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great american authors: activity ideas
Activity Ideas | Related Resources
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Ralph Ellison: Not an Invisible Man
Grade Level: 6-12
Subject: Social Studies; Reading & Language ArtsWriter Ralph Ellison is most recognized for his novel Invisible Man -- winner of the 1953 National Book Award -- which chronicles an African American male's struggle for identity in a racist society. It propelled the emergence of a genre of ethnic fiction, drama and poetry in the United States that continues today.
Through his short stories and essays, Ellison presented controversial, conceptual, reflective and personal perspectives on subjects ranging from literature and folklore to the relationship between the African American and North American culture. His written works made him a point of contention among African American activists in the 60s and 70s -- and others concerned with the "White man's" power and place in society -- who felt that Ellison had betrayed the community's cause by taking an integrationist approach to his writing, focusing on the "unity of the American experience" rather than on the disenfranchised African American's voice of protest.
In addition to his literary accomplishments, Ellison was a man of myriad other notable talents (sculptor, musician, photographer, knowledgeable on a broad range of topics, from African Violets to textiles) and successes (lecturer, editor).
Have students review several timelines of Ellison's life to gather an overall sense of Ellison's early personal and professional life. Suggestions include:
- The American Masters Career Timeline: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/ellison_r_timeline_flash.html
- Chronology of Ralph Ellison's Life and Works: http://www.centerx.gseis.ucla.edu/weblio/chronology.html
Ask students to identify experiences and relationships that likely influenced his writing and other career and intellectual pursuits, such as his friendship with Richard Wright.
Divide students into groups representing the following topics (or students may work individually, focusing on one topic or addressing all of them). These are suggested areas of research/study; others can be added:
- Ellison's literary contributions (to writing genre, to other writers of color, to socio-political commentary, etc.)
- Ellison's socio-political viewpoint and impact
- Invisible Man (what the story is about, what it represents, how it reflects Ellison's life and the life of African Americans, etc.)
- Views/interpretations of Ellison's work (reviews, interviews, critiques)
- Opinions of Ellison's stance regarding the African American in society
- Life and professional experiences that influenced Ellison's writing
Invite students to conduct research on Ellison relevant to the above-noted topics. In addition to the resources below, which include interviews, literature reviews, commentary, readings, letters, etc. (and others students will discover), provide students with excerpts from Ellison's work that bring light to the categories.
Students, in the roles of literary critics or historians, create and present mini-profiles of Ellison relevant to the topics they have researched. Their interpretive representations should be thought-provoking and generate discussion and questions about Ellison's life and work among the class' expert "critics" or "historians."
Online Resources
American Masters: Ralph Ellison:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/ellison_r.htmlNewsHour Online: Ralph Ellison's Legacy:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june99/ellison_6-21.htmlRalph Ellison's Webliography:
http://www.centerx.gseis.ucla.edu/weblio/ellison.htmlNPR: 50th Anniversary of Invisible Man:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1141725Ralph Ellison: An American Journey:
http://www.newsreel.org/nav/title.asp?tc=CN0135The Ralph Ellison Project:
http://www.jerryjazzmusician.com/mainHTML.cfm?page=ellison.htmlPrint Resources
The Critical Response to Ralph Ellison by Robert J. Butler
Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray by Albert Murray
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Katherine Porter
Grade Levels: 7-12
Subjects: Social Studies; Reading & Language ArtsKatherine Anne Porter was an award-winning (including the Pulitzer Prize) American essayist, short story writer, journalist, and novelist. She wrote 27 stories and short novels, one long novel, several volumes of miscellaneous pieces and a collection of published book reviews, essays and poems.
Porter's difficult personal life, romances, and socio-political experiences are embedded in much of her work. For example, her pieces reflect her life in Mexico and its post-revolutionary reforms; her bout with influenza and her relationship with the lieutenant who cared for her during her illness; and her views on the Sacco-Vanzetti executions.
