Tackling Seminal U.S. Documents How English and History teachers can benefit from

collaborative teaching of historical documents

The presenters

Geoff Belcher ◦ 21 years at Wake Forest High

◦ Teaches AP and Regular senior

English and advises the

newspaper

Marlin Jones ◦ 15 years in WCPSS

◦ Currently at Panther Creek High

◦ Teaches US History, Honors US

History, and AP US History

The Kenan Fellows Experience

As 2012 NCSU Kenan Fellows, we were

tasked with helping English and History

teachers to develop reading strategies for

historical documents.

Working with Julie Joslin at DPI, we

developed five different units that mesh

historical documents with traditional

English classroom novels

Analyze seminal U.S. documents of

historical and literary significance (e.g.,

Washington’s Farewell Address, the

Gettysburg Address, Roosevelt’s Four

Freedoms speech, King’s “Letter from

Birmingham Jail”), including how they

address related themes and concepts.

Nervous?

English teachers have natural trepidation

over how to incorporate such texts into

the English classroom.

History teachers wonder how they can

teach students how to read and analyze

the texts beyond the recall of basic

information.

What our partnership taught us…

Help from History

History teachers, familiar with the

documents, provide context, audience and

purpose analysis to English teachers

unfamiliar with these letters or speeches

Initial collaborative conversations help

English teachers to meld documents with

the themes of their literature units

SOAPSTONE

S = Speaker

O = Occasion

A = Audience

P = Purpose

S = Subject

TONE = Author’s attitude

APPARTS

Author

Place and time

Prior knowledge activation

Audience

Reason (Why created when it was)

The main idea

Significance (Why was the text important)

Enlightenment from English

English teachers help History colleagues

to guide their students through an

analysis of how the text was created and

how the rhetorical devices characterize

the author and create tone and purpose.

Device based questions…

Why the specific diction chosen?

Why those similes or metaphors?

Why passive voice then active voice?

Why a shift in sentence type or length?

Why that particular imagery (sense language)?

Why that allusion?

Why those rhetorical appeals (ethos, logos, pathos)?

The Units…

Linking King’s “Letter

from a Birmingham

Jail” with Lee’s novel

To Kill a Mockingbird

The Context

The U. S. in the

1960s

◦ Inquiry based

learning activity

Selected photos

I noticed/I wonder

chart

◦ Clips from Eye on

the Prize

The context

“I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of

all communities and states. I cannot sit

idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned

about what happens in Birmingham.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice

everywhere.”

— King

The context

“I had hoped that the white moderate

would understand that law and order

exist for the purpose of establishing

justice and that when they fail in this

purpose they become the dangerously

structured dams that block the flow of

social progress.”

— King

The connection

How is Alabama in 1963 similar to and

different than the Alabama of the 1930s

depicted in Lee’s novel?

How are King and Atticus’ approach to

combatting racial tensions similar?

The Standards

RI 5: Analyze in detail how an author’s ideas

or claims are developed and refined by

particular sentences, paragraphs, or larger

portions of a text (e.g., a section or chapter).

RI 6: Determine an author’s point of view or

purpose in a text and analyze how an author

uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or

purpose.

The analysis

Pathos: Where does King make an appeal to the reader’s emotions?

“…when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky…”

The analysis

Ethical Appeal: Writers using ethos may offer a definition for an obscure term or detailed statistics to establish their authority and knowledge.

“Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns: and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman…”

The analysis

Logical Appeal: The logical appeal uses

reason to make its case. The logical appeal

often cites statistics, scientific evidence, or

published reports to lead the reader to

accept the author’s viewpoint

The analysis

“…There can be no gainsaying the fact

that racial injustice engulfs this

community. Birmingham is probably the

most thoroughly segregated city in the

United States. Its ugly record of brutality

is widely known.”

The analysis

Other devices explored:

Allusion

Anaphora

Juxtaposition

Structure (Paragraph length)

Enrichment

Comparison of King’s speech to Malcolm

X’s “Message to the Grassroots.”

Video clip: King and Malcolm speak for

themselves

◦ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesonthepriz

e/resources/vid/11_video_noi_qt.html

The Units

Contrasting

President Wilson’s

attitude towards

taking America to

war with the

attitudes

expressed by

characters in the

novel

Wilson’s World War I Speech

The Context

◦ WWI and Unrestricted

Submarine Warfare

◦ Neutrality of the US

Rhetorical Analysis

The Standards

RI 5: Analyze in detail how an author’s ideas

or claims are developed and refined by

particular sentences, paragraphs, or larger

portions of a text (e.g., a section or chapter).

RI 6: Determine an author’s point of view or

purpose in a text and analyze how an author

uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or

purpose.

The Context

The Context

“I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of non-combatants, men, women, and children, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be. The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind.” —Wilson

The Context

“We have no quarrel with the German

people. We have no feeling towards them

but one of sympathy and friendship. It was

not upon their impulse that their

government acted in entering this war. It

was not with their previous knowledge or

approval.”

