Unit 7: Lesson 3: Activity 4

The Changing American Dream

^[1]

Timelines help us visually understand how time influences our values and choices.

Benchmarks:

11.5.6.6

Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content contribute to the power, persuasiveness, or beauty of the text.

11.9.4.4

While respecting intellectual property, present information, findings, and supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct perspective, such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a range of formal and informal tasks (e.g., persuasion, argumentation, debate).

11.9.3.3

Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, intended audience, and use of evidence and rhetoric, assessing the stance, premises, links among ideas, word choice, points of emphasis, and tone used.

Learning Target:

I can summarize an author’s point of view, reasoning, audience, and evidence, analyze how style and content contribute to those aspects, and evaluate the effectiveness of the piece. (5.6.6, 9.3.3)

Essential Question:

How does an author in the modernist and/or postmodernist literary period create an effective text that represents points-of-view and purposes relevant to its cultural landscape and ideas of the American Dream?

Summary:

In this activity, you will create a timeline of significant authors and movements during the modern and postmodern literary periods.

You Will Need:

One 50-minute class period

Internet access

A digital timeline creator tool

Activity Instructions:

Step 1.

Using the Internet, develop an interactive timeline of significant authors, works, and movements during these two periods using Timeglider.com^[2] or other digital timeline creator. Your timeline should cover 1920-2000 and should include at least 10 authors for each literary period and at least 5 social movements for each literary period.

Some good resources to start exploring:

Timeline: American literature

Literary Periods Timeline

Step 2.

 For each literary period and each social movement, define the meaning of the American dream...what was being sought after? What equaled success for the communities in each movement (remember, each community comes with its own perspective, and so, definitions of success may be different from one community to another)?

Step 3.

 For each author, identify at least one distinguishing element of his/her writing style, such as voice, tone/mood, diction, point of view, use of rhetorical devices, etc.

Step 4. Submit your timeline to your eportfolio as an artifact. Be sure to include a 2-3 paragraph reflection with your artifact. (optional Timeline rubric).