9/18-19: Living TimelineThe living timeline activity will:

• provide you a comprehensive review of our unit for the assessment next week!

• help us to process our work throughout the year and continue to activate our knowledge about the historical context in which the major works we study are situated.

• serve as a living document that can be used as a reference throughout the year.

Basic timeline: puts events in chronological order

2008: Barack Obama elected president

1918: End of World War I

1945: End of World War II

1973-1975: recession

1865: Civil war ends

1787: Constitution adopted as law

Historical Events and content

Multi-dimensional timeline: compares different features/elements on the same line.

2008: Barack Obama elected president

1918: End of World War I

1945: End of World War II

1973-1975: recession

1865: Civil war ends

1787: Constitution adopted as law

Realism period

1865: Mark Twain writes "Celebrated Jumping Frog.."

1840s: Emerson writes "Friendship" and "Self-Reliance" essays

Transcendentali

sm

Romantic

Literary Works and content

Living multi-dimensional timeline: compares different features/elements on the same line and

grows with our knowledge

2008: Barack Obama elected president

1918: End of World War I

1945: End of World War II

1973-1975: recession

1865: Civil war ends

1787: Constitution adopted as law

Realism period

1865: Mark Twain writes "Celebrated Jumping Frog.."

1840s: Emerson writes "Friendship" and "Self-Reliance" essays

Transcendentali

sm

Romanticism

Modern periodPost-Modern

period

1952: Steinbeck publishes East of Eden

Purpose

Trace authors and texts and themes that we explore in our class through the year

Give context to the works that we are reading: how are they part of/do they contribute to American culture and society?

Process

Every timeline will be different, but each will contain some of the same key elements.

When we are done drafting our timelines, we will vote on one timeline that we will work with all year as a class. This timeline will be posted and used as a reference (yes, that means for tests and reading assessments too!)

9/18-19: Living Timeline Group Work Goals

Group work goals:• Ensure everyone is participating: this is a big

challenge when you have one piece of paper and four people huddled around it.

• Collaborative Process: How will you organize the work so that everyone is involved?

• Time Management: we have a lot to get done in 4 days. How will you accomplish the task effectively

• Creativity & Inclusion: how can you ensure that everyone is heard and represented?

     

9/18-20: Living Timeline Development

Part 1: Data collection • Gather all important historical/cultural/social events that you’ll

want to include on your timeline. Use all the resources that you have: personal knowledge from history, notes from class, information from American Radioworks History of the American Dream notes, Time magazine article, “Keeping the Dream Alive”.

• Gather titles/authors/periods from your notebooks for the work we’ve done this unit that you will include on the timeline and outline your content.

• Find a quote from a text that represents the values and styles of each literary period. 

• Remember: this is not meant to be complete. There will be gaps in your information. We’ll get there.

   

9/18-24: Living Timeline Construction

 Part 2: Construction

• Consider how you will fit everything in the space that you have.

• Where will your timeline start and end?

• Will your dates be evenly spaced, or will you give more space to certain periods?

• How will you organize your information on your timeline so that it is easy to follow and read once it is posted on the wall? (Hint: it will be far away from close inspection)

• How might you be strategic about the use of colors & symbols?

   

9/25-26: Periods of Early American Literature Final Assessment

 Assessment will consist of:   

Essay 9/25-9/26

60 points

See prompt next slide

Multiple Choice Exam

9/27 40 points

All content covered in the unit.

9/27: Periods of Early American Literature Essay Prompt

Jim Cullen, author of The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation, argues that the American Dream has existed in spirit throughout our nation’s history. He writes,

“The Pilgrims may not have actually talked about the American dream, but they would have understood the idea: after all, they lived it as people who imagined a destiny for themselves. So did the Founding Fathers. So did illiterate immigrants who could not speak English but who intuitively expressed rhythms of the Dream with their hands and their hearts. What Alexis de Tocqueville called 'the charm of anticipated success' in his classic Democracy in America seemed palpable to him not only in the 1830s, but in his understanding of American history for two hundred years before that.”

In a multi-paragraph response, explain the extent to which you agree or disagree with this statement, using references the eras of American literature we have studied as evidence.

Your response should include:

An introduction to the concept of the “American dream”

A clear argument that responds to the question: to what extent do you agree with Cullen’s argument?

References to at least 3 texts/authors that we have read in American Literature this year that demonstrate the way in which early American writers would have understood the concept of the “American Dream” even if they did not yet have a term for it.