First Lady Lesson Plan: "Left Foot, Right Foot": The History of Shoes (2024)

"Left Foot, Right Foot": The History of Shoes
Letitia Tyler: Economics, Discovery and Daily Life

Skill: Elementary School
Time Required: 2-3 class periods

Required Documents

Introduction:

Letitia Tyler was born in 1790 and died of a stroke in 1842. She was the wife of the tenth President of the United States, John Tyler. She lived in a time of great invention and the beginning of industrialization. Many things we take for granted today did not exist when she was a child. One example of this is the process for making shoes. Today most people have multiple pairs of shoes that we buy based on attractiveness, fashion and comfort. When Letitia Tyler was a child, shoes were made by hand by craftsmen known as cobblers. It wasn't until she was 10 years old that a Philadelphia cobbler named William Young perfected a process for making different shoes for the right and left foot. Before that, shoes for each foot were made exactly the same. This lesson will look at the development of shoes over the centuries.

Objectives:

Students will use the internet to research the development of shoes through history; will use a graphic organizer to trace the development of shoes through history; and will create a multimedia presentation that shows the development of shoes throughout history.

Materials Required:

Computerswith internet access or computer lab; multimedia projector and screen orinteractive board; Graphic Organizer “The History of Shoes” (Included with thislesson); a multimedia presentation suchas Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple Keynote.

Procedures:

1. 1. The teacher will have the students make a list of allthe pairs of shoes they have in a notebook, journal or on a scrap piece ofpaper. This would be an excellent bell work or journal activity. When thelesson begins, briefly discuss with the class how many pairs of shoes theyhave, you might also want to discuss how many shoes their family members have,or how many pairs belong to everyone in their household. The idea is to establishthat today we have multiple pairs of shoes for multiple purposes.

2. 2. The second step is to break the class into partners orsmall groups. Explain that the students will be using the computer to researchthe history of shoes. Each group will be required to complete a graphicorganizer by listing three facts regarding the making or use of shoes inseveral historical time periods. These eras will include ancient times, themiddle ages, the colonial period and modern shoes. Pass out the graphic andhave the students search for and write down 3 facts from each historical periodabout shoes. The teacher may want to increase or decrease this number based onpreference. This can be done in a computer lab, on shifts using classroomcomputers or even broken up as a homework assignment. If computers are notavailable at school the teacher could create groups of 4 and assign each membera specific era.

3. 3. Once the research is complete the students willbe required to create a multimedia presentation using a presentation programsuch as MicrosoftPowerPoint or Apple Keynote. The teacher can set up a rubric to assess thisproject. This can be done easily and free at rubistar.org. The URL is listedbelow under sources and resources. One of the options is for a multimediaproject. This way each teacher can set the rubric up to assess whateverelements they deem necessary for the project such as flying text, transitions,background, sound, images etc. If either the students or teacher is not familiaror confident using PowerPoint there is an online tutorial listed as the lastURL in the sources and resources section of this lesson plan.

Extending the Lesson:

This lesson could be extended by having the students design their own shoes. This could be done with paper and pencil or there are some design your own shoes websites on the Internet. One for women’s shoes is listed below. Nike and Adidas have design options on their websites as well.