Judith Kidd 's CU

Struggle and Change as Elements of American Creative Expression

Judith Kidd

Academic Setting

Highland High School is an interesting environment. In the morning students with a variety of languages and attires, and an occasional purple or green hair color, mix and mingle as buses unload and cars pull up to begin the day. Hispanic, Native American, Anglo, African American and Asian students contribute to its diversity. Students from Mexico are an increasing part of the student body, and it is also the choice of some students from areas as diverse as the Pacific Rim and Afghanistan. Highland was a focal point for Vietnamese immigration in the 1970s and still has a noticeable Vietnamese population. Its student publications are in English, Spanish and Vietnamese. Statistically, Highland averages 2000 students per year with a breakdown of 40% Hispanic, 30% Anglo, 5% African-American, 4% Asian-American and 4% other ethnicities. There is a high drop-out rate in the freshman class and efforts are in place to meet the needs of these students more adequately.

            Highland was the second Albuquerque public high school, built in 1950, and known for decades for its high standards and academic achievement. As Albuquerque expands newer schools in the northeast heights draw many of the high academic, college-bound population, although college-bound students from the University, Four Hills, and Ridgecrest areas continue to choose Highland. In addition, students from the economically deprived southeast section of the city have become a large part of our student body. These kids have more immediate, job-oriented goals and lower academic standards. To continue enriching its curriculum Highland became a Science-Technology Magnet School in 2002 with the intent of developing high-level technology and research programs for those seeking higher education, as well as applied technical skills for those who are not college bound.

The Highland schedule is in block format, which means that students attend four eighty-five-minute classes a day, with the possibility of gaining four credits per term. They need twenty-nine credits to graduate. The diligent students have time for more elective credits or early entrance into college courses. The less diligent have the opportunity to make up a failed class and still pass with their classmates. This schedule also allows student to enter classes each quarter, rather than each term. It gives more flexibility to student from military families at Kirtland AFB and those who have transient life styles (often due to financial difficulties).

            For the most part Highland kids are enjoyable to work with, engaging and cooperative. At lunchtime developmentally disabled students mingle with others in the lunch program, the Mexican students play soccer in the front yard. The tables in the back courtyard are a mix of identities, and the kids have a noticeable acceptance of diversity.

Special Education Setting

There are over five hundred special ed students at Highland, with 25% of these being gifted. The class to which I will apply this curriculum is a special education 11th grade American Literature class at C-level. This mid-level special education designation includes students who have poor reading and/or math skills, usually the result of poor short-term memory, processing difficulties, and/or inability to concentrate. Most of these kids can read at about a 4th or 5th grade level, but they don’t find it relevant for the most part. A few read well and write poetry. They all love music, mostly rap and rock. Their thinking is fairly concrete - their job, immediate environment, the car they bought cheap and are fixing up, relationships. Some have babies and are battling with the duties of parent, job, school, while still living at home with family support. They envision a future home, a good car and fantasize that they will make “good” money somehow and have a nice life. These goals are mostly centered on a future life in this area close to extended family. Nuances of literature, a discussion of ideas, history, travel and other cultures are remote for them. Most do not want to speak out or perform in front of others.

            I enjoy these kids - their street-wise comments, their take on life’s issues (often willing to go fight a war or in some other unknowing way be the fodder that allows the lifestyle of the elite). To me, kids like this are the backbone of society, and should be enriched with excellent courses in the trades and crafts. They have focus and attention for hands-on projects, practical application of skills. They find it hard to be limited to pen, pencil and a flat page of text. To engage them I involve art making, illustrations, storyboards, and other projects involving 3-D application of their ideas. I insist on computer printouts of their essays after first draft (usually a personal theme or application of a theme), and before the printout I correct grammar and spelling with them. To view their words in print brings a feeling of accomplishment and pride that allows them to try again, something even longer, more complex. They like 14-point bold face and I allow any careful format that gives them pride in the final accomplishment. Most of these students are not Anglo, and it is difficult to interest them in the writings of white European Protestants, so more emphasis is given to the literature of their people.

Context and Background

This unit is for an 11th grade American Literature class. It is written for a class of special education students but can be easily adapted to higher levels. It integrates the music of America with its literature, history and art, with a focus on music that defined the issues of its time and people’s response to them. The goal here is to bring to life the writing of Americans by combining them with the emotion and images that defined basic life issues of working people. Music and stories involving life’s issues can allow these students to see themselves in a broader context, one where they can relate to the situations of other times and places that connect with their own lives. This awareness may provide a vehicle for them to express their feelings, their struggle -- and enlarge the picture of who they can become. Because of the breadth of material on this subject I will identify samples of musical themes in this paper with references to larger collections. This curriculum can be the base of an ongoing, in-depth search for relevant music and material that exemplify and enliven the focus of American history as well as literature.

How the Music and Issues Connect

Many kinds of music have found expression in America and been integrated into this culture, from religious hymns of the early Protestants, the music of the slave population, the bands in small towns that proliferated in the 19th century, the concerts of the growing, more sophisticated cities, the songs of the railroad as expansion moved west, the music of workers as industrialization brought so many into the urban factory setting, to more recent issues of environment and a global trade policy.

