Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Vietnam Era/ Sixties/ CounterCulture/ Music
Mother, mother
There's too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There's far too many of you dying
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today - Ya
Father, father
We don't need to escalate
You see, war is not the answer
For only love can conquer hate
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today
Picket lines and picket signs
Don't punish me with brutality
Talk to me, so you can see
Oh, what's going on
What's going on
Ya, what's going on
Ah, what's going on
In the mean time
Right on, baby
Right on
Right on
Father, father, everybody thinks we're wrong
Oh, but who are they to judge us
Simply because our hair is long
Oh, you know we've got to find a way
To bring some understanding here today
Oh
Picket lines and picket signs
Don't punish me with brutality
Talk to me
So you can see
What's going on
Ya, what's going on
Tell me what's going on
I'll tell you what's going on - Uh
Right on baby
Right on baby
There's too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There's far too many of you dying
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today - Ya
Father, father
We don't need to escalate
You see, war is not the answer
For only love can conquer hate
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today
Picket lines and picket signs
Don't punish me with brutality
Talk to me, so you can see
Oh, what's going on
What's going on
Ya, what's going on
Ah, what's going on
In the mean time
Right on, baby
Right on
Right on
Father, father, everybody thinks we're wrong
Oh, but who are they to judge us
Simply because our hair is long
Oh, you know we've got to find a way
To bring some understanding here today
Oh
Picket lines and picket signs
Don't punish me with brutality
Talk to me
So you can see
What's going on
Ya, what's going on
Tell me what's going on
I'll tell you what's going on - Uh
Right on baby
Right on baby
VIETNAM SONG ANALYSIS
Choose two songs embedded here other than What’s Going On. Listen to your song choice several times. Pay attention
to the lyrics. Write them down and make notations if it helps. Try to read
between the lines. Look for literary devices such as simile, metaphor and
parallelism. These devices are often used in well-written song lyrics.
Look
for poetic devices and poetic structure, such as internal and other rhyme
schemes found in poetry. Search the lyrics for hyperbole, symbolism and
beautiful language you would be more inclined to find in the works of noted
poets. Discuss the music of your song in terms of tone, mood, and how it works
with the song lyrics to enhance the overall message of the song. You don't need
to be able to read music to hear what's going on musically within a song.
Write
a one page analysis of each song you choose paying close attention to the
meaning of the song and the literary techniques mentioned above. Your analysis should reference what is the
main meaning of the song and why it relates to the Vietnam era, 1960’s or
both.
THIS
ASSIGNMENT IS DUE ON MONDAY MAY 14th.
VOCAB
A simile is a figure
of speech that indirectly compares two different things by
employing the words "like", "as", or "than”.
Metaphor is the concept of understanding one thing in terms of
another.
Symbolism is the practice of
representing things by symbols, or of investing
things with a symbolic meaning or
character.
SONGS
SONGS
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Kennedy- 1960's
Cuban Missile Crisis- Simulation
http://library.thinkquest.org/18355/the_cuban_missile_crisis_simul.html
http://library.thinkquest.org/18355/the_cuban_missile_crisis_simul.html
Thursday, May 3, 2012
We Shall Overcome II
WE SHALL OVERCOME – The Civil Rights Movement (Part
II)
1. The Path Divides I: Alternative Visions
Like all human activities, the Civil Rights movement was
characterized by differences in view. King’s philosophy was not the only vision
of an African-American future. Open the link below and look up the article on Nation
of Islam. Read the article, and answer the questions below.
a. What were the central tenets of the Nation of Islam
during the leadership of Elijah Muhammad?
b. How does the philosophy of Muhammad and the Nation of
Islam differ from that of King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
in its analysis of the problems of African-Americans and their solution?
2. The Path Divides II: Black Power
The separatist strand in African-American liberation philosophy
was not simply as Islamic phenomenon, but had a distinct secular element,
represented by the Black Panther Party. The link below contains the platform of
the Black Panther Party. Read the platform and answer the questions below.
a. The platform represents a political philosophy,
applied to a racial problem. What is the political philosophy in
question, and how has it been amended from its original European context?
b. What difficulties does the platform pose as a practical
political program?
c. How might the platform affect white support for Civil
Rights, and to what extent does this influence the thinking of the Black
Panther Party?
3. The Path Divides III: The Philosophy of Malcolm X.
The link below contains numerous quotes from Malcolm X,
Muslim and separatist. Read the quotes, and select THREE examples that
seem to you to best illustrate the difference of view between Malcolm X and
Martin Luther King.
