american dream assignment

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Lesson Plan The American Dream

This lesson invites students to search and sift through rare print documents, early motion pictures, photographs, and recorded sounds from the Library of Congress. Students experience the depth and breadth of the digital resources of the Library, tell the story of a decade, and help define the American Dream.

Objectives:

Students will be able to:

• analyze, interpret, and conduct research with digitized primary source documents
• 19th and 20th century social life in the United States using digitized documents from the Library of Congress
• define, present and defend their ideas about what the American Dream has been, through the decades
• relate what they have uncovered from inquiry and research to their own American Dream

Time Required

Two to three weeks

Lesson Preparation

• Teacher's Guides and Analysis Tool
• Background essay: "What Is the American Dream?"

Wall of Dreams

• Citing Primary Sources

Lesson Procedure

Introduction, entry level skills and knowledge.

A basic understanding of Internet research, knowledge of search terms to navigate Library of Congress digital content, and reasonable facility with multimedia tools are needed.

When working with archival collections students must think like historians and archivists. Resources from the Teachers Page can help students get started. Acquaint students with the unique qualities of primary resources. You may want to create or use a set of primary sources to help students understand the process of primary source analysis.

Organizational Requirements

Define the scope of the project:.

Before introducing the lesson, or as a class, define the scope of the historical research conducted in this project. Will teams gather material from a specific decade? Will they work with a single Digital Collection ? Will research be guided by a theme, such as immigration? Will research be linked to literature the class is reading?

Determine desired learning outcomes:

What do you expect your students to know and be able to do when they have completed the activities. Create an assessment rubric for students based on your expectations.

Determine required learning product(s):

You may want students to create a Web page, a multimedia product, a video, or a contribution to the transformation of their classroom into a Decades Museum. Whatever format the student product may take, students should present and defend their ideas.

Engage students:

Invite students to begin their inquiry by considering the dreams of today and the dreamers of the present. Next, use The Library of Congress collections to learn about our cultural heritage and find evidence of the dreamers in our collective history. Finally, ask your students to compare their own dreams to the dreams of those who lived before them. Students should understand that history is the continuing story of human experience, the stories of people like themselves. Help students to understand that as they define and pursue their own dreams, they create the future of our nation and the world.

Introduce students to the student lesson pages. Divide your class into learning teams and assign roles and responsibilities.

Each team will select (or be assigned) a research role (photographer, lawyer, poet, politician, producer, comedian, musician). Each student will work as part of the team to complete the project. Remind students that while they each have specific tasks, all team members pitch in and help one another. Provide time for students to explore the student page of the project.

Individual responsibilities might include:

• Team Manager As team manager you have full responsibility for this team. You will manage all aspects of the project by assisting the research, production, and archive managers in meeting their obligations to complete the project. Excellent interpersonal and management skills are required. You are ultimately responsible for helping the team meet the project deadline.
• Research Manager Your job is key to the success of this project. You can shape the research by using focus questions. You will assist others in finding just the right quote, picture, or sound bite. Your team will rely on effective use of your detective and inquiry skills as you search the collections.
• Production Manager You will lead the group in building the final product. You must gather materials from your archive manager and work with the researcher during production. You must be flexible and resourceful as you work and assist others with last minute changes; manage graphics, sound or movie clips; and deal with the unexpected occurrences of creating a product.
• Archive Manager Excellent organizational skills make this job a challenge. You will keep track of all materials for the team and check to be sure that resources are compatible. For example, are your sound clips in the correct format? You will keep the original files, and back up files, and organize the the final project.

Building Background Knowledge and Skills 

(suggested- 2 class periods)

Anticipatory Set:

Link to students' prior knowledge and work with them to develop a concept of the traditional "American Dream." Use the "What Is the American Dream?" essay to initiate a discussion (either as a whole class or in team groups).

You may wish to have your students conduct interviews, explore other readings, engage in further class discussions, or hear guest speakers. Pair them to brainstorm: What do you already know about the American Dream? They might use paper or visual thinking software to record ideas and then share them with the learning team members in their groups.

Primary Source Analysis:

Before students begin their research, review strategies for analyzing primary source materials. Each student team will work with a set of pre-selected materials. Students analyze the materials recording their thoughts on the Primary Source Analysis Tool . Before the students begin, select questions from the teacher's guide Analyzing Primary Sources to focus and prompt analysis and discussion.

Each team will analyze its assigned primary source.

• Photographer - George O. Waters(?), Dry Valley, near Comstock Nebraska
• Poet - "Dedication," Robert Frost's presidential inaugural poem, 20 January 1961
• Politician - "Americanism", Harding, Warren G. (Warren Gamaliel), 1865-1923
• Producer - Arrival of immigrants, Ellis Island
• Comedian - Katzenjammer Kids: "Policy and pie"
• Lawyer - An Account of the Proceedings on the Trail of Susan B. Anthony
• Musician - The old cabin home. H. De Marsan, Publisher, 54 Chatham Street, New York
• Reporter - The Boston Gazette, and Country Journal. Monday, March 12, 1770

Researching Online and Gathering Primary Resources

(suggested - 5 class periods)

Guide students in choosing a research role and developing an action plan. One strategy is to assign roles, such as team manager, research manager, production manager or archive manager. Support students as needed in identifying tasks to be completed and drafting a timeline.

Possible considerations during research might include:

• Theme or Topic: What is your focus for inquiry? Identify your research topic or theme.
• Research Questions: What questions will focus your research? List a series of questions you intend to answer to focus your research. What additional information do you need to answer these questions?
• Primary Sources: How will you know you've found what you are looking for? List the type of resources you intend to look for to answer your research questions. What primary resources from the Library of Congress will you search for?
• Evidence: How do you know that the examples you've found are valid? Once you have located a few examples of primary sources, what are your criteria for selecting these as evidence?

You may require each team to keep a "research log" of work accomplished during each work session to help students stay focused and, later, to help in the evaluative process.

Choose the questions that will provide a focus for the project. Students can use these questions to guide their research.

As a class, create and continually add to, a list of "tried and true" search terms. Remind students that the Library of Congress Web site is a collection of collections. It is not encyclopedic and it simply does not have "everything." If an initial search does not yield desired results, guide students in how they can narrow or refocus the search. Your schedule may limit students to visiting only the suggested collections and provided links for each team. As possible, however, encourage them to identify additional items in the Library of Congress collections and to expand their resources with other sources.

Supply students with primary source analysis tools to use to record their growing set of evidence. Allow at least two (more preferred) days/class periods for exploration and research.

Creating the Learning Product

Students can produce a variety of products to demonstrate their interpretation of the material. Public or private Web sites, podcasting, digital narratives, video documentaries, slide shows, oral presentations, booklets or newspapers, or museum display within the classroom of print documents, multimedia, and realia are all excellent vehicles for students to share their learning.

Creating and refining a final learning product that allows students to represent, present and defend their ideas about the American Dream is the tangible outcome of this project. Allow plenty of time for this vital phase. (Having students add what transpires during this phase of the project to their research log can provide useful insight in the  evaluation process.)

Reinforce ethical use of the Internet by requiring that proper citation and/or bibliographical entry be used for all collected print and Internet resources.

Developing a Personal Dream for their Future

(1 class period)

When students have completed their research and have produced and presented the products that share their learning, they can be invited to consider their own American Dream – for themselves, their families and loved ones, their community, their nation and the world. Encourage students to give serious thought and honest expression to their hopes and dreams for the future. For inspiration, they may wish to view the Wall of Dreams contributed by other students.

Who are the dreamers that inspire us today? Ask students to read about or interview others who have a dream. Enrich this project with your own web resources, books, movie clips, interviews, or guest speakers.

Lesson Evaluation

Self and peer assessment.

A confidential self-evaluation from each student can provide the teacher with further valuable input, and will help the student reflect upon their own learning and performance. Students are also asked to evaluate the work and contributions of team members.

Teacher Assessment

Student teams may be asked the following assessment questions:

• What is the American Dream?
• How has the American Dream changed over time?
• How do diverse cultures view the American Dream?
• How have significant historical events affected the American Dream?
• How will new opportunities of the 21st century challenge the American Dream?
• What makes your area of interest an effective medium for sharing the American Dream?
• What is your American Dream?

The team products, and their presentation, should provide evidence of understanding from each team member. Be sure to require that each student contribute to the important tasks of presenting and defending a specific viewpoint.

Evaluate student work according to the evaluative criteria you and your students identified before beginning the project.

Kathleen Ferenz and Leni Donlan, American Memory Fellows, 1997

What is the American Dream? Is it the same for all Americans? Is it a myth? Is it simply a quest for a better life? How has the American Dream changed over time? Some see their dreams wither and die while others see their dreams fulfilled. Why? Everyone has dreams about a personally fulfilled life ...what is your dream?

Your job is to research the dreams of others. You will then create and publish your interpretation of the "American Dream."

• Divide into teams by research roles (photographer, lawyer, poet, politician, producer, comedian, musician).
• Define the American Dream with your group.
• Search in the Digital Colections and document the dreams of those who lived in the past.
• Identify and publish your interpretation of the "American Dream" according to your research role and the evidence you found.
• Reflect upon your personal dream — for the nation and for yourself.
• Review the Wall of Dreams for ideas. Write your own personal dream to share with your teacher and class.

These dreams are a sampling from the thousands of student dreams collected from 1998 - 2006. Define your dream for yourself, your family, your community, your country and our world.

My dream is to write a story that makes people think, dream, imagine, care, and feel. I want to change the world by making people care for each other. I want to show the world my thoughts through the words in my stories and maybe see how others like me feel. L. C., Student, Dakota Valley High School. Grade 11

My dream is that someday... kids will not have to live in poverty. It makes me see how fortunate I am to have what I have. My other dream is for all wars to stop, and to declare world peace. All of this fighting is putting a bad impression on people, some think life is all about war, and we could live in a better place and be better people if we could all get along.  A. B., Student, Henderson Intermediate School, Grade 6

My American Dream is to make the world a happier and more joyful place. I can achieve it by helping other people conquer sickness, hardships, and sadness. The world is a troubled place now. I hope I can make a difference. People all over the world are having tough times. War is killing many people and causing great sadness. This is my American Dream because we are seeing death everywhere now. J. C., Student, Encinal Elementary, Grade 5

My American Dream has several parts. First, I want my family to be happy, healthy, and comfortable. Rich is not necessary, though it would be nice. Second, I want to be able to use my brains and skills to become a geneticist so that I can create cures to help people live better. If I can make the world better for even one person, I will have met that goal. I want chocolate to be declared a health food. I know, that's not reasonable, but it is a dream I have. "Are you ill? Take two Hershey bars and call me in the morning." I want to invent the self-cleaning bedroom. (No further explanation necessary). But more than any of these, I dream of peace. I want everyone here to understand and help each other, regardless of race, religion, color, creed, size, shape, sexual orientation, just because we are all members of the same species: Homo sapien. That is my American Dream.  A. G., Student, Home Schooled, Grade 8

My American Dream is one in which all the children recognize their potential and work to understand they can be the best in whatever they choose to do as a life work. I wish for them to be gentle but honest with themselves, to love themselves and see the special persons they are becoming and that they work to live in harmony with all humankind.  M. B., Teacher, Crawford AuSable, Grade 8

I have a dream that everyone will stop smoking and people will stop polluting and that everybody will live in peace. W. P., Student, Beech Tree Elementary School, Grades K-3

My dream is to help our nation realize greater freedom and opportunity for all its citizens. Racial, sexual, and economic dividers are still very much in place in our nation, and overcoming such forms of bias comes only with affirmative action as well as educating our people against prejudice and discrimination. And most importantly, it is our duty to remember our nation's involvement in slavery, our deliberate mistreatment of America's native peoples, and our apathetic complacency during the worst act of genocide in history--these must all be painfully remembered to prevent such blots to fall on our account again. I wish to be actively involved in history, a living history that will affect every person out there in our great land, who will remember our past, its glories, triumphs, and yes, its failures. To do this is our responsibility to future generations, to make our nation a more thoughtful nation and our people more thoughtful people. That is my American Dream. A. I., Student, Homeschool, Grade 12

Everyone says that their American Dream is for every American to be equal. This is very unrealistic because everyone is different in some way. America has the most diverse population in the world. This trait sets us apart from other countries. So instead of being equal, my American Dream is for everyone to receive and give the utmost respect to all Americans despite differences we all have.  A. M., Student, Cass Tech High School, Grade 11

My American Dream is to be able to live in my country as a free person - free to live, free to dream, free to change and free to live with others who are not the same as me. I don't want to accumulate 'stuff' and have more than the other guy. I want to make sure that we all have enough to live and care for our country. It is not about getting ahead or beating another person, but it is about working together to make and keep the United States a great place. We all can do this by working in the system and changing it when we see that change is needed. In this way we can all live our American Dream together. J. M., Student, CPDLF, Grade 8

I dream that America will turn its goodwill and wealth to the rest of the world and help end poverty and war. We can do this by providing more help and education to the poorest nations, and by building a just system around the world where the children are fed, healthy and educated and perhaps they would not hate us so much. If we helped them develop their own resources instead of stealing their resources they could then support themselves and be proud of themselves and not hate us.  P. W., Student, Florida Virtual School, Grade 8

My dream is that I wish people would not judge people because they are different from them. The only reason why people are racist is because they are scared of changes. I would hope that people would become mature enough and forget their differences between each other.  T. S., Student, James A. Garfield Community Magnet School, Grade 8

My dream is for the children to grow up in a country, any country, feeling proud, free, and safe. I would hope that the politicians worldwide would put the interests of their citizens first, their military second, and themselves last. K. M., Teacher, St. John's, postgraduate

My dream is peace in my lifetime between people of all religions: Peace so my father will not have to go to war again, Peace so my little brother can grow up unafraid.  C. S., Student, ML King, Grade 5

My American Dream is to be a fair person and treat everybody equal. I want the people that come to America from different countries to feel like they have a place here in the United States. We can make them feel like this is their home. Also my American Dream is to give everybody the same rights. That even if you're homeless or rich you still have the same rights as everybody else. I think everybody should have the same equal rights. V. K., Student, Clara Barton, Grade 5

My dream is to have a crime free world. People should be able to feel safe in their neighborhoods. I also want the world to be free of homeless people. Everybody should have a place to live and food to eat. Everybody should have access to quality medical attention and quality education. I want worldwide peace and no more wars. I also want world hunger to come to an end. M. Y., Student, MBTA. Grade 8

Similar to the many past dreamers such as Martin Luther King, who wanted equal rights, I want everyone to have equal rights. Based on the culture and values that I have been brought up with, I know that it is especially hard to stop a prejudice that has been traveling through every generation. But, by teaching our children and being a model of acceptance ourselves, we can avoid making those same mistakes from past generations. It has definitely gotten better, and I believe our generation can become the role models for the new millennium.  K. L., Student, Allentown High School, Grade 11

My American Dream is a place where no one is discriminated against nor judged because of their race, where everyone is equal, where people are never deprived of their rights, and where the accused have the chance to explain. I dream of a place where justice is served righteously and schools have capable teachers who do everything to help the children they teach. I dream of a place where people can understand and accept new and different things. This is my dream and I hope it becomes a reality. E. L., Student, FLVS, Grade 8

My American Dream is for people to be able to express themselves without catching ridicule from their peers. It hurts when your individuality crushes who you try to present yourself to be because you feel shameful of who you really are.  S. F., Student, Pell City High School, Grade 10

I dream that one day the world will be united in a world where all people can speak and understand one another. I dream of a world where nobody goes to bed hungry or abused. I dream of a world that is free from violence--a world in which all people could live peacefully with one another.  L. B., Teacher, HSU, Grade K-3

Getting Started

Choose a research role.

