Road Trip Main Idea The students will read a letter describing a family car trip taken in 1915. The students will carefully read the letter looking for clues into automobile travel in the early years. The students will note differences with automobile travel as we know it today and examine the observations made on the trip. The students will then compare present day maps with one from 1913. Students will examine a route guide written in 1913. Objectives The students will: 1. Compose a written description of car travel today. 2. Read, analyze and locate information from historic text. 3. Interpret a travel guide written in 1913. 4. Read and interpret maps from 1913 as well as present day maps. Materials 1. Blank Postcards – one per student 2. 1915 Overland car, overhead transparency 3. Student copy of Jennie Waterman Letter 4. Teachers Annotated copy of Jennie Waterman Letter 5. Photographs of early auto travel 6. Travel Log Worksheet – one per student or one per pair of students 7. Let Me Tell You About The Farms I Saw Worksheet - one per student or pair 8. 1915 Road map from King’s Guide , overhead 9. Kings Official Route Guide, Pg. 151 - one per student or pair, overhead transparency optional 10. Present day road map, Mayville to Yale (Color optional) - one per student or pair 11. Finding the Way worksheet - one per student or pair 12. Travel Log Worksheet – Answer Key 13. Let Me Tell You About The Farms I Saw Worksheet – Answer Key 14. Finding the Way worksheet – Answer Key Teaching Activities 1. Opening the Activity Ask the students to recall a car trip that they have recently taken. Ask them to recall not the destination - but the car trip itself. Did anything happen on the trip or was it routine and uneventful? Discuss. Distribute the blank post cards. Ask the students to address the card to a friend. In the space provided, the students are to write a note that describes the car trip – not the destination. Did anything happen? What did they see out the window? Where did they eat? What did they do in the car? Did they talk? Did they play games?

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Road Trip

After writing the card, the students may draw a picture on the front. Read several of the cards in class. Discuss what the students recall about the trips that they have taken in cars. Guide them to the realization that long trips by car are now routine events that are generally dull and unremarkable. Display the postcards in the classroom. 2. Continuing the Activity Tell the students that travel by car was not always routine, simple and trouble free. The class will be reading a letter written by a teenaged girl who took an automobile trip through Michigan in 1915. Caution the students that some parts of the letter are difficult to understand and that you expect them to have many questions. Project the image of the 1915 Overland. Project images of early auto travel. Access what the students might already know, or think they know, about early cars and car travel. List that prior knowledge on the board. Note: The description of Jennie Waterman’s car trip will be much different than the experiences of the class. Travel by car in those early days was new and filled with uncertainty. Cars themselves were unreliable and breakdowns not only occurred but were expected. The roads were few in number and were of generally poor quality, especially after rain or snow. Road maps and the internet were not available, signs did not point the way to a destination and gas stations were infrequent. “Happy Meals” were not available. It was not unusual for people to have never traveled more than a few miles from their homes. A long distance road trip in 1915 was truly an exciting adventure. Project the image of the King’s Michigan route map. Pair up the students. Read one or two paragraphs with the students and model how to note questions about the text. Note: Students should indicate questions about the material directly on the text. Encourage them to write questions in the margins and to neatly underline or circle any unclear material. Working in pairs, the students continue to read, finishing the selection.

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Road Trip Now guide the students through the letter a second time. (Use the annotated Teacher Copy as a guide.) Encourage the students to work together to clarify uncertainties. Distribute the Travel Log worksheet. Encourage students to scan the material to locate the answers. Distribute the Let Me Tell You About The Farms I Saw worksheet. Note: One of the more obvious differences from a letter that we would write today is the large number of references to farms and farming. Use the worksheet to help the students realize that the America of 1915 was largely an agricultural society. Encourage the students to consider what they know about the audience for her letter as they answer question B. 3. Concluding the Activity Challenge the students to follow the King’s route guide on an imaginary trip from Mayville, Michigan to Yale, Michigan. This is the route followed by the Waterman family. Project the road map of Michigan from King’s route guide. Distribute King’s Official Route Guide, page 151. (It may be helpful to use the overhead projector.) Refer the students to the third day of the trip. (The day began in Mayville. The car broke a spring near Yale.) Distribute the Present day road map section. Distribute the Finding the Way worksheet. Challenge the students to follow a small section of the King’s guide on the modern road map. Note: The King’s guide runs only East to West, from Port Huron to Bay City. The students will have to work through the guide backwards as the Waterman’s would have, or you may wish to suggest that they try the easier method of following the map as presented in the guide (from Yale to Mayville). Extending the Activity 1. As a culminating activity, the students create a route guidebook similar to King’s. Selecting a local destination, they may not use street names, only landmarks (the blue house). They will also need to devise a method of distance measurement