            Europeanized America evolved through its revolution and civil wars, western expansion and the creation of a railroad system. Many songs were added by people who built the railroads, and these songs incorporated the many languages of the new immigrant workforce. “Through their songs they told about the rigors of their work, their relationships with their fellow workers, the peculiarities connected with their occupations, and even the dangers connected with railroad building.” (Forcucci 172- 174)

The Railroads

The railroad brought both hope and tragedy to people. It created new jobs and more convenient travel as it expanded, first up and down the eastern seaboard, then across the continent. It also hastened the destruction of Native Americans tribal life in the West and the decimation of the buffalo. To easterners and folks along the train route this great machine was exciting, which is expressed in ”She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain.” Lyrics include such thoughts as, She’ll be driving six white horses (the steam engine), and we’ll go to meet her. We’ll kill the old red rooster and have chicken ‘n dumplins etc. (Forcucci 179).

            The song “John Henry” captures the challenge presented by new technology as it endangered the job of railroad workers in the mid-18th century. John Henry was a legendary steel-driving man who could drive spikes into railroad ties faster than anybody else. According to the story he enters a contest to prove that he can drive spikes as fast as the newly invented steam drill. He challenges the drill to sing and to pray as his hammer drives the spike deep into the mountain. But poor John dies in the attempt; his power was not great enough. A final stanza goes:

Oh, John Henry hammered in the mountain.
He drove so hard that he broke his heart,
Then he laid down his hammer and died, Lord, Lord,
Laid down his hammer and died (Forcucci 184).

Appalachia and the Union Movement

Post-Civil War America brought the completion of the railroad across the continent, the rise of industry and ever-growing immigration. Industry used the masses of new immigrants to staff factories with low-paid workers, where conditions were unsafe and hours were long. This in turn spurred a movement to improve working conditions both in the cities and in the growing mining industry.

           By the early 20th century, the coal industry dominated the small, subsistence farms of Appalachia. Workers went on strike to improve conditions, but strikers were opposed by those who feared challenging the employers and stayed on the job. “Which Side Are You On?” written by Florence Reece during the coal miners struggle to organize in Harlan County, became popular in many strikes during this bloody and violent era. Its final stanza urges workers to stay with the strike through the difficult and dangerous period of organizing to form a union.

Which side are you on? Which side are you on?
Don’t scab for the bosses. Don’t listen to their lies,
Us poor folk haven’t got a chance unless we organize (Scott 343).

            In addition to epidemic working conditions Americans in the early 20th century endured World War I, influenza, and the Depression. Impoverished and demoralized, many Americans became interested in a socialist economy. Woman had gained the right to vote in 1927 after decades of education and organizing. Now, the rights of all working people were championed and the union movement grew more powerful. Music became a vehicle to strengthen and publicize these efforts. Many songs came out of this time of organizing and protest. The election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 opened a way for the hard and dangerous conditions of workers to change. With the Wagner Act of 1935 workers were allowed the right to bargain collectively with their employers through unions.

A widely sung union tune of the 1920s and ‘30s, “We Shall Not Be Moved,” came out of West Virginia miner strikes and trumpeted the strength of workers united. The song declares that workers are fighting for their freedom and for their children. The chorus goes:

         The union is behind us, we shall not be moved.
                        Just like a tree, that’s standing by the water,
                        We shall not be moved. (Scott 343).

The Dust Bowl

The dust bowl era was an environmental disaster that resulted in a great migration across America in the mid-1930s. High prices for wheat, corn, and cotton in the late 1920s caused many outsiders without knowledge of Midwest farming practices to buy up huge tracts of land in plains areas. Millions of acres of grassland were plowed under to plant cotton and corn and, most of all, wheat. By the late 1920s sixty-four percent of farmers in the Great Plains depended on cash crops for a living with little thought of diversifying crops, keeping livestock, or preserving topsoil. Many of these farmers were “suitcase farmers” who lived elsewhere and came in to plant or harvest twice a year, reaping huge profits. Small tenant farmers were encroached upon and jobs diminished as the large farmer bought new machinery that allowed rapid harvesting and distribution. In 1933, when drought conditions began, farmers in the Midwest had destroyed the topsoil. Dust storms moved quickly across the plains shifting tons of soil into sand dunes, leaving thousands of acres bare of topsoil, and destroying the health and livelihood of the large and small farmers alike (Johnson 113-155).

            Ann Marie Low remembers the great storm of April 1934 in her poignant diary of the era. “Many days this spring the air is just full of dirt coming, literally, for hundreds of miles.” Clothes and dishes were covered with dirt. People could not see to drive and “the deaths of many babies and old people are attributed to breathing in so much dirt” (Low 95). Thousands of small farmers in Oklahoma and Texas were forced to leave their farms and look for a life elsewhere. Many moved to California hoping for work picking grapes or cotton. There they endured the rejection of Californians who were overwhelmed with thousands of “Okies” arriving and looking for work. Dorothea Lange’s photographs of the work camps, especially her portrait of an impoverished mother of three in a pea-picking camp, “Migrant Mother,” did much to raise public consciousness and provide federal aid to the displaced dust bowl population and other impoverished people. (Lange 8-43)

            Woody Guthrie, a champion of the day-to-day struggle of working people, chronicled the events of the era -- the depression, the union movement, the dust bowl migration. He used humor and irony to get his point across, singing, strumming his guitar and playing the harmonica. He sang of the great dust storms, the disruption of the land and the refugee movement to California. One of Woody’s famous ballads told the story of Tom Joad, a character in John Steinbeck’s novel of this time, The Grapes of Wrath. The song tells how Tom returns home after a four year absence to find his family packing up to move to California. They endure the long and tragic journey, the death of the very old and very young, and life in the unemployment camps. At the end of the story and song Tom Joad leaves the family to work for the betterment of others and help form a union.

