ELAALRL2 The student identifies, analyzes, and applies knowledge of theme in a work of American literature and provides evidence from the work to support understanding. The student:
a. Applies knowledge of the concept that the theme or meaning of a selection represents a universal view or comment on life or society and provides support from the text for the identified theme.
b. Evaluates the way an author’s choice of words advances the theme or purpose of the work.
c. Applies knowledge of the concept that a text can contain more than one theme.
Essential Questions:
What is theme?
How is imagination important? Is it more important than rational thought?
Are people essentially good or evil?
Key Terms:
Romanticism
Transcendentalism
Theme
1. ON YOUR BLOG: Read the standard one more time. What is a theme? Would you know one when you saw it? Could you provide evidence to support what you say? Take a moment to post to your blog what this standard might mean, and while you are at it, what this thing called theme" is. You may also provide answers to the essential questions if you like. However you decide to respond to this post, be sure to make some sort of prediction as to what this unit may be addressing.
Irving was probably The United States’ first home-grown celebrity, and you are probably familiar with some of his stories like "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". These stories are some of the best examples of American Romanticism, a style of writing that required people to use their imaginations.
Irving was so famous that some of the stories he created are still accepted as fact today. Have you heard the story about Christopher Columbus proving the earth was round? That is fact, right? NOPE.
This myth (as well as some others) were created from Washington Irving’s stories. Irving wrote a children’s book about Columbus in which the explorer wanted to prove the world was round. The fact is that everybody already knew it was round at the time. In fact, globes were a popular thing with which people decorated their homes.
It is not hard to believe that so many people would take Irving’s stories for fact. People needed a little fiction and imagination to get away from their lives because living in the United States during this time (the 1820s-40s) was not the most enjoyable. Most people lived in large cities like Boston, New York (which quadrupled in population in twenty years), and Philadelphia. These places were nasty. People threw their trash and sewage in the street; horse droppings were everywhere; if a horse dropped dead, it would stay in the street to rot; thousands of children and adults were homeless; pirates would come ashore and rob people in the cities; gangs controlled sections of many these cities, and a cholera epidemic killed up to one hundred people a day.
Romanticism is the school of thought that emphasizes intuition over logic, and feeling over reason. You should immediately recognize how this is different from the Rationalist (Franklin / Age of Reason) school of thought. Romantics felt that reason and logic can only go so far for someone who is homeless and starving, or suffering the side-effects of the Industrial Revolution like pollution and being injured in large factories.
Be careful not to confuse Romanticism with what we commonly call "romantic" today. They are a little bit different. We call lovey-dovey movies and stories romantic today because it is a kind of Romanticism in that they depict relationships in the way we would imagine them, and not the way they actually are.
The Romantics believed there were higher truths than reason and logic, and they felt this could be accomplished by listening to one’s heart, or using one’s imagination to reach better places than where they were physically.
Many people around the world thought Americans were unsophisticated and stupid, and the Rationalists tried very hard to prove that this was unfair and untrue. Romantics, on the other hand, told stories of ordinary people, like Rip Van Winkle or Natty Bumppo who were unsophisticated and were able to rise to the level of hero. They wanted to prove that Americans were more innocent than Europeans, and that true knowledge was not found in libraries, but in adventures.
Romantics also focused on nature in their writing since they thought it was a way to escape from the loud city, as well as a way to hear ones intuition.
Work Period:Read either Rip Van Winkle or The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and then post the following to your weblog:
Better yet, listen to Rip Van Winkle as you read it. Please take the time to open the text file since reading and listening together will be the most useful, especially since you will need to find textual evidence later.
Rip Van Winkle Audio:
2. What about the story did you find particularly Romantic? You may want to reread the section on Romanticism again to refresh your memory. Give at least two examples with direct evidence for each.
3.
You can also find this video in my assignments folder in my drop box. If you view it there, you will be able to watch it full-screen. You can also view it here.
How does this poem illustrate all three of the main themes of Romanticism? Make sure you provide evidence for each claim you make.
BEFORE MOVING ONTO THE NEXT SECTION OF THIS UNIT, YOU SHOULD BE SURE YOU CAN ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:
a. What is original sin?
b. How did the Puritans feel about original sin?
c. How did the Rationalists differ from the Puritans?
d. What are the main themes of Romanticism?
Georgia Performance Standard ELAALRL2 states that you should be able to identify themes and support them with evidence. I will expect that you can do this at this point.
That should have been easy.
a. What is original sin?
b. How did the Puritans feel about original sin?
c. How did the Rationalists differ from the Puritans?
d. What are the main themes of Romanticism?
Georgia Performance Standard ELAALRL2 states that you should be able to identify themes and support them with evidence. I will expect that you can do this at this point.
That should have been easy.
Now we are going to investigate the central themes of another group of Romantics called the Transcendentalists.
Another Mini-Lesson:
By the mid-1800s, the United States was still in search of its literary identity. America had popular writers like Washington Irving, but they still did not have the heavy hitters to match up with some of England's poets and essayists. The United States wanted to declare literary independence from England, much like the political separation that happened almost one hundred years earlier.
