Settlers+Learning+Plan

Ø  Motivations for settlers to come to the Americas Ø  Cultural values of settlers and how they could cause conflict Ø  Origins and impact of Slavery Ø  The obstacles that those who settled faced (both willingly and unwillingly) Ø  Importance of considering audience and purpose Ø  Primary sources vs. Secondary sources (difference/significance   Ø   Influence of Judeo/Christian theology on American thought/literature   Ø   Historical Narrative   Ø   Primary Source   Ø   Secondary Source   Ø   Audience   Ø   Purpose   Ø   Slave Narrative   Ø   Autobiography   Ø   God, Glory and Gold   Ø   Cultural values   Ø   Dehumanization/humanization of slavery revealed by sources   Ø   Literature as dialogue or conversation   Ø   Déjà vu   Ø   Embedded mythology of theology   Ø   Visual idealization vs. Primary Accounts vs. Secondary Reality  “O, ye nominal Christians! might not an African ask you, learned you this from your God, who says unto you, Do unto all men as you would men should do unto you? Is it not enough that we are torn from our country and friends, to toil for your luxury and lust of gain? Must every tender feeling be likewise sacrificed to your avarice? Are the dearest friends and relations, now rendered more dear by their separation from their kindred, still to be parted from each other, and thus prevented from cheering the gloom of slavery with the small comfort of being together and mingling their sufferings and sorrows? Why are parents to lose their children, brothers their sisters, or husbands their wives? Surely this is a new refinement in cruelty, which, while it has no advantage to atone for it, thus aggravates distress, and adds fresh horrors even to the wretchedness of slavery.”
 * Learning Plan—First Settlers **
 * Key Terms: **
 * Key Concepts: **
 * Suggested Texts: **
 * “Historical Background”
 * “The Log of Christopher Columbus”
 * “La Relacion”
 * “The Travels of Marco Polo”
 * “Of Plymouth Plantation”
 * “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano”
 * “My Sojourn into the Lands of my Ancestors”
 * “Historical Background”
 * Motivations of settling/exploration: God, Glory and Gold
 * “The Log of Columbus (Friday, October 12, 1492)”—
 * “No sooner had the formalities of taking possession of the island”
 * “I want the natives to develop a friendly attitude toward us because I know that they are a people who can be made free and converted to our Holy Faith more by love than by force.”
 * “They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them. I think they can easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion. If it pleases Our Lord, I will take six of them to Your Highnesses when I depart in order that they may learn our language.”
 * Concept of conversion
 * Concept of slavery
 * Slavery
 * Sanitized in literature books
 * Slavery learned from Africa: indentured servitude
 * Conditions of slave ships: food, space, etc.
 * Cycle: once past initial generation—people begin to be born and die in slavery—if slavery is all you know, it becomes easier to maintain the status quo
 * Dehumanization of slaves—slavemaster’s power – no guilt—concept of savage or animal
 * Discuss connotation/denotation of word “savage”
 * “La Relacion”
 * Motivation, Audience and Purpose for Piece
 * Impressions of the land by Explorers/Settlers
 * Relationship between Settlers and Native Americans
 * “The Travels of Marco Polo”
 * Inspired Columbus and later European travelers, served as a model for later travel accounts, such as “La Relacion”
 * “Of Plymouth Plantation”
 * Discuss primary sources vs. Secondary sources
 * Relationship of Settlers and Native Americans
 * Impressions of the Land by the Settlers
 * View of Nature/Natural World
 * “And for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of that country know them to be sharp and violent, and subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search an unknown coast. Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men, and what multitudes there might be of them they knew not. Neither could they, as it were, go up to the top of Pisgah to view from this wilderness a more goodly country to feed their hopes; for every which way they turned their eyes (save upward to the heavens) they could have little solace or content in respect of any outward objects.”
 * “And here is to be noted a special providence of God”
 * “Thus it pleased God to vanquish their enemies and give them deliverance; and by His special providence so to dispose that not any one of them were either hurt or hit, though their arrows came close by them and on every side [of] them; and sundry of their coats, which hung up in the barricade, were shot through and through. Afterwards they gave God solemn thanks and praise for their deliverance, and gathered up a bundle of their arrows and sent them into England afterward by the master of the ship, and called that place the First Encounter.”
 * “ Two of these seven were Mr. William Brewster, their reverend Elder, and Myles Standish, their Captain and military commander, unto whom myself and many others were much beholden in our low and sick condition. And yet the Lord so upheld these persons as in this general calamity they were not at all infected either with sickness or lameness.”
 * 6 Rules Established between Native Americans and Settlers
 * First Thanksgiving
 * Preachy tone— preach the gospel of “Christianity”—country continues to preach a gospel, but the gospel will evolve into democracy
 * Visual Literacy—The Bettman Archive, New York
 * Concept of portrait over photograph—more likely to reflect or capture stereotypes or biased impressions
 * Expressions
 * Clothing
 * Posture/Composure
 * Table Items
 * Stage of Eating
 * Separation of Native Americans and Settlers
 * Women and Men (small child)
 * Man Standing at Head Table (priest?)
 * Man looking over shoulder
 * Placement of Chief at table—guest at table vs. settlers as guest in Native Americans land
 * “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano”
 * Slave Narrative—autobiographical accounts by person who suffered the horrors of slavery
 * Middle Passage
 * Vivid writing—descriptive details
 * Purpose: share the experience/horrors of slavery with readers
 * Audience: European or American readers who might be stirred to take action against the slave trade
 * Primary Source: includes firsthand information about the slave trade
 * How he got there—chain of actions—mention slavics
 * Treatment on slave ship
 * Key passage:
 * Confronting those who are responsible for slavery
 * Emotionally charged because its personal
 * Concept of adding another voice to create literary dialogue/conversation of a historical event
 * Speaking back to the canon
 * Importance of emotional account in humanizing—connect with Columbus—people as property
 * “My Sojourn into the Lands of my Ancestors”
 * Autobiography
 * Historical Context: Many African countries are gaining independence, JFK is president of the U.S., African American were demanding equal rights and expressing racial pride.
 * –Maya Angelo, an African-American writer living in Ghana in 1962, explains that she did not feel at home there because she was an American. At the start of the narrative, Angelou travels through Cape Coast, the side of two castles once used as holding forts for enslaved Africans. She contemplates what her ancestors must have felt and thought as they were torn from their families and homeland. Angelou then reaches the village of Dunkwa and asks a woman on the street about a place to stay and is quickly welcomed into the woman’s community. Angelou finds parallels between the way she is treated in the village and the way African Americans were welcomed in her grandmother’s home in Arkansas in the time of segregation. Angelou is pleased that her hosts assumes is a native African instead of something from the United States. AS a descendant of American slaves, she is please to be recognized as a part of Africa.”
 * Angelou is haunted by images of her ancestors’ first encounter with Europeans, which resulted in exploitation and slavery.
 * Transitions from external reality to internal imaginings
 * Flashback, Metaphor, Imagery