As a group, choose one of the research roles to create your project:

Photographer

You are the eyes of America.

Design a photo essay that shows the American Dream. You might show how the Dream has been affected by time, cultural influences, and significant historical events (war, economic depression, elections, etc.).

Team Management Roles

Assessment questions.

How will your project be assessed? Identify which of these questions you will use to guide your inquiry:

• What makes being a photographer an effective medium for exploring the American Dream?

Action Plan

Create an action plan and and determine your timeline for completing the project. Include the following information in your action plan:

Timeline and Responsibilities

• Choose your team management responsibilities and decide each manager's specific responsibilities.
• How much time do you have?
• What deadlines do you need to meet?
• What materials do you need?
• How do you plan to manage the materials?

Research Strategies

What is your focus for inquiry? Identify your research topic or theme. What questions will focus your research? List a series of genuine questions you intend to answer by your research. What additional information do you need to answer these questions?

How will you know you've found what you are looking for? List the type of resources you intend to look for to answer your research questions. What primary resources from Digital Collections will you search for?

How do you know that the examples you've found are valid? Once you have located a few examples of primary sources, what are your criteria for selecting these as evidence? Record your ideas on the primary source analysis tool . Be sure to note information you'll need for Citing Primary Sources .

To search all photographic collections, click here: Photographs, Prints, and Drawings

Specific Collections that may be of help:

• Architecture and Interior Design for 20th Century America: Photographs by Samuel Gottscho and William Schleisner , 1935-1955
• By Popular Demand: Jackie Robinson and Other Baseball Highlights, 1860s-1960s
• Daguerreotypes
• Detroit Publishing Company
• Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives
• Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Color Photographs
• Horydczak Collection
• Panoramic Photographs
• Buckaroos in Paradise: Ranching Culture in Northern Nevada, 1945-1982
• Votes for Women - The Struggle for Women's Suffrage

Your passion for controversy and debate will guide your vision of the American Dream. Prepare a written or oral legal brief about the status of the American Dream. Defend your argument with evidence from the collections. (A legal brief includes: title, who vs. whom, statement of facts, argument, conclusion, references.)

• What makes being a lawyer an effective medium for exploring the American Dream?

To Search text collections use the following links:

• Manuscripts/Mixed Material
• Books/Printed Material
• An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera
• Words and Deeds in American History: Selected Documents Celebrating the Manuscript Division's First 100 Years
• A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1873
• The National American Women Suffrage Association Collection

Using your poetic grasp of language you seek out the heart and soul of the American Dream.

Create a poet's notebook that shows the American Dream. Include samples of your poetry that show how the Dream has been affected by time, cultural influences, and significant historical events (war, economic depression, elections, etc.).

• What makes being a reporter for a newspaper an effective medium for exploring the American Dream?
• "California as I Saw It": First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900
• Voices from the Dust Bowl: the Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection, 1940-1941
• Hispano Music & Culture from the Northern Rio Grande: The Juan B. Rael Collection
• American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940
• Pioneering the Upper Midwest: Books from Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, ca. 1820-1910
• Poet at Work: Recovered Notebooks from the Thomas Biggs Harned Walt Whitman Collection

With a finger on the pulse of the American people you create the policies that shape the American Dream.

Write and deliver a speech that traces the political events that shape the American Dream. Your speech may reflect significant events that have shaped American politics.

• What makes being a politician an effective medium for exploring the American Dream?
• The Hannah Arendt Papers at the Library of Congress
• Documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789
• George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799
• American Leaders Speak: Recordings from World War I and the 1920 Election

Lights, camera, action! You show the American Dream with stories, films, and a script for a movie.

Make a storyboard for your movie. Sequence the scenes to produce the movie of the American Dream.

• What makes being a producer an effective medium for exploring the American Dream?

To search early Motion Pictures, click here: Early Motion Pictures, 1897-1916

• Inside an American Factory: Films of the Westinghouse Works, 1904
• Origins of American Animation
• The Last Days of a President: Films of McKinley and the Pan-American Exposition, 1901
• The Life of a City: Early Films of New York, 1898-1906
• Before and After the Great Earthquake and Fire: Early Films of San Francisco, 1897-1916
• America at Work, America at Leisure: Motion Pictures from 1894-1915

You find the irony in the American Dream. Write a standup comic script or create a politcal cartoon or cartoon strip that expresses irony or the humorous side of the American Dream.

• What makes being a comedian an effective medium for exploring the American Dream?
• Federal Theatre Project, 1935-1939
• The American Variety Stage: Vaudeville and Popular Entertainment, 1870-1920

With your ear for melody you play the music of the American Dream.

Write the sheet music or play and record music that characterizes the American Dream from your research.

• What makes being a musician an effective medium for exploring the American Dream?

To search all sheet music/song sheet collections: Sheet Music, Song Sheets .

To search all sound recording collections: Sound Recordings .

• "Now What a Time": Blues, Gospel, and the Fort Valley Music Festivals, 1938-1943
• The Leonard Bernstein Collection, ca. 1920-1989
• Band Music from the Civil War Era
• The Aaron Copland Collection, ca. 1900-1990
• Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection
• California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties. Collected by Sidney Robertson Cowell
• William P. Gottlieb: Photographs from the Golden Age of Jazz
• Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, 1870-1885
• America Singing: Nineteenth-Century Song Sheets

On the newsbeat, you report and chronicle the events which shape the American Dream.

Write a news article that reports the results of your research on the American Dream. (Article includes: title, who, what, when, where, and how.) Your news article describes the significant events that shaped the American Dream through the decades.

• Search all Digital Collections
• Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers at the Library of Congress
• Printed Ephemera: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera
• Posters: WPA Posters

Record the results of your discussion.

What do you already know about the American Dream?

Your group needs to define the American Dream. Read "What Is The American Dream?". Find out what the dream means to each member of your group. Brainstorm and share your ideas. What do you know about the "American Dream"? With a partner create a mind map of what you know, or believe you know, about the American Dream. All ideas are valid. Use paper or visual thinking software to record your ideas. Share the results with your learning team members in your group. This is the beginning of your project, so file your results with your archive manager.

What Is The American Dream?

James Truslow Adams, in his book The Epic of America, which was written in 1931, stated that the American dream is "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position." (p.214-215)

The authors of the United States’ Declaration of Independence held certain truths to be self-evident: that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." Might this sentiment be considered the foundation of the American Dream?

Were homesteaders who left the big cities of the east to find happiness and their piece of land in the unknown wilderness pursuing these inalienable Rights? Were the immigrants who came to the United States looking for their bit of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their Dream? And what did the desire of the veteran of World War II - to settle down, to have a home, a car and a family - tell us about this evolving Dream? Is the American Dream attainable by all Americans?

Some say, that the American Dream has become the pursuit of material prosperity - that people work more hours to get bigger cars, fancier homes, the fruits of prosperity for their families - but have less time to enjoy their prosperity. Others say that the American Dream is beyond the grasp of the working poor who must work two jobs to insure their family’s survival. Yet others look toward a new American Dream with less focus on financial gain and more emphasis on living a simple, fulfilling life.

Thomas Wolfe said, "…to every man, regardless of his birth, his shining, golden opportunity ….the right to live, to work, to be himself, and to become whatever thing his manhood and his vision can combine to make him."

Is this your American Dream?

Define your Project

Determine your research theme or topic: Are you interested in immigration/emigration, families, social life? Will you investigate one decade or compare how the American Dream evolved over the decades? Discuss topic ideas with your group.

Analyzing Documents

Use the Primary Source Analysis tool and questions provided by your teacher to practice reading and interpreting sources with sample materials. Your team will look at resources through the lens of your research role.

• Photographer - Sylvester Rawding family in front of sod house, north of Sargent, Custer County, Nebraska
• Lawyer - The case of Dred Scott in the United States Supreme Court
• Reporter - Suffrage Ratification Is Completed by Tennessee

Research — Gather Evidence — Create the Team Product

As a group, be sure you all understand the task for your team's research role. Divide the tasks. Create an action plan. Record the results of your discussion.

Discuss possible questions and anticipate how you will answer them. Search the digital collections collections and gather your evidence.

Create your learning product. Develop a strategy to share your learning project which allows all team members to contribute and share their ideas.

You and your teacher established expectations for the project before you started your work. You and your team recorded your progress.  Your teacher may be using a rubric to evaluate your work. You understand the difference between excellent, good, and satisfactory work.

Complete a confidential team and self evaluation that describes how you contributed to your team’s effort and what you have learned.

You were challenged to investigate the American Dream, to see if it is the same for all Americans and whether it is real or just a myth. Did you find that it is simply a quest for a better life? What did you discover about how the Dream has changed over time? Do you now know why some see their dreams wither and die while others see their dreams fulfilled? What is your dream?

You've finished a group project. You've presented your ideas to your class. Has this experience influenced your view of the American Dream? How? Now that you have completed your project:

• What questions do you still have about the American Dream?
• What can the dreams of others teach you?
• Who are the dreamers of today?
• Were the dreams of yesteryear like your own dreams? In what ways?
• What IS the American Dream? Can it be simply stated?
• How will YOUR personal dream become a part of America's (and the world's) future?

• Create account
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• Knights, Chivalry, King Arthur, and the Knights of the Round Table
• Heaven and Hell: Dante's Inferno, the Medieval Church, and Legends of the Saints
• The Canterbury Tales, Robin Hood, and Everyday Life in the Middle Ages
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Teaching the American Dream

• How To Setup an American Literature Course
• The New World: Natives, Explorers, and Pilgrims
• Puritan Life: The Scarlet Letter, The Crucible, and the Salem Witch Trials
• Forming a Nation: The Last of the Mohicans, Washington Irving, and the Founding Fathers
• The American Imagination: Moby Dick, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Transcendentalists
• Slavery and Freedom: Frederick Douglass, Tom Sawyer, and Huck Finn
• Broken Dreams: The Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, and To Kill a Mockingbird
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Creative English Teacher.com

• Why "Creative Teacher"?
• Heaven and Hell: Dante's Inferno, the Medieval Church, and Legends of the Saints
• Utopia and Dystopia: The Sword in the Stone, Gulliver's Travels, and Robinson Crusoe
• Roman Mythology: The Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses
• The Hero's Journey

What does it mean to be an American? What is the American Dream? These activities attempt to address this complex question using music, literature, and film.

AMERICAN DREAMERS: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN DREAM FOR STUDENTS (PDF)    This short essay introduces the idea of the American Dream to students.

SPIRIT OF AMERICA: SONG ANALYSIS PACKET (PDF)   T his worksheet present the lyrics to three songs that deal with the spirit of America:  "America the Beautiful" by Katherine Lee Bates, "Forty Hour Week for a Livin'" by Alabama, and "This Land Is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie. By analyzing these songs, student can begin to see what the “spirit of America” has meant in different time periods.

WHAT IS THE AMERICAN DREAM? (PDF) This article from Forbes magazine includes comments from famous Americans about their concept of the American Dream. Post-reading questions are included.

AMERICAN DREAM ESSAY (PDF) This essay prompt asks students to create their own definition of the American Dream and set three post-high-school goals that fit into that dream.

OPRAH WINFREY BIOGRAPHY (PDF) This worksheet presents a biography of Oprah Winfrey, a model of the American Dream.

SAM WALTON BIOGRAPHY (PDF) This worksheet presents a biography of Sam Walton, a model of the American Dream.

ROCKY ESSAY QUESTIONS (PDF) The film Rocky (1976) is a great story that embodies the American Dream. These essay questions ask students to analyze the film for elements of the American Dream.

"HOW ROCKY TURNED THE COMMON MAN INTO A HERO AND SYLVESTER STALLONE INTO A STAR" (PDF) This article from MentalFloss.com describes the way that Rocky's struggles in the film Rocky mimic Stallone's own rise from nobody to star.

Chasing the Dream: Researching the Meaning of the American Dream

• Resources & Preparation
• Instructional Plan
• Related Resources

In “ Paradox and Dream ,” a 1966 essay on the American Dream, John Steinbeck writes, “For Americans too the wide and general dream has a name.  It is called ‘the American Way of Life.'  No one can define it or point to any one person or group who lives it, but it is very real nevertheless.”  Yet a recent cover of Time Magazine reads “The History of the American Dream – Is It Real?”  Here, students explore the meaning of the American Dream by conducting interviews, sharing and assessing data, and writing papers based on their research to draw their own conclusions.

Featured Resources

• The American Dream Project : This assignment sheet, which is directed to students, explains the three-part nature of this project and paper.
• Steinbeck John. American and American and Selected Nonfiction . Susan Shillinglaw and Jackson J. Benson, eds.  New York: Penguin Books, 2012: In this 1966 essay, Steinbeck presents a picture of Americans as paradoxical and asks if the American Dream is even possible.  An edited version of this essay can be found at http://politicalsystems.homestead.com/ParadoxAndDream.html
• Sidel, Ruth. On Her Own: Growing Up in the Shadow of the American Dream .  New York: Viking, 1990: Sidel explores the impact of the American Dream on young women in the 1980’s and 1990s.

