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Museum of American Literature
Honors American Literature / Composition
One element of this course is to study the timeline of American literature (which covers almost 400
years of literary development). In order to speed-up our “travels” through this timeline, you will work
in teams, researching and teaching a specific period from this timeline. Your specific objective is to
research your assigned period in American literature and create a meaningful PowerPoint
learning experience (of no more than 30-35 slides) for the class that includes:
1. Historical background information about the time period, themes, and types of literature
representative of your assigned period (4-5 slides).
2. The required representative authors from the period with reference to their writing (5-7 slides).
Include pictures of authors labeled with:
a. Author’s name followed by year of birth and death in parenthesis
b. Biographical information (birthplace, important educational information, brief family
history and anecdotal insight into his/her life)
c. Titles for what s/he is best known.
3. Include pictures of scenes depicting the culture, customs, inventions, fads, etc. of the period –
labeled with a 3-4 sentence explanation of how the scene is representative of that period (5-7
slides).
4. Explanation of the themes represented in the writing (5-7 slides).
5. Appropriate music from the time period.
All presentations must be well organized, using transition to flow smoothly from one point to the next.
Each group will prepare a typed bibliography of the information gathered. Check your Research Guide
for correct documentation.
Use your textbook for valuable period information. Each PowerPoint will be saved on a Flashdrive
provided by the teacher. In order to work on the presentation at home, you may want to email it to
yourself (You may not, however, email it to me). Each group member must have a copy of the
PowerPoint presentation from which to make notes on index cards for the presentations – reading
from the actual PowerPoint will not be allowed.
Each PowerPoint will be presented when returning from winter break– beginning with the Puritan
Period and ending with the Contemporary Period. Each student will take notes from the presentations
on sheets provided by the teacher.
Grading for the project will be both individual will appear on your report card the last grading period
of the semester averaged as a major project grade.
Information for Completing the Museum of American Literature
The Puritan Period (1620-1750)
Authors:
 Native Americans  Explanation of these people required
 Puritans  Explanation of these people required
Authors: (Required minimum of 4, preferably all)
 Anne Bradstreet
 Jonathan Edwards
 William Bradford
 John Smith
 Cotton Mather
 Edward Taylor
Types of Literature:
 Histories
 Journals
 Diaries
 Poetry
 Sermons
Themes:
 Emphasis on purification
 Being plain
 Religion
 Original sin
 Hard work needed in life
 Everyone’s fate is in God’s hands
History:
 Colonists’ landing in Massachusetts
 Salem Witch Trials
Information for Completing the Museum of American Literature
Rationalism Period (1750-1800)
*Also known as the Era of Enlightenment, The Revolutionary Period, or the Colonial Period
Authors: (Required)
 Benjamin Franklin
 Thomas Jefferson
 Thomas Paine
 Patrick Henry
Types of Literature:
 Political documents
 Newspaper articles
 Private letters
 Epistles (public letters)
 Essays
 Speeches
Themes:
 Emphasis on self-knowledge and self-control
 Reason and scientific observation
 Rule of law and order
 Man’s ability to perfect himself and society
 Freedom from restrictive laws
History:
 Revolutionary war
 Constitution is written
 George Washington is 1st President
Characteristics of Writing:
 The art of persuasion
 Parallelism
 Logical reasoning
 Argumentation
 Imagery
 Appeal to emotion and logic
Information for Completing the Museum of American Literature
The Romantic Period (1800-1860)
Authors: (Required minimum of 3, preferably all)
 Washington Irving (Required)
 The Fireside Poets  Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes, Whittier
 William Cullen Bryant (Required)
Types of Literature:
 Short Stories
 Folktales
 Poems
 Novels
Themes:
 High regard for inner feelings and emotions; intuition over fact
