American Exigence Project

Examining the literature and rhetoric

across America’s past

Goals of this project

• Examine the exigence of writers across America’s history – consider how historical events and social norms shaped the writers across America’s history
• Consider the lasting legacy of writing from America’s literary periods, and the way that this writing continues to shape America’s culture
• Argue a substantive and meaningful perspective for why the writing of this time period matters, how it relates to our culture and society, to our American identity
• Share your insights on the writing of this period and your argument about the relevance of this period through an activity-focused teaching presentation

A NOTE ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT – IT FLOWS FROM MOST RECENT STEPS TO OLDER ONES.

EACH SLIDE HAS A DATE FOR THE GOALS FROM THAT DATE.

One Pagers – see these as “chapters in a book”

CLAIM (1st sentence, no introduction) - Take a strong, substantive, and specific position on how the writing of this time period is shaped by the historical context; collaborate with your group members to zero in on different aspects of the rhetorical situation and aspects of your group’s central argument

• definition of the period and its primary concerns (as an introduction)
• historical context and exigency
• central arguments, evidencing strategies, and rhetorical strategies (mostly rhetorical sources)
• themes, important ideas and concepts (mostly literary sources)
• connection between this time and its past and connection to now�

Choose CONCRETE DETAILS (CD) from five sources that BEST exemplify your claim – this organization is flexible and the source types can be moved around, but it gives you a starting point for synthesizing your research

CD1 - from primary source �Commentary – how does this text demonstrate the influence of history on writing, and prove your claim?�CD2 and CD3 – from two more primary sources �Commentary – interpret for connections, comparisons and contrasts between between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd primary sources�CD4 - historical context from secondary source – how does this detail relate to the primary sources?�Connection to CD5 - how does CD4 connect to information from a scholarly article�Closing – pull the claim and the evidence together in an insightful and profound way; what is the lasting legacy of the texts and historical events and ideas from this time.

Use in-text citations for each source: Malcolm Gladwell argues… or The crooked ladder signifies the near-impossibility for social mobility except through the possibility of crime (Gladwell).

Include a works cited with five citations – from the annotated bibs, but feel free to add any credible sources as gap-filling research to help you prove your line of reasoning

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Citation Issues

Understand how a basic citation works so you can vet what the tools automate -

Last name, First name. "Title of Essay." Title of Collection, edited by Editor's Name(s), Publisher, Year, Page range of entry.

Punctuate titles correctly -

punctuate short works with quotation marks - Langston Hughes’ poem “Mother to Son”� punctuate long works with italics - John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath

Handle sources with integrity -

Make clear the author of each source with in-sentence or parenthetical citation

Malcolm Gladwell argues… or The crooked ladder signifies the near-impossibility for social mobility except through the possibility of crime (Gladwell).

Make sure all word choice from the author’s original source has changed, no more than three consecutive words from the original, and try to modify sentence structure

Choosing Research for Synthesis

What is synthesis?

At the very basic level, synthesis refers to combining multiple sources and ideas. As a writer, you will use information from several sources to create new ideas based on your analysis of what you have read.

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How is synthesis different from summarizing?

When asked to synthesize sources and research, many writers start to summarize individual sources. However, this is not the same as synthesis. In a summary, you share the key points from an individual source and then move on and summarize another source. In synthesis, you need to combine the information from those multiple sources and add your own analysis. This means that each of your paragraphs will include multiple sources and citations, as well as your own ideas and voice.

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From the Ashford University Writing Center - click here for more info

Revision goals for annotated bibs

Thorough and nuanced information -

• To what degree does each one-pager and annotated bib give a full picture of the time period?
• How much will your peers learn once you turn this portfolio into a teaching presentation?
• Do you need to find more research to buttress basic information with complex thought?

Concise and Active Voice

• Can you remove any wimpy, set-up sentences with actual information and thought?
• SAY NO TO “There are many characteristics and issues of the writing of the 1850s”
• SAY YES TO “In the 1890s, American writers confronted the Gilded-Age excesses that made tycoons such as Andrew Carnegie and Nelson Rockefeller titans of industry while leaving slums of everyday Americans living in squalid poverty”
• Have you used AUTHOR+POWER VERB to avoid the inert sloppiness of passive voice?
• SAY NO TO “The American Dream was defined by writers of the early 1900s”
• SAY YES TO “John Steinbeck and other writers of the early 1900s defined the American Dream as the powerful but elusive potential to move from poverty to security”

