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Summary and Objective
Students will understand that there are similarities and differences in the lives of young adolescents from 1859 to the present. They will also look at the differences in writing styles of diary entries then and now.
Teaching Plan
Step 1.
Discuss primary sources. What are they? Why are they important? What type of primary source would be typical if it were written by a child?
Step 2.
Copy an excerpt from the Diary of Ellen Louisa Arms (Sheldon) attached to this lesson. Hand out to students and discuss in what time period they think it was written. What might the age of the writer be?
Step 3.
Hand out copies of the diary transcripts and have students work in small groups. They should look for similarities and differences of "then and now" in the lives of young adolescents. What other clues can you find about her life? (the social status of her family, etc.) Students record their findings and should be ready to discuss them.
Step 4.
Discuss the writing style of Ellen Louisa Arms. Does it contain many details? Does it have voice? Is the vocabulary elaborate?
Step 5.
Have students choose a diary entry and without changing the actual event, rewrite it to sound as if it might have been written today.
Step 6.
Now ask students to write a diary entry describing a typical day in their life. Have them write it in their own voice and then rewrite that same event as it may have been written by Ellen Louisa Arms.
Step 7.
Students share their diary entries and discuss how and why they were written in the specific style.
Step 8.
Optional: Students could begin a diary of their own.
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