 Quest for the individual to define himself
 Reverence for the imagination over reason
 Nature inspires man to high ideals and is loved and respected
 Interest in the past
History:
 Slavery question
 Westward expansion
 Rising industrialization and its effect on the human spirit
Characteristics of Writing:
 Simile
 Metaphor
 Symbolism
 Point of View
 Imagery
Information for Completing the Museum of American Literature
The Dark Romantic Period (1800-1860)
Authors: (Required)
 Edgar Allan Poe
 Nathanial Hawthorne
 Herman Melville
Types of Literature:
 Short Stories
 Folktales
 Poems
 Novels
Themes:
 High regard for inner feelings and emotions
 Truth and happiness not always found in life
 Inner workings (and dark side) of human psyche
 Dark or macabre incidents
 Torment – psychological or physical
 Human nature as a mix of both good and evil
History:
 Slavery question
 Westward expansion
 Rising industrialization and its effect on the human spirit
Characteristics of Writing:
 Simile
 Metaphor
 Symbolism
 Point of View
 Imagery
Information for Completing the Museum of American Literature
The Transcendentalism Period (1800-1860)
Authors: (Required)
 Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Henry David Thoreau
 Walt Whitman
 Emily Dickinson
Types of Literature:
 Poems
 Essays
Themes:
 High regard for inner feelings and emotions
 Truth is found beyond the physical world; senses are limited
 Happiness comes through individualism and self-reliance
 God, humanity and nature are united in a universal soul, or Over-Soul
Themes: (specific to the poets, Whitman and Dickinson)
 Celebration of the American experience of democracy, diversity, and the spirituality of
everyday life (Whitman)
 Questions suffering of slaves (Whitman)
 Love, death, nature, immortality, “established” religion and authority (Dickinson)
History:
 Slavery question
 Westward expansion
 Rising industrialization and its effect on the human spirit
 War Protest
Characteristics of Writing:
 Simile
 Metaphor
 Symbolism
 Point of View
 Imagery
Information for Completing the Museum of American Literature
Realism, Regionalism, and Naturalism (1850-ish-1913)
Authors: (Required minimum of 4, preferably all)
 Mark Twain
 Kate Chopin
 Jack London
 Ambrose Bierce
 Stephen Crane
 Bret Harte
Types of Literature:
 Short Stories
 Novels
 Poetry
 Travel Books
Themes:
Realism:
 Stressed showing life as it was really lived
 Examined the problems and conditions around them
 Used the language of ordinary people
 No “larger-than-life” heroes in perfect settings
 Explored the new economic conditions
 Questioned the wisdom of “rags to riches” success
 Feared that success brought greed, materialism and corruption
Regionalism / Local Color:
 Focused on the dialect, customs and characters of particular region, often humorous, as social
commentary
Naturalism:
 Most extreme, pessimistic of realists; believed that people could not make moral choices
 Wrote of characters who were completely controlled by their economic, social, or geological forces
 Stress that heredity, environment, and economics determine a person’s destiny
 Human beings are at the mercy of forces beyond their control
History:
 Lincoln assassination
 Civil War
 Invention and use of telephone
 Railroad changing America
 Labor unions
 Work reform movements
 Foundation of NAACP
Characteristics of Writing:
 Regional dialect
 Humor
 Comic Relief
 Irony
 Symbolism
 Anticlimax
Information for Completing the Museum of American Literature
The Modern Period (1914-1945)
Authors: (Required)
 Ernest Hemingway
 T.S. Eliot
 Zora Neale Hurston
Authors: (Choose 2)
Sinclair Lewis
Langston Hughes
John Steinbeck
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Types of Literature:
 Short Stories
 Poetry
 Novels
 Plays
 Essays
History:
Stock Market Crash
Great Depression
World Wars I and II
Gertrude Stein
Countee Cullen
Robert Frost
Sylvia Plath
Themes:
 Uncertainty
 Disillusionment
 Fragmentation
 Opposition to dehumanizing trends in modern life
 Dignity of people in spite of great challenges
 Search for new sources of hope in the face of war
 Industrialization
 Political changes
Harlem Renaissance:
 During the 1920’s
 Increased awareness of and pride in African-American heritage
 Appreciation of African-American artistic talents and literary and musical contributions
