Name: ___________________________________________________________________________________
English Class Period: __________
Reading Class Period: __________
Unit Focus: Focused on the Dust Bowl and how
families fought for a meaningful existence and
survival, this unit will offer you different
perspectives on how people respond to
adversity, the lessons that can be learned from
hardship and failure, and what happens when
we take good fortune for granted. You will also
gain a basic understanding of the social and
environmental issues farmers faced in the
1930s, noting how reading literary and
informational texts enhances your
understanding of the topic.
Big Theme Questions for our novel unit:
1. How do difficult experiences help define
us and help us discover who we are?
2. What effect does hardship have on
personal dreams and hopes?
3. How do loss and grief affect family
relationships? How can people rebuild their lives
after the loss of a loved one?
4. What is the meaning of home? What does
it mean to be “at home with yourself”?
The Dust Bowl
For eight years dust
blew on the southern
plains. It came in a
yellowish-brown haze
from the South and
in rolling walls of
black from the North.
The simplest acts of
life — breathing,
eating a meal, taking
a walk — were no
longer simple.
Children wore dust
masks to and from
school, women hung
wet sheets over
windows in a futile
attempt to stop the
dirt, farmers watched
helplessly as their
crops blew away.
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Make sure for ALL packet questions that you restate and answer, or
you will NOT receive credit.
Winter 1934
January 1934
Vocabulary- fierce, panhandle, fidgety, scowling, riled
1. What is free verse? Do you like reading a novel that is written in free verse? Why or why
not?
2. What is Billie Jo’s passion? Do you have something you feel passionate about? Describe
it.
3. What does the author say and show about Billie Jo in this section?
4. Who is Livie? How does Billie Jo feel about her leaving?
5. Create a character analysis organizer to chart the development of Billie Jo and Pa
throughout the novel. Keep track of their descriptions (physical and emotional),
evidence/quotations that reveal their thoughts and point of view regarding various
events, their responses to and interactions with other characters, the consequences of
their actions, and the possible lessons learned from those actions.
6. On Stage is different than most of the other poems because of its structure. Describe
the poem’s structure and tell how it helps us feel how Billie Jo felt when she played at
the Palace.
7. Discuss the harshness of life for Billie’s family and others. Focus on how they find joy
despite the hardships.
February- March 1934
Vocabulary- oilcloth, spindled, dazzled
1. How do the drought and the constant dust affect Billie Jo’s family?
2. What kind of person is Ma? How do you know?
3. Billie Jo says that Daddy and Ma don’t cry about the dust and the mud. Why do you
think they don’t cry?
4. Find and describe interesting examples of the author’s use of free verse.
5. Did Mr. Hardly cheat Billie Jo at the store? What did she do about it?
6. In Fifty Miles South of Home, Billie writes very little, but that does not mean that it is of
little importance to her. Why do you think she wrote about the wind storm in Amarillo?
What does this say about the real concerns of the people who lived in the dust bowl?
7. What are ma’s rules for dining? What do you think about “chewing your milk”?
8. List a few things that we learned about ma and pa in Dazzled.
9. How did Billie do in the state tests? Is Billie content with how her ma reacts to the
news? What does she wish for?
10. Field of Flashing Light describes a typical dust storm. Retell what a storm is like in your
own words.
11. Discuss ma’s generosity and honesty despite her own poverty and how we can apply
that to our present lives.
Spring 1934
April-June 1934
Vocabulary- dazed, bittering, quaking, simmering
1. Why is playing piano important to Billie Jo?
2. How does Billie Jo feel about the baby that Ma is about to have? How do you know how
she feels?
3. How would you describe the mood of this section? Is it sad or hopeful? Explain.
4. What are ma’s ideas for the farm? What does Billie’s dad, Bayard think about them?
5. What “Great War off in France” did Bayard fight in? Name one of the few things he will
talk about concerning war.
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6. In Apples, Billie Jo uses repetition of the word “and”. What effect does this have on the
poem? What kind of picture does this paint in your mind?
7. On Sunday, after the dust, rain came, but it is “rain that was no blessing.” Why? Answe
Billie Jo’s question, “Who fared better?”
8. On what conditions does Ma let Billie Jo go on the road with Arley?
9. Reread Give Up on Wheat, discuss ma’s novel ideas and dad’s obstinacy to them.
10. The piano is a good distraction from the dust for Billie. What things do you do to
distract yourself from a problem?
11. Discuss the difference in Billie’s diary entries when describing hardships compared to
her entries describing things that bring happiness like playing piano and ma’s apple
tree.
Summer 1934
July-August 1934
Vocabulary- kerosene, chafed, carcasses, cereus plant
1. The summer starts out full of hope, however, an accident changes everything. Who does
Billie blame for the accident? How would you feel if you were Billie?
2. Who do you think is to blame for the accident? Explain.
3. Analyze Billie Jo’s nightmare.
4. What do you think Billie Jo will do now? What will her father do?
5. Contrast the mood of this section with that of the last section you read.
6. Copy some examples of striking similes from the text. Which similes appeal to the
senses: sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste?
