Tackling Seminal U.S. Documents
How English and History teachers can benefit from
collaborative teaching of historical documents
The presenters

Geoff Belcher
◦ 21 years at Wake Forest High
◦ Teaches AP and Regular senior
English and advises the
newspaper

Marlin Jones
◦ 15 years in WCPSS
◦ Currently at Panther Creek High
◦ Teaches US History, Honors US
History, and AP US History
The Kenan Fellows Experience
As 2012 NCSU Kenan Fellows, we were
tasked with helping English and History
teachers to develop reading strategies for
historical documents.
 Working with Julie Joslin at DPI, we
developed five different units that mesh
historical documents with traditional
English classroom novels


Analyze seminal U.S. documents of
historical and literary significance (e.g.,
Washington’s Farewell Address, the
Gettysburg Address, Roosevelt’s Four
Freedoms speech, King’s “Letter from
Birmingham Jail”), including how they
address related themes and concepts.
Nervous?
English teachers have natural trepidation
over how to incorporate such texts into
the English classroom.
 History teachers wonder how they can
teach students how to read and analyze
the texts beyond the recall of basic
information.

What our partnership taught us…
Help from History
History teachers, familiar with the
documents, provide context, audience and
purpose analysis to English teachers
unfamiliar with these letters or speeches
 Initial collaborative conversations help
English teachers to meld documents with
the themes of their literature units

SOAPSTONE
S = Speaker
 O = Occasion
 A = Audience
 P = Purpose
 S = Subject
 TONE = Author’s attitude

APPARTS
Author
 Place and time
 Prior knowledge activation
 Audience
 Reason (Why created when it was)
 The main idea
 Significance (Why was the text important)

Enlightenment from English

English teachers help History colleagues
to guide their students through an
analysis of how the text was created and
how the rhetorical devices characterize
the author and create tone and purpose.
Device based questions…
Why the specific diction chosen?
 Why those similes or metaphors?
 Why passive voice then active voice?
 Why a shift in sentence type or length?
 Why that particular imagery (sense
language)?
 Why that allusion?
 Why those rhetorical appeals (ethos,
logos, pathos)?

The Units…
Linking King’s “Letter
from a Birmingham
Jail” with Lee’s novel
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Context

The U. S. in the
1960s
◦ Inquiry based
learning activity
 Selected photos
 I noticed/I wonder
chart
◦ Clips from Eye on
the Prize
The context

“I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of
all communities and states. I cannot sit
idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned
about what happens in Birmingham.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice
everywhere.”
— King
The context

“I had hoped that the white moderate
would understand that law and order
exist for the purpose of establishing
justice and that when they fail in this
purpose they become the dangerously
structured dams that block the flow of
social progress.”
— King
The connection
How is Alabama in 1963 similar to and
different than the Alabama of the 1930s
depicted in Lee’s novel?
 How are King and Atticus’ approach to
combatting racial tensions similar?

The Standards
RI 5: Analyze in detail how an author’s ideas
or claims are developed and refined by
particular sentences, paragraphs, or larger
portions of a text (e.g., a section or chapter).
 RI 6: Determine an author’s point of view or
purpose in a text and analyze how an author
uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or
purpose.

The analysis

Pathos: Where does King make an appeal to
the reader’s emotions?
“…when you suddenly find your tongue twisted
and your speech stammering as you seek to
explain to your six-year-old daughter why she
can't go to the public amusement park that has
just been advertised on television, and see tears
welling up in her eyes when she is told that
Funtown is closed to colored children, and see
ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in
her little mental sky…”
The analysis

Ethical Appeal: Writers using ethos may
offer a definition for an obscure term or
detailed statistics to establish their authority
and knowledge.

“Just as the prophets of the eighth century
B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus
saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of
their home towns: and just as the Apostle
Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the
gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of
the Greco-Roman…”
The analysis

Logical Appeal: The logical appeal uses
reason to make its case. The logical appeal
often cites statistics, scientific evidence, or
published reports to lead the reader to
accept the author’s viewpoint
The analysis

“…There can be no gainsaying the fact
that racial injustice engulfs this
community. Birmingham is probably the
most thoroughly segregated city in the
United States. Its ugly record of brutality
is widely known.”
The analysis
Other devices explored:
 Allusion
 Anaphora
 Juxtaposition
 Structure (Paragraph length)
Enrichment
Comparison of King’s speech to Malcolm
X’s “Message to the Grassroots.”
 Video clip: King and Malcolm speak for
themselves

◦ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesonthepriz
e/resources/vid/11_video_noi_qt.html
The Units

Contrasting
President Wilson’s
attitude towards
taking America to
war with the
attitudes
expressed by
characters in the
novel
Wilson’s World War I Speech

The Context
◦ WWI and Unrestricted
Submarine Warfare
◦ Neutrality of the US

Rhetorical Analysis
The Standards
RI 5: Analyze in detail how an author’s ideas
or claims are developed and refined by
particular sentences, paragraphs, or larger
portions of a text (e.g., a section or chapter).
 RI 6: Determine an author’s point of view or
purpose in a text and analyze how an author
uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or
purpose.

