Grades 6-8 Lesson Plan - Keeping a Travel Diary

Map 12 Main Page

Core Map: Rand McNally Junior Auto Trails Map, Florida (Chicago: Rand McNally for Texaco, ca. 1924). Newberry Library call number: RMcN AE 017.2   © 1924 by RMC, R.L.03-S-87. www.randmcnally.com (Printable PDF version of the Core Map)

Overview
In this lesson students investigate aspects of a map created in the early days of interstate automobile travel. Students use the map to understand how technological change has affected interstate travel.

Objectives
By the end of this lesson students are expected to:

1. recognize ways that transportation has changed over time.
2. analyze ways that changes in transportation have an impact on communities.
3. evaluate the role of transportation in transforming a region.

Materials
Computer image or overhead of core map, copies of core map for students, modern automobile map of same area as the core map, current guidebook of same route, Road Guide 2 (1920), Road Guide 3 (1939)

Time
One hour of class time, plus research time

Getting Started

1. Share an excerpt from Road Guide 3, published in 1939. Alternately, you could share from a different travel diary, your own or someone else's.

2. Discuss with students some of their experiences that are related to what they have read or heard you read from Road Guide 3 or travel diaries in Getting Started step 1.

3. Also discuss the reasons for writing a travel diary (giving others an idea of what the experience was like, a description of the place, a sense of relationship to the environment, etc.).

1. Present the core map on the computer, in printed form, or on an overhead transparency.

2. Allow students time to search the map for background information that helps them understand what is on the map (names, drawings, title, etc.). See the curator's notes for specific explanations of the map symbols.

3. Direct students to the portion of the legend that identifies symbols for paved, improved, graded, and dirt roads. Ask them what they think the numbers along the lines that represent roads are there to show. Assign them one of the named routes to follow. Have them calculate the percentage of this main road that is in each of the four categories.

4. Have them share their findings with a small group or with the class as a whole.

5. Use a modern map of the same area and have students compare the condition of the road they used for the exercise above with its 1920s data. Discuss how the differing conditions of the roads would affect both those who use the roads as tourists and the lives of the people who live along in the area at the different times.

6. Tell the students that they are going to write diaries of two imaginary three-day journeys between Daytona Beach and Tampa. One journey took place in the 1920s or 1930s, the other in today's Florida. To research the entries for these trips the students should compare the supplied descriptions of this route from 1920 and 1939 (see Resources) with those in modern guidebooks or current web sites with travel information. Inform your students that they are researching trips that will start in the same location and travel in the same direction, though they may end up in different places after one night. They may stay in one town or city for only one night. They are to include details of the place where they stayed as well as at least one restaurant. They should also detail how they would fix a problem with the car that they could not fix themselves. They should include a postcard with an illustration of a scene along the route and a description of part of each trip. Depending on your classroom situation, you may change the assignment to add or subtract days for the trips.

For 3 points, the student creates a diary that includes most of the requirements listed in Developing the Lesson step 6 and that usually gives an accurate sense of the difference in conditions between the 1920s or 1930s and today.

For 2 points, the student creates a diary that includes some of the requirements listed in Developing the Lesson step 6 and that often gives an accurate sense of the difference in conditions between the 1920s or 1930s and today.

For 1 point, the student creates an incomplete diary that includes few of the requirements listed in Developing the Lesson step 6 and that seldom gives an accurate sense of the difference of conditions between the 1920s or 1930s and today.

Extensions

1. The student could create a diary of a particular time in the future based on projected conditions.
2. The student could create more ephemera to illustrate the experience of a particular trip, for example, ticket stubs, souvenirs, drawings, or posters.