.4.1 Discuss ideas for writing. Find ideas for writing in conversations with others and in books, magazines, newspapers, school textbooks, or on the Internet. Keep a list or notebook of ideas.

4.4.2 Select a focus, an organizational structure, and a point of view based upon purpose, audience, length, and format requirements for a piece of writing.

4.5.1 Write narratives (stories) that:

include ideas, observations, or memories of an event or experience.
provide a context to allow the reader to imagine the world of the event or experience.
use concrete sensory details.

4.5.2 Write responses to literature that:

demonstrate an understanding of a literary work.
support statements with evidence from the text.

Instructional Plan:

1. Have students brainstorm what they know about Lincoln. Discuss facts about him and his accomplishments such as being the 16^th President, President during the Civil War, etc.

2. Show students a copy of the Gettysburg Address. One possible place to find a copy is http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/gadd/. Read it and discuss what it means and why it was such an important speech. Discuss how Lincoln was a talented writer in addition to a great President.

3. Tell students that Abraham Lincoln lived in Indiana between 1816–1830.

4. Explain that he and his family moved from Kentucky and lived in an area in northern Spencer County that has come to be known as the Little Pigeon Creek settlement.

5. Describe the settlement for the students. Explain that it was in the wilderness, but that several families lived relatively nearby in the pioneer community.

6. Discuss that Lincoln probably did not have much of an opportunity to go to school during his years in Indiana but that he loved reading and writing. Explain that he often wanted to read and write instead of doing chores. Also tell students about how he would practice his writing on scraps of wood because paper was often difficult to obtain.

7. Read aloud several books about Lincoln's childhood and pioneer life in Indiana. These might include Young Abraham Lincoln: Log Cabin President by Andrew Woods, Meet Abraham Lincoln by Patricia A. Pingry, Abe Lincoln: The Boy Who Loved Books by Kay Winters and Nancy Carpenter, Young Abe Lincoln: His Teenage Years in Indiana by W. Fred Conway, or The Floating House by Scott Russell Sanders.

8. Summarize and discuss what Lincoln's childhood in Indiana would have been like.

9. Have students go to the online student module http://www.indianahumanities.org/wethepeople/303-module.html) for Letters from Lincoln. At this website, they will be able to read imaginary letters from Lincoln as a child in Indiana. Students can practice timeline skills by placing the letters on a timeline in the correct chronological order. This activity will provide the students with an opportunity for self-assessment because the letters will not disappear from the screen until they are placed in the correct order on the timeline. They will be given hints to help them if they get confused.

10. After completing the timeline activity on the website, students will also write letters back to Lincoln as if they were pioneer children themselves. Students will respond to the following prompt: Imagine that you are a pioneer child living in Indiana between 1816 and 1830. In your letter, tell him about your daily life, you family, what hardships you must face, how you got to Indiana, what kinds of chores you do, what you do for fun, and what your school is like. Students may respond to this prompt on the website by typing in the space provided or they may write letters by hand. If writing the letters by hand, students can make regular writing paper look more historically authentic by crumpling it up and opening it back up carefully. They can then color over it lightly with a brown crayon or piece of chalk to “age” their letters.

11. After the students have written their letters, have them share what they wrote. Review the daily lives of pioneers and how this lifestyle must have influenced Lincoln later in his life. Remind students that Lincoln developed a love of reading and writing, and encourage them to read and write as much as they can so that they can continue to learn and grow themselves.

12. Assess the students' letters using the “Letters to Lincoln Rubric.” (See Assessment section of lesson plan)

13. For an extension activity, give students scraps of wood and have them write on the wood with charcoal pencils to get the sense of how Lincoln would have practiced his writing.

14. For another extension activity, have students write scripts and perform plays about pioneer life in Indiana during the period of Lincoln's childhood.

Resources:

1. Young Abraham Lincoln: Log Cabin President by Andrew Woods

2. Meet Abraham Lincoln by Patricia A. Pingry

3. Abe Lincoln: The Boy Who Loved Books by Kay Winters and Nancy Carpenter

4. The Floating House by Scott Russell Sanders

5. Young Abe Lincoln: His Teenage Years in Indiana by W. Fred Conway

6. Copy of the Gettysburg Address – Possible source: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/gadd/

7. IHC smartDESKTOP Resource Connection (http://resource.smartdesktop.org)

8. Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial Website (http://www.nps.gov/libo/)

Other Materials Needed:

1. Pencils

2. Writing paper

3. Brown crayons or chalk

4. Scraps of wood large enough for writing

5. Copies of “Letters to Lincoln Rubric” (See Assessment section of lesson plan)

Assessment:

1. The timeline activity online can be self-assessed by students since the letters will only fit on the timeline in correct chronological order and will disappear from the screen when they are placed correctly.

2. The letters the students write in response to Lincoln's imaginary letters will be assessed for both Social Studies and Language Arts skills using the following “Letters to Lincoln Rubric.”