Course Proposal for English Elective
The Jazz Age (working title)

I have started saving some bookmarks, which I will keep here.

Course Description
In the era of prohibition, Jazz became the lifeblood of the American spirit - a musical language born from a collision of cultures, which spoke to every strata of society.  It leaked underneath the doors of speakeasies, sang in the ring of a Tommy Gun, and wove itself into the flapper dresses and zoot suits of the roaring '20s.  Jazz became the first uniquely American export, and lifted America from a relatively obscure young country to the dominant player on the world stage.  This course will revolve around the Jazz Age as its nucleus, but we will examine the roots and shoots as well - the works that made the Age possible, and those later works which owe it their existence.  We will explore music, art and literature, and seek out their intersections as we juggle style and substance, melody and counterpoint.  From F. Scott Fitzgerald to Langston Hughes, from Duke Ellington to George Gershwin, we will jam with the best, as well as creating our own original poetry and music.

The course will have four main components:

The Short Version
A tentative idea of works we may study:

    • Poets
      • Langston Hughes
      • Zora Neale Hurston
      • T.S. Eliot
      • W.B. Yeats
      • Robert Frost
      • e.e. cummings
      • W.H. Auden
      • Gerard Manley Hopkins
      • Edna St. Vincent Millay
      • Def Poetry Jam and other Slam Poetry
      • Selected Beat Poets
  • Musical Works
    • Primary focus on Duke Ellington and George Gershwin as composers with secondary focus on multiple jazz performers, such as Billy Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and many others.
    • Some nights, we will do listening assignments as well as the regular reading assignments.  These may be listening to music or listening to poets or performers read/recite their own poetry, along with a reaction/critique that will be handed in.
  • Creative/Performance Component
    • In addition to regular analytical essays of the works we study, we will have a creative component that will bridge music and poetry.  
    • We will probably have at least one creative project per week of the course, culminating in a larger project at the end of the semester.
      • Weekly creative projects will be presented on Fridays.  We will use the second half of block period to prepare for this, and the first days of the weeks will be dedicated to discussing the academic works we study.  Some ideas for this include:
        • Writing reviews of jazz music, after studying reviewers of the time
        • Write poetry based on jazz structures, or writing music based on poetic structures
        • Reading/reciting poetry from the poets we study in class
        • Performing original poetry based on the structures/style of the poetry and music we study.  Other students can collaborate by composing/improvising music to accompany these performances.
        • Writing reviews of art works we study (we will probably bring in Pam Anderson for a unit on visual art)
        • Finding music or poetry from an anthology to share with the rest of the class (I'm in the market for a really good poetry anthology).
    • Music Performance - no musical background or talent will be required to take the course, and Mike feels confident he could guide the students through what they need to write a song as a project or final project.  If they play an instrument, they may use that, and if not, they can write the song and have others perform it.
    • Spoken Word Poetry - we will watch Def Poetry Jam and other spoken-word/slam poetry videos, and have students write their own poetry, which they will perform for the class, with coaching from the teachers.
  • Independent Research Project which takes the place of an exam.  This will be a formal research paper including secondary sources, MLA format, etc.
    • Students could read research a particular work from a writer of the period (Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hemingway, Wodehouse, etc.), citing secondary sources, etc.  It would not need to be specifically jazz-related.  This could also be a play or musical by Brecht, O'Neill, Pirandello, the Gershwins, Thornton Wilder, etc.
    • Students could research a particular musician, actor, or other figure from the period and write a research paper about that figure, perhaps after reading a biography.
The Long Version

Literary Texts to Study

As with all other classes, we would read and discuss literary works in class, and students would write essays on each work we study.  The Jazz Age forms the nucleus of the study, but we are interested in its roots and shoots too.  Some possible ideas include:




  • Writers of the Period We Could Also Study - Not yet keen on these, but we should explore them.
    • James Joyce
      • Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    • William Carlos Williams
    • Ezra Pound
    • G.B. Shaw
      • Major Barbara
      • St. Joan
    • Thomas Wolfe
      • Look Homeward Angel - loved this book as a teenager, not so sure now.
    • Aldous Huxley
      • Brave New World
      • The Doors of Perception
      • Not sure - would need to read more works
    • Upton Sinclair
      • The Jungle
    • Sinclair Lewis
      • Main Street
    • John Dos Passos
    • Gertrude Stein
      • We should at least talk about her for her influence on so many writers
    • Artists of the Harlem Renaissance
    • Films
      • Metropolis
      • The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari 
      • City Lights
      • Steamboat Bill, Jr.
      • The Jazz Singer
      • More Chaplin/Keaton possibilities
      • Douglas Fairbanks/Mary Pickford Films
      • Various Horror Films


Musical Pieces/Musicians to Study
  • Ted's Ideas
    • George Gershwin
      • We could study a play written by the brothers
    • Kurt Weill
    • Classical Musicians (we can study classical trends during the same period too, right?)
      • Stravinsky 
        • This would offer a great chance to listen to the Radiolab episode about the Rite of Spring
      • Shostakovich
      • Ravel

Other Ideas