 Trace the African-American experience through perseverance to spiritual insight
Modernist Poetry:
 Mixes everyday language with elegant phrases and short quotations from earlier poems
 Places contradictory feelings and events side-by-side to evoke the disconnectedness of modern
life
 Leaves out the explanations and narrative connections that provide unity and clarity in
traditional writing
The Lost Generation:
 Writers who went to Paris after WWI
 Experimented with rhythm, fractured sentence structure, and disconnected narrative
 Believed America was in a desperate search for something to believe in after the destruction of
war
 Questioned the values of the American Dream

Believed materialism and class divisions corrupted the American dream
Information for Completing the Museum of American Literature
Literature Since 1945
Authors: (Required)
 Arthur Miller
 Eudora Welty
 Maya Angelou
Authors: (Choose 2)
James Baldwin
Tennessee Williams
Alice Walker
Gwendolyn Brooks
Saul Bellow
Norman Mailer
Truman Capote
John Updike
J.D. Salinger
Herman Wouk
Thomas Pynchon
Types of Literature:
 Novels
 Plays
 Poetry
 Essays
 Autobiographies
Themes:
 Social Protest
 The failings of American society
 Disgust with false values and a desire to achieve spiritual elevation
 Shortcomings of the adult world
 Bitter family relationships
 Relation of human beings to their environment
 Travel, exile, exotic landscapes
 History
 Problems of modern life
 Boredom with daily life
 Pop Culture
 Conflicts between “sensitive” and poetic nature of the individual and the brutality and
coarseness of modern life
 Existentialism  stresses that individuals must choose their own way to live and act; explores
the themes of alienation and the search for self-fulfillment
 Theater of the Absurd  probed social and personal problems; stressed the absurdity and lack
of meaning in modern life
History:
 Vietnam War
 John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassinations
 Civil Rights Movement
 President Nixon’s resignation
 George Bush, Sr. and the Gulf War
American Literature Museum Presentation Information
Literary Period__________________________
Dates __________________________________
I.
Historical Background and Effects on American Literature
II.
Themes Developed in the Literature of the Period
III.
Author Biography Information and Literary Contributions
IV.
Additional Important Facts from the Literary Period
Family Evaluation Form
Museum of American Literature
Family Name ____________________________
Your Name _______________________
Literary Period ___________________________
Class Period ______________________
Evaluate the participation and effort of each family member, including yourself, during the research
process using 1-5 points with 1 being not at all and 5 being outstanding. Turn in these evaluations to
Mrs. Porter.
Accomplished Assigned Task:
(List each family member and his/her assigned task)
Name:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Additional Comments:
Task:
Points
Comments:
Museum of American Literature
Score Sheet
Name: _____________________________
Literary Period ______________________
Group Members
__________________________________________________________________________________
PowerPoint Presentation
I.
Historical Background
II.
Themes
III.
Types of Literature
IV.
Authors
a. Pictures
b. Biographical intro
c. Titles of Works
d. Contributions to society
V.
Scenes of Culture and Customs
VI.
Presentations
VII.
Organization
VIII. Creativity
IX.
Bibliography
Points Possible
15
12
8
25
8
8
8
8
8
Total Points
Points Earned
______
______
______
______
______
______
______
______
______
______ / 100
Museum of American Literature
Score Sheet
Name: _____________________________
Literary Period ______________________
Group Members
__________________________________________________________________________________
PowerPoint Presentation
X.
Historical Background
XI.
Themes
XII.
Types of Literature
XIII. Authors
a. Pictures
b. Biographical intro
c. Titles of Works
d. Contributions to society
XIV. Scenes of Culture and Customs
XV.
Presentations
XVI. Organization
XVII. Creativity
XVIII. Bibliography
Total Points
Points Possible
15
12
8
25
8
8
8
8
8
Points Earned
______
______
______
______
______
______
______
______
______
______ / 100