Wherever little children are hungry and cry,
Wherever people ain’t free.
Wherever men are fightin’ for their rights,
That’s where I’m gonna be, Ma.
That’s where I’m a gonna be. (Guthrie Tract 11)

            Guthrie was one of the great folk recorders as well as balladeers of the 20th century. He wrote over 1000 songs between 1932 and 1952, which he performed on radio, at parties and union gatherings. Guthrie was joined by other singers who wanted to sing the songs of working people. He was revered for his wit, his ability to create music that expressed the issues of the times, and his insightful perception of the forces that shaped the lives of the common people. “Woody became the primary influence on the entire folk music boom of the fifties, as well as on the protest-song music of the sixties. (Santelli and Davidson 12)

Folk Revival

Guthrie was recorded by Alan Lomax, another influential figure of the time who, through the Archive of American Folk Music initially funded by congress in 1937, collected and published folk songs of the Appalachia, blues and hollars of black Southern field workers, and other songs of America. Lomax considered folk music an essential ingredient of a populist democracy. Through his efforts folk songs became a known compliment to the popular tunes of the 1930s and ‘40s (Crawford 613-615).

Peter Seeger, a Harvard-educated son of musicians from whom he imbibed a radical political perspective, joined Guthrie in creating an urban folk music group called the Almanac Singers, who sang songs of peace, war, and politics. Seeger felt that folk music expressed the message he wanted to convey. “These styles manifested for Seeger true, unadorned, democratic expression, the opposite of Tin Pan Alley and Broadway offerings” (Crawford 616). Seeger arranged the spiritual “We Shall Overcome” in support of the Civil Rights movement and it later became an anthem for equality worldwide. He created a floating classroom and stage project to clean up the Hudson River in 1969 and now in his 80s is still an inspiration to many.

            In the 1960s many young Americans expressed their frustrations with the Vietnam War, injustice and urbanization by returning to folk music and also creating their own music of social change. To name a few: Joan Baez reintroduced very early folk music such as the Child Ballads, and also drew attention to issues of the decade in songs like “What Have They Done to the Rain,” Malvina Reynolds’ warning against nuclear fallout (Baez 1964). Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” lamented the loss of “paradise” to make room for a parking lot. Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin” drew a clear distinction between generational values.

Environmental destruction, nuclear toxicity, over-development, war and peace were themes folk musicians wrote and sang about then and now as people struggle to maintain quality of life. In the 1990s Kurt Cobain appealed to millions of disenfranchised youth with his nihilistic grunge rock, and groups such Rage Against the Machine cried out against corporate control and cultural imperialism. At the WTO convention in Seattle in spring 2000 protesters sang Woody Guthrie’s tribute to American popular democracy “This Land Is Your Land,” viewing need for local autonomy in global terms. Rap and Hip Hop (see below) reveal the violence and despair in crowded urban. Locally, water rights and land issues are current themes. A local group, Nuevo Mexico Presents!, sings “Homophobia” and challenges traditional thinking about sex roles.

The African American Experience

Music of early Blacks came from Africa. It incorporated calling out and repetitive chants combined with rhythmic moves and clapping. The life of slavery was brutal, monitored and restricted. Crawford states that “Aware that slaves’ bodies were easier to control than their minds masters could command singing to track their workers’ whereabouts and monitor their mood” (407). Those who did not sing were suspect and songs became the vehicle by which people could communicate their sadness and contempt, humor, and secrets about the path to the north or clandestine meetings. Hollars were a musical form used by those working on levees and in the fields, a call-and-response way of relieving the misery of the day and incorporating personal messages (Lomax 1962).   Many of these early songs became part of American folk music repertoire, although those singing them later were often not aware of the original meaning.

From the tragic experience of the Negro people under slavery there
came a music that enriched American culture immeasurable and was
of world significance. Appropriating whatever materials were
available – spirituals, hymns, and secular songs -- the genus
of an enslaved people fused these with elements of its own African
tradition to create an incomparably profound and original expression
of the predicament of American man, of man enslaved (Scott 190).

The few examples cited here indicate the range of feeling and messages created by songs of the slave culture. “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” expressed the pain of slavery, the removal from one’s homeland and culture, never to return.

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
A long ways from home, a long ways from home,
O--Laudy, a long ways from home (Attaway 163).

            Humor disguised the deep disdain for owners. “ In The Blue-Tail Fly” the slave waits on his master, fetches his whiskey and brushes away the flies. When the master goes out riding he follows “with a hickory broom.” The horse is “bitten by the blue-tail fly” and master is thrown into a ditch and dies. Beneath the earth he is “forced to lie, a victim of the blue-tail fly” (Attaway 160).

