This activity asks students to consider the degree to which external factors can influenced an individual’s decisions and choices.

  1. As a class, discuss the types of factors, big and small, that can influence one’s life (some of which are out of one’s control), and how those factors might have a big impact on the decisions people make.
  2. Have students “Think, Pair, Share” in response to the question, “Think about a recent decision that you had to make. What factors influence the decisions you made and how did that impact your life?”
  3. Read Barilla’s letter (pdf) (individually or aloud as a class) and ask students to underline the factors that they think influenced her life ad decisions.
  4. Ask students to respond to the questions on the Barilla’s Letter to her Parents worksheet (pdf).

Extension Activities:

  • Write a letter in response to Barilla’s letter as if you were her parents. How would you comment on the decisions she had made? How would you council her on the choices in front of her?
  • Barilla was 15 when she left home to work in Lowell. Today, society considers 15-year-olds to be children. Two hundred years ago, perceptions were different. Research how childhood was regarded in the early 19th century versus how it is regarded now. Imagine yourself as a 15-year-old in 1844, what might you think about leaving home?