7. What creature is responsible for the damage in Devoured? How is that meaningful
considering what happened soon after?
8. Billie Jo’s ma gave birth to a boy that died soon after. Thinking back to the very first
poem, how do you think Billie Jo’s dad felt about this?
9. How would you feel if you were Billie Jo and overheard the women saying such things
about you?
10. After the accident, the relationship changed between Billie and her dad. How? Does this
change make sense? Why or why not?
11. Why do you think that pa is really digging the hole beside the house?
12. What does the phrase, “Such a sorrow doesn’t come suddenly, there are a thousand
steps to take before you get there,” mean?
Autumn 1934
September–December 1934
Vocabulary- infantile, paralysis
1. How does Billie Jo’s father behave after Ma’s death? Why do you think he behaves this
way?
2. Describe Billie Jo’s relationship with her father after Ma’s death.
3. Why do you think Billie Jo can’t stand to watch the night-blooming flower wilt in the
morning sun? What is symbolic about this plant?
4. How would you describe Billie Jo’s relationship with Mad Dog?
5. Is Billie Jo still eager to leave Oklahoma? Explain.
6. How has Billie’s attitude changed toward her hands and the piano?
7. Billie Jo felt very deeply about the art she saw at the exhibit. How would you feel if you
could not see such things as art? What are some other things that we often take for
granted? List at least two.
8. Billie took the state tests again. Remember back to how Billie reacted to what her mom
said about how she did and compare it to how Billie feels now.
9. What happens to Jo De La Flor’s cows? Does he still have hope for the rest of them?
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10. At the art exhibit, Billie Jo sees pictures of her home country when the ground was lush
and green. Draw and color a picture of Billie Jo’s farm before and after the land turned
to dust.
Winter 1935
January 1935
Vocabulary- migrants, moonshine
1. What new details about the physical and historical setting did you notice?
2. How is Billie Jo haunted by Ma in this section?
3. Do you think Pa is making progress through his grief? How is he changing? How are
Billie Jo’s feelings toward him changing?
4. What does Billie Jo mean when she says, “I’m my father’s daughter”? Do you agree with
her conclusion? Explain.
5. Discuss the mood of this section.
6. Think about a time when you felt distant from a friend or loved one and then became
close again. Write down everything you can remember.
February 1935
1. The birth of the baby affects Billie Jo deeply. What are the feelings that she needs to
just “walk off”?
2. Why does Billie Jo take an interest in the migrant family who live at the school
temporarily?
3. What does Billie Jo hope to achieve by entering the talent contest?
4. Have any of your earlier predictions about the characters been confirmed? Explain.
What new predictions do you have about the story?
5. Describe hoe Billie Jo felt after getting third place in the Palace Theatre competition.
How did her hands feel afterwards?
March 1935
1. What motivates Billie Jo to say, “I just want to go away”?
2. Have there ever been times when life seemed “brittle and sharp” to you? What made you
feel this way?
3. Why is it hard for a young person to be without a mother?
4. Why was Billie Jo desperate to get home in Dust Storm?
5. Describe how Billie Jo feels about her mother from what she says in Motherless. How
does this compare to her feelings when her mother was alive? Do people often feel the
way Billie did, after they lose a loved one?
6. Write a diary entry in which you are a member of Buddy William’s family. Either write
how you feel about living at the schoolhouse, or look back to events which led up to
their homelessness. Be creative and write whatever you feel will make us see what life
was like for many people at that time.
Spring 1935
April 1935
Vocabulary- warped, rickety, sulking, desperation, hospitality
1. Does Billie Jo think her relationship with her father is improving? Do you think it is?
Explain, using evidence from the story.
2. How is Billie Jo’s relationship with Mad Dog changing?
3. “Mad Dog scooped a handful of dust, like a boy in a sandpit. He said, ‘I love this land,
no matter what.’ I looked at his hands. They were scarless.” Why do you think Billie
noted that his were scarless?
4. What images does Hesse use to describe the dust storm—before, during, and after?
Why are these images effective?
5. What are the spots that Billie’s father has on his skin? (The last line of Skin is a clue.)
4
6. The dust hated the mail. What letter was delated in the mail because of this?
7. Many, many people decided to leave Oklahoma and head West. They did not have large
moving vans like we have today. Write a short story describing your move out of the
dust bowl. Where would you go? What would you take? How would you get your
possessions there?
May–June 1935
Vocabulary- idled, brontosaurus
1. In the poem “Hope,” how does the author personify the rain and the earth? What words
and phrases make each seem human?
2. What events in this chapter raise Billie Jo’s hopes? What events leave her feeling
disappointed?
3. Update your symbols chart and add to your list of similes.
4. Add information about Billie Jo to your character map.
5. Why do you think father saved Aunt Ellis’ invitation?
6. At the beginning of the section, Billie Jo feels like she let someone down. Who did she
let down? How?