            Escape was plotted through clandestine meetings signaled through music. Religious themes at church meetings were common ways of delivering messages about events. “Steal Away to Jesus” could be the signal for such a meeting. Harriet Tubman, who assisted over 300 slaves to freedom, crept back into the South numerous times to bring folks through the Underground Railroad. She was called “Moses” linking her to the Biblical Moses, “way down in Egypt land,” who told the Pharaoh to let his people go. The sound of the whippoorwill or the quail was a signal for those who were ready to make the perilous journey to gather, and the route to follow was the way of the Drinking Gourd (the big dipper).

When the sun come back when the first quail call,
Then the time is come --
Follow the Drinking Gourd... (Greenway 85).

Sometimes the clandestine news a was good news as in this message that an escape was successful:

Good news, member, good news, member--
I heard from heaven today.
.... My Hawley have a home in Paradise,
Good news, member (Greenway 79).

            The remarkable escape of Henry “Box” Brown who had himself shipped in an unmarked wooden box from Richmond Virginia to Philadelphia in 1948 was sung openly as he traveled throughout northern states entertaining many who honored his achievement. The refrain goes as follows:

Brown laid down the shovel and the hoe,
Down in the box he did go,
No more slave work for Henry Box Brown,
In the box by express he did go” (Greenway 93).

After African Americans gained freedom from slavery they still faced rampant racism in the South and job discrimination and marginization in all areas of the U.S. The sorrows they faced were expressed in church gospel music, blues, and soul. Through these forms they drew on the rhythms and style of their African heritage to express the ongoing life struggles. Early blues was accompanied by the banjo and guitar; it used improvisation and call-and-response to sing emotionally of problems with lovers, money, jobs, and discrimination. One of the most celebrated and influential early blues musicians was Robert Johnson, born in Mississippi in 1911. According to legend, Johnson's guitar was tuned by the Devil himself, who made him a remarkable singer-guitarist in one night. Johnson became the king of Delta blues singers until the Devil claimed his life at age twenty-seven. "All his music can be fitted on two CDs, yet this small collection of songs has moved more listeners and inspired more musicians that any other blues legacy" (Russell 60). Blues was made public through the work of composer and bandleader W.C. Handy "the father of the Blues," who published and played music he heard from musicians in Mississippi Delta as early as 1912.

            Crawford states that through early blues music people were able to transcend the brutal experiences of their lives. "Where the sentimental song creates a realm of passive emotional longing, the blues' determination to probe real suffering brings singers, players and listeners to a perspective on pain that might even include laughter" (558). Blues greats are too numerous to comprehend but the anthology by Tony Russell (1997) discusses the style and famous performers from its beginnings in the Mississippi Delta, through the 1920s and 1930s and centered in Chicago. In the 1940s blues lost popularity as jazz took center stage in listener choice but was revived during the Civil Rights struggle as consciousness of inequity grew into a national movement across racial lines. It was a major influence on musicians of the 1960s, including the Rolling Stones and Janice Joplin, who identified with struggle and the need to sing with passion and determination. Blues musicians such as B.B. King, Ledbetter, Muddy Waters, Etta James, KoKo Taylor and many others sing of personal struggles and resilience through this music.

            Many Americans sought comfort in Tin Pan Alley songs of the 1940s that distracted from wartime worries with lighthearted romance. The voices of Black women such as Ella Fitzgerald popularized this music through big bands led by County Basie, Duke Ellington, and Tommy Dorsey, to name a few. Meanwhile, in the South, blacks were lynched and demeaned while whites celebrated their superiority. Billie Holiday was able to cross the border between these two realities with her rendition of “Strange Fruit.”

            Born in Baltimore in 1915, raped as a young child and burdened throughout life with sorrow, Billie Holiday became a star in the 1930s in the jazz clubs of Harlem. Her upbeat version of songs by Gershwin and Berlin made her famous. She read love comics and true romance magazines and she did not read music. In 1939 she was given the song “Strange Fruit” written by a New York schoolteacher in response to a lynching that was publicized and photographed at that time. Billie sang this song with such striking sensitivity that audiences became completely quiet. It touched them to the core. It became her song, rarely sung by other artists and always the last song of the night. “Strange Fruit” and Billie’s rendition of it brought consciousness to those who would listen to it and enraged some who could not face its portrayal of injustice. In many clubs it was banned; it was seldom heard on radio. It was most popular in Cafe Society, a Harlem nightclub that mocked the pretentious of upscale New York and where races mixed comfortably and politics were sympathetic to the working peoples’ needs (Margolick 4-44). Holiday deteriorated from drugs and alcohol and died in 1959 at age forty-four, but “Strange Fruit” became her legacy.

And in the forty years since her death, audiences have continued to
applaud, respect, and be moved by this disturbing ballad, unique in
Holiday’s oeurve and in the repertoire of American music, as it has
left its mark on generations of writers, musicians, and other listeners, both black and white, in America and throughout the world (Margolick 4).

