395: The American Dream: A Multimedia Introduction Lesson for ELA

If you teach American literature, chances are you're touching on the theme of the American Dream somehow, through book clubs, a poetry unit, a look at Gatsby, or an essential question that binds together a variety of genres and perspectives. So when I received this request for our Plan my Lesson series, "How about a fun way to introduce the American Dream unit for juniors, about 36 of them," I was ready. In today's episode, we're going to talk about how you might introduce the concept of The American Dream through a series of multimedia activities, first letting students choose which ones to explore, then letting them respond with multimedia of their own, creating a collage of dream experiences for the class to view.

American Dream Text Possibilities (Starter List):

• Death of a Salesman Trailer (Royal Shakespeare Company)
• American Gothic Painting (Painting at The Art Institute of Chicago)
• Reyna Grande: A Migrant's Story (Video on Youtube)
• The Sun is Also a Star (Movie Trailer)
• "American Dream" (Video from the Beltway Poetry Slam on Youtube)
• "Let America be America Again" (Poem by Langston Hughes at Poets.org)
• "Immigrant Photos by Augustus Sherman" (Photos from Ellis Island at the National Park Service)
• "An American Sunrise" (Poem by Joy Harjo at Poets.org)
• "American Dreamers Mural" (Mural by Shepard Fairey and Vils, Photo at Obey Giant) - you'd want to pull the photo out of the blog post
• "Lincoln, Nebraska 1977" (Photo by Keith Jacobshagen at the Spencer Museum of Art)
• American Dream Exhibit (Punto Urban Art Museum)
• "Gold Mountain Dreams" (PBS: Bill Moyer's Becoming American: The Chinese Experience")
• "This Hill we Climb" (Amanda Gorman on PBS Youtube)
• "I hear America Singing" (Poem by Walt Whitman at The Poetry Foundation)
• Start-up Story: "Jerry Yang" (The Immigrant Learning Center)

Multimedia collage response example (one illustration, one quotation, and an interpretive 6 word memoir):

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