7. Why do you think that someone would just leave a baby in the church? How is this
related to the Depression?
8. Many dinosaur fossils were found during this time in the dust bowl region. Why?
9. Billie Jo says that, “I ought to get out before my bones turn to stone.” What does this
mean?
Summer 1935
July–August 1935
Vocabulary- bitterness, tumbleweed
1. Why do you think the author chose the form she did for the poem “The Dream”? Why
does Billie Jo call the piano “my silent mother”?
2. What do you think is the major conflict in the novel? Explain your answer.
3. Describe the event that marks the climax of the story. What makes it the climax?
4. What has Billie Jo learned about her father? What has she learned about herself?
5. What is personification? In The Dream, Billie Jo personifies the piano as her mother.
What characteristics of her mother does she find in the piano?
6. How many months has it been since Ma died (Midnight Truth). What is Billie Jo’s
relationship with her dad and what are her feelings towards her Ma?
7. Why does Billie leave? Is she moving toward a goal or is she running away from
something?
8. In Gone West, who do you think the girl is that Billie recognizes?
9. Why do you think Billie decided to come home? Put yourself in Billie’s shoes and decide
for yourself if you would come home or stay in Flagstaff.
10. How is Billie’s decision to come home the turning point in the story?
11. Write a diary entry that Billie Jo’s father wrote after he discovered Billie Jo was gone.
Autumn 1935
October–December 1935
Vocabulary- mottled, ointment, betrothal, sorghum, diversification, comical
1. Describe Billie and her father’s new relationship.
2. How does Billie Jo respond to Louise? Why? Does Billie like the “other woman”? What
is she concerned that Louise will do?
3. Daddy and Billie took Aunt Ellis’ invitation, tore it into strips, and marked the poems
that ma had liked best. What does this signify to you?
4. In Thanksgiving List, poppies are set to bloom on ma and Franklin’s grave. Poppies were
mentioned in one of the earlier entries. How are the two instances related?
5. Have you ever had to welcome a newcomer into your family? Describe the experience.
5
6. What changes in Billie Jo and Pa contribute to the positive mood at the end of the
story? How does the setting reflect these changes?
7. How does the story end? (Make sure to mention the significance of daddy’s choice of
growing different crops, Louise, and the piano)
8. Did you find the ending of the story satisfying? Explain.
9. Name 5 things that Billie Jo is thankful for. Make your own list of 5 things that you are
thankful for.
10. What message do you think the author wanted to communicate in this novel?
Culminating Writing Task
Consider the title of the novel: Out of the Dust. How does the phrase “out of the dust” relate to
a theme of the novel? Write a multi-paragraph argumentative essay that analyzes how Hesse
conveys the meaning of the title and develops a theme through particular details, including the
setting and how Billie Jo changes as the story unfolds. Introduce and support your claims
about the theme of the novel with clear reasons and relevant textual evidence, including direct
quotations with page numbers.
TP-CASTT Poetry Analysis Directions
Title: What predictions can you make from the title? What are your initial thoughts about the
poem? What might be the theme of the poem?
Paraphrase: Before you begin thinking about meaning or trying to analyze the poem, don’t
overlook the literal meaning of the poem. Summarize the poem in your own words line by
line (long poems) or by stanzas (short poems).
Connotation: What is the connotative meaning of the poem? Find examples of imagery,
metaphors, similes, idioms, symbolism, point of view, sound devices etc. and elaborate on
their connotative meanings.
It is not necessary that you identify all the poetic devices within the poem. The ones you do
identify should be seen as a way of supporting the conclusions you are going to draw about
the poem.
Attitude: What attitude does the poet have toward the subject of the poem? Find and list
examples that illustrate the tone and mood of the poem.
Shift: Is there a shift in the tone/attitude of the poem? Where is the shift? What does the
tone shift to? Watch for the following keys to shifts:
Key words (but, yet, however, although)
Punctuation (dashes, periods, colons)
Stanza divisions
Changes in line and/or stanza length
Title: Revisit the title and explain any new insights it provides to the meaning of the poem
(interpretive level).
Theme: What is the overall theme of the poem? What is the poem saying about the human
experience, motivation, or condition?
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Poetic Portrait
Reread the poem "Beginning: 1920," the first entry of the book, and use it as a model to create a portrait of
yourself or another person. The portrait can describe such things as how or where the person was born, what
they look like, and what they like to do. Note the way Karen Hesse uses similes, comparisons with like or as
(e.g. "cheekbones like bicycle handles," "mean as a rattler") in her poem. Use your own similes in the poem
you write. The completed portraits must be illustrated with a photo or drawing inside the box, with the poem
written around the image.
Title: ____________________________________________________________________________________________
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8
9
10
In one year, Billie Jo grows and changes a great deal. Keep track of the following questions after you
read each of the main 7 sections.
Section
What are Billie Jo’s main
concerns?
How is Billie Jo the same?
How does she change?
