The Family
Epic, Chapter One
Week long
project for US History class
W. Scott
Smoot
I. This week’s work, in brief.
II. Examples for what
students will produce in their first chapter.
III. Overview and
Objectives
Part I: This week’s
work, in brief.
THE STORY: For ten
points, you will create a story set in a real location during a particular year
of the 1500s. The plot and characters
are up to you, but the story must involve a solid object that comes into the
possession of a character. Read Smoot's story of his Japanese ancestor, the actor.
(In future
chapters, this object will be passed down from parent to child for generations,
on down to the 1900s. )
STORY FORMAT: The
story may be hand-written, typed, or inscribed on leather! It may be an outline for a verbal story –
telling in class, if you warn the teacher in advance that you have a story to
tell.
THE HISTORICAL FACTS:
For ten points, you will write or type explanations of up to ten details
of the story that are based on documented historical facts. For each explanation, you will cite
the document that gave you the information.
FORMAT of CITATIONS: Each citation
will come at the end of the explanation, and it will be the author of the
source, like this (Smoot). If the
source is an article in a web site that gives no author, then it will be cited
by the title of the article, like this (“Medieval Japan”).
THE LIST OF “SOURCES CITED”:
For ten points, you will TYPE a list of the sources that you cited in
your explanations of historical facts.
You should use the “Cite Right” section of your student planner, p.
121.
FORMAT OF “SOURCES CITED”: This will be perfect the first time, or else
you will re-type it and re-submit it until every period, every comma, every
space, and every capital letter are all perfect.
THE ARTIFACT: For
extra credit, you may choose to create a facsimile of the artifact. Credit goes only for ingenuity and
craftwork. Bringing in an actual historical
artifact might be interesting, but it won’t earn credit. However, there are ways to combine a found
object with creativity. For example, my
own artifact was an actual ivory carving of a Kabuki actor from 1600. I could construct a model of a real Kabuki
theatre from a historical drawing, and place my artifact on its stage: that
would earn ten points.
PART II:
Sample of story:
… an
ivory carving of my ancestor Ito, dressed as the Lion in a Kabuki drama, symbol
of violence and power. He worked in a
Kabuki theatre outside of Edo. Because
Edo was the imperial city, many samurai lived there. …
Sample of explanation of facts, with citations:
3. Ivory was not found in Japan, but it was
available through importation by the Silk Road, a trade route that stretched
from western Africa to the coast of China, where Japanese ships could buy it
(Davidson 52).
4. Kabuki drama developed around 1600, involving
music, dance, actors, and masks, to tell stories of current events in Japan
(Brockett 345).
5. The emperor of Japan required Samurai lords
to spend half of the year in Edo, where these powerful lords could be watched
closely (“Edo”).
Sample from List of Sources Cited: (notice how it’s alphabetical! Notice the spacing! Notice what sticks out on the left!!!!)
Brockett, Oscar. A History of World Theatre. Boston:
Allyn and Bacon, Inc, 1978.
Davidson, James West and Michael B. Stoff. A
History of the United States. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall, Inc. , 2002.
“Edo.” Wikipedia. Accessed 9/13/2010. <http://www.wikipedia.com/edo.htm” >
Part III. Overview
and Objectives.
DESCRIPTION: From unit to unit, students will add chapters
to their own epic story of a fictional family, generation by generation. Wherever the family line begins, it will reach
the United States by the early twentieth century, their lives having been
touched by key events that we study during the year.
With each chapter, students will
submit explanations of the historical details that impact the story, citing a
source for each fact.
With each list of explanations,
students will submit a list of sources cited in correct MLA format.
This long-term research project
involves all of the skills of the traditional researched report, only at a
greater depth, because details of every day life are not typically presented in
the usual encyclopedic overview of a time or place.
OBJECTIVES:
Students will recall the sequence
of events by associating their own stories to the historical time line.
Students will practice critical
thinking, as they question whether details of their own stories could have
happened in their chosen places and times.
Students will search a wide
diversity of sources to obtain answers to their own esoteric questions about
every day life in a chosen place and time.
Students will practice proper
citation of sources.
Students will practice proper
listing of citations by MLA format.
Students will learn what novelists
must do to sustain a story across many chapters.