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Lesson Plan

Political Parenthood: Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Remembers

John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site

Grade Level:

High School: Ninth Grade through Twelfth Grade

Subject:

Social Studies

Lesson Duration:

60 Minutes

Common Core Standards:

9-10.RH.1, 9-10.RH.2, 9-10.RH.3, 9-10.RH.4, 9-10.RH.5, 9-10.RH.7, 9-10.RH.8, 9-10.RH.9

State Standards:

Massachusetts Social Studies Curriculum Frameworks
USI.T6
Rebuilding the US: Industry and Immigration
USHII. T2
Modernity in the US: Ideologies and Economics
USHII. T4
Defending Democracy: The Cold War and Civil Rights at Home

Additional Standards:

National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies
1. Culture
2. Time, Continuity, and Change
3. People, Places, and Environments
4. Individual Development and Identity
5. Individuals, Groups, and Institutions
6. Power, Authority, and Governance

Essential Question

How is history created?
Can a person narrate their own story for history?

Objective

By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:
Identify who Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy was and what role she played in how President Kennedy is remembered.
Evaluate the ways that historians form a complex picture of persons from history.

Background

Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy: A Life to Remember

Commemorating Camelot: Three Women Who Shaped JFK’s Legacy
Section - A Mother's Memory

A History of 83 Beals Street, Brookline, Massachusetts: Birthplace of John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Sections - Becoming a National Historic Site, and John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site

NPS Photo Gallery: Dedication Day
Photos from the dedication of the John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site, Brookline, MA, May 29, 1969.

Preparation

Read the Introduction Quote as a class and discuss the related questions.

Break class into groups or pairs, to read additional quote(s) about Mrs. Kennedy and answer related questions.

Student Groups or pairs read the transcript or listen to the audio tour for two of the rooms in the John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site Audio Tour. Groups take notes and answer related questions.

Breaking from groups, students individually read Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. Site Bulletin and answer questions.

Students complete the creative writing activity to create a tour of their own homes from both an outside perspective and their own. A classroom discussion of the questions follows.

Procedure

Introduction:

Inquiry Quote & Question:

“I have always enjoyed living and working, and I believe I have had a great life, I consider myself very lucky. I had a wonderful youth; my father gave me the stimulation of travel [and] zest - curiosity and interest and enthusiasm for life. My mother bestowed on me Faith and common sense. I fell in love young and married the man I loved, and lived a full life with him – from finance to the movies to politics to diplomacy. I have been ideally happy with my children.”

• - Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald Kennedy

Based on this quote, how would you describe Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald Kennedy? What were her values?
 

Resource 1: 7 Quotes of Mrs. Kennedy

With your group, describe Mrs. Kennedy based on your assigned quote(s).

“I looked on child-rearing not only as a work of love and duty but as a profession that was fully as interesting and challenging as any honourable profession in the world and one that demanded the best that I could bring to it.”

• Mrs. Kennedy, Times To Remember, 87

“As each new baby came along, he or she was indexed and the card contained all of the primary vital statistics such as date and place of birth, church of baptism, names of godparents, and any other pertinent data. In due course I added the date and place of Confirmation and First Communion. Meanwhile, there were entries on anything of importance concerning health and physical welfare. The child was weighted each Saturday night and if there was a loss of weight two weeks in a row I took measures: perhaps a richer diet and less exercise until the scale went up. Vaccinations, Schick tests and results, eye examinations, dental examinations. Everything went onto the cards, including dates and notations of childhood diseases and aftereffects, the names of the doctors in case of relapse or complications or the need of more information later on. Thus, I maintained a health summary on small cards, literally at the reach of a fingertip.” 

• Mrs. Kennedy, Times To Remember, 77

Teacher Note: Mrs. Kennedy kept records on each of the children in a small card file. More Information can be heard in the Boudoir room of her Audio Tour.

“When Joe became Ambassador to the Court of St James’s and we all went over there the English Press treated my card file as a phenomenon of the magnitude of Henry Ford’s assembly line. My dutifully kept box of file cards thus became a symbol of ‘American efficiency’. Actually, it had just been a matter of ‘Kennedy desperation’.”

• Mrs. Kennedy, Times To Remember, 91

“I don’t want to give an impression that our lives somehow revolved around meals and mealtimes, but the fact was these were about the only times for Joe and me to talk with the children and, more important we both felt, to encourage them to have their own ideas and learn to speak up for them. I also had a bulletin board someplace the children were sure to see it…and I would clip items from the papers and magazines and pin them up there. The girls and boys who were at the age of reading and reasoning were supposed to read or at least scan these in order to be able to say something about the topics of the day—opinions, comments, questions, objects, or confessions of sheer confusion or bewilderment or disbelief, or at least something about current events during the mealtime conversations. Surprisingly, these were spontaneous conversations. They were fun. Yet they were certainly not meant to be pointless chatter, and I led them and popped in questions or made comments according to the flow of talk."

• Mrs. Kennedy, Times To Remember, 93

“I have always felt that the more experiences a child has and the more things he sees and hears, the more interested in life he is likely to be, and the more interesting his own life is likely to be. On the whole I think my conviction that my children should have many ‘learning experiences’ and should use their minds to the fullest capacity, discovering the world for themselves through personal encounters with the world outside, worked out well and perhaps had something to do with their curiosity, their enthusiasm for new adventures, their confidence in knowing that life was exciting.”

• Mrs. Kennedy, Times To Remember, 86

“I think we always had a dog in the house…there were so many through the years, including mutts from the pound as well as purebreds, that I can’t begin to sort out their identities and eras.”

• Mrs. Kennedy, Times To Remember, 300

“There was talk of the ‘Kennedy Clan’ a term I dislike. The idea of ‘clannishness’ has, for me, connotations of narrowness, exclusivity and suspicious rejection of other people and indifference to their interests. This is diametrically opposed to the ideals of our family, and those which they brought with them into public life.”

• Mrs. Kennedy, Times To Remember,  135

1. Referencing your quote, how would you describe Mrs. Kennedy?

Resource 2: Mrs. Kennedy’s Audio Tour of John F. Kennedy’s Birthplace

Audio Tour (and Transcripts) with photos. 

Students choose two of the rooms to read about/listen to and take notes with a partner. As you learn about your rooms, think back to the quotes you’ve just read. Also think: is there someone in your life that fits this mold?

Discuss your notes and answer the following prompt with your partner:
 

1. What values (ideas or types of behavior that one believes are important) did Mrs. Kennedy try to instill in her children?
2. What items in the house show these values?
3. What connections can you make between the values from your Mrs. Kennedy quote and your room from her house tour?

Resource 3: Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. Site bulletin: Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.: Patriarch of the Kennedys

While Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy contributed to the creation of the site, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. was incapacitated with a stroke. How do you think Mr. Kennedy would have described daily life and the importance of the objects in the house?

Final Activity: A Tour of My Home

Have students complete the following creative writing activity: Think of a home where you have lived and imagine that someone is giving a tour of it. It can be either a place you have lived before or where you currently live. Write a script that imagines how a tour guide who does not know you might describe the home. Now, write a script that shows how you would give a tour of the home.

After students have written their scripts, discuss the following questions:
 

1. What are some ways that your two scripts are different?
2. Do your scripts describe different significance in the same items, or do they comment on different items altogether?
3. Encourage students to share examples from their individual work. How can knowing personal stories help people to understand historic places?
4. What place do historians have or not have in interpreting personal stories of historic places?

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