From Theory to Practice

In her book Genre Theory:  Teaching, Writing, and Being , Deborah Dean describes writing “mini-ethnographies,” saying, “Ethnography is a way to look at a culture; Wendy Bishop describes it as ‘a representation of the lived experience of a convened culture’ (3).  Reiff, citing Beverly Moss, explains that ‘the main purpose of the ethnographic genre is ‘to gain a comprehensive view of the social interactions, behaviors, and beliefs of a community or a social group’’”(“Meditating” 42).  This lesson allows students to explore this idea of shared beliefs within a culture and to then use genuine research (one-on-one interviews) to produce a paper that examines the shared belief in the American Dream.  As Dean states, “…conducting research for ethnography requires students to use genres for authentic purposes, which provides them with clear connections between genres and contexts and helps them see genres as actions more than forms.”

Further Reading

Common Core Standards

This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.

State Standards

This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.

NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts

• 1. Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
• 3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
• 4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
• 5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
• 6. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
• 7. Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.
• 9. Students develop an understanding of and respect for diversity in language use, patterns, and dialects across cultures, ethnic groups, geographic regions, and social roles.
• 12. Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).

Materials and Technology

• “Paradox and Dream” in America and Americans by John Steinbeck
• “The New American Dreamers” (particularly pp. 15-25) in On Her Own – Growing Up in the Shadow of the American Dream by Ruth Sidel
• " Keeping the Dream Alive – The American Dream: A Biography ” by Jon Meacham
• “ The American Dream: Is it slipping away? ” (September 27, 2010): This article examines the results of an ABC News Poll on the validity of the idea of the American Dream today.
• “ Waking Up From American Dreams ” (February 12, 2010): This short article explores contemporary cultural connections to the American Dream and the effect of class on the Dream.
• “ In a Sour Economy, What Happens to the American Dream? ” (May 7, 2009): This article explores how the definition of the America Dream changes in the time of a recession.
• A sample student paper and a sample student interview (audio) are included for teacher reference.
• “ The American Dream Project ” assignment sheet for students
• Discussion starters - sample questions for “The New American Dreamers”
• Sample Interview Questions
• Sample Student Paper

This website, The Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies, is a university archive focusing on Steinbeck’s life and work and offering a variety of materials for teacher interesting in teaching Steinbeck’s work .

This article discusses how the idea of the American Dream has changed society and  traces the history of the American Dream.

Preparation

• Familiarize yourself with the concept of the American Dream and its history.  An excellent resource is “ Keeping the Dream Alive ” by Jon Meacham ( Time , July 2, 2012 Vol. 180  No.1).
• Prepare student copies or plan access to the two readings listed above by Steinbeck and Sidel and prepare discussion starters.  ( Sample starters for the Sidel reading are included.)
• Make class copies of the assignment sheet The American Dream Project .
• Determine the appropriate number of groups to divide the class into.  ( Note: there should be a minimum of 4 students per group, but 5-7 is optimal.  If class size is too small to allow for six groups, one for each decade 1950 – present, it is best to omit the most recent decade where interviewees often offer less material.)

Student Objectives

Students will:

• develop an understanding of the meaning of the concept the American Dream through readings, discussion, and authentic research.
• practice interviewing skills, including formulation of questions, listening and response skills, and notetaking.
• learn to work cooperatively with other students to pool data and draw conclusions.
• demonstrate the ability to present thoughtful and well-documented conclusions in a formal paper.

Session One

• Ask students to define “the American Dream.”  Brainstorm as a class, listing on the board all ideas, words, and phrases that students offer. (Examples: financial security; a home, a job, two kids and a dog; happiness; freedom to do and be what you want; being better off than your parents; a house with a white picket fence; being able to pursue your dreams, the chance to succeed, etc.)
• Is the idea of the American Dream unique to Americans, or is it a “Human” Dream?
• Do you believe the American Dream has changed over time?  If so, how?
• Do all US citizens have equal opportunities to achieve the American Dream?  What do you based your opinion on?
• Is the belief in the American Dream necessary to society?  Why/why not?
• How do you personally define the American Dream?
• Read aloud in class Steinbeck’s “ Paradox and Dream ” from America and Americans .
• Immediately after the reading, ask students to freewrite briefly about their reactions to the piece, focusing in particular on what Steinbeck says about the American Dream.
• Ask students to share their freewrites.  Use their responses to refine the definition and meaning of the American Dream on the board.  (Note: The term “The America Dream” was first coined by James Truslow Adams in his book The Epic of America in 1931.)  Although there is no one definition of the American Dream, students often come to the conclusion that it is the freedom and opportunity to achieve one’s goals through hard work.
• Ask students to read Ruth Sidel’s “The New American Dreamers” before the next session.

Session Two

• If students were able to read the Sidel piece for homework, begin class with a discussion of “The New American Dreamers”  (see attached discussion starters ).  If students were not able to read the piece for homework, share it with them in class.
• “Professional success is important to women today.”
• “The old dream of a husband and a family isn’t important to all women anymore.”
• “If I ever do get married, I want my relationship to be 50-50.  I don’t want to be the only one responsible for taking care of the house and kids.”
• “Money and independence are really important to women now.”
• “Women can do and have whatever they want, just like men."
• “…she is convinced that if she plans carefully, works hard and makes the right decisions, she will have success in her chosen field; have the material goods she desires; in time marry if she wishes; and, in all probability, have children.  She plans, as the expression goes, to ‘have it all.’”  (p.15)
• “No matter what class they come from, their fantasies are of upward mobility, a comfortable life filled with personal choice and material possessions.” (p. 18)
• “A key message that the New American Dreamers are both receiving and sending is one of optimism—the sense that they can do whatever they want with their lives.” (p. 24)
• “To many of them, an affluent life-style is central to their dreams; they often describe their goals in terms of cars, homes, travel to Europe.” (p. 27)
• Invite students to share their freewrites.  Use their responses to continue to refine the definition and meaning of the American Dream.  Ask students to compare Sidel’s conclusions with Steinbeck’s comments on the American Dream
• Discuss the format and voice of the Sidel piece.  Ask students to point out how she uses specific data from interviewees to draw her conclusions.  Have students note how she implements direct quotations from the interviews to illustrate specific points.
• Introduce students to the idea that they will be conducting their own interviews on the meaning of the American Dream.  Explain to them that they will be choosing interview subjects who represent particular decades from the 1950’s to the present.
• Pass out The American Dream Project assignment sheet and read it aloud with students.  Note in particular the three stages of the paper: interview summary, conclusions on a decade, and personal reflection.
• Discuss the idea of coming of age (i.e. the time when a person becomes independent of his/her parents) to make sure that students understand the concept.
• For homework, ask students to make a brief list of people they know who came of age in each particular decade (1950’s to the present).  These should be people they would be able to interview, preferably in person though possibly in a phone conversation.  Students may not be able to come up with a person(s) for each decade; however, this list will help to expedite student choices in the next class session.

Session Three

• Choose decade groups, using the lists of potential interviewees which students created for homework.  This works best if students have input into choosing which decade they will interview a person from.  Remind students that they do not have to know their interviewee well, and that in fact, in most interview situations, the interviewer does not know the interviewee.   Be sure to have an equal number of people in each decade group so that they all have roughly the same amount of material to work with.
• Brainstorm a short list of possible interview questions (see attached sample list ), and discuss strengths and weakness of potential questions.  (Note:  Remind students that, when interviewing, they should not follow the list precisely but instead allow the interview to “take on a life of its own.”  This is a reason for creating a fairly short list of questions so that students have to take the initiative to come up with questions suitable for their particular subject.)
• If necessary, suggest that students refer back to “The New American Dreamers” to see questions Sidel asked interviewees and how questions built upon one another.
• Review with students general guidelines for conducting an interview (i.e. courtesy, concerns about confidentiality/anonymity, use of tape recorders, etc.).  If necessary, allow students to “practice” mock interviews with one another.  Addtionally, you may choose to share the sample student interview (audio) with the class so that students have a better understanding.
• Remind students of the specific date when the two-page interview must be completed and brought to class (see assignment sheet ).  Emphasize the importance of having the paper in class on that day since students will be sharing their data.

Session Four

• Ask students to sit in small groups according to decade (i.e. the 1950’s group includes those students who interviewed someone who came of age in the 1950’s).
• Ask each student to read the interview portion of the paper aloud to the group while other group members take notes on what they hear.  After each group member has read his/her interview, students may decide that they need to hear parts of the papers again.  Allow sufficient time for this reading and for students to ask questions of one another.
• When all interviews have been presented, tell students to discuss the data and begin to draw conclusions about the meaning of the American Dream for that particular decade.  Encourage lively and thoughtful discussion, and remind students to not settle for easy conclusions but to think deeply about the data.  Students may find the Venn Diagram tool helpful to use to see similarities and differences in their subjects’ responses.
• Explain to students that not everyone in the group will necessarily draw the same conclusions, and that that is a function of interpretation of data.  Depending on the size of the groups, note that students may focus their conclusions on different “sub-groups” (i.e. gender, class, region, etc.) within their larger group.
• While students are working in groups, circulate the classroom to help guide student discussion and to assure that the interview pieces are written in the correct style and format.
• If, at the conclusion of class, students feel they need more data, allow time for them to reconnect with their interviewees and then share that additional material with their group during another class session.
• Remind students of the due date for the entire paper (all three sections) as noted on the assignment sheet .

Session Five

(Note : This is the session during which the students will hand in their completed papers, so this session might be a week or so after Session Four.)

• Ask students to again meet in their small groups according to decade and share their final conclusions as presented in their papers.
• Give each group a piece of chart/poster paper on which to list the key points they agree on that would define the meaning of the American Dream for their particular decade.
• Hang the posters and ask each group to present their findings to the entire class. Encourage them to support their findings with data from their interviews.
• Conduct a class discussion on how the American Dream has or has not changed throughout the decades from 1950 to the present. Ask students to consider the Time Magazine questions: “Is It Real?”
• Encourage students to share their own definition of the American Dream as expressed in the final page of their papers.  Ask them to compare and contrast their responses.
• At the conclusion of the class discussion, collect all student papers (all three parts).
• If time and technology allows, students may be interested in viewing the powerful 1988 documentary American Dream at Groton which focuses on the challenges eighteen-year-old Jo Vega faces as a scholarship student at Groton Academy, a Massachusetts prep school. Vega was born in Spanish Harlem and struggles in her pursuit of the American Dream in a very different social milieu.
• Students interested in music might want to explore music that focuses on the American Dream.  An excellent selection of songs can be found on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website .
• In an abbreviated form, this lesson might be used in connection with literature that explores the American Dream such as The Great Gatsby , A Raisin in the Sun , and Death of a Salesman.

Student Assessment / Reflections

• The complete, three-part paper can be graded as any other research type paper.  The requirements for each section are outlined in the assignment sheet and can be graded accordingly.  (A teacher might choose to weight the three sections as follows: Interview - 40%, Conclusions drawn from data - 40%, Personal statement on the American Dream – 20%. )  Emphasis should be placed on use of solid and specific data that support the writer’s conclusions.
• Students might also write a short reflection discussing their reaction to the design of the project in terms of conducting interviews, collaborating in small groups, and using authentic research to draw conclusions.
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This interactive tool allows students to create Venn diagrams that contain two or three overlapping circles, enabling them to organize their information logically.

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ENG 101 - American Dream

ENG 101 - The American Dream

This guide is designed to help you complete the American Dream assignment in ENG 101. Follow the steps below in order - each step builds on the one before it, guiding you through the research project. We offer research advice/tips, as well as recommended sources, citation help, etc.

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UCCI Course Description

Designing the american dream: english 11 and media arts.

Students analyze a diverse collection of American voices in literature and film as they relate to manifestations of “The American Dream” across time, regions, and cultures. Students think critically about how depictions of “The American Dream” have evolved and been perpetuated by literature and the media, and use this understanding to create textual and visual responses, which reflect a deeper understanding and personal perspective on “The American Dream.” Students integrate this extensive literary knowledge with a mastery of video production technical skills. Throughout the course, students develop as critical thinkers, writers, and filmmakers in the analysis and design of their own American Dreams.

Recurring Assignment:   Daily Journal Writing

Each class begins with a journal write that engages students’ perspectives, background knowledge, and personal relevance to the topics to be discussed that day. Students write these in their “reflection log,” writing reflections on the processes taken in each project, discuss how their concept of the American Dream changes throughout lessons and units, and write self-assessments of their work as projects are completed.

Course Content

Unit 1 : identity, culture and the american dream, unit 1 description.

Essential Question: “How is identity affected by the fundamental values of the American Dream and in what ways can this construction be represented through images?”

Through an examination of various cultural symbols -- textual and visual -- students collaboratively analyze the emergent concept of the American Dream and its expression in the literary and visual arts. Students gain foundational skills in writing, visual design, and video-production, enabling them to produce simple visual narratives. Through these original narratives, students communicate a personal understanding of how our cultural identities are tied to ever-changing conceptions of the American Dream.

Unit 1 Key Assignments

Wintercount Integrated Project:

Part 1 - Students each create their own Wintercount( modifications suggested in supplemental materials) made from still images that depict their self-image. Knowledge skills taught: 1. Image composition, 2. Elements of design, 3. Principles of design

Part 2 - Wintercount Tale: Students individually write a one-page story (linear or nonlinear) about his/her identity based upon the images in his/her Wintercount. Students then choose 5-10 words with strong connotative power which illustrate aspects of their Wintercount. They weave these words into the second draft of their tales, adding tone and mood to the story.

Part 3 - Wintercount Script: In groups of 3-4, students create a group Wintercount script through joining several images and finding common themes and ties across their individual identities. The script tells the story of how the individual characters come together, or new characters are created based on the combination of images and individual identities. The script will be 3-4 pages long and show how the different characters/identities interact and illustrate the diversity and synthesis of the American Dream, which will then be used to create a video.

Part 3A - Group Reflection: As a group, students look at the combined images and discuss the following question, writing one page of bullet points which discusses the connections between individual stories. Question: What stories are told about the American Dream through the combination of individual identities as represented in text and images?

