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Oregon Trail Journal

Feburary 2017
The Assignment: A Personal Journal

Hello Fourth Graders and Parents,

Over the next few months of the school year you are going to have the opportunity to step into the shoes of a pioneer. You will choose a name and become a traveler on the Oregon Trail. You find out what is like to walk about 2,000 miles in someone else’s shoes.

INTRODUCTION: Background discussion. From the study of the journals we can learn of the past, live better in the present, and plan for the future.

Getting Started…

The following questions could be asked:
A. What is a journal?
B. Who writes in journals?
C. What do you keep or write in a journal?
D. Have you ever read a journal written by someone who lived a long time ago?
1. Share what you read.
2. Was this journal written by a relative or by someone else?
3. How did you come by this journal?
E. Give reasons that express the importance of keeping a journal.
Examples: dates (birth – death), marriage, special events, descriptions, thoughts, food, feelings, etc.

For this project you will choose a name of one the pioneers and imagine based on our/your research what they might have written in a journal.

Click on the links below to find a list of names of the earliest oregonians and choose one:
http://www.oregonpioneers.com/1838.htm
or here:
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~orgenweb/cww1.html

After this week of introduction, students will make their own journals. The first journals will be made into the shape of a book. Children may also design their own cover. Paper will be stapled into the booklet and cut into the chosen shape. There will be enough paper in the journal for one week. Each week for 9 weeks students will create new journal with a new theme for example;  animals on the trail or disease on the trail. After nine weeks the journals will be bound together and leather cover will be put on.

The students will grow in understanding of the importance of journal writing for their own pleasure and for history. I hope that the project helps the students make meaning of their world and recognize journal writing as a tool for helping them realize their power for good.