Tag Archives: Teaching Tools

It’s A Wrap: Beginning with Endings

By Maryann Henck

Pho­to Cred­it: Eri­ka G.

At the end of the semes­ter, I always like to include a wrap-up exer­cise for one final cre­ative writ­ing task: “It’s a Wrap” – which also seems to be a fit­ting way to say good­bye to the Amer­i­can Stud­ies Blog this Sep­tem­ber. Here’s how the task works:

  1. Select end­ings from nov­els or short sto­ries with­out reveal­ing the orig­i­nal source. These are some of my favorite choic­es:I real­ly, tru­ly wish he hadn’t said that. I keep think­ing about it. I can’t stop. I don’t have any­thing else to add. I just want­ed to make sure I had the last word. I think I’ve earned that. (Gone Girl by Gillian Fly­nn)

    “It’s because I’m con­cen­trat­ing on my the­sis, I don’t wor­ry about oth­er stuff. Nobody asked if Freud checked the use-by date on the milk.” “They didn’t have use-by dates in the ear­ly twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry.” It was incred­i­ble that two such dis­sim­i­lar peo­ple had become a suc­cess­ful cou­ple. (The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion)

    Through the win­dows a strange sub­ter­ranean light was ris­ing, bare­ly dis­tin­guish­able from dark­ness. I felt change far beneath me, mov­ing deep beneath the sur­face of things, like the plates of the earth blind­ly mov­ing in their black traces. I found my bag, and my car keys, and I let myself silent­ly out of the house. (Tran­sit by Rachel Cusk)

    …Also I’ve begun to feel he’s the only per­son who knows any­thing about me. Maybe because I’ve nev­er hit any­one else with a bot­tle, so they nev­er got to see that part of me. Nei­ther did I come to think of it. It did make a mess; but then, I don’t think I’ll ever be a very tidy per­son. (Lady Ora­cle by Mar­garet Atwood)

  2. Ask par­tic­i­pants to write a piece of short fic­tion (350–700 words) using the select­ed end­ing as a prompt for begin­ning their stories.
  3. Keep your promise and reveal the orig­i­nal lit­er­ary sources to your par­tic­i­pants once they’ve com­plet­ed the task.

In the fol­low­ing sto­ry, “Who’s Get­ting Crowned,” the end­ing from Alan Bennett’s The Uncom­mon Read­er inspired me to cre­ate a meet­ing between the Queen and her most loy­al sub­jects. Enjoy!

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An A‑May-zing Month for Animals

By Maryann Henck

I like to think of May as one of the most amaz­ing months – not only because it’s Nation­al Pet Month, but also because May 20 is Nation­al Res­cue Dog Day in the Unit­ed States. Let’s face it: Pets are so much more than just cute com­pan­ions – they are fluffy fam­i­ly and friends as well as end­less sources of com­fort, joy, and hope. But what about all those ani­mals out there who don’t have a human to look after them, love them back, and maybe even save them from hor­ri­ble fates?

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What Does the Fox Say? A Simple Tale with a Plethora of Possibilities

By Maryann Henck

When I first read George Saun­ders’ fable-like tale, Fox 8, I ini­tial­ly felt amused, then sad, and final­ly out­raged. I also felt a blog brew­ing – not of the book review vari­ety but of the teach­ing tool/creativity cor­ner vari­ety. For starters, Fox 8 is less of a charm­ing bed­time sto­ry for chil­dren – who will no doubt enjoy it – and more of a dark­ly com­ic cau­tion­ary tale for adults. The tit­u­lar first-per­son nar­ra­tor takes the read­ers on a jour­ney through his life as a fox who lives and for­ages with his fel­low fox­es in the for­est. Fox for­est life is run­ning smooth­ly until Fox 8 has his first con­fus­ing encounter with humans, which results in con­flict­ing feelings.

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Teaching Native North America: A Continuing Challenge

By Christoph Strobel

Intel­lec­tu­al lega­cies of col­o­niza­tion play a pow­er­ful role in shap­ing how main­stream U.S. and glob­al soci­ety has come to see Native Amer­i­cans. Art­work from the 19th and 20th cen­turies – such as James Ear­le Fraser’s sculp­ture, “The End of the Trail” – have helped to cre­ate the image of Native Amer­i­cans on horse­back as rep­re­sen­ta­tions most asso­ci­at­ed with Indige­nous pop­u­la­tions of North Amer­i­ca. Type “Native Amer­i­can” into a search engine, and you’ll like­ly get many his­tor­i­cal images of Great Plains Indi­ans. In parts of Europe as well, the per­cep­tion of Native Amer­i­cans has been shaped in unique ways by authors like Karl May and the lat­er movies based on his books. With­out a doubt, our stu­dents’ per­cep­tions about Native Amer­i­cans are influ­enced by these fan­tasies and representations.

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Setting the Stage for Black History Month

By Sabrina Völz

Pho­to Cred­it: “Woman holds up sign at the Black Lives Mat­ter protest in Wash­ing­ton DC  6/6/2020” by Clay Banks

It’s that time of year again. Feb­ru­ary 1 marks the begin­ning of Black His­to­ry Month. Before I sug­gest some use­ful resources, let’s briefly look at its origins.

Fact 1: The Unit­ed States is not the only coun­try to offi­cial­ly cel­e­brate it. In addi­tion to our neigh­bors to the North, who also cel­e­brate this time of remem­brance in Feb­ru­ary, the Irish and the Unit­ed King­dom observe Black His­to­ry Month in October.

Fact 2: The roots of Black His­to­ry Month in the U.S. can be traced back to his­to­ri­an Carter G. Wood­son and the Asso­ci­a­tion for the Study of Negro Life and His­to­ry, who togeth­er marked the sec­ond week of Feb­ru­ary – which coin­cides with Abra­ham Lincoln’s birth­day – as Negro his­to­ry week in 1926.

Fact 3: Even the Great Eman­ci­pa­tor had his fail­ures, and so it’s undoubt­ed­ly best that in 1969 stu­dents at Kent State moved to cel­e­brate the con­tri­bu­tions and cul­ture of Black Amer­i­cans for an entire month, instead of plac­ing Pres­i­dent Lin­coln, who upheld the mass pub­lic hang­ing of 38 Dako­ta Sioux on Decem­ber 26, 1862, in the cen­ter of their celebrations.

So, if your school has nev­er cel­e­brat­ed Black His­to­ry Month before, it’s nev­er too late to get on that ‘soul train’. And since we didn’t want to leave you in the lurch, we’ve pro­vid­ed a list of some suit­able blogs we’ve pub­lished over the years on sub­jects, rang­ing from cul­tur­al icons, such as Aretha Franklin, Don Cor­nelius, and Bey­on­cé, to best books and fab­u­lous films deal­ing with Black iden­ti­ty and his­to­ry. You’ll also find infor­ma­tion on some cur­rent controversies:

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Remote Learning with American Studies

By Carolyn Blume, Andreas Hübner, Michaela Keck

With this fifth blog, we are com­ing to the end or our series on dig­i­tal teach­ing tools. We hope that you’ve been inspired by some of the Amer­i­can Stud­ies links rang­ing from the heart-warm­ing and hilar­i­ous antics of humans and ani­mals to the more schol­ar­ly posts on Aca­d­e­m­ic Earth.

Make Way for Duck­lings by Nan­cy Schön in Boston Pub­lic Garden
Google Lit Trips
By Carolyn Blume

“Trav­el is fatal to prej­u­dice, big­otry, and nar­row-mind­ed­ness.” Mark Twain

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