While Porter's personal life may have been considered unorthodox at the time, she treated her craft with seriousness. "A perfectionist concerned with controlling every word of her stories, Porter gained a name for her flawless prose. Often concerned with the themes of justice, betrayal, and the unforgiving nature of the human race, Porter's writings occupied the space where the personal and political meet." (Source: American Masters:www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/porter_k.html)
Provide students with background on Katherine Anne Porter and then share some or all of the following Porter quotations. Ask students to determine, based on the quotations, what type of writer and person Porter was and what influenced her writing.
"One of the marks of a gift is to have the courage of it."
"Human life itself may be almost pure chaos, but the work of the artist is to take these handfuls of confusion and disparate things, things that seem to be irreconcilable, and put them together in a frame to give them some kind of shape and meaning."
"There seems to be a kind of order in the universe, in the movement of the stars and the turning of the earth and the changing of the seasons, and even in the cycle of human life. But human life itself is almost pure chaos. Everyone takes his stance, asserts his own rights and feelings, mistaking the motives of others, and his own."
"It's a man's world, and you men can have it."
"Love must be learned, and learned again; there is no end to it."
"Experience is what really happens to you in the long run; the truth that finally overtakes you."
"I shall try to tell the truth, but the result will be fiction."
"Our being is subject to all the chances of life. There are so many things we are capable of, that we could be or do. The potentialities are so great that we never, any of us, are more than one-fourth fulfilled."
"A cultivated style would be like a mask. Everybody knows it's a mask, and sooner or later you must show yourself -- or at least, you show yourself as someone who could not afford to show himself, and so created something to hide behind. You do not create a style. You work, and develop yourself; your style is an emanation from your own being."
"You can't write about people out of textbooks, and you can't use jargon. You have to speak clearly and simply and purely in a language that a six-year-old child can understand; and yet have the meanings and the overtones of language, and the implications, that appeal to the highest intelligence."
Have students come to consensus on Porter's style and outlook on life, and then invite them to conduct research on her life and career to learn more about her and determine whether their analyses of the author were on target.
Have students (individually, in small groups or as a class) read and analyze several of her short stories and essays. (Visit Wikipedia for a list of her works.) Instruct students to look for signs of her personal and socio-political experiences in her writing, as well as reflections of historic events occurring during the time in which she wrote.
Online Resources
American Masters: Katherine Anne Porter:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/porter_k.htmlThe Literary Encyclopedia: Porter, Katherine Anne:
http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3608Katherine Anne Porter Society:
http://www.lib.umd.edu/Guests/KAP/Today in Literature: Katherine Anne Porter -- Life Stories, Books and Links:
http://www.todayinliterature.com/biography/katherine.anne.porter.aspPAL: Early 20th Century: Katherine Anne Porter:
http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap7/porter.htmlPrint Resources
Katherine Anne Porter, rev. ed. by Joan Givner
More Recommended Resources
Katherine Anne Porter: A Sense of the Times by Janis P. Stout
Katherine Anne Porter's Artistic Development by Robert H. Brinkmeyer, Jr.
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Maurice Sendak
Grade Level: 3-5
Subjects: The Arts; Reading & Language ArtsWhen thinking of monsters and mischievous, naughty boys, it's easy for Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are to come to mind, as well as his numerous other vividly illustrated and engaging children's books. Sendak is not only a prolific writer but also an illustrator of books other than his own. He has also designed and produced numerous operas (he turned Where the Wild Things Are into an opera!), plays and ballets.
Among Sendak's most popular and notable children's books are:
- Chicken Soup with Rice
- Alligators All Around
- One Was Johnny
- In the Night Kitchen
- Higglety Pigglety Pop!
- The Sign On Rosie's Door
- Pierre
- Outside Over There
- Kenny's Window
- Very Far Away
- Maurice Sendak's Christmas Mystery
- Hector Protector and As I Went Over the Water: Two Nursery Rhymes
Engage students in a discussion about Sendak, starting off by asking them if they have ever read any of his books (be sure to show them to students). Invite students to summarize the stories they have read and describe what they liked about them. Give students some background on Sendak and, if appropriate, work with students to create a visual timeline of his life and work.
