Due December 10
In a small group, with a partner, or by yourself, research your chosen topic from the list below. Be prepared to present your findings to the class on Dec. 10. Your presentation should be about 10 mins in length and will be graded based on your thoroughness, preparedness & quality of information. Remember, you are teaching your fellow students- they are relying on you to do a good job!
While every piece of writing can be read in isolation and may well stand on its own merits, readers become more informed and competent by acquiring an understanding of the period during which the writer lives and the events that precede and influence an author.
Group #1: The Culture of the River: Your goal is to make sure the class understands something of the pre-Civil War slavery controversy, free and slave states, and the Mississippi River’s division of East from West and North from south, a primary conduit for people and goods.
- Print or draw a map of the United states, preferably one of the early 1830‘s
- Label which states are slave and Free,
- Label which states border the Mississippi River
- Teach the class about the positions of states along the Mississippi regarding slavery and why these states might argue the need for slavery or for abolition
- What are bounty hunters? Freedmen?
- Discuss the “business” & economicsof slavery.
- You can find suitable maps at these web sites: www.sonofthesouth. net/slavery/slave-maps/map-free-slave-states.htm and http://www.learner.org/ biographyofamerica/prog10/maps/.
Group #2: Slavery in America: Use the websites below, and your history texts to research these issues of American slavery:
- the effect of enslavement on Africans and their descendants
- how slaves sustained a sense of selfhood and cultural identity in slave- master relationships
- how slavery affected white people, even non-slave-owning
- how slave laws changed over time, especially just before the Civil War
- how a free or slave state was determined.
- You might find these websites helpful:
National Humanities Center’s Toolbox Library: Primary Resources in US History and Literature: http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/index.htm
NHC’s TeacherServe, Freedom’s Story, links to 19th Century Issues:
Timeline of African-American History:
History Matters, archives and narratives:
North American Slave Narratives and Images:
The Slave Narrative:
- You can read Twain’s biography at: http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/twain. htm
- Share your knowledge of Mark Twain with the class
- Since writers write about what they know, often incorporating parts of their own lives into the characters, setting, and plot of their novels, after reading this short biography, anticipate which of Twain’s life events and habits of character might also be used in his character Huck Finn.
- William Dean Howells to call Twain “the Lincoln of our literature.” What has Twain freed if he is “the Lincoln of our literature”?
- Ernest Hemingway to write, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.” Why do you think Hemingway says this?
Group #4: 19th century reforms. Research and present to the class the goals and outcomes of each reform:
- abolition
- women’s suffrage
- utopian societies
- prison and asylum reform
- educational reform
- political reform.
- Links to works, writers, and reforms can be found on Brief Timelines of American Literature and Events: http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/1840.htm
Group 5: Literary Movements of the 19th Century
The struggle between ideals and realities helped shape American intellectual life and literature in many periods. The political, scientific, social reforms of the 19th century resulted in changes in the vision with which writers created literature and art as well. The early part of the century saw Rationalism give way to Romanticism and its offshoot, Transcendent-alism; the latter part of the century, especially during and after the Civil War, saw a rise in Realism and Regionalism, when writers examined life as it was actually lived and to record what they saw around them.
- How did each of these reform movements use, and therefore contribute to, changes in literature and the arts?
- Use the following websites to chart the tenets of each literary movement (Rationalism, Romanticism, Realism, Regionalism).
- During your reading of the novel, you will use these charts to distinguish elements of each movement within the work (In Huck Finn, elements of all three literary and intellectual movements can be found).
Romanticism in American Literature: “Gothic, Novel, and Romance”
Realism in American Literature
Regionalism and Local Color Fiction 1865-1895
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