American Studies.
Tuesday, April 2, 2024 5:50 AM
Tuesday
Welcome back!
Writing day. Finish synthesis on the American Dream and peer edit.
Homework- Finish essay.
Wednesday
Overview of The Great Depression- Keynote Presentation
Begin actively reading textbook in class.
Homework - Read pages 654-664 in the textbook.
Thursday
Essential Questions
What were the causes of the Great Depression?
How did people cope with the Great Depression?
What were the effects of the Great Depression?
How does the Great Depression change the American identity?
- Devastation
- Escapism
- Optimism
-The New American Dream
Devastation
Writing: Noted historian Paul Boyer stated that, “The facts and statistics tell the story of the Great Depression.” Read and analyze the facts and stats and tell the story of the Great Depression.
60 Interesting Facts on the Great Depression
Read Robert Burns’ “To a Mouse”, and discuss in small groups. Get to the deeper meaning of the poem.
“In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!” - ROBERT BURNS - “TO A MOUSE”
Video Clip - Short intro to the Great Depression
Make connections between the video clip and the passage from Burns’ poem.
Bridge: The elderly couple in the clip said that the song “Blue Skies” best describes the abundant optimism of the 1920’s. What modern song best describes your generation?
-Use specific lines from the following songs to describe how this generation felt/coped with the Great Depression. Pick out a metaphor from each song and explain.
"Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries," lyrics by Lew Brown, music by Ray Henderson (1931)
People are queer, they're always crowing, scrambling and rushing about;
Why don't they stop someday, address themselves this way?
Why are we here? Where are we going? It's time that we found out.
We're not here to stay; we're on a short holiday.
Life is just a bowl of cherries.
Don't take it serious; it's too mysterious.
You work, you save, you worry so,
But you can't take your dough when you go, go, go.
So keep repeating it's the berries,
The strongest oak must fall,
The sweet things in life, to you were just loaned
So how can you lose what you've never owned?
Life is just a bowl of cherries,
So live and laugh at it all.
Life is just a bowl of cherries.
Don't take it serious; it's too mysterious.
At eight each morning I have got a date,
To take my plunge 'round the Empire State.
You'll admit it's not the berries,
In a building that's so tall;
There's a guy in the show, the girls love to kiss;
Get thousands a week just for crooning like this:
Life is just a bowl of . . . aw, nuts!
So live and laugh at it all!
"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime," lyrics by Yip Harburg, music by Jay Gorney (1931)
They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob,
When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job.
They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead,
Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?
Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once I built a tower, up to the sun, brick, and rivet, and lime;
Once I built a tower, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!
Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.
Why don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?
Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!
Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.
Say, don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?
Bridge: Consider the last two lines from “Brother”. Ask the students what they think of these lines. Why does Harburg use the name “Al” at the end? How would it change the song and its meaning to leave “Al” out? (ans: It personalizes the persona. It’s similar to Melville’s first line in Moby Dick...”Call me Ishmael”. Speilberg does this in Schindler’s List as well with the girl in the red coat. All of them force the audience to focus on one single individual.)
- Here are other individual stories from the Depression. What themes do you notice, and which of them resonates with you?
Video Clip - Life in the Thirties
Closing: How have the “best laid plans” of these people gone askew, and deteriorated into “grief and pain? Cite specific examples. How did it happen? What were the causes of the Great Depression?
Homework - Finish the chapter in the textbook.
Friday
The Great Depression Webquest
Begin active viewing of The Grapes of Wrath
Homework - Review the chapter in the textbook. Take notes and be ready for a quiz over this chapter!
Monday
The Great Depression Through Film and Song
Unwelcome Guest- Woody Guthrie
To the rich man's bright lodges
I ride in this wind
On my good horse, I call you
My shiny black Bess
To the playhouse of fortune
To take the bright silver
And gold you have taken
From somebody else
And as we go riding
In the damp foggy midnight
You snort, my good pony
And you give me your best
For you know and I know
Good horse 'mongst the rich ones
How oftimes we go there
An unwelcome guest
I never took food
From the widows and orphans
And never a hardworking man I oppressed
So take your pace easy
For home soon like lightning
We soon will be riding
My shiny black Bess
No fat rich man's pony
Can ever overtake you
And there's not a rider
From the east to the west
Could hold you a light
In this dark mist and midnight
When the potbellied thieves
Chase the unwelcome guest
I don't know, good horse
As we trot in this dark here
That robbing the rich
Is for worse or for best
They take it by stealing
And lying and gambling
And I take it my way
My shiny Black Bess
I treat horses good
And I'm friendly to strangers
I ride and your running
Makes my guns talk the best
And the rangers and deputies
Are hired by the rich man
To catch me and hang me
My shining black Bess
Yes, they'll catch me napping one day
And they'll kill me
And then I'll be gone
But that won't be my end
For my guns and my saddle
Will always be filled
By unwelcome travelers
And other brave men
And they'll take the money
And spread it out equal
Just like the Bible
And the prophets suggest
But men that go riding
To help these poor workers
The rich will cut down
Like an unwelcome guest
Escapism - The West
“It should not be denied. . . that being footloose has always exhilarated us. it is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppression and law and irksome obligations, with absolute freedom, and the road has always led west.”