Create several mini-reading centers in the classroom, each with several copies of different Sendak books (each center should have a different collection.) Assign centers to student groups. Students read the books -- either individually or as a group (or the teacher reads the books aloud) -- and keep a Sendak journal in which they write about the books they have read and give them ratings (students can design a rating system). Students might want to discuss similarities among the books, for example the illustrations or the fantasy elements of some of the stories. (Students may compile their journal entries into a collection of Sendak book reviews for use by their school or local children's library.)
Have each group select a favorite book (by consensus) and select one of the activities to undertake:
- Create a musical version of the book (let students listen to the opera version of Where the Wild Things Are, and the Carole King musical adaptations of Chicken Soup with Rice, Alligators All Around, One was Johnny, and Pierre.
- Turn the book into a play that the students present, along with props.
- Write a Sendak-inspired story with illustrations.
Online Resources
American Masters: Maurice Sendak:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/sendak_m.htmlNOW: Maurice Sendak:
http://www.pbs.org/now/arts/sendak.htmlNPR: Maurice Sendak's Nutcracker:
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2001/dec/ ...The Artistry and Influence of Maurice Sendak:
http://childrensbooks.about.com/cs/authorsillustrato/a/sendakartistry.htmBackstage at Lincoln Center: Interview with Maurice Sendak:
http://www.pbs.org/lflc/dec17/sendak.htmWild Things: The Art of Maurice Sendak:
http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/5aa/5aa307.htmPrint Resources
The Art of Maurice Sendak by Selma Lanes
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In Literature as in Life: F. Scott Fitzgerald
Grade Level: 6-8; 9-12
Subjects: Social Studies; Reading & Language Arts; The ArtsF. Scott Fitzgerald was a reputable author -- best known for his novel The Great Gatsby -- whose work vividly portrayed the excesses of The Jazz Age of the 1920s and 1930s and incorporated direct references to personal challenges he experienced, such as the mental illness of his wife, Zelda Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald himself said that he essentially lived the life about which he wrote.
While he was a talented writer, his chaotic and extravagant lifestyle also put him on the map in ways that were ultimately detrimental to his craft, or at least to the way others viewed his writing and storytelling skills.
Provide students with several short Fitzgerald biographies to understand how his life evolved and how his personal experiences influenced his literary work, which includes:
- 1920 This Side of Paradise. Fitzgerald's first novel, about Midwesterner Amory Blaine's initiation to life at Princeton and his ill-fated love for Rosaline Connage, makes the writer from St. Paul, Minnesota, an overnight celebrity as a knowing chronicler of the postwar youth culture, which defined the Jazz Age. As Fitzgerald summarizes at the end of the novel: "Here was a new generation... dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success, grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken." Fitzgerald also publishes Flappers and Philosophers, his first story collection. It contains two of his finest works: "The Ice Palace," about a Southern girl unable to adapt to life in the North, and "Bernice Bobs Her Hair," about a girl who is dared into trying a radical new hairstyle.
- 1922 Tales of the Jazz Age. Fitzgerald's second story collection, though it includes major works such as "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" and the experimental novella May Day, is marred by filler and weak efforts that even Fitzgerald seems to recognize in his depreciatory annotated table of contents. Fitzgerald also publishes The Beautiful and the Damned, his second novel. It dramatizes the self-destructive marriage of the rich and glamorous Anthony and Gloria Patch, damned by their excesses, and it clearly echoes the author's own marriage and high-flying lifestyle. Although more carefully constructed than This Side of Paradise, the novel disappoints reviewers.
- 1923 The Vegetable; or, From Presidency to Postman. Fitzgerald's satirical comedy, which he declares "the best American comedy to date and undoubtedly the best thing I have ever written," concerns a postman who becomes president. It closes before reaching Broadway. Critics have suggested that the disappointment over this play was a factor in Fitzgerald's committing to more serious work, which would lead to his masterpiece, The Great Gatsby.
