Thinking about what to do

How should I start the first day off?

I think I’m going to start with a discussion of the American dream and what that means to the students. As I wrote earlier, this connects to just about everything we are reading in American Lit. I hope my students leave class with their own definition of what it means to achieve the American dream. And I hope they take that into their own hands rather than allowing their peers, parents, or the media to determine it for them. As the semester moves along, I hope to prod them into thinking about how they might achieve this dream of theirs. I hope to challenge their ideas regarding the American dream, which will either strengthen their devotion to their version of the American dream or call for them to revise it.

Then I will have them – in small groups – scour magazines to see if they can’t find the popular ideas of the AD. That is, what do advertisers want us to believe is the AD? What do politicians and news agencies want us to believe is the AD? What do the movies and pop culture portray as the AD? Can anyone even achieve the AD? All of this will – hopefully – cause them to wonder about their own personal version of the AD here in northern MN. Maybe starring in their own reality TV show or playing division I hockey really isn’t attainable or what they want.

I hope to use this as a starting point to examine Columbus and his discovery of the New World. Now for Columbus it wasn’t the American Dream since America was far from being discovered yet, but the same principals that motivated Columbus are the same principals that motive us today to try and achieve the AD. While this is going on, we will talk about the flip side of the AD – the American Nightmare. If the Spaniards and others achieved fame and fortune as a result of the New World, then what about the natives and slaves who had their lives ruined by the Spaniards and their quest to fulfill their dreams. This will lead us into the reading “The Middle Passage” by Olaudah Equiano.

Next, I will use these same ideas to introduce the pilgrims and later the Puritans. Again, the Puritans came for religious freedom, but that doesn’t mean they were willing to tolerate other religions or beliefs. Again, the AD/AN concept is repeated. This will lead us into Bradford’s “Of Plymouth Plantation” and Miller’s “The Crucible.”

From there I hope to use this to connect to manifest destiny later on in our unit.

Of course, while all of this is going on, I’m trying to make connection between what happened in the past and what is happening now. How is the war in Iraq similar to the Spaniards quest for gold in South America? Are we fighting a war for oil? Who is being exploited? The Puritans and Catholics and others who flocked to the new world were religious extremists and didn’t tolerate others’ beliefs and killed thousands in the name of God. How is the like the religious extremists in the Muslim faith today over in the Middle East? Many of the conquerors and slave traders viewed the natives and Africans as non-humans. How is this similar to how women were viewed in early America or how we might view the Muslims today?

Whew. Now we’re rolling.

Of course, I could go a totally different route. I was thinking of starting with “The Lottery” and get their attention right away and use that story to discuss the idea of scapegoat and the power and danger of blindly following traditions. This would then lead into the sci-fi film “The Island,” which deals with the same issues. Then I would use that to connect to Columbus. What lies did he or others tell to exploit the natives? How did they act like scapegoats for the Spaniards lust for gold and land? How has this idea been repeated throughout time. This connects too to “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Jungle” and other things we will read. This too can be connected to our world today. How does the Patriot Act make others scapegoats? This, of course, would lead right into Miller’s “The Crucible,” which he wrote after being a scapegoat during the McCarthy trials of the 50’s.

Or I might go in a different direction . . .