Part 3B : Create a group narrative, which analyzes the way in which identity is constructed individually and through interactions with others. Write the script of this narrative (including characters, dialogue, plot, and setting) to show how all the individual voices/characters help to shape the American Dream, while the notion of the American Dream also helps to shape these individual lives.

Part 4 - Wintercount Film: Three element video (in the “cinema sport” or “Iron Man” video-style) is filmed, edited, and produced. In the same groups, students create a 2-minute, three-five scene, video that tells the visual story of their Wintercount Scripts. Students storyboard their scripts and are taught how three distinct visual elements can be used to communicate a particular mood / tone: choice of subject, composition (especially camera angle), and color. After they film the ‘Wintercount’ project, groups exchange films with classmates, for peer review.

The American Dream Research Paper: Students begin their search with the Library of Congress Lesson Plans website  and subsequently find a minimum of five other sources. They define the American Dream, where this notion originates, its various manifestations and how it has developed across American History, regions, and cultures. They write a 3-4 page research report in MLA format.

Unit 2 : Freedom and Independence

Unit 2 description.

Essential Question: “How does the story of the struggle for freedom and independence unfold, and how is this unfolding depicted through images?”

In unit two, students explore the tension between individual freedom and social responsibility by analyzing performance-based literature, ranging from traditional speeches and plays to non-traditional storyboards and graphic novels. Students examine how the choice of media, style, and point-of-view determine the content, meaning, and relative “truth” of a narrative, whether fictional or non-fiction. To further hone their visual storytelling abilities, students continue to collaboratively develop industry-specific skills -- shot-and-scene composition, video editing -- in support of creative video productions.

Unit 2 Key Assignments

Personal Declaration of Independence: Students write a 1-2 page personal reflection based on the reading of the Declaration of Independence answering the question: Do I feel free? They must discuss examples from their lives as they relate to the ideals set forth by the Declaration of Independence.

Artistic Freedom Reflective Analysis: In a 2-3 page written reflection, after reading the required unit readings, students answer the question: How does telling someone else’s story change artistic freedom and independence, and the overall story?

Alternate Ending: Students write a 2 page alternate ending to a story read in class, which they develop into a storyboard. Students examine resolution in narrative and the effects on the audience in the way the ending is written -- what ideas are you leaving the audience with to ponder and how effectively have your made your point and resolved your conflict?

Storyboard Project: In groups, develop a storyboard for an alternative ending to an existing story read in the unit, then provide to another group to produce. A storyboard of the first part of the story will be demonstrated to the class to illustrate proper storyboard techniques. Review and revision will occur between teams before production for clarification on interpretation of the other teams storyboard. Knowledge skills: 1. Proper storyboard techniques, 2. Identify and use various shot compositions to tell story (camera direction, angle, movement, aesthetics, visual narrative), 3. Develop proper protocol for peer evaluation during the review and revision.

Unit 3 : Family and Home

Unit 3 description.

Essential Question: “Where does the American Dream reside, and what role does ‘family’ play in achieving the ‘Dream’? How are the American norms of ‘family’ and ‘home’ depicted through images?”

Students analyze contrasting images of American families across time and cultures, as portrayed by canonical short-form literature and cinema. Students write a short screenplay, either original or adapted from a course text, in response to the theme of ‘family’ or ‘home.’ Students conclude the unit developing the screenplay into a short film.

Unit 3 Key Assignments

Dialogue Construction: Students take a previously written 1-2 page short story and write an adaptation of that story into a short play to be used in their screenplays. There may be no narration, only dialogue.

Analytical Narrative: Students write a 4-5 page narrative about their own family, which must include dialogue and explore how a member of their family is pursuing a dream. Students include information recorded from the interviews they conducted with 2 family members from 2 different generations. Students also compare and contrast their own family with representations of family in film and literature. Students analyze the relationship between their own families and notions of the ideal family, as reflected in "The American Dream."

Original Story Project: In groups, students create an original idea about the significance of family and home, and write a 6-8 page screenplay and present to the class. Teams must develop the concept for their original idea. This is presented to the class for review and revision. Teams must plan their production, implementing the use of script writing, storyboard/shot plans, and production schedule. Teams produce the 1-2 minute video using various shot compositions for emphasis and effect in storytelling. Final video is edited to include a creative title, credits, and production tag that indicates the class, school, and year the video was made. Peer review informs revision of final draft.

Unit 4 : Individualism, Community and Justice

Unit 4 description.

Essential Question: “How is the American Dream written -- how is it written by the individual, and how is it written by the community? How do images portray the relationship between the individual and the community?”

Students research, analyze, and evaluate the evolution of American thought about social responsibility, and the 20th and 21st Century perceptions of the relationship between civics, society, and the individual. In the first part of the unit, an emphasis is placed on the study of political speeches and works of nonfiction in the form of print, broadcast, and online media. Students go on to conduct independent research to uncover the current political and social climate of their own communities, and respond by creating a public service announcement (PSA) that addresses a local need or social issue and reflects a personal perspective. In support of this goal, students develop a design strategy for using font families, anatomy of type, kerning, leading, and line weight.

Unit 4 Key Assignments

Business Letter: After identifying a local concern and an organization attempting to address that concern, students write letters to the organization offering to create a PSA.

Persuasive Speech Writing: Through analysis of speeches of great Americans who changed the world and the notion of the American Dream, students compose and deliver a persuasive speech attempting to mobilize others to become involved in the organization they focus on for their PSA project. The language used in their speech fuel the PSA video-project. The interviews conducted between students and community members help students to choose a position and find evidence to defend their position, and will serve as primary sources of information.

Analytical Reflection: Students view their video-taped persuasive speech and write a reflection analyzing their public speaking skills and how they present themselves, and create goals for their next public speaking performance task.

PSA Project: In collaborative production teams, students create a short video, 30-60 seconds, public service announcement related to a chosen social issue. Working as individuals, the students investigate font families, the anatomy of type, researching type design, and type designers. Students create a logo design for the public service (PSA) message with font selections, applying kerning, leading, line weight, etc. The video will ONLY contain text elements. Kinetic Text : text elements will be required to animate (motion, scale, color). Perform a public presentation including a public viewing of the PSA to the entire school community.

Unit 5 : Race, Gender, and Class

Unit 5 description.

Essential Question: “What colors represent you and your American Dream, and why? How do images depict issues of race, gender, and class?”

Through analysis and evaluation of poetry and other forms of creative writing, and the study and manipulation of ambient and artificial light in photography and cinematography, students examine methods of using ‘color’ to communicate ideas and establish moods.

Unit 5 Key Assignments

Analytical Journaling and Essay: Students identify a color that represents themselves and/or their community and discuss the symbolic meaning of the color. Through daily journal writing, students document the use and application of this color.

Essay: Drawing from the observations documented in their journals, students write an essay analyzing the symbolic use of color in film making. This will fuel ideas for their own use of color in film.

Film Research and Evaluative Essay: Students evaluate the use of color in 5-7 primary sources (film and text). In a 2-3 page paper, students integrate their personal understanding of color with examples of color in text and film in order to evaluate the degree to which color successfully represents ideas and emotions.

Coloring the Content Film Project: Production teams create a film, 1-2 minutes, that uses a specific color to represent the theme and aesthetic, and discuss how this color sets meaning. Teams must plan their production, using script writing, storyboard/shot plans, and a production schedule. Student teams define and acquire required resources - props, talent, equipment. The scripts are void of spoken language, emphasizing non-verbal language cues, focusing on using color and action to set the narrative and should reflect the emotional affect represented by the color. The content of the film will be represented by ambient light, clothing, environment, and other visual cues. Films must include various shot types (pan, zoom, CU, etc.) In order to accomplish the required task, students study color, color palettes, filtration, light modification using both on-set lighting equipment (key, spot, etc.) and post-production color filters such as chroma-key drop out.

Unit 6 : Money, Consumption, and Existentialism

Unit 6 description.

Essential Question: “Can you purchase the Dream? How does the American media portray the Dream as a material pursuit? How do some works of American literature treat the Dream as an existential struggle?”

Through the critical analysis of creative and persuasive literature, print ads, and television commercials, students explore how the glorification and criticism of consumption shape our contemporary values and the beliefs we hold about ourselves and the American Dream. Students respond by producing an original ‘commercial’ message, revealing a personal and informed perspective on the relationship between materialism, existentialism, and the American Dream.

Unit 6 Key Assignments

Reflective Log: Students trace the role of money and consumption in their lives, in relation to readings, and evaluate the connection to philosophical ideas.

Reflective Essay: Students write a 2-3 page essay in which they reflect upon their own behavior as consumers. Using their logs as well as their readings as starting points for reflection, students articulate their own values as consumers and reflect upon the personal and social consequences of their choices.

Commercial Description and Script: Students must create persuasive characters, setting, plot, and use words with powerful connotations to sell their product. Students use persuasive techniques, logical fallacies, precise and effective dialogue.

Selling the American Dream: Students create a 30 second commercial that attempts to sell the American Dream; using the effects of lighting to sell a product, using the idea of the American Dream to also sell an image within the commercial.

Teams must:

Plan their production, implementing the use of script writing, storyboard/shot plans, and a production schedule.

Create lighting diagrams noting the placement of lighting equipment.

Films must include various shot types (pan, zoom, CU, etc.)

Commercial must include the use of directional lighting (spot, side, broad) and manipulate contrasts and intensity, all within the context of a black and white/ monochromatic. It must also reapply typography skill from previous unit.

The video will have scenes both inside using correct three-point lighting and outside controlling the ambient light.

Unit 7 : Status and Fame

Unit 7 description.

Essential Question: “If you’re famous, have you achieved the Dream? What role do images play in perpetuating the allure of high-status and fame?”

Students explore the nature of today’s ‘celebrity culture’ by examining works of creative writing and visual art, as well historical and contemporary news articles about, and interviews with, famous and ‘everyday’ Americans alike. Students respond by producing their own video interviews that shed light on the themes of ‘status’ and ‘fame.’

Unit 7 Key Assignments

Analytical Essay: In a 3-4 page essay, students explore the causes and effects of fame in The Great Gatsby. How does Gatsby experience fame and why? Why is he famous and how do others treat him because of his fame? What are the effects of this fame on his personal life, career, and relationships?

Interview Transcript and Analysis: Choose one famous or non-famous American (as you define “famous”) to interview. Create 20+ questions about the idea of fame and the American Dream, which demonstrate an understanding of specific types of questions such as open, closed, hypothetical, leading, multi-barrelled, and behavioral. Include specific references to current manifestations and representations of fame. After conducting the interview, analyze the transcript for inconsistencies, implications, and subtextual beliefs about fame.

Documentary Proposal: In one detailed page, students describe the subject of their documentary (fame) and the narrative, which will accompany the film.

The Video Interview: Students develop and produce a 1-2 minute video interview of a chosen person, which explores “fame” and the American Dream. The questions are previously developed, and interview techniques will be taught. The interview will be conducted outside of class, and the video-editing will be done in class. The production of the video interview must use proper microphone equipment, and edited to incorporate any leading in voice overs, motion graphics, transition, credits, and soundtrack. After the final review and revision, the output of the video interview must be in web ready format. All final videos will be posted on a website with a public survey that will provide an “authentic audience” assessment of the project.

Unit 8 : Aspiration, Failure, and Success

Unit 8 description.

Essential Question: “How has the notion of the American Dream been created, sustained, and altered throughout American history, in text and in images? How do I personally define failure and success, and how can I illustrate my own ideas about the American Dream?”

Students’ literary and video-production studies culminate in the planning and execution of an original fictional or documentary film that addresses any aspect of ‘The American Dream.’ Students reveal an personal and informed perspective on ‘aspiration, failure and success’ in support of a narrative or rhetorical goal.

Unit 8 Key Assignments

Final Project Proposal: Students write a proposal for their final project outlining all the steps they need to take to complete the project, materials they need, and a timeline for completing the project. They create a calendar and checklist of procedures, and are assessed not only on the final product, but on their ability to follow-through with all tasks that they committed to in a timely and thorough manner.

Final Project: Students analyze and reflect on the themes of: identity, family, home, individualism, class, gender, race, freedom, fame, money, and success (seen through text and film), focusing on 4-6 facets of the American Dream as they understand and experience it. They provide evidence of how the American Dream has been portrayed and created by the media. Students examine how the American Dream has evolved over time and how it is currently understood and pursued today. The final film will be 5-10 minutes long, and illustrates the student’s own American dream through text, sound, and moving images. The films will be presented at a community event in which community and family members are invited to be part of the audience as well as members of the school community.

Reflective Essay: Final Self-Assessment of Final Project, Yearlong Journey. Students write a 3-4 page final self-assessment of their final project, their journey to get there, the progress they feel that they have made in all skills areas (reading, writing, public speaking, critical thinking, media production, team-work, leadership, citizenship, and  presentation), and goals they have for the future, as well as strategies to achieve their success/dream.

Course Materials

Title: K-12 Curriculum for Digital Design Edition: Online Publication Date: 2009 Publisher: Adobe Systems Incorporated Author(s): Adobe Education K-12 Curriculum Team URL Resource: http://www.adobe.com/education/k12 Usage: Read in entirety or near entirety Required CTE software, used throughout the course Adobe: After Effects, Flash, Illustrator Apple: LiveType, Final Cut Pro

List of Readings, Films and Podcasts:

Note: Those texts / films marked by an asterisk represent the experiences of underrepresented American subgroups. The underlined texts are full-length works, and are intended to be read cover to cover. Those texts which happen to be full-length novels, yet which are excerpted in this course (not read in entirety), are not underlined. In each section, texts / films are listed in alphabetical order by author.

