This instructional unit uses The Grapes of Wrath and digital images from the American Memory collections to explore cultural and literary themes. Students use the American Memory collections to conduct research and gather artifacts. As a culminating activity, students create a museum exhibition that shows a meaningful juxtaposition of artifacts, oral histories, and text that supports their identified themes. Many online resources and teacher support materials are available at the website. (author/ncl)

Career-technical students in Arts & Communication, Agriculture, and Human Services career fields can use the information and images from these lessons to examine the social, economic, and political situations of migrant workers during the 1930's, the time period for Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath. Additionally, English teachers may want to use ethnographic research to explore the connection between the social, cultural, and literary contexts of literature. A sample lesson plan is included, though teachers might choose to target their students’ search to involve texts and subjects other than The Grapes of Wrath by using select components of the lesson. Teachers could, for example, provide students with a definition of what an ethnographic collection entails (and any relevant handouts, copies of which are provided at the site), and then have students self-select subjects and/or texts with which to create their ethnographic collections. (jrs)