Home3eCurriculum notes
English · Year 3e · Learning Journey 6 · Theme 3 Travel and migration · B1

On the road: the Dust Bowl and the Mother Road

In the 1930s, dust storms drove thousands of families from the Great Plains to California, along Route 66. A photo became the symbol of a whole era. I imagine their journey with “if” sentences.

B1if + preterite, wouldI wish I had
Yellow card · May · 6 lessons

Hypotheses and wishes

To imagine a situation, use if + past simple, then would. To describe a photo, make careful guesses. Tap the cards.

In the foreground, a young mother is looking into the distance. She seems worried; she might be thinking about her children's future. If I were her, I would feel desperate. If they had money, they would buy food and go home. I wish they had a real house.
if I were
Imaginary situation: if + past simple, would.
If I were her, I would feel desperate.
would
In the main clause: would + base verb.
If they had money, they would buy food.
I wish + preterite
I wish + past simple for an unreal wish.
I wish they had a house.
she might be
A careful guess: she might / may be + V-ing.
She might be thinking of her children.

My words → tap a card: it turns over and I hear the word

Culture → the Dust Bowl, an American migration

Black and white photo: a worried mother with her children around her
Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California, 1936 · Dorothea Lange, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, a long drought hit the Great Plains (Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas). The soil, worn out by too much ploughing, turned into dust: huge storms, the “black blizzards”, made the sky dark. This was the Dust Bowl.

Hundreds of thousands of people who had lost everything left for California along Route 66, from Chicago to Los Angeles, hoping to work as fruit pickers. People called them “Okies”, a nasty nickname. In 1936, Dorothea Lange photographed a 32-year-old mother and her children in a pea pickers' camp in Nipomo: Migrant Mother became the picture of a whole era.

In 1939, the writer John Steinbeck told the story of a family's journey in The Grapes of Wrath and called Route 66 “the Mother Road”. The singer Woody Guthrie wrote his Dust Bowl Ballads about them (1940).

Did you know? → tap a card

I listen → describing Migrant Mother

Look at the photo, then listen. Write down two guesses about the mother and the final wish. Add your own sentence with If I were…

I watch

Video: “The Dust Bowl and the Depression” · channel NBC News Learn · watch on YouTube. The video only loads when you tap (youtube-nocookie player).

My mission during the video
  1. Write down two causes of the Dust Bowl.
  2. Write down where the families go and why.
  3. Write a sentence with if + past simple, would.

I watch too

Video: “Behind the icon, Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother” · channel Smarthistory · watch on YouTube. The video only loads when you tap (youtube-nocookie player).

My mission during the video
  1. Write down two facts about how the photo was taken.
  2. Explain why this photo became an icon.
The lessons in this learning journey (6)
  1. The Great Plains: a map and a disaster.
  2. Black blizzards: what was the Dust Bowl?
  3. Migrant Mother: describing a photograph.
  4. Route 66, the Mother Road.
  5. Grammar: if I were…, I would…
  6. Final task: a migrant child's diary.
Sentence starters → for my final task
  • “Dear diary, today we…”
  • “We left Oklahoma because…”
  • “On Route 66, we saw…”
  • “If I were…, I would…”
  • “I hope that…”
For the teacher → goals and official curriculum
  • Theme 3 “Travel and migration” → topic: migration inside the United States. Link with theme 6. 2020 theme: travel and migration.
  • Analyse a famous photo (Migrant Mother) and a documentary video; understand the causes of a migration.
  • B1 grammar: hypotheses with if + past simple / would; I wish + past simple; describing a picture (in the foreground, she seems…, she might be…).
  • Final task: the diary of a migrant child on Route 66.

Texts and materials: Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother (1936, Library of Congress); NBC News Learn and Smarthistory videos; John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (1939), introduced (the text is still under copyright).

Theme 3 “Travel and migration”. Source: French national curriculum for modern languages, cycle 4, BO no. 31 of 30 July 2020 (in force in 3e in 2026-2027); matching theme of the English curriculum, BO no. 22 of 29 May 2025, which will apply in 3e from September 2028.

Worksheet to fill in (paper or ENT)

The same learning journey, to print or to put on the ENT. For a PDF, choose “Save as PDF” in the print window.