The Context
The Context

“I am not now thinking of the loss of property
involved, immense and serious as that is, but only
of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the
lives of non-combatants, men, women, and
children, engaged in pursuits which have always,
even in the darkest periods of modern history,
been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property
can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent
people cannot be. The present German submarine
warfare against commerce is a warfare against
mankind.” —Wilson
The Context

“We have no quarrel with the German
people. We have no feeling towards them
but one of sympathy and friendship. It was
not upon their impulse that their
government acted in entering this war. It
was not with their previous knowledge or
approval.”
The Connection

Wilson’s speech contrasts sharply with
the rhetoric of Kantorek, the teacher of
the boys in the novel. Kantorek
represents a blind nationalism and
glorification of war. Wilson, on the other
hand, offers a more sober assessment of
the dangers of war
The analysis

Diction

“The choice we make for ourselves must be made
with a moderation of counsel and a
temperateness of judgment befitting our
character and our motives as a nation.”
Pathos
 Hyperbole
 Passive voice
 Sudden shift to active voice

The Units

Exploring how the pivotal scene where
Nora leaves her husband in Ibsen’s A
Doll’s House reflects the key ideas of the
women’s rights movement expressed in
Stanton’s “Declaration of Sentiments”
The Context

The context
◦ 19th Century U.S.
 Cult of Domesticity
 Age of Reform
 Women’s Rights
 Temperance
 Abolition

Comparison with the Declaration of
Independence
◦ http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/la
vender/2decs.html
The Text
Declaration of Sentiments and Declaration of Independence
side by side
The Connection

Students are given eight statements from
Stanton’s piece and are asked to find
statements by Nora in the closing act that
express similar concerns about the roles
of women
◦ The history of mankind is a history of repeated
injuries and usurpations on the part of man
toward woman, having in direct object the
establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.
Nora says…

“I mean that I was simply transferred from papa's
hands into yours.You arranged everything according to
your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as your
else I pretended to, I am really not quite sure which--I
think sometimes the one and sometimes the other.
When I look back on it, it seems to me as if I had
been living here like a poor woman--just from hand to
mouth. I have existed merely to perform tricks for you,
Torvald. But you would have it so.You and papa have
committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that
I have made nothing of my life.”
Enrichment
Students can also read Hillary Rodham
Clinton’s speech “Women’s Rights are
Human Rights”
 Students assess which concerns poised by
Stanton and Ibsen are still relevant on a
world stage today as women globally face
many of the same struggles as Stanton
and Nora

The Units

President Washington’s Farewell Address
provides a challenging stand-alone unit for
11th grade students
Washington’s Farewell Address
Introductory Activity
Prompt #1
 What does it mean to you to be called an American? Discuss several
thoughts, emotions, or ideas.You may first list several things to get
started, but your response should be in several complete sentences.


Prompt #2
 America is comprised of many regional areas that have their own
identities. Work with your study groups to make a list of some of
these various regions of the country.
 Now that you have your list, choose the region that applies to you—
either because you live there now or because you grew up in that
region and moved but still identify yourself with the area. Write
about what being called by that region means to you. (e.g. What does
it mean to be called a Southerner? A New Yorker? A Yankee? A Midwesterner? etc.)
Prompt #3
 Upon which name or identity do you place the most importance
being an American or the identifier of your region? Explain.
Washington’s Farewell Cont…
Guided Practice
 In one sentence Washington seems to offer
you an answer about which he thought was
more important: being called an American or
being name by one’s region. In which
paragraph does he offer his answer?

Sometimes paraphrasing or restating difficult
sentences into your own words can be a
helpful strategy. Work with your peers to
paraphrase the first sentence of paragraph 9.
Put your paraphrase below:
Washington’s Farewell Cont.

Adapted Text
Some of the Rhetorical Analysis
One ancient rhetorical form is the apologia.
Apologia is a specific genre in which an orator
defends himself or his actions against accusation.
What accusation does Washington defend himself
against, in advance of it being made, in the opening
paragraphs of the address?
 What specific quote best illustrates the apologia?
 By making this apology in advance, what does
Washington preclude the congress from doing
had it decided to do so?

Rhetorical analysis cont.

In an essay analyzing Washington’s rhetoric (see footnote below), Halford Ryan
writes, “The ability to coin a metaphor has always been prized in oratory, for
metaphors invite audiences to perceive new relationships and to attribute to
the speaker a sharp intellect (9).

In paragraph 25 what does Washington liken political parties to?
Why is the metaphor a particularly apt one given the type of discourse or
language usually employed by partisan political parties?





Pathos is another rhetorical device in which the orator appeals to and plays
upon the emotions of his audience. By what metaphor in paragraph 32 does
Washington make an emotional appeal? (Quote the text)
Why would this appeal have been immediately understandable to the white
audience of Washington’s address?
Where in his famous speech does Patrick Henry, writing 18 years earlier, first
utilize the same metaphor? (Quote the text and paragraph)
Looking at both metaphors, whose is more effective and why? (In your analysis
consider elements such as diction and syntax)
The Units
Four Freedoms Speech
The Four Freedoms
Freedom of speech and expression
 Freedom of worship
 Freedom from want
 Freedom from fear

Common Dystopian Conventions








Human abuse of technology
Technology outpaces humanity’s spiritual
evolution
A police state (strict governmental control)
Individualism is discouraged / Collectivism is
encouraged
Citizens may not have names
A rigid caste system exists
Concepts and symbols of religion are
replaced or eliminated
Appreciation of nature is discouraged
Enrichment

How are the
principles of
Roosevelt’s
speech
violated in the
dystopian
society
depicted in
The Hunger
Games?
Thank you!

We hope this brief overview of our work
as Kenan Fellows will aid your efforts to
integrate seminal U.S. documents into the
English classroom and will help your
efforts to teach the rhetorical craft
evident in these rich documents to your
history students.