Happy Presidents Day

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I hope you are all enjoying Presidents Day. I’ve spent a part of it thinking about how presidents often become “legendary Americans” of the sort we have been studying. As we saw when we discussed Francois Furstenberg’s book, Americans often turned to George Washington, above all, as a symbol of the nation’s highest ideals. And I think we’ve seen that this continues even today, especially at moments of high partisan conflict of the sort that Parson Weems and Federalists like Washington himself often deplored.

Consider, for example, the recent cover of the New Yorker magazine, which depicted a number of presidents (Washington most prominently) expressing chagrin about Donald Trump:

ny-presidents-cover

That cover reminded me of a discovery I made a few years ago, which is that searches for Washington’s Farewell Address on Google still peak in October and November: in other words, around elections. You can see the trend for yourself. The popularity of that search seems to have been highest in October and November of 2004, a moment of extreme political division.

Perhaps, then, the patterns that Furstenberg noticed in the ways that Washington and presidents were used in the early republic to address fears of political division have not gone away. Indeed, there may be a whole host of ways in which Weems’s work in deifying Washington continue to influence us, as historian Joseph Adelman argues in an article for The Atlantic today.

What about you? Have you noticed past Presidents or Washington being cited today to speak to the concerns of this election cycle?

Writing Assignment for Feb. 18

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Next week’s reading and writing assignment will depart slightly from our usual practice.

Before beginning the assignment, you should still complete the assigned reading, which is Camilla Townsend’s Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma. But I won’t be giving you specific reading questions this time, so to prepare for our discussion, you’ll have to use the reading skills you’ve gained this semester, as well as your understanding of the Three Big Questions and related issues we’ve raised, to think about what we will likely discuss.

Your writing assignment will also be different. Instead of giving you specific questions to respond to, I’m going to give you some “real world” writing scenarios (listed below). Though the assignment is different, my expectations about it are not: you should still use the rubrics on position-taking and effective communication when writing.

Choose TWO of the following scenarios and complete the task associated with each. Put your work in your Google Doc as usual.

Scenario 1: Recently the Treasury Department has announced its intention to put a woman on $10 bill. Imagine that the Department were to announce that it has selected a representation of Pocahontas for the bill, sparking a controversy pitting supporters of the bill against opponents. Your task is to develop your own position, and then imagine that you have decided to create a petition to the White House using its online portal. You should write the text of the headline and description that you will use for your petition on that site, as well as the text of an email you plan to send to your friends and family explaining why you want their support for the petition. Both must draw on the available evidence from this course and the understandings and expertise you’ve gained so far in “Legendary Americans.”

Scenario 2: Imagine that students at one of the colleges on campus have announced plans to host a new themed public party called “Colors of the Wind.” From the marketing for the party, you have learned that the organizers planned to encourage attendees to costume themselves as Native Americans; the poster features an image of Pocahontas. Controversy has ensued over the college’s plans, especially after the University has announced that it will not allow the party to take place because of the theme. Your task is to write a letter to the Rice Thresher staking out your own position on the controversy. The letter must draw on the available evidence from this course and the understandings and expertise you’ve gained so far in “Legendary Americans.”

Scenario 3: Imagine that the HISD School Board is reevaluating the movies that it keeps stocked in its elementary schools. One of the movies up for discussion at the Board’s next meeting is Disney’s Pocahontas. Your task is to write a statement that you will read to the School Board, following its guidelines for addressing Board meetings. The statement must draw on the available evidence from this course and the understandings and expertise you’ve gained so far in “Legendary Americans.”

Important Notes: Regardless of the scenarios you choose, you will need to practice Audience Awareness, the fourth of our Four Capabilities in this class. That may mean you need to do some research about the real-world expectations and requirements for each of these writing scenarios. Whichever you choose, you should also keep in mind that you have a broad base of evidence, readings, and insights to draw on from this course, and so you should use those available materials as fully as possible. Don’t hesitate to use applicable points or evidence from earlier weeks’ readings and discussions if it will help you defend your position. While you may use the same points or evidence in your responses to both scenarios, that may not always be advisable; keep in mind that some evidence that may be especially powerful for one audience may not be as powerful for the other.

Upcoming Style Workshop

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Andrew Klein will be offering a workshop on “improving writing style” this Wednesday evening at the Center for Written, Oral, and Visual Communication. I recommend it if you have time to go! Here’s his description, as sent out to all FWIS instructors:

I’ll be teaching a workshop on “Style” at the CWOVC–Fondren 201–this Wednesday, from 7:00 – 9:00. It’s designed for undergraduate students who are seeking to improve the clarity of their written work. It will address aspects of academic writing at the sentence, paragraph, and text levels so as to enable students to produce smooth, readable prose that takes the reader from sentence to sentence in a coherent manner. I won’t claim that it will solve your student’s writing problems, but it should be able to offer them a few concrete strategies to improve their clarity. All students are certainly welcome to sign up, but it will be particularly helpful for those who have trouble at the level of the sentence. If you have anyone in your classes this semester who you think might benefit from this, please encourage them to attend.

