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 lessons in this unit are designed to help your students recognize how people of different cultures and time periods have used cloth-based art forms (quilts) to pass down their traditions and history.
Learning about World War II American efforts helps students gain some perspective regarding the U.S. response to the conflict generated by the September 11th terrorist attacks.
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.
Students will be introduced to this dramatic era in our nation's history through photographs, songs and interviews with people who lived through the Dust Bowl.
One of the most famous political speeches on freedom in the twentieth century was delivered by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his 1941 State of the Union message to Congress. This lesson examines the rhetorical use of "freedom" with the objective of encouraging students to glimpse the broad range of hopes and aspirations that are expressed in the call of—and for—freedom.
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.
