American Literature Lessons — 19th century
EDSITEment, from the National
Endowment for the Humanities is a partnership with the National Trust
for the Humanities, and the Verizon
Foundation, which brings online humanities resources directly to the
classroom through exemplary lesson plans and student activities. We have
over 30 lessons on the major authors in 19th century American literature
including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Washington Irving, Edgar Allen Poe,
Frederick Douglass, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Emily Dickinson, Charlotte
Perkins Gilman, Stephen Crane, Jack London, Kate Chopin, and Walt Whitman.
These online lessons include:
Midnight
Ride of Paul Revere—Fact, Fiction, and Artistic License
An interdisciplinary lesson focusing on Paul Revere's Midnight Ride. While
many students know this historical event, this lesson allows them to explore
the true story of Paul Revere and his journey through primary source readings
as well as to compare artist Grant Wood's and poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's
interpretations of it.
The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Students explore the artistry that helped make Washington Irving our nation's
first literary master and ponder the mystery that now haunts every Halloween—What
happened to Ichabod Crane?
Davy
Crockett, Tall Tales, and History
Using the life of Davy Crockett as a model, students learn the characteristics
of tall tales and how these stories reflect their historical moment. The
lesson culminates with students writing a tall tale of their own.
Edgar
Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, and the Unreliable Biographers
We are naturally curious about the lives (and deaths) of authors, especially
those, such as Edgar Allan Poe and Ambrose Bierce, who have left us with
so many intriguing mysteries. But does biographical knowledge add to our
understanding of their works? And if so, how do we distinguish between
the accurate detail and the rumor, between truth and slander? In this
lesson, students become literary sleuths, attempting to separate biographical
reality from myth. They also become careful critics, taking a stand on
whether extra-literary materials such as biographies and letters should
influence the way readers understand a writer's texts.
Edgar
Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, and the Unreliable Narrator
Help your students consider a variety of narrative stances in Edgar Allen
Poe's short story, "Tell Tale Heart," and Ambrose Bierce's "An
Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge."
Perspective
on the Slave Narrative
Trace the elements of history, literature, polemic, and autobiography
in the 1847 Narrative of William W. Brown, An American Slave. This Lesson
Plan was revised 01/19/2006
From
Courage to Freedom: Frederick Douglass's 1845 Autobiography
Curriculum Unit overview: In 1845 Frederick Douglass
published what was to be the first of his three autobiographies: the Narrative
of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself.
As the title suggests, Douglass wished not only to highlight the irony
that a land founded on freedom would permit slavery to exist within its
midst, but also to establish that he, an American slave with no formal
education, was the sole author of the work.
Hawthorne:
Author and Narrator
Compare the storyteller?s voice with that of the writer who was a contemporary
of Whitman and Douglass.
American
Literary Humor: Mark Twain, George Harris, and Nathaniel Hawthorne
Curriculum unit overview: In this three-part curriculum
unit, students examine structure and characterization in several short
stories and consider the significance of humor through a study of several
American writers.
Tales of the Supernatural
Examine the relationship between science and the supernatural in Mary
Shelley’s Frankenstein and the “horror stories” of Hawthorne
and Poe.
Critical Ways of Seeing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in Context
By studying Mark Twain's novel, Huckleberry Finn, and its critics with
a focus on cultural context, students will develop essential analytical
tools for navigating this text and for exploring controversies that surround
this quintessential American novel.
Emily Dickinson & Poetic Imagination: “Leap,
plashless”
Emily Dickinson's poetry often reveals a child-like fascination with the
natural world. She writes perceptively of butterflies, birds, and bats
and uses lucid metaphors to describe the sky and the sea.
Letters from Emily Dickinson: 'Will you be my preceptor?'
Curriculum Unit overview: Long perceived as a recluse
who wrote purely in isolation, Emily Dickinson in reality maintained many
dynamic correspondences throughout her lifetime and specifically sought
out dialogues on her poetry. These correspondences—both professional
and private—reveal a poet keenly aware of the interdependent relationship
between poet and reader.