Goals for Wednesday 9/14 Next Steps

• FINISH ANNOTATED BIBS
• Start group proofing and revising Bibs – �see next slide for suggestions
• Start thinking about who will write each one-pager, and consider how you will leverage the sources of your peers

• Start reading the annotated bibs of your group members
• Assign one-page briefs
• Make sure you have your NNF book (Brain on Fire, Dopesick, or Just Mercy)
• Start reading your books and flagging significant passages – first reading check next Thursday (first 70 or so pages – in-class rhetorical analysis on a passage)

PHASE 2 - Synthesize sources to compile a full and authoritative view of the period - DUE ON WEDNESDAY 9/21`

Each member of the group will complete one of the following briefs with a works cited, using at least five sources from the AnnBib

• definition of the period and its primary concerns (as an introduction)
• historical context and exigency
• central arguments, evidencing strategies, and rhetorical strategies (mostly rhetorical sources)
• themes, important ideas and concepts (mostly literary sources)
• connection between this time and its past and connection to now

Note: Use research to define and support (rather than regurgitate) the significance of this period; take a strong position on the way writers of this time addressed the matters of the day and expressed the outlook of the times. Each brief should end with a works cited page. Mostly you will draw on your group’s annotated bibliography, but you can add any credible sources for additional information.

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Goals for Monday 9/12 Next Steps

• Finalize your group’s primary source reading list; share this with me if you have not done so already –

How do you think this piece reveals the zeitgeist and exigency of the time period? Can you start a working definition for the connection between historical context and literary style? Which of these pieces would you assign the class to read?

• Print your primary sources if you have not done so already – you will turn in paper/pen annotation for primary sources; digital annotation for secondary sources is fine
• Find your secondary / scholarly sources - use the dossier, each member of the group can use one of those sources and should find an additional source on JSTOR
• Search suggestions for JSTOR on the next four slides
• Make sure your sources let you “stand on the shoulders of giants” – encyclopedic sources (Britannica, History.com, and (gasp) wikipedia) do not have name-brand recognition in the research community, and these overviews are also too broad/general for a springboard to research-level depth of thought and expertise

• Get the annotated bibs for your primary and secondary sources done by Wednesday, leaving you time to proof and revise for Friday
• Wednesday we will talk about Phase 2, the synthesis one-pagers
• Make sure you have your NNF book (Brain on Fire, Dopesick, or Just Mercy)
• Start reading your books and flagging significant passages – first reading check next Thursday (first 70 or so pages – in-class rhetorical analysis on a passage)

Overview of Credible Research on Databases

Google searches anything published on the web — of quality, or not. Library databases index edited, published material, often scholarly, and collected for an educational use, and subscribed to by your school because it is judged to be useful to the curriculum.

Library databases are more focused on scholarly books and articles, and provide more of them, than the open web. Anyone can publish anything on the Internet so one must be willing to sort through and evaluate an Internet site’s content. Databases are more credible because publishers have checked the contents for accuracy and reliability.

The databases provide access to information that is safe, accurate, current, validated, copyright-clear, and organized.

Some Tips for Using Databases

• Use the topic headers to improve your search terms
• Read the abstract to get an preliminary overview of the article
• Download the PDF and save it somewhere that you will not lose it - searching within the PDF later
• Gather a lot of PDFs to get an overview and decide which ones to choose later
• Copy and paste the citations now so that you can get back to the article later

Mackinvia.com at home

Enter Pope High School as school

Login - your number

PW - your typical password

The Kiss A LOT �of Frogs Rule

1. Download the PDF for every article you might consider, save them into a consistent folder
2. Copy + Paste a citation for every article -- into a document in that same folder
3. Use the articles citations to consider other sources

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The Work Smarter, Not Harder Rule

• Understand the genre of your search results
• Use the date range filter to narrow down result
• Use the subject filters to find results written by different disciplines for various analytical lenses

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Goals for Friday 9/9 Next Steps

• Turn in AOW – before you turn in, double check your PURPOSE steps. Can you add more insightful analysis of the STRATEGY? How does the evidence, reasoning and style in this increment of paragraphs reveal the author’s purpose, exigence or awareness of audience?
• Take a look at your group’s primary source reading list –

How do you think this piece reveals the zeitgeist and exigency of the time period? Can you start a working definition for the connection between historical context and literary style? Which of these pieces would you teach?

