Wednesday, September 25, 2013


https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AgQsUK7GoliwdHhLWTFidC1jNEJFVm1HbU00NnBicnc&output=html

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AgQsUK7GoliwdHhLWTFidC1jNEJFVm1HbU00NnBicnc&output=html

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



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.
Parallelism is a balance of two or more similar words, phrases, or clauses.
Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech.
Symbolism is the practice of representing things by symbols, or of investing things with a symbolic meaning or character.

SONGS


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.

  1. 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?

  1. Of which grotesque social inequality does King accuse the war?

  1. How does King link violence in Vietnam with violence in black ghettos in the U.S.?

  1. How does King see Vietnam in relation to America’s soul?

  1. In what two senses does King see himself as working for the “brotherhood of man”?

  1. What “five concrete things” does King suggest as a starting point for action?

  1. King expands his criticism of U.S. policy in Vietnam to a much wider thesis. What is it?

  1. What difficulties does the speech pose in terms of practical politics?

  1. 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:

  1. What was the judgment of the Court?
  2. What factors led them to this judgment?
  3. In your opinion, does the judgment reflect a strict or a loose construction of the Constitution?
  4. 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.

  1. What is it that draws King to Birmingham?
  2. What does King see as the four basic steps of a nonviolent campaign?
  3. What does King mean by “self-purification”?
  4. Why does King see nonviolent tension as a creative force for growth?
  5. Why does King see pressure as necessary to achieve social justice?
  6. How does King justify law breaking in pursuit of justice?
  7. How does King define a just law?
  8. What is King’s criticism of white moderates?
  9. 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?
  10. What historic examples does King quote in support of his “extremist” position?
  11. What criticism does King make of the Christian church?
  12. Why does King criticize the Birmingham police for using a moral means to an immoral end?
  13. 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?