It was a good time for Americans to want to assert themselves in the literary world. Learning was very popular at the time. Most Americans wanted to improve their minds in one way or the other. Some of the most popular things to do were attending lectures on topics from astronomy to botany to physics to philosophy. Groups pushing for the abolition of slavery and increased rights for women were also forming during this time.
This strive for independence began for the most part during a hiking trip and dinner with a guest list that would include some of the United States' most famous literary figures: Nethaniel Hawthorne, Herman Mellville, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. It was at this outing that these men decided that the United States should have writers as good as England's William Shakespeare, and that this would never happen unless they made an effort to do so. These men's dreams would soon be realized in two separate groups -- The Transcendentalists and the Dark Romantics, sometimes known as "anti-transcendentalists".
The Transcendentalists:
The Transcendentalists were Romantics who adopted philosophies from many other places and cultures. They believed that the individual human mind was one of the most powerful instruments in the world, and that the individual mind was connected to all others through what was known as the "oversoul", a collection of everyone's soul that we all share.
Transcendentalists believed that God spoke through people's minds and their hard work. Since
they believed this, they also believed that every human was absolutely good and pure. They did not believe that the origianl sin committed by Adam and Eve made the rest of us sinners. Why would God communicate through an impure mind? They also believed that God could communicate to people through nature and a persons intuition.
Since God spoke through individuals, Transcendentalists did not belive that institutions like the governemnet or organized religion were effective. They believed that if a person was truly in touch with their surroundings, they could transcend these physical and man-made things to connect with God. The Transcendentalists' optimism and overall trust in the goodness of all people made them popular with outsiders who would often enjoy their lectures.
Please read the following (all of these can be found in the red anthology):
5. When you are through reading, post a 1-2 paragraph response to each piece of writing to your blog. Be sure to concentrate more on what you thought of each piece of writing. Try to include at least one piece of direct evidence with each response (remember standard #1). This should be something that stuck out to you about the particular piece of writing.
6. Next, write explain how each piece is a good example of Transcendentalism by identifying the central themes I described earlier in the post. Use what you read above, and prove that each piece is a good example with a paragraph supported with direct evidence (one paragraph each).
By the mid-1800s, the United States was still in search of its literary identity. America had popular writers like Washington Irving, but they still did not have the heavy hitters to match up with some of England's poets and essayists. The United States wanted to declare literary independence from England, much like the political separation that happened almost one hundred years earlier.
It was a good time for Americans to want to assert themselves in the literary world. Learning was very popular at the time. Most Americans wanted to improve their minds in one way or the other. Some of the most popular things to do were attending lectures on topics from astronomy to botany to physics to philosophy. Groups pushing for the abolition of slavery and increased rights for women were also forming during this time.
This strive for independence began for the most part during a hiking trip and dinner with a guest list that would include some of the United States' most famous literary figures: Nethaniel Hawthorne, Herman Mellville, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. It was at this outing that these men decided that the United States should have writers as good as England's William Shakespeare, and that this would never happen unless they made an effort to do so. These men's dreams would soon be realized in two separate groups -- The Transcendentalists and the Dark Romantics, sometimes known as "anti-transcendentalists".
The Transcendentalists:
The Transcendentalists were Romantics who adopted philosophies from many other places and cultures. They believed that the individual human mind was one of the most powerful instruments in the world, and that the individual mind was connected to all others through what was known as the "oversoul", a collection of everyone's soul that we all share.
Transcendentalists believed that God spoke through people's minds and their hard work. Since
they believed this, they also believed that every human was absolutely good and pure. They did not believe that the origianl sin committed by Adam and Eve made the rest of us sinners. Why would God communicate through an impure mind? They also believed that God could communicate to people through nature and a persons intuition.Since God spoke through individuals, Transcendentalists did not belive that institutions like the governemnet or organized religion were effective. They believed that if a person was truly in touch with their surroundings, they could transcend these physical and man-made things to connect with God. The Transcendentalists' optimism and overall trust in the goodness of all people made them popular with outsiders who would often enjoy their lectures.
Please read the following (all of these can be found in the red anthology):
5. When you are through reading, post a 1-2 paragraph response to each piece of writing to your blog. Be sure to concentrate more on what you thought of each piece of writing. Try to include at least one piece of direct evidence with each response (remember standard #1). This should be something that stuck out to you about the particular piece of writing.
6. Next, write explain how each piece is a good example of Transcendentalism by identifying the central themes I described earlier in the post. Use what you read above, and prove that each piece is a good example with a paragraph supported with direct evidence (one paragraph each).
NEXT . . .
Check this guy out. If you do not see the video here, you can find it in my assignments folder. I have called it Wilderness:
7. How can you apply Transcendental philosophy to the man in this video? I'm sure you could easily spend a couple paragraphs telling me how. I also know it would be easy for you to back up whatever you say with direct evidence from the texts you have already read. If you are really into it, you might read a little of Henry David Thoreau's Walden. Just choose a couple sections you think you would like.
CLOSING:
Revisit the response you made to the opening segment (#1). Explain how you feel the work you have done addresses the Georgia Performance Standards for this unit. You may also want to provide more specific answers to the essentail questions.
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