• Take a look at what goes into an Annotated Bib -- start working on the graphic organizer for one of your primary sources
• Overview of JSTOR – Search strategies and database tools

• Find your scholarly sources - use the dossier, each member of the group can use one of those sources and should find an additional source on JSTOR
• Get the annotated bibs for both of your primary sources done over the weeked
• Make sure you have ordered your NNF book (Brain on Fire, Dopesick, or Just Mercy)
• Start reading your books and flagging significant passages

Goals for Thursday 9/8

• Share what you read and learned from your skim/read of Writing America last night. Collaborate with your group to add to your list of key historical events, societal norms, and aspects of the literary output important to this time. Use these questions as a guide –
• What subjects did writers address? What issues did they confront? What arguments emerged from the historical context?
• What styles and rhetorical strategies did you notice in terms of how writers constructed their arguments?
• What ideas stand out as essential to this time period and might lead to your argument about the relevance of this writing?
• See if you have enough exposure to start a working definition for the exigence of this time - how did these historical events and societal norms instigate the writers and shape the writing?
• Consider additional primary sources – explore authors listed on the PAL website + dossiers. Start to choose your primary sources – one literary, one rhetorical. Try not to duplicate an author across the group (unless there’s a substantive reason to do so)
• If you are certain this source works and will advance your argument, go ahead and print it, start reading and annotating. It’s probably easier to Google-search for a PDF of the source than to try and print from Writing America – save the PDF as you might need it for the teaching presentation.
• LITERARY SOURCE – take note of the themes, and the way that character development, imagery, figurative language express those themes; also note the author’s awareness and reference of the historical/social context
• RHETORICAL SOURCE – take note of the LINE OF REASONING (claims, subclaims, evidence and commentary) and of the RHETORICAL SITUATION (audience, purpose, exigence) as a reflection of the historical/social context
• Tomorrow, we will look at the steps and goals of an annotated bib, we’ll see where you are with finding primary sources. And we’ll look at some efficient research practices of JStor.
• Don’t forget you have AOW due tomorrow. Focus on the PURPOSE step - more insightful analysis rather than basic summary.

Wednesday 9/7

FAMILIARIZE YOURSELF WITH SOURCES FOR BUILDING YOUR PRIMARY SOURCE READING LIST

• Take a tour of the PAL website - www.paulreuben.website/pal/table.html
• Find the chapters for the topics that you selected
• Take a look at the introductions, and the lists of authors -- this is where you might find your literary primary source
• Take a look at the Writing America textbook (online through Clever) - this is where you might find your rhetorical primary source
• Take a look at the dossiers for each time period, note any useful search terms, important authors and key sources.
• TONIGHT for homework, divide the Writing America unit into even portions for each member in your group (count pages, divide by number of members in your group). Each person should skim/read to gain baseline exposure to the range of writing types for this period

Wednesday 9/7

• 10 minutes to finish your group contract – print, sign and turn in
• Revisit Nina Baym’s introduction to American Literature and reread the section on your assigned topic – collect more notes on your period as potential search terms and begin to consider what aspects of this period you will focus on.

Even though you will need a broad understanding of the period, the argument for your project will benefit from focus – narrow down your thinking about how the historical context shapes the writing of this time and reveals something essential about the American character, something that tells us

Tuesday 9/6 - Let’s crowdsource a list of characteristics

Based on your homework reading…

What are the highpoints of America’s literary history?

What are some low points?

What connects the high points and the low points,�and what does it reveal about our history and culture?

Tuesday 9/6

• We need FIVE groups total, evenly divided.
• Share what you read and learned from the Norton 11-page article
• What subjects did writers address? What issues did they confront?
• What historical events impacted the writers? What societal norms shaped them?
• What is the style of the literature during this time? Genres? Moods? Characters?
• Choose your first, second and third choices
• Set up some tools for collaboration - contact info, Google Drive, group chat, etc.
• Decide on some collaboration goals - accountability, leadership, conflict resolution, internal deadlines, proofreaders, quality control, etc
• Start working on a collaboration contract with bulleted agreements about the topics above. DUE Wednesday at end of class

Tuesday 9/6 for homework

• Set up and share Google folder for work including a document with contact info
• Decide on some collaboration goals - accountability, leadership, conflict resolution, internal deadlines, proofreaders, quality control, etc Finish your group contract with roles and accountability measures. Here are some suggestions for different roles, but feel free to come up with your own -
• Coordinator – who will set deadlines and manage the process of collaboration
• Visioneer - who will set the goals and maintain a high level of intellectual excellence
• Negotiator/Mediator - who will help find middle ground in moments of conflict
• Enforcer - who will hold the team accountable for missed deadlines or shoddy work
• Proofreader - everyone will need to help but who will manage the process

