In this lesson, you will be given excerpts from Franklin Delano Roosevelt's fireside chats and will categorize the excerpts according to economic problems. After identifying economic problems and FDR's comments on the problems, you will simulate a fireside chat by writing a script for a fireside chat for the class. After reading the scripts written by your classmates, you will complete a simple consumer confidence survey concerning reactions to the scripts. To conclude the lesson, you will identify and evaluate a current economic problem and apply the strategy of FDR to promote and build confidence in a proposed solution.

When you have finished this lesson you should be able to:

• Explain why improved confidence was important to the U.S. recovery from the Great Depression.
• Analyze the effect of direct communication with U.S. citizens in restoring confidence in the economy during the Great Depression.
• Explain the significance of a consumer confidence survey.