Winter
1934
Spring
1934
Summer
1934
Autumn
1934
Winter
1935
Spring
1935
Autumn
1935
If Billie Jo were to describe herself in 1936, how might her life be different? How would it most likely
be the same?
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12
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Static
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

Characters:
Do not change or grow over the course of the story
Also called flat characters or two-dimensional characters
Usually minor characters or secondary characters
We have less information about these characters
Dynamic Characters:
 Change over the course of the story
 Also called round characters or three-dimensional characters
 Usually main characters or major characters
 We have much more information about these characters
Static Characters in Out of the Dust:
Describe a dynamic character in Out of the Dust
and explain how and why the character changed
during the story.
Dynamic Characters in Out of the Dust:
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Figurative Language in Out of the Dust
Figurative
Language
Definition
Page
#
Quote from the Novel
In my own words, this
means…
metaphor
personification
simile
hyperbole
alliteration
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Symbol
Symbolism, Imagery, and Allegory in Out of the Dust
Page
Quote from the Novel
In my own words, this means…
#
Dust
Ma’s
Apple
Trees
Fire
Rain
Babies
Daddy’s
Pond
Music
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Writing Free Verse Poetry
One question that's probably been boggling your mind is, "What's up with the poetry? I
thought I was reading a novel." Don't worry, we promise you are.
What's up, is that Hesse uses individual free-verse poems to move the plot forward, introduce
characters, and do all the same stuff book chapters do. In her acceptance speech for the Newbery
Medal for Out of the Dust, Hesse states that poetry was the only acceptable form for telling the story,
as its sparse style illustrates the hardships of the time period through its economy of words. We're
inclined to take her word for it.
The awesome thing about writing a novel in free-verse is that you get to do all kinds of sweet
stuff with language to develop the story and characters. Hesse takes advantage of the countless
possibilities this form opens up: Some of the chapters are only a few lines long, while others span
several pages, and sometimes the traditional method of stanzas flush left on the page goes out the
window to create a visual structure that uses all the page's white space. Check out Chapter 6, "On
Stage," where Billie Jo plays at the Palace—if you turn your book sidewise, the lines actually look
like a piano keyboard. Pretty clever, huh?
Line breaks are also an important part of Hesse's poetic style. In particular, she makes great
use of enjambment, a technique where a line's grammatical sentence carries over into the next line
rather than ending. Rather than giving you a pause, it instead urges you to continue reading on to
the next line. For example, in the chapter "Outlined by Dust," Billie Jo writes:
I can't help thinking / how it is for him, / without Ma. / Waking up alone, only / his shape / left in the bed,
/ outlined by dust.
The use of short lines here emphasizes the loneliness Daddy must feel as he adjusts to life
without Ma, while forcing us to feel it a bit for ourselves by sort of careening us into it through the
enjambment. Poetry is really cool, you guys.
5 Tips for Writing a Free Verse Poem
What’s the first rule of writing poetry? That there are no rules--it’s all up to you! Of course there are
different poetic forms and devices, and free verse poems are one of the many poetic styles; they have
no structure when it comes to format or even rhyming. Here are some tips to help you channel
your ideas into free verse poetry.
1. What is it? A free or blank verse poem doesn’t follow any specific guidelines. Instead, you can
let your thoughts run wild so that the words on the page read more like a conversation or
story.
2. Wait, isn’t that kind of hard? Yup, since free verse poems have no set structure it’s up to you
to make the poem sound great without rhyming or any type of pattern. Don’t worry if your
poem sounds different than most poems you’re used to reading--Dr. Seuss is lots of fun, but
rhyming isn’t for everyone. Your poem is unique and a reflection of you. Our lives don’t follow
flawless patterns, and your poetry doesn’t have to either.
3. So how does it start? First, settle on a theme or event you’d like to write about. Try to set the
scene in your head and go from there. Then write down some key words that relate to your
story. Since you don’t need to worry about matching up words and rhyming them, you
should be able to incorporate most of these words in your poem. Work backwards and create
the lines of your poems around those key words to flesh out the poem.
4. Five senses: To bring life to your poem, focus on incorporating the five senses into your
poem; devote one line to each sense, or sprinkle them throughout. This will help make the
reader understand exactly what image or scene your poem illustrates, and encourage your
audience to fully experience your work.
5. Figurative Language: make sure your poem includes an example of at least one of each of the
following: metaphor, simile, hyperbole, and personification.
Now write your own Free Verse Poem!
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Theme
Compassion
and Forgiveness
The Home
Dissatisfaction
Guilt and Blame
Suffering
Mortality
Out of the Dust Themes- to be answered at the end of the novel
Restate and Answer the Questions
1. How do the dust storms cause people to show compassion to each other?
2. How do her personal struggles teach Billie Jo to be empathetic toward others?
3. What about her journey away from home helps Billie Jo to forgive her father?
4. What role does Louise play in the process of Billie Jo and Daddy's healing?
Pick one and debate: Billie Jo leaving home ultimately helps her and her father to learn to
forgive each other.
While it results in many broken families and relationships, the Dust Bowl also draws
people closer and helps them to rely on each other.