            African-Americans have continued to push the envelope for respect and opportunity from the Civil Rights movement to today. As we enter the 21the century the bold, sensuous musicians of Rap and Hip Hop glorify their harsh life style and demand that attention be paid to it. Richard Crawford views Hip Hop as influenced by the corporate transference of jobs from U.S. cities to the Third World, which with urban renewal and growing financial inequities have disrupted the chance for many urban blacks to reach the mainstream lifestyle they envisioned. He notes that Rap is a celebration of neighborhoods and a dialogue between them. “To be grounded in one’s home turf and in the company of a ‘posse’” of like-minded cohorts is a source of strength and confirms the musicians’ unambiguous identity” (Crawford 850). He notes also that the assertiveness of the rapper’s delivery appeals to listeners because it is offensive to others. Both black and white youth turn to this music as their parents did to the rock music of the 1960s. It fulfills the need for separation from the dominant authority and celebrates an alternative that offends that authority. In addition, many groups of today, such as Public Enemy and the Wu-Tang Clan, are forces for social change not only in their critique of public policy but also in the creative business sense that pulled them away from the usual endorsement by corporate management and allowed them to make millions by producing their own music their own way.

Hispanic Integration

In the 16th century the native people of the Southwest were forced to accept the domination of Spanish rule and Christian religion that shaped the Hispanic culture of the region. Other Latino Americans faced discrimination as they surged into the U.S. from Mexico, Puerto Rico and Latin America. The corrido, a ballad played on guitar and sung by local musicians, often told the story of brave heroes in the face of fierce opposition. “The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez” is one of many corridos that describe the tough and discriminatory life on the U.S.- Mexico border. It creates a larger than life portrait of the “real man,” the clever and brave Gregorio who led hundreds of rangers on a chase through Texas to the Rio Grande after being accused unfairly of murdering a sheriff. In the 1960s a famous incident in northern New Mexico was honored in the Corrido de Rio Arriba, sung by Robert Martinez of Albuquerque, This tells the story of a raid on the Tierra Amarilla courthouse by northern New Mexicans in a struggle to regain a land grant. All disputants were taken to prison and the incident was given national press coverage. The final verse of the corrrido declares, “This corrido will end when justice is done, so that what happened in T.A. will not repeat itself” (Loeffler 113).

            As the Okies gradually integrated into California society, Mexican-Americans took their place in the fields. The Farm Workers Movement in the 1960s stirred the hearts of many Americans who supported the grape boycott and the formation of the United Farm Workers. Folk singers such as Pete Seeger and Joan Baez brought attention to this cause. Cesar Chavez inspired his people as Martin Luther King had inspired his -- to demand respect, to struggle nonviolently and to established laws that diminished the power of moneyed whites.

            In the 60s people in the American Southwest looked back at their origins in Aztlan, the area of travel and commerce in the Southwest and Mexico that flourished in pre-Columbian times. Today images of Aztlan are found in art galleries, murals and graffiti, and on low rider vehicles decorated with the Virgin of Guadalupe and Aztec heroes. Musicians like Linda Ronstadt and Selena have popularized Mexican themes cherished by recent immigrants swelling the Hispanic population of the US. As Mexican restaurants become features of every sophisticated urban environment, modern Hispanics in the US are combining traditional elements of their culture into music that reaches across ethnic lines to capture the hearts of many who love music. For example, Los Lobos’ 2002 album, “Good Morning Aztlan” is sung in both English and Spanish and uses symbols of the heart with arrow, the fiddle, and the ranch to combine cultures in songs of romance and the struggle of everyday life.

Summary

This research has only slightly explored America’s rich history of music expressing struggle and change, yet it has opened a door for my further exploration. Today, those of us who teach and/or parent youth observe the speed with which new musical group rise in popularity and just as quickly subside to make room for newer and often more aggressive ones. It is impossible to know the whole range of new music flooding the market, but exploring these themes may help students appreciate their own feelings and struggles. The following curriculum is designed to expose students to creative writers, musicians, and artists who have taken action to form their lives. Through it students may observe the parameters of their own lives critically and take steps to carve out is what modern America’s founders espoused -- tolerance, democracy, and happiness.

Implementation

The Struggle and Change curriculum will be incorporated into readings in my 11th grade American literature class of special ed C- level students. These students are focused on the practicalities of their own lives and my objective here is to enliven the literature of American writers and make it applicable to them in these units. In addition, involvement with the day-to-day concerns of working people like themselves may give students a broader appreciation of the circumstances faced by earlier generations and greater ability to evaluate aspects of their own lives that can be changed and improved. Emphasis on writing is critically important for these students, and essays, journaling and longer writing assignments are an essential part of the curriculum.

The curriculum will be implemented in three connected units that focus on issues of class, race, and ethnicity. Music and art compliment the readings drawn from 11th grade literature textbooks and other sources. In addition to reading and writing skills, creative activities will enrich student participation. These units will serve as a model for teachers to develop music and art components in other areas of American literature or history.

Specific Goals for These Units:

1. Broaden understanding of the many difficulties throughout America’s history that were expressed and changed through creative expression

2. Read and respond to works of literature that express personal experiences about the lives of Americans in a variety of situations

3. Experience poetry, music and art as creative forms of expressing feelings and identifying goals of change

4. Identify an aspect of struggle in their personal lives that that can be expressed creatively

5. Use written, visual and auditory expression in creative projects

APS Content and Performance Standards in Language Arts

The following applications of standards will be integrated into this curriculum

1. Reading Process. Students will employ appropriate reading strategies to interpret             increasingly complex texts for a variety of purposes.

2. Reading Analysis. Students will examine and critique culturally significant issues and events portrayed in literature that affect the individual and society.