- 1925 The Great Gatsby. Self-made Jay Gatsby tries to recapture a romantic past with the now-married Daisy Buchanan. Fitzgerald's masterpiece, the novel is both a lyrical meditation on the American dream and a satiric portrait of the excess and fraudulence of the age. Despite its being considered one of the greatest American novels (T. S. Eliot regarded it as "the first step that American fiction has taken since Henry James"), the book would sell fewer than twenty-nine thousand copies during Fitzgerald's lifetime.
- 1926 All the Sad Young Men. Fitzgerald's third collection includes three of his most admired stories, "Winter Dreams," "Absolution," and "The Rich Boy."
- 1934 Tender Is the Night. Fitzgerald's fourth and final novel to be published during his lifetime is his most ambitious, an attempt to summarize the collapse of American values through the deterioration of expatriate psychiatrist Dick Diver, who marries his troubled patient, Nicole. Although praised by some as Fitzgerald's masterpiece, the novel mainly provokes disappointment and accusations that Fitzgerald is simply repeating himself. In 1938, convinced that the true beginning of the novel was buried in its middle, Fitzgerald would reorganize the book chronologically in a revised version, published in 1951.
- 1935 Taps at Reveille. The last of the author's short story collections published during his lifetime gathers work written since 1926. Reviewers find the stories more quaint than relevant, evidence that Fitzgerald has, in the words of one critic, "become the prisoner of his own past, a literary Peter Pan who refused to grow up with the feverish, glamorous youth he immortalized."
- 1941 The Last Tycoon. Although only half completed before Fitzgerald's death, his satirical novel about Hollywood is praised as equal in quality to The Great Gatsby, enhancing the author's posthumous reputation.
- 1945 The Crack-Up. Edited by Edmund Wilson, this miscellany of essays, letters, and excerpts from literary notebooks contributes to Fitzgerald's enhanced posthumous reputation as an artist and a fascinating personality.
- 1958 Afternoon of an Author. This volume collects Fitzgerald's nonfiction magazine work published during his last fifteen years, including "Princeton," "How to Live on $36,000 a Year," and "Author's House."
- 1962 The Pat Hobby Stories. Published in Esquire in 1940 and 1941, the stories collected in this volume concern a Hollywood hack writer down on his luck; it features some of Fitzgerald's bitterest portraits of the movie business.
Source: http://www.answers.com/topic/f-scott-fitzgerald
Invite students to read synopses, reviews, and critiques of all or some of the works noted above, as well as various Fitzgerald biographies and letters (included among the following resources). (If possible, students can read and analyze excerpts of Fitzgerald novels and/or short stories.)
Ask students to assume the identity of Fitzgerald and, applying the knowledge they have of the author, write his biography in his voice. This will not be an autobiography, but a detailed description of Fitzgerald written by Fitzgerald, once removed. Students may imagine him standing in front of a mirror, reciting the ideal biography he would like others to construct about him. Included in these pieces should be references to the time period in which he wrote and the issues he addressed: life in the Jazz Age/the Roaring Twenties, the social structure and status of the wealthy elite, and the American Dream. Invite students to read their pieces to the class.
Online Resources
Big Apple History: Arts and Entertainment: F. Scott Fitzgerald:
http://pbskids.org/bigapplehistory/arts/topic19.htmlAmerican Masters: F. Scott Fitzgerald:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/fitzgerald_f.htmlThe Sensible Thing:
http://www.pbs.org/kteh/amstorytellers/index.htmlOnline NewsHour: Great Scott:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/ ...F. Scott Fitzgerald Centenary Home Page:
http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/Chronology: F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald:
http://www.zeldafitzgerald.com/chronology/chronology.aspProject Gutenberg: Downloadable books (scroll down for Fitzgerald):
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/f#a420The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society: Teaching Resources:
http://www.fitzgeraldsociety.org/teaching/Print Resources
A Life in Letters by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald by Matthew Joseph Bruccoli
The Romantic Egoists: A Pictorial Autobiography from the Scrapbooks and Albums of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald edited by Matthew Joseph Bruccoli, Scottie Fitzgerald Smith, Joan P. Kerr
Published: August 2005