4. The Path Divides IV: The Limits of Morality.
From the mid-Sixties onwards, radical black leaders, who
privately mocked him as “De Lawd”, criticized King as overly cautious and
egotistical. King moved sharply to the Left, and attempted to build an
interracial radical national coalition against poverty. King’s attempt to
expand his base failed, and his influence declined. A key element in King’s
loss of mainstream support was his decision to speak out about the war in
Vietnam. The text of his speech in is in the link below. Read the speech and
answer the questions below.
- What effect does King accuse the war of having on the Poverty Program, i.e. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society policy of attacking poverty through massive Federal programs?
- Of which grotesque social inequality does King accuse the war?
- How does King link violence in Vietnam with violence in black ghettos in the U.S.?
- How does King see Vietnam in relation to America’s soul?
- In what two senses does King see himself as working for the “brotherhood of man”?
- What “five concrete things” does King suggest as a starting point for action?
- King expands his criticism of U.S. policy in Vietnam to a much wider thesis. What is it?
- What difficulties does the speech pose in terms of practical politics?
- Do you regard King as a practical politician?
5. The Path Divides V: Saint Martin – Great American or
Holy Fool?
Put together in your mind all you have learned of Martin
Luther King and his extraordinary life. Now draft a paragraph in which you take
a position on the central question of King as a historical figure: was the
absolute and unwavering moral dimension of his thinking a source of strength or
a source of weakness in the struggle for Civil Rights?
Monday, April 30, 2012
CIVIL RIGHTS I
WE SHALL OVERCOME – The Civil Rights Movement I
1. When We Were Colored I: Social Image and
African-Americans
The images presented in evidence below are drawn from
American popular culture in the 1940s and 1950s. Using these images, develop
and present a theory about the social and cultural status of African-Americans
at that time.
2. When We Were Colored II: Separate But Equal?
The Supreme Court judgment in Plessey v. Fergusson (1896)
established the constitutional basis for segregation. Use the images below to
assist you in developing and presenting a theory about the extent and effects
of segregation in the 1940s and 1950s.
3. When We Were Colored III: Cracks in the Monolith
The Second World War was a turning point in the history of
African-Americans. Very slowly the monolith of segregation and
racial subjection began to crack. Using the evidence below, develop and present
a theory about factors that drove this phenomenon.
4. When We Were Colored IV: The Murder of Emmett Till
In 1955 an African-American teenager named Emmett Till said
something mildly fresh to a white female shopkeeper in Mississippi.
Significantly, Till had been raised in the North, and did not understand “the
rules” in the South. Till was taken away by white supremacists, and murdered
with extraordinary savagery. Till’s mother had his body displayed in an open
coffin to shock Northern white sensibilities. She succeeded. Till’s killers
were acquitted, but the incident did much to heighten Northern awareness of the
plight of Southern blacks.
5. Eyes on the Prize I: The Early Civil Rights Movement
The timeline on the link below summarizes the major events
in the early phase of the Civil Rights movement. Go through the timeline of
events and develop a thesis about this early phase. What were its outstanding
characteristics, its strategy?
6. Eyes on the Prize II: Brown v. Board of Education
of Topeka (1954)
In 1954 the Supreme Court passed a landmark judgment in the
case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. The summary of the
judgment is set out in the link below. Read the summary and answer the
questions below:
- What was the judgment of the Court?
- What factors led them to this judgment?
- In your opinion, does the judgment reflect a strict or a loose construction of the Constitution?
- Why was Brown a landmark judgment?
7. Eyes on the Prize III: Martin Luther King, Jr. and his
Philosophy
From 1955 until his murder in 1968 the extraordinary
personality of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. played a dominant role in the Civil
Rights movement. Dr. King’s philosophy was set out in a letter he wrote in 1963
from Birmingham city jail. This letter is set out in the link below. Read the
letter and answer the questions below.
- What is it that draws King to Birmingham?
- What does King see as the four basic steps of a nonviolent campaign?
- What does King mean by “self-purification”?
- Why does King see nonviolent tension as a creative force for growth?
- Why does King see pressure as necessary to achieve social justice?
- How does King justify law breaking in pursuit of justice?
- How does King define a just law?
- What is King’s criticism of white moderates?
- King argues that he is equally critical of what he sees as the two divisions of the black community. How does he characterize these divisions, and what does he see as the way forward?
- What historic examples does King quote in support of his “extremist” position?
- What criticism does King make of the Christian church?
- Why does King criticize the Birmingham police for using a moral means to an immoral end?
- At the end of his letter justifying a revolutionary approach to obtaining social justice, King reveals himself to be a conservative – or at least a traditionalist. How?
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