3. Expressive Language: Writing. Students will write effectively for different audiences and purposes, using appropriate writing strategies and conventions.

4. Expressive Language: Speaking. Students will demonstrate fluency and style in speaking effectively to describe, narrate, explain and persuade.

5. Receptive Language: Listening and Viewing. Students will analyze and evaluate a variety of auditory and visual works presented.

Class Schedule

To keep these students involved for the 85-minute block schedule class, I divide the time into specific segments. The following schedule allows specific time for reading and writing and also flexibility for individual projects, make-up work and/or one-on-one teacher assistance.

10 minutes - journaling
35 minutes – reading subject matter and discussion
25 minutes – writing assignments
15 minutes – individual time for working ahead or make-up

Unit 1. The Dust Bowl and Worker Movements of the 1930s and 1940s - 2 weeks

Students will become familiar with the great migration of the 1930s and the problems faced by dust bowl immigrants trying to reestablish themselves in California

Materials:

Reading: “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck
Auditory: Songs of Woody Guthrie, “Dust Bowl Ballads,” Pete Seeger songs of the Union movement, Tin Pan Alley music
Art: Photographs of Dorothea Lange and paintings of Thomas Hart Benton
Films: The Grapes of Wrath, clips of film about Ramblin Jack Elliott and Woody Guthrie             singing together

Activities

Reading and discussion:
Teacher discusses the post-depression situation of the Midwest plains and role of outsiders seeking quick and profitable methods that left soil depleted and eroded. Main concepts and questions for students are: Why did the Joad family have to leave Oklahoma? What were the major difficulties they faced in the journey west? How do you feel about the death and burial of the grandfather and grandmother during the journey? How could conditions have been better for the Joad family and other migrants in California? What were their major needs? How could those needs have been met? How were they met? What was Tom Joad’s intention in leaving the family?

Writing Assignments:

1. Daily 10-minute journal question will relate an aspect of prior day’s reading to student’s life. e.g., “If you had to move to another state and take only one small suitcase of things, what would they be? Students will be required to write five to ten completes sentences.

2. Students will keep written responses to questions on each chapter.

3. Student will write a thesis statement and complete an essay of at least five paragraphs             based on an aspect of the literature.

4. Students will write poetry or prose as part of the Creative Project assignment.

Other Media:

1. Music: Listen to music of Woody Guthrie, observing ballad form of storytelling. Teacher relate Woody’s life to the times. Note what was happening musically in other parts of the country (e.g., Ella Fitzgerald singing “Blue Skies“ or “Tea for Two”). Have students discuss differences of these themes. What does that reflect?

2. Different lifestyles: How did lifestyle and opportunities differ in other parts of the country? Who was aware of the situation the Oakies were facing? How could they change it, or bring it to public’s attention? How are differences reflected in today’s lifestyles? etc. Discuss this.

3. Media: How does the media inform about what’s happening to segments of society today? How do TV shows portray different lifestyles? Have students report on shows they watch and lifestyles portrayed. Bring in music of Pete Seeger and Woody’s union songs. Have students find music that expresses needs and different lifestyles today.

4. Art: Show art of Lange and Benton. Explain how Lange’s photography brought public             attention to the situation - her work with federal agencies that brought relief to work camps.

Creative Project: Poetry/Rap Video

Students will think about an aspect of their life that they would like to change, and express this in poetry, ballad or rap. Teacher will review the elements of the ballad. Students will stand to perform their pieces or sit in poetry circle. Group may add to performance by starting with a musical piece, possible Woody or students’ choice. This presentation can be videoed. Some students will rise to the occasion and become the leaders. Others will resist but can be encouraged to join and will do so eventually. Shy students can have someone else read for them or substitute a piece of art on video while they read the written work. There are lots of options here. We will try this process several times; it can become an ongoing poetry/rap performance.

Unit 2. The African American Experience - 3 weeks

Students will view Africa American history through selected pieces of literature, music and art. They will trace the way in which this culture expressed its spirit and demands for equality

Materials

Reading: Frederick Douglas, selection from My Bondage and My Freedom; Sojourner             Truth’s speech, “Ain’t I a Woman”; poetry of Langston Hughes; play by             Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun.

Auditory: Recording of Alan Lomax, “Negro Blues and Hollers,” Blues songs of Etta      James; Both Tin Pan Alley songs and “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday and Nina     Simone

Art: Romare Beardon collages

Film: A Raisin in the Sun

Activities:

Reading and Discussion: Major themes

1. Frederick Douglas. Discuss Douglas’s fury at not being allowed to learn to read. Why             was the ability to read kept from slaves? How did he overcome this?

2. Sojourner Truth. What were strengths of Sojourner Truth? Contrast her to the wife of             Douglas’ master regarding lifestyle, convictions and courage.

3. Langston Hughes. What was Langston’s frustration in the 1950s? Probe the meaning of “a dream deferred” and metaphor of the raisin in the sun. Did it explode? When/how?

4. A Raisin in the Sun: Note the different ways characters chose to express their African heritage. Discuss the conflict and differences and evaluate points of view.

