Eighth graders, after assuming identities of prominent figures from the 1920's and looking at slides and data from the era, relate, in diary form, the cultural, economic and political changes that happened in America between 1920 and 1939.

Eighth graders consider the plight of migrant farmers during the Great Depression. In this historical perspectives instructional activity, 8th graders watch the film based on Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and then discuss the...