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Road Trip such as steps, sidewalk squares or blocks. The students should name their guidebook and create a cover for it. Display in the classroom. 2. Visit The Henry Ford website. Encourage the students to go along on a simulated Model T road trip. http://www.thehenryford.org/education/smartfun/welcome.html 3. Arrange for the students to use an internet mapping service such as Mapquest or Yahoo. http://www.mapquest.com/main.adp http://maps.yahoo.com/ 4. Post a present day road map of Michigan in the classroom (available at Secretary of State offices). Assign the students to write or state a route that could be taken from East Jordan, Michigan to Port Huron, Michigan. For extra practice, select various Michigan locations for the students to select driving directions to. Assessing the Learning Did the Students: 1. Read the Waterman letter and contribute to the discussion? 2. Indicate questions about the Waterman letter by marking on the letter? 3. Write a post card describing a car trip? 4. Complete the Travel Log worksheet? 5. Complete Let Me Tell You About The Farms I Saw worksheet? 6. Complete the Finding the Way worksheet? Additional Resources Early Adventures with the Automobile http://www.ibiscom.com/auto.htm Travel in the 1920’2 http://www.oldfashionedliving.com/travelmemories.html Model T Road Trip http://www.hfmgv.org/education/smartfun/welcome.html How I learned to Drive a Model T Ford http://www.modelt.org/tlearn.html Historic Michigan Trails and Roads http://www.sos.state.mi.us/history/museum/musewalk/barn/road3.html Alice Ramsey, Coast to Coast Trip, 1909 http://www.writeontime.net/history.htm#highlights The Model T by One Who Was There http://vintagecars.about.com/cs/americanclassics/a/gossettsmodelT.htm#b

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Social Studies Standards Addressed Strand I Content Standard 2 – Comprehending the Past Early Elementary Benchmark 1 – Identify who was involved and where it happened in stories about the past. Benchmark 2 – Describe the past through the eyes and experiences of those who were there as revealed through their records. Benchmark 3 - Recount events from simple biographies of women and men representing a variety of societies from the past. Late Elementary Benchmark 1 - Summarize the sequence of key events in stories describing life from the past in their local community, the state of Michigan, and other parts of the United States. Benchmark 2 - Use narratives and graphic data to compare the past of their local community, the state of Michigan and other parts of the United States with present day life in those places. Benchmark 3 - Recount the lives and characters of a variety of individuals from the past representing their local community, the state of Michigan, and other parts of the United States. Content Standard 3 – Analyze and Interpret the Past Late Elementary Benchmark 1 - Use primary sources to reconstruct past events in their local community. Strand II Geographic Perspective Content Standard 1- People, Places and Cultures Early Elementary Benchmark 1 - Describe the human characteristics of places and explain some basic causes for those characteristics. Benchmark 2 - Describe the natural characteristics of places and explain some basic causes for those characteristics.

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Road Trip Benchmark 3 - Locate and describe the major places, cultures, and communities of the nation and compare their characteristics. Content Standard 2 – Human / Environment Interaction Early Elementary Benchmark 1 - Describe how people use the environment to meet human needs and wants. Benchmark 2 - Describe the ways in which their environment has been changed by people, and the ways their lives are affected by the environment. Late Elementary Benchmark 4 - Explain how various people and cultures have adapted to and modified the environment. Content Standard 3 – Location, Movement and Connections Late Elementary Benchmark 1 - Describe major kinds of economic activity and explain the factors influencing their location. Strand V Inquiry Content Standard 1 - Information Processing Early Elementary Benchmark 1 - Locate information using people, books, audio/video recordings, photos, simple maps, graphs and tables. Benchmark 3 - Organize information to make and interpret simple maps of their local surroundings and simple graphs and tables of social data drawn from their experience. Late Elementary Benchmark 1 - Locate information about local, state and national communities using a variety of traditional sources, electronic technologies, and direct observations. Benchmark 2 - Organize social science information to make maps, graphs and tables. Benchmark 3 - Interpret social science information about local, state, and national communities from maps, graphs, and charts.

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