--Wallace Stegner
“But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before.” - Huckleberry Finn
California - The Land of Milk and Honey
The original expression, "a land flowing with milk and honey", is a reference in the Hebrew Bible to the agricultural abundance of the Land of Israel. The first reference appears in the book of Exodus during Moses' vision of the burning bush.
Do Re Mi
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie
Lots of folks back East, they say, is leavin' home every day,
Beatin' the hot old dusty way to the California line.
'Cross the desert sands they roll, gettin' out of that old dust bowl,
They think they're goin' to a sugar bowl, but here's what they find
Now, the police at the port of entry say,
"You're number fourteen thousand for today."
Oh, if you ain't got the do re mi, folks, you ain't got the do re mi,
Why, you better go back to beautiful Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee.
California is a garden of Eden, a paradise to live in or see;
But believe it or not, you won't find it so hot
If you ain't got the do re mi.
You want to buy you a home or a farm, that can't deal nobody harm,
Or take your vacation by the mountains or sea.
Don't swap your old cow for a car, you better stay right where you are,
Better take this little tip from me.
'Cause I look through the want ads every day
But the headlines on the papers always say:
If you ain't got the do re mi, boys, you ain't got the do re mi,
Why, you better go back to beautiful Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee.
California is a garden of Eden, a paradise to live in or see;
But believe it or not, you won't find it so hot
If you ain't got the do re mi.
Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad - Woody Guthrie/Grateful Dead
Goin' down the road feelin' bad.
Goin' down the road feelin' bad.
Goin' down the road feelin' bad.
I don't want to be treated this away.
Goin' where the climate suits my clothes.
Goin' where the climate suits my clothes.
Goin' where the climate suits my clothes.
I don't want to be treated this away.
Goin' down the road feelin' bad.
Goin' down the road feelin' bad.
Goin' down the road feelin' bad.
I don't want to be treated this away.
Goin' where the water tastes like wine.
Goin' where the water tastes like wine.
Goin' where the water tastes like wine.
I don't want to be treated this away.
Goin' down the road feelin' bad.
Goin' down the road feelin' bad.
Goin' down the road feelin' bad.
I don't want to be treated this away.
Goin' where the chilly winds don't blow.
Goin' where the chilly winds don't blow.
Goin' where those chilly winds don't blow.
I don't want to be treated this away.
Promised Land - Chuck Berry/Grateful Dead
I left my home in Norfolk Virginia, California on my mind.
Straddled that Greyhound, it rode me past Raleigh, and on across Caroline.
Stopped in Charlotte and bypassed Rock Hill, and we never was a minute late.
We was ninety miles out of Atlanta by sundown, rollin' 'cross the Georgia state.
Had motor trouble it turned into a struggle, half way 'cross Alabam,
the 'hound broke down left us all stranded in downtown Birmingham.
Straight off bought me a through train ticket, right across Mississippi clean
And I was on the midnight flyer out of Birmingham
Smoking into New Orleans.
Somebody help me get out of Louisiana
Just help me get to Houston town.
People are there who care a little 'bout me
And they won't let the poor boy down.
Sure as she bore me, she bought me a silk suit, put luggage in my hands,
And I woke up high over Albuquerque
On a jet to the promised land.
Workin' on a T-bone steak a la carte,
Flying over to the Golden State;
When the pilot told us in thirteen minutes
We'd be headin' in the terminal gate.
Swing low sweet chariot, come down easy
Taxi to the terminal zone;
Cut your engines, cool your wings,
And let me make it to the telephone.
Los Angeles give me Norfolk Virginia,
Tidewater four ten on nine
Tell the folks back home this is the promised land callin'
And the poor boy's on the line.
Homework -Study.