UNIT 1: IDENTITY, CULTURE, AND THE AMERICAN DREAM Required ELA texts: Walt Whitman Strides the Liano of New Mexico, by Rudolfo Anaya (Contemporary Poem / Chicano)* I, Too, Hear America Singing, by Langston Hughes (Classic Poem / African American)* I Hear America Singing, by Walt Whitman (Classic Poem) One of the following ELA texts is required: Straw into Gold: Metamorphosis, by Sandra Cisneros (Contemporary Essay / Chicana)* Radiolab: Who Am I? by New York Public Radio (Podcast, Contemporary Essay) Blue Winds Dancing, by Tom Whitecloud (Contemporary Short Story / Native American)* America and I, by Anzia Yezierska (Classic Short Story / Jewish American)* This I Believe, by NPR (Podcast, Contemporary Essays) Required CTE texts: The Language of Film , by PBS Masterpiece Theatre Learning Resources,  Video Communication and Production, by Jim Stinson, 2007 (Textbook) Required CTE films: The Gold Rush, by Charles Chaplin, 1925 (Classics Silent Film) Modern Times, by Charles Chaplin, 1936 (Classic Silent Film) The Godfather, by Francis Ford Coppola, 1972 (Classic Film) Freeze Frame: Eadweard Muybridge’s Photography of Motion , by the National Museum of American History,  Optional supplemental ELA texts: Selected Poems, by EE Cummings (Classic Poems) Assimilation, by E.L. Doctorow (Contemporary Short Story) Memento (excerpts), by Christopher Nolan (Contemporary Screenplay) Optional supplemental ELA / CTE films: The Circus, by Charles Chaplin (Classic Silent Film) Memento, by Christopher Nolan (Contemporary Film) Optional supplemental CTE films: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, by Frank Capra (Classic Film) The Birth of a Nation, by D.W. Griffith (Classic Silent Film) Easy Rider, by Dennis Hopper (Classic Film) UNIT 2: FREEDOM and INDEPENDENCE Required ELA texts: U.S. Declaration of Independence, by the Continental Congress, 1776 (Historical Doc) No-No Boy, by John Okada, 1978 (Classic Novel / Japanese American)* Maus (excerpts), by Art Spiegelman, 1986 (Graphic Novel / Jewish American)* One of the following ELA texts is required: The Story of an Hour, by Kate Chopin (Classic Short Story / Creole American)* Self-Made Men, by Frederick Douglass (Classic Essay / African American)* Radiolab: Choice, by New York Public Radio (Podcast, Contemporary Essay) Required CTE texts: Digital Video: Foundations of Video Design and Production , by Adobe,  Making Digital Videos, by Ben Long, 2002 (Textbook) Final Cut Pro: Editing Essentials, by Tom Wolsky (Textbook) Required ELA / CTE films: The Shawshank Redemption, by Frank Darabont, 1994 (Contemporary Film) Brazil, by Terry Gilliam, 1985 (Classic Film) Cool Hand Luke, by Stuart Rosenberg, 1967 (Classic Film) Optional supplemental ELA texts: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (excerpts), by Olaudah Equiano (Contemporary Novel / African English)* In the Land of the Free, by Sui Sin Far (Classic Short Story / Japanese American)* Sula, by Toni Morrison (Classic Novel / African American)* Words, by Radiolab, a New York Public Radio show (Podcast, Contemporary Essay) Optional supplemental ELA / CTE films: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Milos Forman (Classic Film) THX 1138, by George Lucas (Classic Film) The Color Purple, by Steven Spielberg (Contemporary Film / African American)* UNIT 3: FAMILY AND HOME Required ELA texts: House of Spirits (excerpts), Isabel Allende, 1982 (Novel / Chilean American)* As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner, 1930 (Classic Novel) One of the following ELA texts is required: Death of a Moth, by Annie Dillard (Contemporary Short Story) The Swim Team, by Miranda July (Contemporary Short Story) Lost in Yonkers, by Neil Simon (Contemporary Play) The Night the Bed Fell, by James Thurber (Contemporary Short Story) Required CTE texts: The Grapes of Wrath (excerpts), by John Steinbeck, 1939 (Classic Novel) Required CTE films: The Grapes of Wrath, directed by John Ford, 1940 (Classic Film) Grey Gardens, by Albert and David Maysles, 1975 (Classic Documentary Film) American Experience: The Crash of 1929 , by PBS  American Experience: The Kennedys , by PBS (Contemporary Documentary Film), American Experience: Surviving the Dust Bowl , by PBS (Contemporary Documentary Film),   Optional supplemental ELA texts: Eva Luna, by Isabel Allende (Contemporary Novel / Chilean American)* Selected Poems, by Emily Dickinson (Classic Poems) Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer (Contemporary Novel / Jewish American)* Optional supplemental ELA / CTE films: The Royal Tenenbaums, by Wes Anderson (Contemporary Film) Raising Arizona, by Joel Coen (Classic Film) Rebel Without a Cause, by Nicholas Ray (Classic Film) Grey Gardens, directed by Michael Sucsy (Contemporary Film) The Magnificent Ambersons, by Orson Welles (Classic Film) Happy Days, Leave It to Beaver, The Simpsons, Arrested Development (Classic & Contemporary TV Episodes) UNIT 4: INDIVIDUALISM, COMMUNITY, AND JUSTICE Required ELA texts: On the Death of Martin Luther King, by Robert Kennedy, 1968 (Classic Speech)* Letter from Birmingham Jail, by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963(Classic Speech)* Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (excerpts), by Marjane Satrapi, 2004 (Graphic Novel / Iranian, French)* One of the following ELA texts is required: Selected Poems, by Emily Dickinson (Classic Poems) Anthem, by Ayn Rand (Classic Novel) Civil Disobedience, by Henry David Thoreau (Classic Essay) The Tao of Wu, by RZA of the Wu Tang Clan (Contemporary Novel / African American)* Required CTE texts: Citizen Kane ( Original Screenplay ), by Orson Welles, 1941,   Required CTE films: The Godfather Part II, by Francis Ford Coppola, 1974 (Classic Film) Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, by John Hughes, 1986 (Classic Film) Citizen Kane, by Orson Welles, 1941 (Classic Film) Persepolis, by Vincent Paronnaud, 2007 (Contemporary Film / Iranian and French)* Optional supplemental ELA texts: Growing Up Latino: Memoirs and Stories. Reflections of Life in the United States, by Harold Augenbraum and Ilan Stavans (Autobiographical Essays / Latino American)* On Language (Kinetic Typography), by Stephen Fry (Classic Essay) Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines, by Stephanie Elizondo Griest (Autobiographical Novel / Chicana)* When I was Puerto Rican, by Esmeralda Santiago (Autobiographical Novel / Puerto Rican American)* Optional supplemental ELA / CTE films: The Searchers, by John Ford (Classic Film) The 400 Blows, by Francois Truffaut (Classic Film) Dead Poet’s Society, by Peter Weir (Contemporary Film) UNIT 5: RACE, GENDER, AND CLASS Required ELA texts: Invisible Man (excerpts), by Ralph Ellison, 1947 (Classic Novel / African American)* Selected Poems, by Langston Hughe, 1959 (Classic Poems / African American)* The Good Ones are Already Taken, by Ben Fountain, 2006 (Contemporary Short Story / Feminist)*, http://www.barcelonareview.com/62/e_bf.html Mushrooms, by Sylvia Plath (Classic Poem / Feminist)* One of the following ELA texts is required: The Souls of Black Folk (excerpts), by W.E.B Du Bois (Classic Novel / African American)* Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison (Classic Novel / African American)* Selected Poems, by Langston Hughes (Classic Poems / African American)* Ain’t I a Woman? by Sojourner Truth (Classic Speech / African American and Feminist)* The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (excerpts), by Mark Twain (Classic Novel / African American)* Required CTE texts: Black Like Me (excerpts), by John Howard Griffin, 1960 (Classic Non-Fiction / African American)* The Autobiography of Malcolm X (excerpts), by Malcolm X and Alex Haley, 1964 (Contemporary Autobiography / African American)* Required CTE films: Black Like Me, by Carl Lerner, 1964 (Classic Film / African American)* Malcolm X, by Spike Lee, 1992 (Contemporary Film / African American)* Optional supplemental ELA texts: The Awakening, by Kate Chopin (Classic Novella / Creole American and Feminist)* Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston (Classic Novel / African American)* Pigs in Heaven, by Barbara Kingsolver (Contemporary Novel / Native American)* The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston (Contemporary Autobiography / Chinese American)* Brown: The Last Discovery of America, by Richard Rodriguez (Autobiography / Chicano)* Hunger of Memory, by Richard Rodriguez (Autobiographical Novel / Chicano)* Am I Blue? by Alice Walker (Contemporary Essay / African American)* Blueprint for Negro Writing (excerpts), by Richard Wright (Classic Essay / African American)* Optional supplemental ELA / CTE films: Beloved, by Jonathan Demme (Contemporary Film) Training Day, by Antoine Fuqua (Contemporary Film) Crash, by Paul Haggis (Contemporary Film) Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, by Byron Hurt (Contemporary Documentary Film / African American and Masculinity Issues)* Do the Right Thing, by Spike Lee (Contemporary Film / African American)* El Norte, by Gregory Nava (Contemporary Film / Guatemalan American)* Brother From Another Planet, by John Sayles (Contemporary Film / African American)* Schindler’s List, by Steven Spielberg (Contemporary Film / Jewish American)* UNIT 6: MONEY, CONSUMPTION, AND EXISTENTIALISM Required ELA texts: Interview with David O. Russell, by The Believer, 2004 (Contemporary Journalism), http://www.believermag.com/issues/200411/?read=interview_russell Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, 1996 (Contemporary Novel) The Next Thing, by Steven Millhauser (Contemporary Short Story) One of the following ELA texts is required: The Veldt, by Ray Bradbury (Classic Short Story) Self-Reliance, by Ralph Waldo Emerson (Classic Essay) Michigan Boulevard, by Jun Fujita (Classic Poem / Japanese American)* The Grapes of Wrath (excerpts), by John Steinbeck (Classic Novel) The Snow Man, by Wallace Stevens (Classic Poem) Required ELA / CTE films: Into the Wild, by Sean Penn, 2007 (Contemporary Film) I Heart Huckabees, by David O. Russell, 2004 (Contemporary Film) Scarface, by Brian DePalma, 1983 (Contemporary Film) Iconoclasts: Sean Penn and Jon Krakauer, Episode 1 Season 3, by Sundance Channel, 2007 (Short Contemporary Documentary Film) Optional supplemental ELA texts: White Noise, by Don DeLillo (Contemporary Novel) Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street, by Herman Melville (Classic Short Story) The Pearl, by John Steinbeck (Classic Novella) Nature, by Henry David Thoreau (Classic Essay) Optional supplemental ELA / CTE films: Merchants of Cool, by Frontline (Contemporary Documentary Film) The Persuaders, by Frontline (Contemporary Documentary Film) Helvetica, by Gary Hustwit (Contemporary Documentary Film) Objectified, by Gary Hustwit (Contemporary Documentary Film) UNIT 7: STATUS AND FAME Required ELA texts: The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925 (Classic Novel) Balloon Boy’s Lesson: The New American Dream , by James Poniewozik for Time Magazine, 2009 (Contemporary Essay),  Andy Was Right, by Josh Tyrangiel for Time Magazine, 2006 (Contemporary Essay),  One of the following ELA texts is required: The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream (excerpts), by Patrick Radden Keefe (Contemporary Non-Fiction / Chinese American)* West Side Story (excerpts), by Arthur Laurents (Classic Musical / Puerto-Rican American)* Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream (excerpts), by Hunter S. Thompson (Classic Novel)* Required ELA / CTE texts: This American Life: Various Podcasts, by NPR (Podcast, Contemporary Essay) Radiolab: Fate and Fortune , by New York Public Radio, 2010 (Podcast, Contemporary Essay),  Required CTE films: Ray, by Taylor Hackford, 2004 (Contemporary Film / African American)* Frost / Nixon, by Rob Howard, 2008 (Contemporary Film) The Insider, by Michael Mann, 1999 (Contemporary Film) Basquiat, by Julian Schnabel, 1996 (Contemporary Film / African American)* Optional supplemental ELA / CTE texts: Radiolab: Famous Tumors, by New York Public Radio (Podcast, Contemporary Essay) Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream (excerpts), by Adam Shepard (Contemporary Autobiographical Novel) Optional supplemental ELA / CTE films: Who Killed Vincent Chin? by Christine Choy and Renee Tajima-Pena (Contemporary Documentary Film) Good Night, and Good Luck, by George Clooney (Contemporary Film) Garrison Keillor on Being Famous, by PBS American Masters (Short Documentary Film) Thank You For Smoking, by Jason Reitman (Contemporary Film) UNIT 8: ASPIRATION, FAILURE, AND SUCCESS Required ELA texts: A Raisin in the Sun (excerpts), by Lorraine Hansberry, 1958 (Classic Play / African American)* I Have a Dream, by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963 (Classic Speech / African American)*, http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm Harlem (A Dream Deferred), by Langston Hughes (Classic Poem / African American)* One of the following ELA texts is required: Across a Hundred Mountains, by Reyna Grande (Contemporary Novel / Chicana)*Moby Dick, by Herman Melville (Classic Novel) Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller (Classic Play) The Autobiography of Malcolm X (excerpts), by Malcolm X (Classic Autobiography / African American)* El Sueno De America / The American Dream (excerpts), by Esmeralda Santiago (Contemporary Novel / Puerto Rican American)* Required CTE films: Office Space, by Mike Judge, 1999 (Contemporary Film) American Beauty, by Sam Mendes, 1999 (Contemporary Film) Midnight Cowboy, by John Schlesinger, 1969 (Classic Film) Wall Street, directed by Oliver Stone, 1987 (Contemporary Film) Optional supplemental ELA texts: Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream (excerpts), by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Jeff Speck (Contemporary Non-Fiction) Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell (Contemporary Non-Fiction) The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (excerpts), by Barack Obama (Contemporary Non-Fiction) Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (excerpts), by Daniel Pink (Contemporary Non-Fiction) Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A., by Luis Rodriguez (Contemporary Autobiographical Novel / Chicano)* Burro Genius: A Memoir, by Victor Villaseñor (Contemporary Autobio Novel / Chicano)* Optional supplemental CTE films: Touching the Void, by Kevin MacDonald (Contemporary Film) Taxi Driver, by Martin Scorsese (Classic Film) Bicycle Thieves, by Vittorio De Sica (Classic Italian Film) Rocky, by Sylvester Stallone (Classic Film)

Suggested Instructional Methods and/or Strategies

Reflection Log

In their daily journal entries, students connect each unit’s theme to their beliefs about the American Dream, and their personal dreams as a member of American society. Students reflect upon scriptwriting conventions in their daily writing exercises. Students write goals for each project, reflect on the process of each project during the production steps and reading/writing tasks, and write culminating self-assessments at the completion of each unit. Students then write goals for the next project/unit, and monitor their own progress throughout the year, writing a culminating self-assessment of their work at the end of the year, after reviewing all previous goals and productions. This method supports the curriculum by teaching students how to write and reflect on their processes, critically think about their own production, creativity, and success, and become independent in goal setting and improving their own skills. This supports the goal of teaching students to be career ready and to think critically and analyze their own progress.