The Red Badge of Courage: A New Kind of Courage
In The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane presents war through the eyes
—and thoughts —of one soldier. The narrative’s altered
point of view and stylistic innovations enable a heightened sense of realism
while setting the work apart from war stories written essentially as tributes
or propaganda.
The Red Badge of Courage: A New Kind of Realism
The Red Badge of Courage’s success reflects the birth of a modern
sensibility; today we feel something is true when it looks like the sort
of thing we see in newspapers or on television news.
Charlotte
Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-paper”—Writing
Women
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's story "The Yellow Wall-paper" was
written during this time of great change. This lesson plan, the first
part of a two-part lesson, helps to set the historical, social, cultural,
and economic context of Gilman's story.
Crane, London, and Literary Naturalism
Heavily influenced by social and scientific theories, including those
of Darwin, writers of naturalism described—usually from a detached
or journalistic perspective—the influence of society and surroundings
on the development of the individual. In the following lesson plan, students
will learn the key characteristics that comprise American literary naturalism
as they explore London's "To Build a Fire" and Crane's "The
Open Boat."
Investigating Jack London's White Fang: Nature and
Culture Detectives
In White Fang, Jack London sought to trace the “development of domesticity,
faithfulness, love, morality, and all the amenities and virtues.”
In this lesson, students explore images from the Klondike and read White
Fang closely to learn how to define and differentiate the terms “nature”
and “culture."
Jack London's The Call of the Wild: “Nature Faker”?
A critic of writer Jack London called his animal protagonists “men
in fur,” suggesting that his literary creations flaunted the facts
of natural history. London responded to such criticism by maintaining
that his own creations were based on sound science and in fact represented
“…a protest against the ‘humanizing’ of animals,
of which it seemed to me several ‘animal writers’ had been
profoundly guilty.” How well does London succeed in avoiding such
“humanizing” in his portrayal of Buck, the hero of his novel,
The Call of the Wild?
Kate Chopin's The Awakening: No Choice but Under?
In this curriculum unit (and lesson 1), students will
explore how Chopin stages the possible roles for women in Edna's time
and culture through the examples of other characters in the novella.
Knowledge or Instinct? Jack London’s “To Build a Fire”
As a man and his animal companion take a less-traveled path to their Yukon
camp, they step into a tale of wilderness survival and dire circumstances
in this excellent example of American literary naturalism by Jack London.
Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat”
The harrowing adventure of four men fighting for survival after a shipwreck
is chronicled by Stephen Crane in "The Open Boat." Students
learn about narration, point of view, and man's relationship to nature
in this classic example of American literary naturalism.
Stories in Quilts
Quilts can be works of art as well as stories through pictures. They also
tell a story about their creators and about the historical and cultural
context of their creation through the choices made in design, material,
and content.
Walt Whitman to Langston Hughes: Poems for a Democracy
Walt Whitman sought to create a new and distinctly American form of poetry.
His efforts had a profound influence on subsequent generations of American
poets. In this lesson, students will explore the historical context of
Whitman's concept of "democratic poetry" by reading his poetry
and prose and by examining daguerreotypes taken circa 1850. Next, students
will compare the poetic concepts and techniques behind Whitman's "I
Hear America Singing" and Langston Hughes' "Let America Be America
Again," and will have an opportunity to apply similar concepts and
techniques in creating a poem from their own experience.
Walt Whitman's Notebooks and Poetry: the Sweep of the Universe
Clues to Walt Whitman's effort to create a new and distinctly American
form of verse may be found in his Notebooks, now available online from
the American Memory Collection. In an entry to be examined in this lesson,
Whitman indicated that he wanted his poetry to explore important ideas
of a universal scope (as in the European tradition), but in authentic
American situations and settings using specific details with direct appeal
to the senses.
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