Writing Assignments: Same format as Unit 1

Other Media:

1. Lomax album: Listen as music progresses from hollars of field workers to a more blues sound in later songs in album, Discus elements of both musical styles, differences and relationships

2. Billie Holiday: Give background of “Strange Fruit,” hand out words and show photo of lynching. Describe the quality and feeling expressed in Billie’s voice as she sings. Why did Billie adopt this as her song.? Why so much feeling, especially since she was a person who preferred romance and lighthearted reading? Contrast with her singing of “Stars Fell on Alabama.”

3. Nina Simone: Listen to Simone’s version of “Strange Fruit” and contrast musical style and her life to the life of Holiday. Discuss Holiday’s eventual death from alcohol and drugs. Why? How did these two women differ in their approach to music and life. Explain Nina’s take charge approach and independence in lifestyle and musical style. Have students discuss musicians who have been destroyed by drugs. What’s the message here?

4. Blues/Soul/ Rap: Discuss these types of music as generating from the original hollars and blues. Listen for sound, feeling and stories told in music played. Etta James, KoKo Taylor, B.B King all express troubles with lovers, money, alcohol. Tupac’s “Song to his Mother” is appropriate here. Students can relate these themes to their lives or neighborhood and the music of their choice. Another poetry/video reading is possible here. Students can create original work or download and bring in appropriate words to music they want to play.

5. Collage art: View the art of Romare Beardon, who used colorful papers and paint to create imagery of Harlem jazz clubs and other scenes of black culture in collage format. Students will use this art as a stimulus to make collages expressing an aspect of music, possibly Rap, that is of importance to them.

Creative Project: Picture Book

Have students create a picture book for a younger audience using themes related to the works studied. Students should create or retell a story that explains the issues discussed in this section. Use picture books as samples of writing and illustrating a story that can be understood by a young audience. The picture book project gives students a chance to construct a 3-D work. Allow lots of options in final format, keeping to the spirit of format below.

            Elements of a story: Characters, setting, problem, climax, resolution, and closing. Book should include 1. Front and back covers 2. Title page with title and author’s name 3. Story typed on computer or printed very carefully. Length may vary based on ability of student. 4. Picture may be drawings, paintings or collage; these can be made separately and pasted onto final pages. Format may include accordion or traditional fold. Size and shape of book may vary. Storyboard or cartoon format will fit into this project.

Unit 3. Hispanic Integration - 2 weeks

Objective: Students will become familiar with the struggle of Hispanic-Americans to preserve their culture and establish a place for themselves in the U.S.

Materials:

Reading: “The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez,” Ray Bradbury play, The Wonderful Ice Cream             Suit. Materials about the Farm Worker movement in the 1960s and today

Auditory: Corridos of Tex/Mex Border; music of Los Lobos

Art: Chicano art of the 1960s and 1970s, reflections of Aztlan in low rider art and panos,

Virgin of Guadalupe as past and current religious symbol

Films. The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit

Activities:

Reading and discussion: Major themes

1.Gregorio Cortez: Why is Gregorio such a hero? Discuss the qualities of “a real man,” his ability to outsmart the posse as well as his qualities of bravery and love of family. How do prejudice and the Texan’s inability to speak Spanish play a part in this tale?

2. Farm Workers: How did the Farm Worker movement relate to Okies struggle in the 1930s? Compare Cesar Ch�vez to Gregorio Cortez. Was Chavez “a real man”? Discuss.

3. Ray Bradbury play: Notice different personalities of Bradbury’s characters, how does each one express something about Chicano culture? Note struggle for money, speaking out for empowerment, and bonding in friendships as some traditional elements in this humorous tale.

Writing Assignments: Same format as in Unit 1

Other Media:

1. Corrido. Note elements of a corrido - a ballad sung with guitar accompaniment.            Observe and respond to differences between this Tex-Mex musical form and the way Woody Guthrie played and sang his ballads. Relate this to guitar music in Ice Cream Suit film.

2. Los Lobos album Good Morning Aztlan. Listen to cuts “Luz de mi Vida” and Tony y Mari.” Discuss how they reflect the situation of Mexican nationals today. Bring in other music expressing themes of Hispanic culture, possibly songs of family celebrations.

2. Film. The film and corrido of Gregorio Cortez tell somewhat different versions of the story and its ending. Which do you prefer? Why? How would you end it? (Opportunity for ballad writing, poetry or story writing here. Relate current Latino music and its message about Chicano issues today.

4. Poetry. Jimmy S. Baca. Baca learned to write poetry in prison after a rough young life on the streets. Discuss how he transformed the struggle of his youth. Students will note the imagery in Baca’s poetry and his references to discrimination both as a troubled teen and as a Chicano. Then they will attempt to write poetry or prose describing a struggle in their lives. They will try to create a vivid picture of their surroundings as Baca does in his poetry.

Creative Project: Internet Research and Power Point Presentation

Brainstorm with students in class as a whole and individually to find an aspect of music covered in these three units that each can relate to. Refer to all three units in order to give students a choice of ethnicity and style in the music presented. Students will then be required to select a musical group or individual musician and his/her musical pieces that express ideas they find important. Discuss music appropriate for school presentation.

Internet resources such as All Music Guide are an easy and complete source of information that can be printed out and used as reference. Students will condense information on note cards to present to the class. Presentation should include the following: 1) A short bio of the musician including date/place of birth (death) a photo if possible, and the musician’s style (ballad, rock, rap etc); 2) A musical piece of importance, including a copy of the words. Music can be played to group; 3) The theme or message of importance to the presenter (Tell us why this music is important to you?).

