At Home: 1920: Ella Oelke: Activities

Suggested Activities

1. Oral Interviews

The theme of this interview will be the importance of education and what people are willing to do to receive higher education. Like Ella, many college students must be willing to work in order to pay for their education and living expenses.

Interview a college student and find out about their experiences. You might ask the following kinds of questions:

Why did you decide to go to college?
Is college expensive?
Do you have to work in order to pay for college? What kind of work do you do?
Is your family helping you? How?
Do you think a college education is important? Why?

If you don't know anyone in college right now, then interview an adult who has been to college. You can even interview your teacher!

2. Map Activity: Comparing the Past to the Present

Compare the 1921 road map of Illinois in Maps Maps with a road map today.

Make a list of the different kinds of roads on today's map.
Do you think there was as great a variety of roads during Ella's time?

Make a list of the most important roads in your life:

For example, the roads you take to school or the roads you take to visit your best friend.
Imagine if those roads no longer existed. What would you do?

Write a story about living without roads. You may want to begin like this:

"One morning I woke early and I looked outside my window. Something was very different. The road in front of my house had turned into a field and in that field there were cows..."

3. Flip Book

Create an illustrated Flip Book for your story.

On making Flip Books

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9