Intro to Modernism and Poetry: Keep this is mind as we read, Eliot, Fitzgerald, and even Harlem Renaissance Writers such as Hughes, Cullen and Hurston.Guiding QuestionWhat are several historical, social, and cultural forces that prompted the modernist movement?What were the effects of these influential factors?Learning ObjectiveStudents will understand the historical, social, and cultural context of modernism at large.What you will do…A tour of the interactive timeline from the EDSITEment-reviewed resource Learner.org: Timeline: Events of 1876-1999. Focus on the late 1800s and 1900s. The class may also review the Twentieth-century Timeline, a link accessed via the EDSITEment-reviewed Internet Public Library. While not all on the same scale of September 11th, certain historical, social, and cultural forces prompted the same kind of wide-scale change in the way individuals thought about their world. Ask students what some of these influential forces were. You should see events such as: the rise of cities; profound technological changes in transportation, architecture, and engineering; a rising population that engendered crowds and chaos in public spaces; a growing sense of mass markets often made individuals; and WWI contributed to making people feel less individual and more alienated, fragmented, and at a loss in their daily lives and worlds.You will be in five small groups. Each group will have one of the five topics listed below. Explore the assigned resources and to try to imagine life before and after the key moments in history. These sites primarily focus on U.S. history.Assign a scribe, and ask each group to list at least five adjectives to describe how life must have been within the context of the topic they explore as a small group. Emphasize that students should consider these topics within the context of how an individual would respond to these social, cultural, technological, and historical changes.
Inventions/Technological Breakthroughs—Group 1explore the Interactive Timeline: Inventions 1868-1898, from the EDSITEment-reviewed resource Learner.org. The group should assign a person to take notes, jotting down 4-5 inventions for discussion.explore the following sites as well: “Inventing Entertainment,” from the Library of Congress American Memory Project. Point students to the following videos in particular:104th Street curve, New York, elevated railway9th Infantry boys' morning washAmerican falls from above, American sideConsider/answer the following questions as they note key inventions/technological advancements at the turn-of-the-19th century:What were some of the primary effects/ramifications of each invention/technological breakthrough?How do you think individuals responded to the inventions/technological advancements? What became easier? What became harder in one’s daily life?What are some of the effects of the invention of motion pictures (both in terms of the technology itself and the ability to capture moving images of various content/subject matters)?
Rise of the City—Group 2compare and contrast rural and urban life. Discuss with them the rise of the city that occurred with the influx of immigration, continued industrialization of the United States (especially the North), and the rise of now commonplace features like major department stores and their window displays.watch the following early videos of New York, available via the EDSITEment reviewed American Memory website, asking them to pay attention to people, traffic, and crowds.Lower Broadway, 1903Panorama of Flatiron Building, 1903Panorama from Times Building, 1905 (notice the people/cars on the street from the 20-story height of the Times Building)104th Street curve, New York, elevated railway, 1899Interior, New York Subway, 1905See also:Overview of the first skyscraper (Home Insurance Building), from EDSITEment-reviewed PBS “Building Big” seriesNew Brooklyn to New York via Brooklyn Bridge, no. 2Consider/answer the following questions:How would you feel if you were an individual navigating these city scenes?What elements of each city scene video stand out to you and why?Imagine first riding on an elevated railroad through a city or in a city subway? What would this ride feel like if you never had experienced it before?How might these changes effect how people responded to the city? To each other? Teachers might prompt students to consider, for example, how the layout of the school building or the way they move between classes—or from class to home—influences their relationships with other people.
Quickened Pace of Transportation—Group 3
Explore the “The Wilbur and Orville Wright Timeline, 1901-1910,” from the EDSITEment-reviewed Library of Congress American Memory Project. Point out to students the collection’s webpage “The Belief That Flight is Possible to Man.”Also have students view one or more of the following early motion videos from the EDSITEment reviewed American Memory website:104th Street curve, New York, elevated railway, 1899Interior, New York Subway, 1905New Brooklyn to New York via Brooklyn Bridge, no. 2, 1899Market Street before parade, filmed from automobile, 1903A trip down Market Street before the fire, filmed from San Francisco cable car, 1905See also:Brooklyn Bridge Overview (from EDSITEment-reviewed America’s Story)Brooklyn Bridge overview from EDSITEment-reviewed PBS “Building Big” series.Consider/answer the following questions:Imagine first riding on an elevated railroad through a city or in a city subway? What would this ride feel like if you never had experienced it before?Compare the pedestrians, horse/carriages you see to the new forms of transportation. What differences do you notice in these early films?What would life be like before the advancements in transportation in the late 1800s/early 1900s? What effects did such technological breakthroughs have on individuals in their local and larger worlds?
Factory Life—Group 4Have this group explore the early motion videos from “Inside an American Factory: Films of the Westinghouse Works, 1904” [From the Library of Congress American Memory Project], including, for example:Assembling a generatorGirls taking time checksGirls winding armaturesPanorama of Machine Co. aislePanorama view of street car motor roombrowse “The Triangle Fire, March 25, 1911 Photo Gallery,” including the link to Cornell University’s “The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Website” from the EDSITEment-reviewed New Deal Network. The Triangle Fire caused the deaths of several young working women and prompted reforms.Consider/answer the following questions:How would you describe working in a factory in the early 20th century?What is the relationship between the factory worker and the machines such as those depicted in the Westinghouse videos?Think about “Girls taking time checks,” “Girls winding armatures,” and the panoramic overviews? What do these images suggest about an individual factory worker’s own place within the factory at large?World War 1—Group 5view several of the trench warfare videos from The Wilfred Owen Multimedia Digital Archive, a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed Academy of American Poets site:French soldiers in Alsace using trench periscopeBritish troops August 1916 during the Battle of the SommeBelgian troops entrenched along a railway linePanning shot over a wrecked trench with entrances to intact dugouts, 1916Trench junction at Martinpuich with infantry, some carrying boxes of grenades, moving up, presumably to the front line, 1916High angle shot of trench, 1916Small groups should view the following early video clips and/or photos of landscapes devastated during WWI.“Camera pans slowly across war-devastated landscape. Heavily shell-cratered ground and remnants of wood. Filmed at Beaumont Hamel or Martinpuich, 1916.The “Before and After” pictures, via the EDSITEment-reviewed “Photos of the Great War”,
Consider/answer the following questions:What do you imagine the experience of emerging from a WWI trench was like for a soldier? To what can you compare such an experience?What do you think of the war-devastated landscape? How would you feel if you lived in such a European city after WWI?What emotional effects do the before and after pictures elicit? Compare these pictures to contemporary images (of September 11th, the War in Afghanistan, the War in Iraq).
Assessment:
- Have each student group present their findings, including their list of adjectives, from the small group activity to the full class. Write all adjectives on the blackboard/whiteboard. Lead brief full class discussions on each topic, and begin to chart primary characteristics of a modernist sense of the world. 50 pts
- Students must use some form of technology to present their findings: Powerpoint (minimum 15 slides), wiki, facebook, webs.com (an online free website tool). Technology tools must be used in a creative, innovative way. 50pts.
- Students must include a works cited page (MLA format) at the end of the presentation. worth 50pts
- Have each individual student write a typed, two-page letter in the voice of an individual living during the late 1800s to early 1900s. The letter can be written to imaginary individuals from future generations. The letter should address the individual’s response to the social, cultural, technological, or historical change explored during the small group activity. Be sure to integrate into your letter the adjectives your group identified during the small group activity, and explain why those terms apply to you as an individual (in the persona you have chosen to adopt). 50 pts