Students will use Power Point presentation with added dialog to present their ideas. Videoing the presentations may be an added incentive. Presentations can be followed up with collage making. This free flowing art form can encapsulate the mood and ideas presented into a lasting visual form.

Students often begin to shine when they can get out of the box and present their ideas in creative and unique ways. Teacher should allow as much flexibility as possible while staying with the main parameters of the project.

Assessment Scale

Student attendance and participation in reading and discussion: 40%

Assignments: 60%

1. Journal: 15%

2. Answers to questions on book chapters: 15%

3. Essay (first draft, plus final computer printed copy): 15%

4. Creative Project: 15%

Documentation

Attaway, Cather. Hear America Singing. New York, New York: Lion Press, Inc., 1967.

            American history and related folk music. 187 pages

Crawford, Richard. America’s Musical Life: A History. New York, New York: W.W. Norton &               Company, 2001.

            Extensive review of American history and related folk music. 976 pages, with 3 CDs

Currie, Stephen. Music in the Civil War Years. Cincinnati, Ohio: Betterway Books, 1992.

Historical accounts, photographs, illustrations and songs with musical notation of the Civil War era. 111 pages

Coles, Robert, Ed. Dorothea Lange: Photographs of a Lifetime. An Aperture Monograph. Oakland. California: Aperture Foundation. 1982.

Biography and extensive photographic works of Dorothea Lange with and essay by Robert Coles. 182 pages

Forcucci, Samuel. A Folk History of America: America Through Its Songs. Englewood Cliffs,              New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1984.

            American history and criticism and related folk music. 260 pages

Greenway, John. American Songs of Protest. New York, New York: Octagon Books, 1970.

            Songs of economic and social protest through American history. 348 pages

Gregory, James N. American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in                                 California. New York, New York: 1989.

            Description of the Dust Bowl migrants’ journey and living conditions in California. 338 pages

Guthrie, Woody. Dust Bowl Ballads. Recording. New York, New York: Folkway Records &                Services Corp., 1964.

            Recording of eleven Dust Bowl songs with accompanying written words. 331/3 rpm disk

Loeffler J. and Loeffler, K. La Musicia de los Viejitos: Hispanic Folk Music of El Rio Grande             del North. Dissertation. Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico, 1990.

           Traditional folk music of New Mexico with mention of regional musicians and composers.              235 pages

Low, Ann Marie. Dust Bowl Diary. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska. 1984.

            Personal account of social and economic conditions during the Dust Bowl era.188 pages

Johnson, Vance. Heaven’s Tableland: The Dust Bowl Story. New York, New York: Farror,              Straus, 1947.

           The causes and history of the Dust Bowl era. 288 pages .

Margolick, David. Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song. New York, New York:
            HarperCollins Publishers, 2001.

            Story of how “Strange Fruit” was written and how Billie Holiday performed it, with
            commentaries by those who knew her. 210 pages

Russell, Tony. The Blues: From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray. New York, New York:             Schirmer Books, 1997.

An encyclopedia of Blues history with photos and bios of the musicians. 244 pages

Santelli, Robert and Davison, Emily, Eds. Hard Travein’: The Life and Legacy of Woody               Guthrie. Hanover, New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 1999.

Biography with photos of the balladeer. Each chapter written by someone who knew him. 256 pages

Scott, John Anthony. The Ballad of America: The History of the United States in Son and               Story. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1966.

            Folk songs and ballads related to events in American history. 439 pages

Seeger, Pete. The Incomplete Folksinger. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press,              1972.

         Pete’s folksy rendition of the times the events, and the people he worked with. 596 pages,              with photos.

Solomon, Maynard, Ed. The Joan Baez Songbook. New York, New York: Ryerson Music              Publishers, Inc., 1964.

           Historical folk songs and those composed in the 1960s, with musical notation. 189 pages

Resources for Students

All Music Guide. www.allmusicguide.com

            Easy to access information about musical groups and performers

Baca, Jimmy Santiago. Healing Earthquakes: A Love Story in Poems. New York, New York:               Grove Press. 2002.

            Poems by Jimmy Baca about his early life and his current life. 338 pages

Bernstein, Barry. Literature and Language: American Literature. Evanston, Illinois: McDougal,              Littel and Company, 1994.

            Eleventh Grade Literature book. 1312 pages

Christensen, Bonnie. Woody Guthrie: Poet of the People. New York, New York: Alfred A.               Knopf, 2001.

            An illustrated book about Guthrie and his music for young readers. 76 pages

Fields, Virginia M. and Zamudio-Taylor, Victor. The Road to Aztlan: Art from a Mythic
            Homeland. Los Angeles, California: L.A. Museum of Art, 2001.

            Book accompanying the L.A. exhibit, with history, maps, photos of artifacts and art. 424               pages

Potter, Robert. R. Globe Literature, Silver Level. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Globe Book              Company: A Division of Simon & Schuster, 1990.

            Eleventh Grade literature book. 558 pages.

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath: An Adapted Classic. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey:               Globe Fearon Educational Publisher, A Division of Simon & Shuster, 1996.

            Shortened version of the story with chapter questions, easy reading. 103 pages