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Teaching Diary 14: The American Dream
May. 12th, 2021 10:07 amWhat even is the American Dream? I ask because I'm working on one of my final units in American Lit. For background, here are the standards for my unit. They may change soon as my school re-evaluates the curriculum in 7-year cycles, and ELA is due next year.
1. The Student Will explain the development of values and beliefs in Contemporary fiction/drama/poetry with references to the text and/or the historical context of the text. 2. TSW discuss the emerging voices of American immigrants, women writers, and other growing subsets of American culture. 3. TSW critique the personal voice of Contemporary writers and how it contributes to defining the concept of the “American Dream”.
4. TSW analyze the borrowings of Contemporary writers from other literary periods (forms, themes, allusion, characters, etc.). 5. TSW explain the influence of culture, language, and/or the immigrant experience in
Contemporary literature.
One thing I did was show the students the pilots of four sitcoms: Fresh Off the Boat, Black-ish, The Middle, and One Day at a Time (the Netflix reboot). This year, the unit is a bit of a hot mess because I'm teaching it for the first time and trying to refine the texts. We read the essay "Mother Tongue" and an excerpt from The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, since they were in our textbooks. We read a short story by Rachel Khong, poems by Ocean Vuong, Franny Choi, Adrienne Su, Li-Young Lee, Emily Jungmin Yoon, and James Masao Mitsui (the Poetry Foundation website had a collection for AAPI Month), and the essay "A Chinaman's Chance: Reflections on the American Dream" by Eric Liu (also in a textbook left behind in my classroom).
Keeping in mind that my resources are limited to what I can find online, I have some questions, and I'd be interested in anyone's input, American or not.
1. What is the American Dream?
2. Is there media about the American Dream that doesn't focus on families? I was thinking about using sitcoms since they are, in my mind, such an American art form, and they are produced to appeal to as wide a range of people as possible for maximum ratings, so I think it would be interesting to compare a bunch of episodes. But I've noticed the shows we watched this year focused on nuclear families. Is the American Dream generational? America is such an individualistic country that to have media focused on TAD and family seems like an interesting place to poke around and have discussions.
3. Related to the question above, it occurs to me that The Great Gatsby is often held up as a quintessential text about the American Dream, and that is a story about an individual's desire. We wouldn't read it in this unit because the time frame for texts is post-WWII, but are there similar texts?
4. What are some texts you think might be good to include, keeping in mind again my limited access and also limited time frame (units are typically three weeks long), so short stories, essays, poems, and single episodes of TV work best.
5. ??? I know this is a giant question, one that could easily be addressed over the course of the year. And in fact, I might start with this unit next year and then work up from colonial times because I think Puritan and colonizer values are very much tied to common definitions of the American Dream.
Okay, thank you for your consideration.
1. The Student Will explain the development of values and beliefs in Contemporary fiction/drama/poetry with references to the text and/or the historical context of the text. 2. TSW discuss the emerging voices of American immigrants, women writers, and other growing subsets of American culture. 3. TSW critique the personal voice of Contemporary writers and how it contributes to defining the concept of the “American Dream”.
4. TSW analyze the borrowings of Contemporary writers from other literary periods (forms, themes, allusion, characters, etc.). 5. TSW explain the influence of culture, language, and/or the immigrant experience in
Contemporary literature.
One thing I did was show the students the pilots of four sitcoms: Fresh Off the Boat, Black-ish, The Middle, and One Day at a Time (the Netflix reboot). This year, the unit is a bit of a hot mess because I'm teaching it for the first time and trying to refine the texts. We read the essay "Mother Tongue" and an excerpt from The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, since they were in our textbooks. We read a short story by Rachel Khong, poems by Ocean Vuong, Franny Choi, Adrienne Su, Li-Young Lee, Emily Jungmin Yoon, and James Masao Mitsui (the Poetry Foundation website had a collection for AAPI Month), and the essay "A Chinaman's Chance: Reflections on the American Dream" by Eric Liu (also in a textbook left behind in my classroom).
Keeping in mind that my resources are limited to what I can find online, I have some questions, and I'd be interested in anyone's input, American or not.
1. What is the American Dream?
2. Is there media about the American Dream that doesn't focus on families? I was thinking about using sitcoms since they are, in my mind, such an American art form, and they are produced to appeal to as wide a range of people as possible for maximum ratings, so I think it would be interesting to compare a bunch of episodes. But I've noticed the shows we watched this year focused on nuclear families. Is the American Dream generational? America is such an individualistic country that to have media focused on TAD and family seems like an interesting place to poke around and have discussions.
3. Related to the question above, it occurs to me that The Great Gatsby is often held up as a quintessential text about the American Dream, and that is a story about an individual's desire. We wouldn't read it in this unit because the time frame for texts is post-WWII, but are there similar texts?
4. What are some texts you think might be good to include, keeping in mind again my limited access and also limited time frame (units are typically three weeks long), so short stories, essays, poems, and single episodes of TV work best.
5. ??? I know this is a giant question, one that could easily be addressed over the course of the year. And in fact, I might start with this unit next year and then work up from colonial times because I think Puritan and colonizer values are very much tied to common definitions of the American Dream.
Okay, thank you for your consideration.