1. Why does Billie Jo want to leave home so badly? How do her reasons change
throughout the story?
2. In what ways is the meaning of home tied to Ma for Billie Jo?
3. How do the dust storms outside the home parallel the grief and conflict inside it?
4. How does getting away from home help Billie Jo see it different?
Pick one and debate: Without losing Ma, Billie Jo never would have discovered the true
meaning of home.
While Billie Jo blames Daddy for the state of their home after Ma dies, she is equally
culpable.
1. Where does Billie Jo's discontent toward home come from?
2. What are some reasons why people leave the Panhandle throughout the story?
How does this affect Billie Jo?
3. How does Billie Jo's relationship with Mad Dog play a role in her dissatisfaction
with life?
4. How does Billie Jo's view of her circumstances change between the beginning and
end of the story?
Pick one and debate: Billie Jo's desire to get "out of the dust" is rooted as much in her
dissatisfaction with herself as in her dissatisfaction with her physical location.
Billie Jo's inability to see things from other people's points of view fuels her discontent
with where she is.
1. Do you think people are right to blame Billie Jo for the accident? Why or why not?
2. What role does blame play in Billie Jo and Daddy's struggle to communicate?
3. We know Billie Jo's perspective on the accident because we're reading her account
of it, but what about Daddy? What are his feelings regarding the accident, and
how does he respond to it?
Pick one and debate: In the end, Ma's accident paves the way for a stronger relationship
between Billie Jo and her father.
While Daddy originally accuses Ma of not knowing anything about farming, her death
causes him to reconsider some of her suggestions about how to run the farm.
1. How are the ways that Billie Jo and her father respond to Ma's death similar and
different?
2. Which description of suffering in the book affected you the most? What about its
images, details, and emotions caused you to respond this way?
3. Apart from the loss of her mother, what aspect of the Dust Bowl's conditions is
most painful for Billie Jo?
4. What can the characters' suffering teach readers about life in the Dust Bowl?
Pick one and debate: The accident and Billie Jo's subsequent pain mirror the suffering of
the land, people, and animals of the Dust Bowl.
The experiences of minor characters play a crucial role in developing the novel's theme of
suffering.
1. Besides Ma's accident, what other instances of death occur in the novel? What
purpose do they serve in developing this theme?
2. What role does the death of natural elements, like the night-blooming plant and
the wheat, play in the book's examination of mortality?
3. How do Billie Jo's views of mortality change throughout the story?
Pick one and debate: While Daddy turns inward as a result of Ma's death, Billie Jo comes
to appreciate life's beauty through knowledge of its fragility.
The inescapability of the dust in the story mirrors the inevitability of death.
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Themes in Out of the Dust continued…
Theme
Transformation
Art and Culture
Poverty
Perseverance
Restate and Answer the Questions
1. How does Billie Jo's view of herself change throughout the story?
2. What do we know about Ma's background? How does it relate to the theme of
transformation?
3. How does Louise transform Daddy's life? How do you know?
4. People aren't the only thing that changes over the course of the story. How does
the land transform as well?
Pick one and debate: Billie Jo's journey in Out of the Dust is as much about resolving
issues of insecurity and self-doubt as it is about recovering from the Dust
Bowl's conditions and Ma's death.
The land's recovery and destruction from dust storms mirrors Billie Jo's own process of
change as she struggles to move past the challenges in her life.
1. Imagine that you can travel back in time and give Billie Jo an iPod. What songs do
you think she'd most be able to relate to?
2. What types of art and culture are referenced in the book? What does this reveal
about life in the Panhandle?
3. How do you think Billie Jo's mother really feels about her daughter playing piano
professionally? Billie Jo thinks she could be jealous because she is getting to have
the career Ma wanted, but gave up for farm life. Do you buy this theory? Or is she
just concerned about her daughter's schoolwork and her being out in the
uncertain world of dust storms?
4. What about Mad Dog's character? How is music a part of the relationship between
him and Billie Jo? How would you describe this relationship?
Pick one and debate: For Billie Jo's community, music and culture are important sources
of not only entertainment, but healing and fellowship.
Billie Jo's love of art and music plays a critical role in her desire to get away from home.
1. We're pretty well acquainted with Billie Jo's story of poverty, but what about the
minor characters in the story? What do their experiences demonstrate about the
effects of the Dust Bowl's economic consequences?
2. How would you describe Billie Jo's attitude toward her economic circumstances?
3. What effect do Hesse's historical references have on the book? How do they help
us better picture the Dust Bowl's suffering?
Pick one and debate: Billie Jo's exposure to the poverty of her neighbors helps her to
develop a greater sense of compassion for others.
Despite the difficult circumstances, the Dust Bowl's poverty ultimately brings out
kindness and empathy in others.
1. You are the head of the nominations committee for this year's winner of the Most
Determined Literary Character Award. Which character from Out of the
Dust would you nominate and why?
