LITERARY PERIODS PROJECT

You will choose partners for the literary periods project. Each group will draw for a literary period. Rather than marching through the literature book, we will be spending our time in class with in-class novel and play study, essay writing, and style analysis; however, some days you will be able to work with your groups working toward this goal of presenting this information toward the end of the semester, probably about Easter.

You can start with the information beginning each of the eras in your textbook. This will give you a spring board toward what you want to research with more depth. We will spend some time in the library to allow you to discover more about your period. You are looking for the following things:

• what happened historically
• technological discoveries
• medical discoveries
• fashions
• architecture
• education
• political situations
• important historical figures
• fads
• finances
• foods
• international relations
• sports
• entertainment
• art
• music
• whatever else you can find

In addition, you have to choose representative literature from the era to assign to the class which you will be responsible for teaching. Your goals is to become an expert on your literary period and be able to explain how the historical happenings impacted the literature, the art, and the music of your decade and others to come. As a group you will present your findings to the class in an informative and interesting manner that uses visuals and AV equipment. Everyone, at the end of the unit, should be able to tell anyone who asks what the literary period is known for; how it impacted the literature, art, and music; and how it impacted the next one and others that followed.

Each of you will choose one very limited literary topic from his/her literary period on which to write a research paper. These are limited to five pages plus the works cited page. You must cite at least five sources, using no general encyclopedias.

Each literary period will be allotted at least one period and no more than two. You will teach the assigned short pieces of literature using active participation while you discuss the other elements as well.

In addition, each of you will contribute five squares toward a class quilt which will show the various literary periods and their relationship to each other. We will work this out together.

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