So this is me, encouraging you to attend!

Crisp Reading Questions

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Next week’s reading assignment is James E. Crisp’s Sleuthing the Alamo. Before you jump to Chapter 1, be sure that you read “Pride and Prejudice: A Personal Prologue” (pp. 1-25). I think you’ll discover that every single one of you has something interesting in common with Dr. Crisp.

As you read the Crisp book, here are some questions to consider. You should write a response to one of these prompts in your Google Doc as usual.

  1. Why doesn’t Crisp think that “Anglo racism” is a sufficient explanation for the causes of the Texas revolution for independence? Do you agree with him that “racism” was not the “core explanation” (p. 45) of the Texas Revolution?
  2. Crisp believes, unlike Bill Groneman, that the De la Pena diary is both authentic and reliable. Do you agree on both counts? (Note that these debates attracted attention from national newspapers like The New York Times when they happened in 1998.)
  3. How did Davy Crockett die? (Be sure to use specific evidence and arguments from the book to support your answer.)
  4. Why do you think Crisp’s critics (discussed in Chapter 4) care so much about the way Davy Crockett died? Do you think it matters how he died? (Again, use specific evidence from the books to explain and support your answers.)
  5. In the afterword, Crisp discusses Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s theory that making history can be broken down into several “moments”: the creation of facts, the assembly of facts, retrieval of facts, and the delivery of facts. Does this view mean it is impossible for historians simply to get to “the facts” of the matter without their own perspectives getting in the way?
  6. Crisp begins and ends his book by talking about a family photograph that has been cut in half. He believes it is important to point out that figures like Juan Seguin and Jose Enrique de la Pena have been cut out, so to speak, of our pictures of the Texas Revolution. Should we put such figures back into the picture when we teach children about the Texas Revolution?

Image credit: “Crockett at the Alamo,” from The Idle Hour Book, or Scrapiana; Being a Nerve-Worker, Care Destroyer, and Genuine Countenance Disturber . . . Containing all the Information Necessary to Raise a Laugh at the Shortest Notice. . . . New York: Turner & Fisher, ca. 1848. Texas Collection Library, taken from this online exhibit about the De la Pena diary at the University of Texas. The whole exhibit is worth a look if you’d like to see some images and historical sources about the Texas Revolution, the Alamo, and the diary.

Crockett craze photos

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As you prepare to discuss Davy Crockett tomorrow, you might also be interested in looking at these photographs from Life Magazine about the Crockett craze of 1955. There are lots of great shots of kids “playing” Crockett, as well as factory workers mass-producing coonskin hats and other Davy merchandise. Here are a couple of examples.
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Google on Sacagawea

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One of your classmates writes the following by email:

I was curious and decided to see what Google thought about Sacagawea’s death date. As the attached screenshot shows, they must also prefer written documentation above Native American storytelling.

Interesting find! Maybe this also just confirms that most websites agree on the 1812 death, since Google’s algorithm likely depends on something like “majority rule.”

Google and Sacagawea

Daaaaavy, Daaaaavy Crockett! Questions

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Today in class we watched clips from Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier. This week’s readings will touch on the 1955 Crockett craze that the movie inspired.

As you do the readings, here are some questions to think about. You should also choose ONE of the questions and write a response of 300-500 words in your Google Doc.

  1. The first part of the Roberts and Olson article focuses on what the author’s call Walt Disney’s “worldview” (p. 233) in the 1940s and 1950s. Drawing on evidence and examples in the text, describe Disney’s worldview and the events that shaped it. Then, think about the clips from the movie we watched last week, and make a case for or against the view that the film was an expression of Disney’s personal political ideas.
  2. In this week’s readings, a variety of reasons are given for the incredible popularity of the Crockett movie in 1955, which amounted to a merchandising “craze.” Among the possible reasons for the “craze” include: (a) a simple fad for which there is no good explanation, (b) a desire among audiences for escapist entertainment, (c) the power of television and marketing to manipulate consumer taste, and (d) the rich historical symbolism of the Crockett “frontier” character, which provided both Disney and his audiences with a “usable past” (Roberts and Olson, p. 237) that had political implications in the present. Which of these factors (if any) best explains the Crockett craze? What evidence from these readings or others we have done support your explanation?
  3. As the readings show, the Crockett craze eventually sparked controversies about the historical accuracy of Disney’s movie. Based on the evidence in the readings, do you think the defenders and critics of Davy Crockett, the man, in 1955 really disagreed more fundamentally about who should be authorized to write or represent history? If so, what were some of the major positions on that question, and which of them do you agree with?
  4. Was Walt Disney essentially a twentieth-century version of Parson Weems? Why or why not?
  5. Using internal evidence in the entries, as well as the articles by King, Roberts and Olson, assess the reliability of the American National Biography and Wikipedia entries on Crockett. Do you consider one of the two sources better than the other, and if so, why?

Image credit: Davy Crockett movie poster, from IMPawards.com