2. How do Daddy and Billie Jo share the same sense of determination?
3. What factors motivate characters in the book to persevere against the challenges
of the Dust Bowl?
4. Imagine what Billie Jo's future looks like after the book's conclusion. What does
she end up doing with her life? How is her outlook on the world different as a
result of going through the Dust Bowl and losing her mother?
Pick one and debate: Billie Jo and Daddy can only overcome their circumstances when
they decide to work together.
Billie Jo shares the same motivations for continuing to play piano as Daddy does for
continuing to grow wheat in dire circumstances.
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

Pick a Project for Out of the Dust- some project may be done individually or with a partner
Dialogue
The entire story is told from Billie Jo's point of view. What might Billie Jo's father say about the accident if he
spoke for himself? As a group of two, work together to create and act out a dialogue between Billie Jo and her
father, first write a short scene which takes place shortly after the accident, then write another scene that tells
how each character feels about the accident toward the end of the book. You will be required to perform your
dialogues for the class and have other students comment on the main differences between the two scenes.
Poster
The talent show and the president's ball were events that Billie Jo and her whole community enjoyed. Skim
through the book for descriptions of these events and then select one and create a poster to advertise it. After the
posters are complete, you will be required to present them to the class, explaining why you chose the wording and
art you used.
Timeline
In addition to dealing with the Dust Bowl, Billie Jo's father also faced hardships when he served as a soldier in
World War I. Research important events that span the years 1917 through 1935. Then select ten key events and
create a timeline poster to present them in chronological order. Be sure to include the resources you used on a
works cited/bibliography page.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Depression
Throughout the book, Billie Jo makes it clear that President Roosevelt is someone she considers a hero. Read
about Roosevelt, emphasizing the things he did before he became President and during his first term. Use the
facts you find to write a short essay describing Roosevelt and telling what you think was his greatest
accomplishment during that time. Be sure to include the resources you used on a works cited/bibliography page.
Ecological Chain Reaction
Entwined with the human stories told in the book, Out of the Dust also tells the all too real story of the sequence
of events that led to the erosion of the soil, affecting the water cycle and creating dust storms and ecological
disaster. Review that when the wild grassland or sod was plowed up for farming wheat, the soil became more
exposed and vulnerable to erosion, could not hold water as well, and lost important minerals. For an introduction
to understanding the Dust Bowl, read the poem "The Path of Our Sorrow" (September 1934). As a group, work
together, using facts from the book and additional resources, to create a diagram that shows the chain of events
that led to the dust storms , and measures that helped the storms end. You will be required to present your
findings and discuss what lessons we can learn from the Dust Bowl. Be sure to include the resources you used on
a works cited/bibliography page.
Radio
Mad Dog sings on the radio. By 1934, the radio was a popular fixture in many homes. Research the development
of this invention and its uses and to write an essay to summarize what you find out. Be sure to include the
resources you used on a works cited/bibliography page.
Money
Billie Jo's mother gives her fifty cents to buy ingredients for a birthday cake, and she returns home with too much
change. As she walks back to the store she thinks about the sheet music she could buy if the extra pennies were
hers to spend. Research how much money they would have to spend today to bake a birthday cake. Look up
newspapers or magazines from the 1930's via the internet and search for old ads that will give you more
information about what things cost in 1934 and how the cost of things has changed. Include the ad images in
your presentation. Discuss the reasons prices have changed over the years. Be sure to include the resources you
used on a works cited/bibliography page.
Music
Billie Jo loves the piano, and she mentions some of the popular songs she plays. Research the popular music and
musicians of the era. If possible, bring in tapes or CDs or mp3 files and the class will listen to the music.
Students who are able to read music and play an instrument can be encouraged to learn some pieces and perform
them. Be sure to include the resources you used on a works cited/bibliography page.
Art
Each poem in the book creates a strong mood and is rich in visual images. Select a favorite poem and create a
drawing, painting or collage that reflects the mood and images that the poem suggests.
Newspaper Article
To help her learn about the daily life in the Dust Bowl in the 1930's, Karen Hesse spent months reading articles
from a newspaper that was published in the Oklahoma Panhandle during that period. She has said that many of
the incidents in the book, especially those related to talent shows, dances, and daily acts of kindness and
generosity, are based on events reported in that paper. Select an event from Out of the Dust and retell it in the
form of a newspaper article. Before writing, you can examine articles from a local paper for style and structure.
Newspaper articles are concise and answer the questions Who, What, When, Where, and Why.
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“10 Things You May Not Know About the Dust Bowl”
by Christopher Klein
America’s worst drought since 1956 has hit farm states hard and sparked
memories of the epic dry spell that helped produce the Dust Bowl. Explore
10 surprising facts about the environmental disaster that ravaged the
southern Plains in the 1930s.