Here are a few more resources - Group Roles | University of Waterloo // Group Work and Roles | CSUSM�

FAMILIARIZE YOURSELF WITH SOURCES FOR BUILDING YOUR PRIMARY SOURCE READING LIST

• Take a tour of the PAL website - www.paulreuben.website/pal/table.html
• Find the chapters for the topics that you selected
• Take a look at the introductions, and the lists of authors -- this is where you might find your literary primary source
• Take a look at the Writing America textbook (online through Pearson MyLab) - this is where you might find your rhetorical primary source

Register for Writing America online access

Go to https://mlm.pearson.com/northamerica/ – sign in or create an account

Under My Courses > and use course code bowen91420

For the ACCESS CODE, carefully enter the following�SSPREN-ACCAD-SERRY-GIGUE-SAPIR-SPIES �(This code can be used once by each student, so please be careful when you enter it)

To view chapters, go to etext (on the left) > Writing America textbook > �Content (for the table of Contents) > Part Two: An Anthology of Readings and Images�and find the relevant chapters in the left bar (see screenshot on next slide)

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To view chapters, go to for the table of contents > �Part Two: An Anthology of Readings and Images�and find the relevant chapters in the left bar

STOP HERE

EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE PRESENTATION IS FROM LAST YEAR…

Goals for Friday 9/3 Next Steps

• Share out your primary source (literature).

How do you think this piece reveals the zeitgeist and exigency of the time period? Can you start a working definition for the connection between historical context and literary style? Which of these pieces would you teach?

• Review the chapters in Writing America for your timeperiod. Figure out which rhetorical pieces each group member will complete.
• Enroll in AP Classroom
• Enroll in MyPearson for digital textbook access
• Overview of JStor for scholarly article research

• Find your primary source (rhetorical) text - a piece of nonfiction - essay, document, speech, letter, diary, etc.
• Get the annotated bibs for both of your primary sources done over the weeked
• Make sure you have ordered your NNF book (Outcasts United, Dopesick, or Just Mercy)
• Start reading your books and flagging significant passages

Goals for Wednesday 9/8 Next Steps

• Overview of dialectical journal assignment for Narrative Nonfiction books (Outcasts United, Dopesick, or Just Mercy)
• Review your annotated bibs with your team -
• Is the first sentence strong and substantive? �Avoid empty, filler phrases - Smith makes many arguments, there are many characteristics
• Is the evidence section specific and concrete?
• Is the last section nuanced and shows critical thinking of how the text reveals the time period?
• Overview of JSTOR
• Search strategies and database tools
• Tomorrow we are in the LC �3rd and 6th in the wireless lab, 7th on the desktops

• Find your scholarly sources - use the dossier, each member of the group can use one of those sources and should find an additional source on JSTOR
• Get the annotated bibs for both of your primary sources done
• Make sure you have ordered your NNF book (Outcasts United, Dopesick, or Just Mercy)
• Start reading your books and flagging significant passages

Goals for Thursday 9/9 Next Steps

• Find your two secondary/scholarly sources --
• Divvy up the ones about the literary periods on the dossiers (one to each group member) and then each group member find one article related to a primary source/author
• Get used to the search tools on JSTOR -
• Good search terms in a serial list (set off by commas. Use vocabulary from the period
• Use BOOLEAN operators - AND OR NOT to add and eliminate search terms
• Subject filters for analytical lenses
• Download your PDFs, annotate digitally for understanding. You do not need to turn in annotations for secondary sources,
• Save your citations (CITE button broken, durr)

• Finish your annotated bib -- all four sources
• Bring your NNF book tomorrow (Outcasts United, Dopesick, or Just Mercy)
• Outcasts United people - read chapter 1 for tomorrow (PDF online)
• Start reading your books and flagging significant passages

Annotated Images

Find images that visualize the historical events, social norms and attitudes, cultural artifacts of the time. It could be art, photography, documents, maps, illustrations of the time.

Use credible sources since you need to cite it --

• Library of Congress
• Museums
• JStor Image Search (mackinvia)
• Annals of American History (mackinvia)

Putting your portfolio together

One Pagers

Works Cited -- just the citations from the annotated bib for the works you cited in your one pagers, plus any additional sources you added.

Annotated Bibliography (you can do one section of all sources or two sections -- primary and secondary). Alphabetize sources by last name or first word of citation if no author

Annotated Images

Lesson Plan (if you typed it)

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