Teacher Presentation/Direct Instruction

Students are given direct instruction in both the Media Arts and the English Language Arts portions of the course. For each project, reading or writing, students are taught individual skills, vocabulary / literary terms, and production strategies. Students take notes on those skills, are shown examples of how to do the skills, are taken step-by-step through the skill on a projection screen, and shown student examples of the expected end product. Students are given rubrics for both media projects and writing tasks, so that they have clear understandings of what is expected of them. This method supports the teaching of the texts, films, video-clips, vocabulary, and Core Common Standards.

Structured Discussion

Students discuss a concept/theme presented in either the ELA or Media Arts portions, and through the discussion and compilations of ideas they illustrate critical thinking, speaking, and listening skills. Examples: 1) Students discuss how connotations change the “color” / mood of a text and offer examples from current text studied, other texts, their lives, etc.; 2) Students watch a short film in Media Arts and discuss how the colors used in the film affect the mood and tone offered to the audience, and also how the color adds to the content. This method allows students to share ideas and brainstorm as a group, collaborate, and further their own ideas on topics presented by the instructor.

Guided Practice

Students follow while the teacher illustrates steps of task on overhead. Examples: 1) Teacher may use an overhead or document camera to show students how to annotate a section of the text, while students do with their own photocopy of text/post-it notes in text; 2) Teacher illustrates connotation by highlighting words on a text on the overhead; students help find the words to be highlighted, and explain their selection; 3) Teacher may show students the steps of how to make an iMovie; all students are given the same photos and create the same iMovie at the same time as the teacher, following the same steps as the instructor. This method supports the curriculum by offering students a chance to learn the skill with support to ensure individual understanding before students are expected to perform them independently.

Individual Practice/Application

Students practice skills taught in direct instruction and apply them to the creation of their own projects. Examples: 1) Students are taught about connotations, how to find them in a text, and then are expected to write a piece using words with specific connotations to illustrate certain perspectives/moods; 2) Students are taught how sound affects a media presentation, are taught the skill of adding sound, and are then expected to add sound to their own multimedia presentation. This method surveys student understandings of the skills taught, and evaluates their abilities to apply these skills in the performance tasks.

Video Recording

Students gain experience in various video production roles as they document (video record) themselves and their peers responding to the readings (and the Unit Essential Question), and to the peer-review sessions in which students critique each other’s submissions. In the process of documenting (video recording) their own learning / re-enacting literary scenes, students explore the concepts of ‘meta-fiction’ and ‘meta-cognition.’ As they observe themselves in the video-recordings, students see how they are presenting themselves, hear how they communicate, and through reflection on their performances, they improve their social, communication, and presentation skills.

Cooperative Learning

Students work in pairs and groups to complete certain key assignments and media projects (e.g. peer editing and critiquing each other’s work). This fosters student-centered learning, in which students teach each other, better mastering the skills while sharing their personal strengths with others. This strategy encourages students to divide tasks, play different roles in the team, communicate effectively, and focus on a skill in detail while still creating an elaborate project.

Problem-Based Inquiry

A student-centered, active learning approach focusing on questioning, critical thinking, problem-solving, and creating projects from the results of their inquiries. The idea behind this strategy is that when the students are involved and asking the questions, finding the information, and designing the product, they care more about what they are learning, they are involved in the process of discovery, and therefore better understand the content, and achieve the learning objectives. This method teaches the students to be more independent learners, to care about what they are studying, and to be involved in creating their own strategies to problem-solve.

Assessments Used in Both the CTE and ELA Portions of the Course

Students are taught skills, vocabulary, technical terms, and literary terms on which the students are quizzed daily/weekly. In order for students to retain the vocabulary taught in class, students are quizzed on a set of words that were taught in the last lesson, or during the entire week. Giving a short, 5-10 question, fill-in-the blank or multiple choice quiz on a consistent basis encourages the students to study the words outside of class, commit them to memory, and therefore have the habit of mind of retaining the new words that they learn and can therefore apply them to new skills and strategies taught, as well as on writing assignments, in their media projects/presentations, and in class discussions.

Unit Tests:

Students take unit tests at the end of most units with a variety of question types, including multiple choice, fill in the blank, short answer, and short essay questions. These tests assess students’ retention of a larger body of information over a longer period of time, and their ability to apply the knowledge to evaluative questions in both the CTE and ELA topics. Having more long-term accountability for the students help them to organize and retain their knowledge more permanently. In evaluating their ability to apply their skills with written expression, it encourages students to think critically about the application of their skills and organize and synthesize their own ideas in an eloquent way with time constraints. This helps develop students’ abilities to think and respond quickly with precise articulation of their ideas.

Peer Review and Editing:

Peers review each others’ media and writing assignments, grade them according to the rubric, and give them feedback and constructive criticism to improve their projects before the final presentation. Students are set up with other students/teams as they finish their first drafts/media projects, to review and evaluate each other’s work so that there is time to edit and enhance the projects before presentation. This process encourages students to look critically at and analyze work similar to their own, inspiring them for ideas and a competitive drive, and using feedback from their intended audience to improve and embellish their work.

Teamwork/Group Projects:

These are projects that are worked on and graded in teams of 3-4. Each member has a different role which focuses on a separate aspect of the project, yet the role requires that students communicate well and integrate their individual work and skills into a synthesized and cohesive final body of work. Students learn how to play different roles in the team, taking on different jobs during each project. Examples of jobs might include: writer, director, actors, sound, lighting, editor, manager, publicist. These projects help to realize CTE goals of teamwork, communication, organization, and leadership, as well as ELA goals of written and oral communication.

Individual Projects/Assignments:

These independent assignments happen on a daily basis - some are short in-class activities, while others are projects that span several class periods and must be worked on outside of class. These assessments allow students to apply their skills in a more personal way, offering more autonomy to the students, and illustrates to the instructor if the individual has mastered the concept/skill on their own. This fosters the skills of independence, creativity, and concept-synthesis, and evaluates the application of both CTE and ELA skills on an individual basis.

At the end of most units (listed in writing section), students write 3-5 page essays, in which they synthesize information in the unit, utilize vocabulary, and apply writing skills relevant to the essay style and purpose. These essays evaluate students’ ability to think critically, organize their ideas, and demonstrate mastery of rhetoric and persuasion. Through unit writing assessments, students are encouraged to be creative, engaging, and argue their points with relevant support.

Students critique each other’s work when each project is presented. Each student is given a rubric for the critique and will grade another student in the class on his/her participation. Students are expected to comment on their own work as well as others in a knowledgeable way, using technical terms and vocabulary that shows knowledge of the concepts and strategies taught for the project. In these peer-review sessions, students use the approach of ‘descriptive critique,’ in which a student describes a peer’s work without offering opinions or judgments, as well as constructive criticism. The teacher also evaluates each student’s critique participation, using the rubric, with the help of the peer-evaluation, which kept track of how many times the student participated. This form of assessment encourages students to be able to discuss their own work as well as the work of others in an articulate way, and teaches them how to form constructive criticism, and also deal with the criticisms of others, using it to improve their work and challenge their own ideas to push their artistic perspectives further.

Presentations:

This method holds students accountable for their learning, offers them feedback from which to make goals and improvements, and allows them to monitor their own progress and enhance their own skills as well as their own learning. Students present to class, are given teacher feedback, peer feedback, and write a self-assessment of their own presentation. Students are graded on a rubric for these presentations--emphasizing public speaking for ELA and collaboration and presentation for CTE. This method develops public speaking skills, requires that students are accountable for and can discuss their own work, and provides student-centered learning, as students assess each others’ projects and learn about others’ presentation topics.

Discussions/Oral Assessment:

Each day, students are assessed on their ability to discuss concepts presented in class, connect ideas in both sides of the course, listen to each other’s ideas and build upon them, or respectfully disagree with opposing viewpoints using justification. This is a chance for students to interchange ideas and synthesize their individual understandings to a more broad perspective of the given topic, including their ideas about the American Dream. This teaches them the CTE and ELA skills of communication and gives teachers immediate feedback on how well students are understanding/synthesizing information.

Self-Assessments:

These assessments occur at the end of each unit, and discuss the process of learning, reading, writing, discussing, producing, editing, and presenting all the projects in the unit. Each self-assessment combines both the ELA and CTE concepts and ask students to identify their success, fostering confidence and pride in the students’ work, as well as reflecting on challenges to identify goals for the next unit/project. This process helps students to recognize their accomplishments, as well as take their learning into their own hands by reviewing their products and processes. They identify ways to help themselves better master the skills, and create present their ideas.

Final Project (THE AMERICAN DREAM PROJECT):

This project is graded on a rubric by both the teacher and the student, and awards will be voted on by the community at the film festival. The project assesses the compilation of skills learned regarding media production and a critical analysis of the American Dream. This form of evaluation illustrates to the students the power that they have with media in making an impact on an audience. By showing their films to the community, students practice the skill of community participation and selling their own perspective to an audience. By grading their own work, they are critically thinking about their own skills and production, and by being accountable to a larger audience, students are required to consider more perspectives and a larger audience than just their peers, therefore, preparing themselves for work in the real world.

Course Resources

Access lesson planning materials made by teachers teaching the course. From here, you can copy any document (or download the entire Google Folder) to modify the curriculum for your students and your teaching style.

These materials were initially compiled/developed at the UCCI Teacher Exchange held in Pleasant Grove on August 3-4, 2015.

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Course info.

• Prof. Christine Walley

Departments

• Anthropology

As Taught In

• Cultural Anthropology
• Ethnography
• Social Justice

Learning Resource Types

American dream: using storytelling to explore social class in the united states, assignments, assignment 1 .

Choose 2 or 3 individuals (famous or otherwise) with whom Studs Terkel conducted interviews (at least one needs to be spoken). Write a 2-page essay analyzing what you learned from the interviews and comment on anything that surprised you. Also consider Terkel’s style of engagement with the interviewees and any differences detected between hearing and reading oral histories.

This assignment is due during Session 3.

Oral History Assignment 

For this assignment, you will conduct a taped oral history / interview with another individual and submit a 2–3 page, double-spaced written account of that interview and a partial transcript.

More details about the oral history assignment

This assignment is due during Session 6.

Museum Exhibit Design Project 

The goal of this exercise is to gain experience working with primary materials in a variety of media formats and to begin thinking about how one would design and put such material together in order to suggest both a “story” for possible viewers and an analysis or interpretation of the material. We’ll be working with materials from the all-volunteer Southeast Chicago Historical Museum.

More details about the museum exhibit design project assignment

This assignment is due during Session 10.

Final Paper

Write a 2–3 page book review of one of the books from the final section of class ( Old Money ; Hunger of Memory ; or Returning to Reims ). Explore what the book can teach us about social class in the United States. You may also choose a book that highlights class issues from a region outside the U.S.

This assignment is due during Session 14.

The first step is to choose your topic. Possible topics include: Labor History; Deindustrialization; Mexican-American Experience; Family / Neighborhood life for Eastern Europeans; Popular Culture (music groups, sports teams, etc); Environment / pollution.

Immerse yourself in the materials. Try to approach the material initially without preconceptions. What strikes you about the material? What themes organically emerge from it? In oral histories, how do people phrase or talk about things? Look closely at photographs and objects – what has been captured visually or saved? Why do you imagine this material was saved or considered of value and by whom?

After this initial immersion, look at any secondary literature that might be available and offer context. How might this literature help make sense of these artifacts? Does what is conveyed in “official” literature differ from what you feel is conveyed in the artifacts themselves?

Begin thinking about the type of museum display you’d like to do and briefly discuss your ideas and get feedback on it from the class. What themes / feelings / analysis would you like to convey in your exhibit? How would you design it in a way that conveys them? While there might be some text involved, how might you also convey your interpretations through design, staging, and the artifacts themselves? What kind of sensory experiences / emotions do you want your viewers to have? What idea do you want them to walk away with? What setting would be most conducive to what you want to convey? A gallery exhibit? An online exhibit? Is it something that viewers would primarily look at? Or is it something you walk through or interact with in other ways? Is sound important?

Figure out what additional info might be needed to tell the story / analysis you’d like to offer and let the instructor know so we can look for any additional material (if needed). Meet with MIT Museum curators to understand how they go about designing exhibits. Consider if any of these techniques might be of use in your project.

Design and write up project. Complete a 3–4 page write-up of the aims of the project both in terms of ideas (i.e., what is the concept binding your exhibit together and how does this relate to the history of Southeast Chicago?) and in terms of how you try to convey it through particular media you’re using (i.e., how do you tell a story or convey an experience, emotion, or idea in visual terms? Through objects? Through words?). In addition to your write-up, submit drawings (or models) of your proposed museum exhibit or mockups of a website design (if you’re interested in an online exhibit). If you have video material, you can show brief clips to the class in your presentation. Finally, include an appendix listing the artifacts you’re using, what each item is, and give its year of origin and who donated it.

Present your design project to the class during Session 10. The presentation should be brief – no more than 10 minutes. Show the pieces you’d like to use and your drawings or mock-up of the exhibit. Get feedback from your classmates that you can use to hone your final design.

Student Example

Below is an example of a write up for the museum exhibit design project.

“Memorializing the Memorial Day Massacre” (PDF) (This example appears courtesy of a Wellesley student and is anonymous by request.)

You can choose whomever you’d like to interview for this assignment. The topic of the interview is the “American Dream,” but you can take that interview in many different directions. It can explore an experience of immigration for the interviewee or his or her family; it can refer to possibilities for upward economic mobility; it can refer to hopes and dreams for the future for oneself or one’s future; or to some other way you or your interviewee might interpret it.

The interview should be semi-structured, meaning some mix of general questions and some improvisational question-asking depending on the responses and interests of the interviewee. Before the interview, write down 5 or 6 questions you might ask and practice with your recording device. During the interview you may want to keep some running notes by hand to help you find things afterward on the tape, although you don’t have to if this feels distracting. After the interview, have the interviewee sign a consent form. (Although institutional review board clearance is not required for oral history interviews, having signed consent forms is good practice.) After the interview, you should immediately type up your notes and summarize the conversation while it’s still fresh in your mind. Also note details about the setting that might be helpful to convey to a reader: what was the setting like? Was there anything striking about how the person was dressed or spoke? What was the tone of the conversation like? etc.