Corn crops wither in Missouri on August 20, 2012. (Kevin G. Hall/MCT via
Getty Images)
1. One monster dust storm reached the Atlantic Ocean.
While “black blizzards” constantly menaced Plains states in the 1930s, a
massive dust storm 2 miles high traveled 2,000 miles before hitting the East
Coast on May 11, 1934. For five hours, a fog of prairie dirt enshrouded landmarks such as the Statue of
Liberty and the U.S. Capitol, inside which lawmakers were debating a soil conservation bill. For East
Coasters, the storm was a mere inconvenience—“Housewives kept busy,” read a New York Times subhead—
compared to the tribulations endured by Dust Bowl residents.
2. The Dust Bowl was both a manmade and natural disaster.
Beginning with World War I, American wheat harvests flowed like gold as demand boomed. Lured by record
wheat prices and promises by land developers that “rain follows the plow,” farmers powered by new gasoline
tractors over-plowed and over-grazed the southern Plains. When the drought and Great Depression hit in the
early 1930s, the wheat market collapsed. Once the oceans of wheat, which replaced the sea of prairie grass
that anchored the topsoil into place, dried up, the land was defenseless against the winds that buffeted the
Plains.
3. The ecosystem disruption unleashed plagues of jackrabbits and grasshoppers.
If the dust storms that turned daylight to darkness weren’t apocalyptic enough, seemingly biblical plagues of
jackrabbits and grasshoppers descended on the Plains and destroyed
whatever meager crops could grow. To combat the hundreds of
thousands of jackrabbits that overran the Dust Bowl states in 1935,
some towns staged “rabbit drives” in which townsmen corralled the
jackrabbits in pens and smashed them to death with clubs and
baseball bats. Thick clouds of grasshoppers—as large as 23,000
insects per acre, according to one estimate—also swept over farms
and consumed everything in their wakes. “What the sun left, the
grasshoppers took,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt said during a
fireside chat. The National Guard was called out to crush
grasshoppers with tractors and burn infested fields, while the Civilian
Conservation Corps spread an insecticide of arsenic, molasses and
bran.
A farmer and his sons make their way through a dust storm in Oklahoma in April 1936. (Library of Congress)
4. Proposed solutions were truly out-of-the-box.
There were few things desperate Dust Bowl residents didn’t try to make it rain. Some followed the old folklore
of killing snakes and hanging them belly-up on fences. Others tried shock and awe. Farmers in one Texas
town paid a self-professed rainmaker $500 to fire off rockets carrying an explosive mixture of dynamite and
nitroglycerine to induce showers. Corporations also touted their products to the federal government as
possible solutions. Sisalkraft proposed covering the farms with waterproof paper, while a New Jersey asphalt
company suggested paving the Plains.
5. A newspaper reporter gave the Dust Bowl its name.
Associated Press reporter Robert Geiger opened his April 15, 1935, dispatch with this line: “Three little words
achingly familiar on a Western farmer’s tongue, rule life in the dust bowl of the continent—if it rains.” “Dust
bowl” was probably a throwaway line for Geiger, since two days later he referred to the disaster zone as the
“dust belt.” Nevertheless, within weeks the term had entered the national lexicon.
6. Dust storms crackled with powerful static electricity.
So much static electricity built up between the ground and airborne dust that blue flames leapt from barbed
wire fences and well-wishers shaking hands could generate a spark so powerful it could knock them to the
ground. Since static electricity could short out engines and car radios, motorists driving through dust storms
dragged chains from the back of their automobiles to ground their cars.
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7. The swirling dust proved deadly.
Those who inhaled the airborne prairie dust suffered coughing spasms,
shortness of breath, asthma, bronchitis and influenza. Much like
miners, Dust Bowl residents exhibited signs of silicosis from breathing
in the extremely fine silt particulates, which had high silica content.
Dust pneumonia, called the “brown plague,” killed hundreds and was
particularly lethal for infants, children and the elderly.
Dust bowl refugees from Oklahoma arrive in California in June 1935.
(Library of Congress)
8. The federal government paid farmers to plow under fields and
butcher livestock.
As part of Roosevelt’s New Deal, the federal government purchased
starving livestock for at least $1 a head. Livestock healthy enough to be butchered could fetch as much as
$16 a head, with the meat used to feed homeless people living in Hoovervilles. The Soil Conservation Service,
established in 1935, paid farmers to leave fields idle, employ land management techniques such as crop
rotation and replant native prairie grasses. The federal government also bought more than 10 million acres
and converted them to grasslands, some managed today by the U.S. Forest Service.
9. Most farm families did not flee the Dust Bowl.
John Steinbeck’s story of migrating tenant farmers in his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1939 novel, “The Grapes of
Wrath,” tends to obscure the fact that upwards of three-quarters of farmers in the Dust Bowl stayed put. Dust
Bowl refugees did not flood California. Only 16,000 of the 1.2 million migrants to California during the 1930s
came from the drought-stricken region. Most Dust Bowl refugees tended to move only to neighboring states.
