1950s

3/2: STARTING TODAY, work will be posted on the 1950s stories and poetry page (link below). Assessment prompt and other materials for Friday's in class essay are attached below.

3/1: The assessment prompt for Friday's in class essay is posted below ("Rockwell + Bulosan assessment"). Be working on that. I will start Thursday's class asking for questions. You will have reading homework on Wednesday night.

2/29: For Tuesday your task is to look for points of intersection between the three visions of American ideals (specifically freedom from want) expressed by Roosevelt, Rockwell and Bulosan. THINK in terms of who is represented in their view of America, how they each define want and how both of those (who is included and the way they see America) help to form a vision of America ideals. On the back of the four columned paper, label one column: Rockwell and Roosevelt, one column Roosevelt and Bulosan, one column Bulosan and Rockwell and the final column: similarities between the three. Bullet points of connection (ideas and specific evidence from the text) for each of the columns (remember that they probably won’t be equal). We’ll use this information later in the week for an in class text pairing that will count as an assessment.

2/24: We worked with an excerpt from Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" speech and Rockwell's Freedom from Want. Both are attached below. Also see "Working with Freedom from Want" attached below (your homework is explained there). The Bulosan essay you need for homework is also attached below. I have also attached my mark up of the first few paragraphs of the Bulosan essay if you want to take a look at that again.

2/22: In class, we talked about stereotyping and its effects, then used the idea to start to talk about Norman Rockwell, whose work has largely been stereotyped, but who we will look at in this class with a more critical eye. We examined the painting Game Called Because of Rain or Tough Call below). In your journals, describe what you see - start with "plot" then characterization, then relationships, settings, etc. Then, look more closely at how Rockwell uses the "tools" of his trade (see "Elements of Art" below) - look closely at things like color, line, shape, balance, detail, etc. and let's use these to help analyze the art. Then, (again in journals) we brainstormed what we knew about WWI and its effects on the home front. Homework: you are going to take a look at one Rockwell painting tonight. On the front of the notecard, write the name of that painting and do what we did in class (describe what you see…as outlined above). On the back of the notecard: Use the brainstorming we did in class and your own prior knowledge about WWII and especially about the effects of he war as soldiers returned home to analyze the painting. What view of war and its effects is Rockwell portraying and how do you know that? Who might his intended audience be and how do you know that? What strikes you in the painting as stereotypical and what strikes you as surprising (breaking of stereotype)? Fill both sides of the card.