Post-Interview

You can download a trial version of Express Scribe Transcription Software for free on your computer. Using your notes to help you, select a 20 minute passage of the interview that seems particularly compelling for transcription. The transcription software will allow you to slow down or speed up the recording to assist with typing at an even pace. Pay close attention to nuances of language and emotional affect. If someone laughs, cries, or expresses other emotions you might want to note this in parentheses in the text, i.e. (laughter), (angrily) etc.

In your 2–3 page (double-spaced) write-up, offer a description of the interview, convey the general themes, the tone, and setting of the interview, what you learned from it, what it says about the “American Dream” to you, and anything else that feels relevant. Offer quotes from the transcription to support your points. In capturing quotes, you can leave out “ums” and “ahs;” if there is a word missing that is needed to help the reader understand something you can add it in brackets [ ]; if there is a phrase, clause, or sentence that distracts from the point, you can cut it if you put in ellipses (i.e. …).

Along with your 2–3 page write-up, turn in the verbatim transcription. 

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Portfolio Assignment 6

Discuss the American Dream.

Follow the instructions for the assignment below. Save your assignments so they are easy to find when it is time to submit them in Portfolio 2.

Reflection on the American Dream

In this unit you were asked to plan your personal American Dream. This portfolio assignment asks you to reflect, through a journal entry, about your dream and your plan (or the dream and plan of another person). You may want to write about the opportunities that are afforded to you or about another that helps you get closer to the American Dream. You may choose to write about some of the challenges and obstacles that are hindering your (or another’s) achievement of the American Dream. Be sure to look at the grading rubric before beginning the assignment.

Example writing prompts (topics that you might want to talk about; choose one or create one that is similar):

• The American Dream is achievable for everyone because . . .
• The American Dream is a myth because . . .
• Reaching the American Dream is not as simple as creating a plan, rather . . . 

Remember: Do not submit any assignment until you have completed all of the assignments for portfolio 2!

teacher.justinwells.net  »  Writing Assignments » Writing Assignment #1: What is the American Dream?

Writing Assignment #1: What is the American Dream?

Details checklist.

Due date: 8/29 – Blocks A & B 8/30 – Blocks C, D, & E

Date assigned: 8/27 – Blocks A & B 8/28 – Blocks C, D, & E

• At least 500 words (one and 1/2 pages, double-spaced; two pages of handwritten)
• Must reference at least three of the “thought-provokers” presented in class
• Name, date, and block printed in upper right corner
• Typed or neatly handwritten
• Academic formatting: double-spaced, 12-point font if typed
• Carefully proofread
• Ready to be read out loud in class

The essential question of American Studies is: What is the American Dream?

Through our studies of literature this year, we will be tracing this idea of the American Dream, and the role it has played in the evolution of our culture, from colonial times to the present day.

Of course, you are not starting from scratch. As people living in this country, you already have your own conception of the American Dream. This writing assignment is a chance for you to take inventory of your current knowledge before you embark on a year of deeper inquiry.

Write a personal, reflective essay on the American Dream as that phrase means to you. Approach this topic in any way you like. Weave in your personal experience, beliefs, questions, doubts, stories you’ve heard, films you’ve seen, opinions of others, or societal views. You are not necessarily presenting a thesis and backing it up with evidence. You are encouraged to raise questions. You are encouraged to address multiple points of view.

Your only parameter: You must refer to at least three of the “thought provokers”—the film clips or the pieces of text—that were presented on the first day of class. Use your freewrite as a starting point. You don’t need to analyze these artifacts; rather, use them as catalysts, examples, or counterpoints to your thinking on the subject. (The thought-provokers are listed below.)

Be interesting. Be thought-provoking. Your essay is your contribution to the critical dialogue of this course.

Thought-Provokers

Film clip from Friday Night Lights (2004; dir. Peter Berg)

Film clip from Napoleon Dynamite (2004; dir. Jared Hess)

Film clip from American Psycho (2000; dir. Mary Harron)

Film clip from Spellbound (2002; dir. Jeffrey Blitz)

Text from the Declaration of Independence, by Thomas Jefferson (1776): We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

America by Claude McKay (1922)

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness, And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth, Stealing my breath of life, I will confess I love this cultured hell that tests my youth! Her vigor flows like tides into my blood, Giving me strength erect against her hate. Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood. Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state, I stand within her walls with not a shred Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer. Darkly I gaze into the days ahead, And see her might and granite wonders there, Beneath the touch of Time’s unerring hand, Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand. ——————— from Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Muller, 1949

WILLY LOMAN: Without a penny to his name, three great universities are begging for him, and from there the sky’s the limit, because it’s not what you do, Ben. It’s who you know and the smile on your face! It’s contacts, Ben, contacts! The whole wealth of Alaska passes over the lunch table at the Commodore Hotel, and that’s the wonder, the wonder of this country, that a man can end with diamonds here on the basis of being liked!

———————- A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Posted by Justin Wells : 09/08/2007

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American Dream Essay: Samples, Guide, Outline Structure, Topic Ideas

Updated 19 Jun 2024

American Dream essay can easily be compared to a personal reflection paper that provides sufficient arguments regarding not only the term itself but also the research and analysis that was conducted by the essay writer. Most college and high school students in the United States often feel stuck when it comes to writing about what the American Dream means to them, as it is way too easy to use cliches and even risk academic integrity. Still, this essay type is important because it requires much more than reflective outlook, but knowledge of one’s country, culture, people, economics, history, and social processes. In our handy guide, we provide clearer definitions, outlines, topic examples, and samples of an actual American Dream paper.

Why is the American Dream a Popular Essay Topic?

In order to understand what is the American Dream essay, one has to approach it as a classic research paper. After all, no reader would like to see a generic paper talking about wealth or living a fine life in the Land of the Free. Quite the opposite, the American Dream essay aims to inspire high school and college students to do additional research and analysis of their own lives and those who surround them. College professors use this type of work to see critical thinking skills, writing capabilities, structure, grammar, punctuation, and logic. Of course, content does matter as well, so it’s crucial to consider these tips before one starts writing:

• Decide on good and catchy topic that reflects your personality and proves to be an interesting, inspiring essay on the American Dream.
• Do additional research on family’s ancestry, traditions, cultural customs in the United States.
• Using a hook sentence in the beginning, remember to start with an interesting fact or assumption about the American style of life or something that has deeply impacted you.
• Avoid discussing sensitive and religious topics when you write my essay .
• Since American Dream essay is similar to argumentative essay, ensure to backup all information that is not common with reliable sources.

What makes American Dream writing assignments so popular is social connection between generations and difference in perception of same ideas related to culture, wealth, things that seem obligatory in life, right for education, and basic freedoms. Comparing views of modern American students to papers of past decades, college professors and Sociology researchers can combine information and track diverse socio-cultural trends.

Moreover, successful essays can also apply for scholarships or financial aid, according to college policies. Do best to provide unique topic and follow clear structure that is dynamic and logical.

Read also: How to Write a Critical Analysis Quickly & Correctly?

How to Structure an Essay on American Dream?

If good topic has already been found, it is right time to think about essay structure. In this particular case, it contains following elements:

• Introduction. Intro should always start with strong hook sentence, something that inspires readers to read further. Examples of good hook sentences are unusual facts, elements of history, culture or even stories from family life. Likewise, if you are an international student, mention it and speak of things learned.
• Thesis Statement. American Dream thesis should include a clear position and speak of what the topic means per se and how it is perceived. Nevertheless, it should not be generic like “I think it is money, having nice car, girlfriend, good grades at college...” Even if one truly thinks so, such paper aims for deeper thought and analysis as to why certain income is possible or why fancy car is important.
• 3-5 Body Paragraphs. Start each body paragraph with topic sentence. It means that once a certain reason is given for justification of the thesis, it should be mentioned right at the paragraph’s start. Remember of plagiarism risks when citing external sources or mentioning recent media events. A rule of thumb here is to cite each source accordingly, based on format requirements. In most cases, students have freedom not to use any references, yet if good research has been made, it is obligatory to note it correctly.
• Conclusion. In this part, one has to summarize each idea mentioned in body paragraphs but do it in a condensed way, connecting each point with the thesis statement. Do not introduce any new ideas here. For closure, it is recommended to create a call to action and provide food for thought, based on essay topic. It has to be either hopeful or demanding for justice if the paper is written in a specific tone. In either case, conclusion is as important as thesis statement because it shows what author has argumented for with his or her work.

Here is American Dream essay outline example:

“4 Freedoms for All”

1. Intro. Roosevelt once said that there are 4 freedoms: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Thinking of what American Dream means to me, I base my life upon these four freedoms.

2. Thesis: My greatest wish is to achieve these important four freedoms not only for myself, but for people all over the world because freedom has to be shared and this is what I dream of.

3. Body Paragraphs. Topic sentences. Freedom to express one’s thoughts and beliefs in the United States is what makes country so strong as different opinions work together…

Religion and faith conflicts lead to most armed conflicts these days, therefore, I wish that people learn on American example where people of different nations and cultures cooperate and live in peace.

Thinking of wealth and glory that most people usually name, writing such essays, I do not think it is what makes America great…

Determined and patient, I always try to get rid of fear and insecurity, turning to voluntary work and sports.

4. Conclusion.

Thesis restated: America is so powerful as it does not keep its greatness and wisdom to themselves, but shares it with others, helps people achieve freedom and knowledge.

Call to action: It is important for each person to think of what can be done to make American life meaningful, based on hard work, knowledge, and mutual respect.

Read also:  NHS Essay Examples for Students for High Grades

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10 Successful American Dream Essay Topics

A Sum of Cultures and Common Strengths. Speak of how different cultures and people make America strong and united.

Success is Always Hard Work. Focus on personal achievements, your family or friends who work hard to live successful lives.

Living Martin Luther King Way. Mention Martin Luther King or any other historical personality to speak of how strong leaders have made certain dreams come true.

Nursing for Entire World. Idea for international students, studying in the United States.

Thing of Past Gone. For negative thinkers. Include analysis and argumentation.  

Power of Education. Focus on access to education and learning benefits.

America, My New Home. Suitable American Dream essay example for exchange students.

Peace and Safety For All. Mention global issues and how America helps to resolve them.

Then and Now: Comparison. Compare what American Dream meant to your parents or Grandparents and what it means to you.

Power to People. Think about how people can become an anticipated change.

Read also:  Gun Control Topics for Each One, Who Wants to Write an Exciting Essay

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Americans are split over the state of the American dream

“The American dream ” is a century-old phrase used to describe the idea that anyone can achieve success in the United States through hard work and determination. Today, about half of Americans (53%) say that dream is still possible.  

Pew Research Center asked Americans about their views of the American dream as part of a larger survey exploring their social and political attitudes.  

We surveyed 8,709 U.S. adults from April 8 to 14, 2024. Everyone who took part in this survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and its methodology .

Another 41% say the American dream was once possible for people to achieve – but is not anymore. And 6% say it was never possible, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey of 8,709 U.S. adults.

While this is the first time the Center has asked about the American dream in this way, other surveys have long found that sizable shares of Americans are skeptical about the future of the American dream .

Who believes the American dream is still possible?

There are relatively modest differences in views of the American dream by race and ethnicity, partisanship, and education. But there are wider divides by age and income.

Americans ages 50 and older are more likely than younger adults to say the American dream is still possible. About two-thirds of adults ages 65 and older (68%) say this, as do 61% of those 50 to 64.

By comparison, only about four-in-ten adults under 50 (42%) say it’s still possible for people to achieve the American dream.

Higher-income Americans are also more likely than others to say the American dream is still achievable.

While 64% of upper-income Americans say the American dream still exists, 39% of lower-income Americans say the same – a gap of 25 percentage points.

Middle-income Americans fall in between, with a 56% majority saying the American dream is still possible.

Race and ethnicity

Roughly half of Americans in each racial and ethnic group say the American dream remains possible. And while relatively few Americans – just 6% overall – say that the American dream was never possible, Black Americans are about twice as likely as those in other groups to say this (11%).

Partisanship

While 56% of Republicans and Republican leaners say the American dream is still possible to achieve, 50% of Democrats and Democratic leaners say the same.

A 57% majority of adults with a bachelor’s degree or more education say the American dream remains possible, compared with 50% of those with less education.

Age and income differences within both parties

Age and income differences in views of the American dream persist within each political party.

Clear majorities of both Republicans (64%) and Democrats (67%) ages 50 and older say achieving the American dream is still possible.

In contrast, just 38% of Democrats under 50 and 48% of Republicans under 50 view the American dream as still possible.

In both parties, upper-income Americans are about 25 points more likely than lower-income Americans to say it is still possible for people to achieve the American dream.

Do people think they can achieve the American dream?

Americans are also divided over whether they think they personally can achieve the American dream. About three-in-ten (31%) say they’ve achieved it, while a slightly larger share (36%) say they are on their way to achieving it. Another 30% say it’s out of reach for them. These views are nearly identical to when the Center last asked this question in 2022.

White adults (39%) are more likely than Black (15%) and Hispanic adults (19%), and about as likely as Asian adults (34%), to say they have already achieved the American dream.

Black (48%), Hispanic (47%) and Asian adults (46%) are more likely than White adults (29%) to say they are on their way to achieving it.

Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say they have achieved the American dream (38% vs. 28%). But Democrats are somewhat more likely than Republicans to say they’re on the way to achieving it (38% vs. 34%). Democrats are also more likely than Republicans to view the American dream as personally out of reach.

Income and age

Older and higher-income Americans are more likely than younger and less wealthy Americans to say they have achieved or are within reach of the American dream. These patterns are similar to those for views about the American dream more generally.

Note: Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and its methodology .

• Economic Conditions
• Income, Wealth & Poverty

Gabriel Borelli is a research associate focusing on U.S. politics and policy at Pew Research Center .

Income inequality is greater among Chinese Americans than any other Asian origin group in the U.S.

The state of the asian american middle class, the state of the american middle class, is college worth it, 7 facts about americans and taxes, most popular.

