INTRODUCTION
Congratulations on
approaching the end of your 11th grade year and study of the United
States.
After an entire year of American literature
and American history, it is time
to tie
it all
together.
In this project you need not learn much new, but you will have to seek to make
sense of everything you have already learned and to clarify and communicate your
own opinion...
By this
advanced moment in our class, we are no longer really studying "history" but current events;
but in so doing, we draw from everything we have studied up until now.
It is time for you, as a student at the end of an entire year of studying
the story of America through literature and history, to link what you
have studied to your own life and beliefs. In this project we will be
holding an old fashioned New England town hall meeting where you will
have the opportunity to speak up about what visions and ideas about
America you find most appealing - to speak up loud and clear in public
about
the kind of America you hope to help build and live in as an adult. All
throughout the year we have looked at "America" not as a single entity
but as a culture in constant dialogue ("contention-consensus")
between opposing visions of national life. Among these conversations
we have
looked at:
| reason versus emotion |
religious versus secular view of life and society |
| the collective versus the individual |
centralized power versus local control |
| the effect of changing technologies on society |
Franklin and Thoreau and the "American dream" |
| Jeffersonian versus Hamiltonian visions of American democracy |
the "melting pot" versus "salad bowl" ideas of
American citizenship |
| consensus versus contention |
change versus continuity |
Soon
enough you will be a voter and a participant in civil life and the
American experience. Where will you come down in terms of a belief
system? How will you vote? In what way will you choose to life your
life as a citizen and a neighbor? Where have you found inspiration
from in the past? How will you choose to live? How will
you contribute to the future? (What will be your "barbaric
yawp?")
Intimidating and complex questions. It is time now to give them some
thought and to arrive at some general conclusions. That is the point
of this project. You are going to have your few minutes to explain
to all your teachers and peers what exactly you think about your nation
right now.
Everyone
will be listening! and use of effective rhetoric.
TASK
With the help of your teachers, you are
going to look back at all the themes and characters and
ideas we have studied
in
American
literature
and
American history
and then you are going to evaluate which impressed and spoke
to you the most.
For the purposes of this project, we have divided the American conversation into four very general
categories; you will choose the one whose ideas,
actions, and words have spoken to most powerfully. You will
then brainstorm about what it is currently that you want for America
politically, economically, and culturally. Your teacher
will walk you through the general themes studied during the year, and
then you will connect what you want to others in the past who have
had similar messages.
Next,
you will write a five minutes speech, revise and practice it,
and then deliver it to your instructor and classmates. Following the
speeches, the entire class will engage in a discussion and debate.
The idea is that your teacher will back off and let students bounce
ideas and arguments back and forth and seek to convince each other
by use of pathos, logos, and use of effective rhetoric.
PROCESS
This
project shall progress thusly:
- Listen
carefully as your teacher walks you through the general themes
in the American conversation throughout history.
- Seek to clarify your thinking about exactly which Americans and
their messages resonated most powerfully with you.
- Choose one of the four groups.
- Prepare a five minute speech to deliver during the town hall
meeting
- Arrive
on the appointed day in formal clothing and sit with your fellow
group members.
- Deliver
your speech when directed to -
- Please
make an effective use of rhetoric in your language AND employ
specific examples from the past to support your argument.
- Dialogue
with the entire class on the present and future of America, in
the context of our shared past.
FOUR GROUPS
For the purposes of this project, you
must choose from one of the four following groups:
Each picture above is linked to the class brainstorming patters we
built during class discussions. Explore them as much as you might need.
EVALUATION
Be advised
beforehand of the
rubric for
this project. This will be your semester final!
CONCLUSION
tba
NOT copyrighted - SPREAD THE WEALTH!
"He who receives an idea from
me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he
who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening
me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over
the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement
of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently
designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible
over all space, without lessening their density at any point,
and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical
being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation."
-- Thomas Jefferson
This page last updated
on
May 28, 2005
.
|