10. Few “Okies” were actually from Oklahoma.
While farm families migrating to California during the 1930s, like the fictitious Joad family, were often derided
as “Okies,” only one-fifth of them were actually from Oklahoma. (Plus, many of those Oklahoma migrants
were from the eastern part of the state outside of the Dust Bowl.) “Okie” was a blanket term used to describe
all agricultural migrants, no matter their home states. They were greeted with hostility and signs such as one
in a California diner that read: “Okies and dogs not allowed inside.”
“Legacy”
Farmer with tractor and plows in field; rear view of disking with a
Big 4 tractor, pulling seven six-foot disks. c. 1910-1915. Credit:
Institute for Regional Studies, NDSU, Fargo, ND
"Unless something is done," a government report predicted, "the
western plains will be as arid as the Arabian desert."
The Great Plow-Up
In the 1910s and 1920s the southern Plains was "the last frontier
of agriculture" according to the government, when rising wheat
prices, a war in Europe, a series of
unusually wet years, and generous federal
farm policies created a land boom – the
Great Plow-Up that turned 5.2 million
acres of thick native grassland into wheat
fields. Newcomers rushed in and towns
sprang up overnight.
The huge Black Sunday storm as it
approaches Ulysses, Kansas, April 14,
1935. Credit: Historic Adobe Museum,
Ulysses, KS
Three children prepare to leave for school wearing goggles and homemade dust masks to protect them from
the dust. Lakin, Kansas, 1935. Credit: Green Family Collection
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Sand drifts. Dalhart, Texas. June 1938.Credit: Dorothea Lange, The Library
of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division
As the nation sank into the Depression and wheat prices plummeted from
$2 a bushel to 40 cents, farmers responded by tearing up even more prairie
sod in hopes of harvesting bumper crops. When prices fell even further, the
"suitcase farmers" who had moved in for quick profits simply abandoned
their fields. Huge swaths of eight states, from the Dakotas to Texas and New
Mexico, where native grasses had evolved over thousands of years to create
a delicate equilibrium with the wild weather swings of the Plains, now lay
naked and exposed.
The Dirty Thirties
Then the drought began. It would last eight straight years. Dust storms, at
first considered freaks of nature, became commonplace. Static charges in
the air shorted-out automobiles on the road; men avoided shaking hands for fear of shocks that could knock
a person to the ground. Huge drifts of dirt buried pastures and barnyards, piled up in front of homesteaders'
doors, came in through window cracks and sifted down from ceilings.
Some 850 million tons of topsoil blew away in 1935 alone. "Unless something is done," a government report
predicted, "the western plains will be as arid as the Arabian desert." The government's response included
deploying Civilian Conservation Corps workers to plant shelter belts; encouraging farmers to try new
techniques like contour plowing to minimize erosion; establishing conservation districts; and using federal
money in the Plains for everything from grasshopper control to outright purchases of failed farms.
"We Survived"
In 1944 just as it had thirty years earlier, a war in Europe and the return of a relatively wet weather cycle
brought prosperity to the southern Plains. Wheat prices skyrocketed, and harvests were bountiful.
In the first five years of the 1940s land devoted to wheat expanded by nearly 3 million acres. The speculators
and suitcase farmers returned. Parcels that had sold for $5 an acre during the Dust Bowl now commanded
prices of fifty, sixty, sometimes a hundred dollars an acre. Even some of the most marginal lands were put
back into production.
Lessons of the Dust Bowl
An auto parked in front of a sand drift.
Dalhart, Texas. Credit: The Panhandle Plains
Museum, Canyon, TX
The same auto parked in the same location,
after Soil Conservation Service workers have
returned the dunes to grassland. The soil is
now able to sustain a healthy mix of grasses
and other crops. October 1941. Credit: The
Panhandle Plains Museum, Canyon, TX
Then, in the early 1950s, the wet cycle ended and a two-year drought replaced it. The storms picked up once
more. Bad as the "Filthy Fifties" were, the drought didn't last as long as the "Dirty Thirties." The damage to
the land was mitigated by those farmers who continued using conservation techniques. And because nearly
four million acres of land had been purchased by the government during the Dust Bowl and permanently
restored as national grasslands, the soil didn't blow as much. At least a few lessons had been learned.
But now, instead of looking to the skies for rain, many farmers began looking beneath the soil, where they
believed a more reliable – and irresistible -- supply of water could be found: the vast Ogallala aquifer, a huge
underground reservoir stretching from Nebraska to north Texas, filled with water that had seeped down for
centuries after the last Ice Age. With new technology and cheap power from recent natural gas discoveries in
the southern Plains, farmers could pump the ancient water up, irrigate their land, and grow other crops like
feed corn for cattle and pigs, which requires even more moisture than wheat.
Writer Timothy Egan calls the Dust Bowl "a classic tale of human beings pushing too hard against nature,
and nature pushing back."
We want it now – and if it makes money now it's a good idea. But if the things we're doing are going to mess
up the future it wasn't a good idea. Don't deal on the moment. Take the long-term look at things. It's
important that we do the right thing by the soil and the climate. History, is of value only if you learn from it.
Wayne Lewis, Dust Bowl survivor Could the dust bowl happen again?
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