The Connection

Wilson’s speech contrasts sharply with

the rhetoric of Kantorek, the teacher of

the boys in the novel. Kantorek

represents a blind nationalism and

glorification of war. Wilson, on the other

hand, offers a more sober assessment of

the dangers of war

The analysis

Diction

“The choice we make for ourselves must be made

with a moderation of counsel and a

temperateness of judgment befitting our

character and our motives as a nation.”

Pathos

Hyperbole

Passive voice

Sudden shift to active voice

The Units

Exploring how the pivotal scene where

Nora leaves her husband in Ibsen’s A

Doll’s House reflects the key ideas of the

women’s rights movement expressed in

Stanton’s “Declaration of Sentiments”

The Context

The context

◦ 19th Century U.S.

Cult of Domesticity

Age of Reform Women’s Rights

Temperance

Abolition

Comparison with the Declaration of Independence

◦ http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/2decs.html

The Text

Declaration of Sentiments and Declaration of Independence side by side

The Connection

Students are given eight statements from Stanton’s piece and are asked to find statements by Nora in the closing act that express similar concerns about the roles of women

◦ The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.

Nora says…

“I mean that I was simply transferred from papa's hands into yours. You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as your else I pretended to, I am really not quite sure which--I think sometimes the one and sometimes the other. When I look back on it, it seems to me as if I had been living here like a poor woman--just from hand to mouth. I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. You and papa have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life.”

Enrichment

Students can also read Hillary Rodham

Clinton’s speech “Women’s Rights are

Human Rights”

Students assess which concerns poised by

Stanton and Ibsen are still relevant on a

world stage today as women globally face

many of the same struggles as Stanton

and Nora

The Units

President Washington’s Farewell Address

provides a challenging stand-alone unit for

11th grade students

Washington’s Farewell Address Introductory Activity

Prompt #1

What does it mean to you to be called an American? Discuss several thoughts, emotions, or ideas. You may first list several things to get started, but your response should be in several complete sentences.

Prompt #2

America is comprised of many regional areas that have their own identities. Work with your study groups to make a list of some of these various regions of the country.

Now that you have your list, choose the region that applies to you—either because you live there now or because you grew up in that region and moved but still identify yourself with the area. Write about what being called by that region means to you. (e.g. What does it mean to be called a Southerner? A New Yorker? A Yankee? A Mid-westerner? etc.)

Prompt #3

Upon which name or identity do you place the most importance being an American or the identifier of your region? Explain.

Washington’s Farewell Cont…

Guided Practice

In one sentence Washington seems to offer you an answer about which he thought was more important: being called an American or being name by one’s region. In which paragraph does he offer his answer?

Sometimes paraphrasing or restating difficult sentences into your own words can be a helpful strategy. Work with your peers to paraphrase the first sentence of paragraph 9. Put your paraphrase below:

Washington’s Farewell Cont.

Adapted Text

Some of the Rhetorical Analysis

One ancient rhetorical form is the apologia. Apologia is a specific genre in which an orator defends himself or his actions against accusation.

What accusation does Washington defend himself against, in advance of it being made, in the opening paragraphs of the address?

What specific quote best illustrates the apologia?

By making this apology in advance, what does Washington preclude the congress from doing had it decided to do so?

Rhetorical analysis cont. In an essay analyzing Washington’s rhetoric (see footnote below), Halford Ryan

writes, “The ability to coin a metaphor has always been prized in oratory, for metaphors invite audiences to perceive new relationships and to attribute to the speaker a sharp intellect (9).

In paragraph 25 what does Washington liken political parties to?

Why is the metaphor a particularly apt one given the type of discourse or language usually employed by partisan political parties?

Pathos is another rhetorical device in which the orator appeals to and plays upon the emotions of his audience. By what metaphor in paragraph 32 does Washington make an emotional appeal? (Quote the text)

Why would this appeal have been immediately understandable to the white audience of Washington’s address?

Where in his famous speech does Patrick Henry, writing 18 years earlier, first utilize the same metaphor? (Quote the text and paragraph)

Looking at both metaphors, whose is more effective and why? (In your analysis consider elements such as diction and syntax)

The Units Four Freedoms Speech

The Four Freedoms

Freedom of speech and expression

Freedom of worship

Freedom from want

Freedom from fear

Common Dystopian Conventions

Human abuse of technology

Technology outpaces humanity’s spiritual evolution

A police state (strict governmental control)

Individualism is discouraged / Collectivism is encouraged

Citizens may not have names

A rigid caste system exists

Concepts and symbols of religion are replaced or eliminated

Appreciation of nature is discouraged

Enrichment

How are the principles of Roosevelt’s speech violated in the dystopian society depicted in The Hunger Games?

Thank you!

We hope this brief overview of our work

as Kenan Fellows will aid your efforts to

integrate seminal U.S. documents into the

English classroom and will help your

efforts to teach the rhetorical craft

evident in these rich documents to your

history students.