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Watch CBS News

Pew finds nation divided on whether the American Dream is still possible

By Kate Gibson

Edited By Anne Marie Lee

Updated on: July 2, 2024 / 6:23 PM EDT / CBS News

About half of Americans still think the American Dream — the idea that anyone can get ahead through hard work and determination — is achievable, according to findings released Tuesday by Pew Research Center. 

While 53% say the American Dream remains possible, another 41% believe the life of relative economic security the notion once conjured up is now out of reach, the survey of 8,709 U.S. adults found. That divide roughly held regardless of race, ethnicity, partisanship and education of respondents, the nonpartisan think tank found . 

The gap proved wider by age and income, with older and wealthier Americans more likely to declare the American Dream to still be feasible, Pew stated. 

Americans 50 and older are more likely than younger adults to say the American Dream is still possible, with about two-thirds of those 65 and older, or 68%, expressing this view, as did 61% of those 50 to 64, according to Pew. Younger adults are less optimistic, with only four in 10, or 42%, under 50 saying it is still possible to achieve the American Dream. 

Sixty-four percent of upper-income Americans say the dream still lives, versus 39% of lower-income Americans — a gap of 25 percentage points. At the center, 56% of middle-income respondents agree the American Dream continues, Pew said.

While relatively few, or 6%, voiced the view that the American Dream was never possible, that number nearly doubled to 11% among Black Americans surveyed.

The findings may illustrate wishful thinking on the part of some respondents, depending on how one calculates what it takes to be living the American Dream. An analysis late last year from financial site Investopedia found that  the American Dream costs about $3.4 million to achieve over the course of a lifetime, from getting married to saving for retirement. 

That estimate would put the dream out of reach for most folks, given that the median lifetime earnings for the typical U.S. worker stands at $1.7 million, according to researchers at Georgetown University.  

Further, multiple studies have shown that geography is key to a person's future success, with where you start out in life largely determining where you end up . Growing up in a more affluent neighborhood offers advantages such as a better education and access to healthier food, for instance. 

Kate Gibson is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch in New York, where she covers business and consumer finance.

More from CBS News

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3 moves that could have a big impact on your savings this July

Doris Kearns Goodwin on what history may tell Joe Biden

Buying 1-ounce gold bars as a beginner? Do these 5 things first, experts say

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Six immigrant stories tell the promises and pitfalls of the American dream

• Deep Read ( 15 Min. )
• By Sarah Matusek Staff writer

July 3, 2024 | Reporting from Colorado, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Alabama, and Utah

Munib Zuhoori was hungry to learn English as a teenager in Kabul, Afghanistan. He scavenged imported mango crates along the road, which used foreign newspapers to pad the fruit. With the help of a dictionary, he used them to teach himself English.

When the American military and other workers arrived after 9/11, his self-taught skills landed him work as an interpreter. Today, Mr. Zuhoori holds a Special Immigrant Visa because of his work for the American government. He lives in a Pittsburgh suburb, working as a refugee case manager. He is often the first face fellow Afghans see when they arrive.

Why We Wrote This

America is often called “a nation of immigrants.” On the national July Fourth holiday, we share stories of those who experienced the yearnings behind the idea of the American dream.

The idea of the American dream has been woven into the country’s self-understanding. It is a national myth that expresses part of the country’s deepest values about class mobility, the value of hard work, and the promise that here, in the United States, owning a home or a business is a real possibility like nowhere else.

The country has not always lived up to this ideal. Many have long felt uneasy about immigrants, especially those arriving across the U.S. southern border today.

Despite this ambivalence, Americans often refer to the country as “a nation of immigrants.”

Ahead of America’s national holiday, the Monitor interviewed six people across six states about their immigration stories – citizens, native-born and naturalized, as well as recent arrivals.

“Now, I think, this is my community. This is my home,” says Mr. Zuhoori, who also volunteers at his daughter’s school. “I’m trying to be a useful person.”

Phung Luong still loves wandering the aisles of Truong An Gifts, a sprawling shop in Denver she runs with her daughter Mimi. She likes to take the time to touch the merchandise in its carefully spaced rows of shelves, on which an array of gifts sits with all the colors of thrown confetti.

Red-and-gold firecracker decorations dangle over green stalks of bamboo. Her fingers graze a glittery hairpin, butterfly shaped, and she adjusts a couple of rabbit figurines with button noses. Happy Buddha statues laugh, bellies round and gold.

“In my heart, all the things have feeling, have life,” Ms. Luong says. “They’re happy with you. They bring you business.”

For over 40 years, the life of this refugee from Vietnam has been devoted to building small businesses. That’s a classic part of what is often called the American dream, the idea that anyone, from anywhere, can work hard and find success within the country’s rungs of wealth and homeownership. 

Ever since her childhood in Vietnam, Ms. Luong was organized. The eldest of eight children, she oversaw the budgeting and buying of food for her family. This helped prepare her as she became a determined if struggling small-business owner in America.

“You cannot go back,” Ms. Luong says. “You need to build your dream here.”

When she was a teenager, she and her family waited a few years after the 1975 fall of Saigon before they found a way to leave. Her family first fled to Hong Kong, securing passage on a boat. The young Ms. Luong clutched only what she could bring: a pillowcase of clothes – and an address in Denver.

Her cousin slipped her the address of a family from Colorado. It belonged to his best friend’s family, Vietnamese refugees who’d already settled in the state. Within a year, this family became Ms. Luong’s family, too. She married one of her host’s cousins, a grocery-store stocker with an ambition to match her own. 

Americans were nursing moral bruises from the Vietnam War. Ms. Luong felt alienated, unable to express herself. It was difficult to learn new ways. Even simple things, such as how burritos look like, but are not, egg rolls.

But at the same time, she worked hard. She helped her husband and his brothers run a specialized Asian grocery store. She worked as a hairstylist for a while. And then she opened a business of her own, a video store that her daughter Mimi called the “Asian Blockbuster.” Like other American business owners, she struggled after going bankrupt when business ventures didn’t work out.

But now, a naturalized citizen, Ms. Luong has become a literal part of American history. Her extended family’s small businesses eventually became an entire shopping plaza in Denver’s Little Saigon district, which they named the Far East Center. Earlier this year, the state of Colorado placed the Luong family plaza on its Register of Historic Properties, noting it has “significant cultural resources worthy of preservation.”

For decades, generations of Denver residents have stepped up to the plaza’s counters – including here at Truong An Gifts, Ms. Luong says.

“If you’re not happy, no problem,” she says. “Come to my shop.”

“A nation of immigrants”

The idea of the American Dream has been woven into the country’s self-understanding. It is a national myth that expresses part of the country’s deepest values about class mobility, the value of hard work, and the promise that here, in America, owning a home or a business is a real possibility like nowhere else. 

A historian popularized the phrase on the heels of the Great Depression, says Sarah Churchwell, chair of public humanities at the University of London. At first, it didn’t really connote the immigrant experience. But after World War II, many began to use “the American dream” to express the country’s economic values and contrast them with its communist rivals. 

The phrase was a “particular version of capitalist, liberal democracy as a land of opportunity ... a story about how we have always welcomed immigrants,” says Professor Churchwell. 

Of course, this Cold War narrative, she adds, dismissed a century of anti-immigrant, restrictive policies that “got written out of the popular story that we told about ourselves.” From 1875 to 1965, for example, most immigrants from Asia, people like Ms. Luong and her family, were refused entry and largely forbidden to become naturalized citizens.   

This side of American history includes the forced removal of Native American people from their lands to make way for European immigrants, as well as the forced migration of enslaved Africans. Beginning in the 19th century, immigrants from Ireland and Italy and others from the eastern parts of Europe were often met with prejudice, if not determination to stifle their efforts to build a life for their families.

The country has not always lived up to the bronze plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty – “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Many have long felt uneasy about these huddled masses, especially those arriving across the U.S. southern border today.

Many Americans rank immigration as a top issue heading into the 2024 election. The issue feeds into white-hot partisan politics. Historically high numbers of unauthorized immigrants during the Biden administration have brought costs and safety concerns to many communities. And in an era of political polarization, the collaborative spirit needed to pass major immigration reform has eluded Congress since the 1990s.

Yet despite this ambivalence, Americans often refer to the country as “a nation of immigrants.” Today an estimated 45.3 million people in the United States were born abroad, as of 2022 estimates. That’s over an eighth of the country. More than half of these have become naturalized citizens. And according to a March poll from NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist, two-thirds of the country still views the American dream as attainable.

However many generations removed, many Americans still celebrate their ethnic heritage. They still tell stories of their immigrant forebears, and the sacrifices they made. How relatives arrived years, decades, or even centuries ago. How they arrived on the country’s shores and built a life their children and grandchildren and all those who came after could continue.

“The mainstream changed quite a bit because of the contributions that immigrants made,” says Tomás Jiménez, a sociology professor at Stanford University. He calls assimilation “not some kind of melding into a monolithic host society, but a process of mutual change.” 

Ahead of America’s national holiday, the Monitor interviewed six people across six states about their immigration stories – citizens, native-born and naturalized, as well as recent arrivals. As each voice attests, the pursuit of this mythic “American dream” takes time, takes trust, takes grace.

Gathering for Irish  céilí  dancing

Steve Laverty, his hair swept into a low ponytail, walks into a wood-paneled room, ready to dance. His black dress shoes have leather soles that slide just right for Irish céilí dancing. 

Every Wednesday night in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Mr. Laverty gathers at a bar with a group of friends to celebrate his heritage. He’s done it for years – a welcome respite for a few unburdened hours.

Music swells to the walls, hands hold to form a circle, and bodies spin like the ceiling fans. Laughter spills across the room as they clap in time. As their feet trot toward the center of the room, Mr. Laverty lets out a yelp of joy, for what is work without play? 

Some six decades ago, Mr. Laverty shared a room with three brothers. They each got a single dresser drawer for their clothes. “We were happy,” says Mr. Laverty, then a kid in 1960s Chicopee, Massachusetts. “We didn’t know any different.” 

But their father modeled hard work, he says. He’d work eight-hour shifts at a hand-tool factory on his feet all day. Mr. Laverty’s family arrived from Ireland four generations earlier. Growing up, Mr. Laverty says his immigrant heritage didn’t mean much to him. 

Though he held his father’s work ethic in high esteem, he knew he didn’t want to toil away in a factory. His father, who didn’t study past high school, still earned enough to help pay for his college education. After getting a degree in mechanical engineering, he joined the Air Force and has served the government nearly ever since in national security jobs.

Still, despite his gains, he shoulders student loan debt, like an estimated 43 million Americans. But as his father did with him, he helped his own four children pay for college.

He started becoming interested in his heritage decades ago. Prompted by his wife, he searched through Ancestry.com and found cousins in Ireland. He met them there in 2007.

Moving to New Mexico soon after that, he became even more curious about his history. He witnessed how many Native Americans in the state continue to revere their own ancestral roots. “The culture has become more interesting to me as I get older,” says Mr. Laverty. He goes Irish dancing twice a week, and attends a Celtic festival every year. 

Beyond this focus on his own family history, he’s contemplated his identity in other ways. The racial justice movement that emerged from the pandemic – including protests over the killing of George Floyd – brought him a new empathy for people who may confront racism he’s never known.

“I’m white, and I think that does open doors for you that may not be available to other people,” says Mr. Laverty. “I didn’t always make a lot of money, or enough money, but I always had employment.” 

Afghan refugees find a home

Munib Zuhoori was hungry to learn English as a teenager in Kabul. At the start of the millennium, he couldn’t yet access books in the language in Afghanistan. So he scavenged imported mangoes sold in crates along the road, scanning the newspapers used for padding to learn foreign words.

He used them to teach himself English, using a dictionary he had. Then, when the American military and other workers arrived after 9/11, his self-taught skills landed him work as an interpreter. He built relationships, made connections. Mr. Zuhoori needed these connections in 2021, soon after the Americans left and the Taliban retook control, and the longest war in U.S. history came to an inglorious end.

Mr. Zuhoori recalls with rapid words his years working with the U.S. Agency for International Development. His projects focused on rule of law and elections, and the work was dangerous. He says 10 of his Afghan colleagues, including members of his family, have been killed since 2021. One of his American contacts, however, helped him, his wife, and their two daughters to fly to Qatar, and then on to the U.S.

Mr. Zuhoori holds a Special Immigrant Visa because of his work for the American government. He now lives in a Pittsburgh suburb, working long hours as a refugee case manager at a local nonprofit. He is often the first face fellow Afghans see at the airport when they arrive. Then he retreats home to a quiet street, where deer saunter by. 

While he misses his extended family back home, his American dream is to go to law school. For now, however, that’s on pause. “I have to work; I have to pay my bills. ... I have a big responsibility,” he says in his living room. 

He worries about his children losing their Afghan heritage, even though he is eager to build a new life here. After almost three years in the U.S., one of his daughters is starting to lose her native tongue, Dari. Earlier this year, he heard his first grader, Maryam, say the word for “sky” in Dari, but the English words “star” and “moon.” To him, it was bittersweet.

Maryam sits with a folder of sketches on her lap. She displays her drawings of a rainbow and a snowman, and a picture of people in a red car. Another sketch shows two famous Americans: Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

From past smudges to present joys

Ashley Taylor Ames, when she was a baby, used to point at the bluish smudge on Grandma Betty’s arm, her grandmother says. 

Today Ms. Ames calls Grandma Betty “the most important person in my life.” The stylish millennial works as a nurse practitioner at a Manhattan cancer center and lives in New Jersey. Her grandmother still inspires her, she says, especially with her boundless emphasis on family and on always trying to be joyful. 

The smudge on Grandma Betty’s arm is a tattoo branded on her at Auschwitz.

While in the Nazi camp, Grandma Betty was tasked to sort through the luggage of arriving prisoners. It was here, too, that members of her family were sent to gas chambers to die.  

After the war, now a refugee from Hungary, she sought refuge in Sweden and then in the U.S., where she settled in Connecticut. She trained as a hairdresser, learned English, and raised an American family. Aromas of her paprika-spiced potatoes and matzo ball soup greeted Ms. Ames at the front door. She still visits her every couple of weeks. 

“Everything that I do is to make her proud,” she says.

Following her grandmother’s example, she tries to recast her most difficult challenges as opportunities. In 2017, for example, she was struggling as she juggled graduate school, a full-time job, and training for the New York City Marathon. Recalling her grandmother’s resilience kept her grounded.

Sometimes at work, where she wears a white-gold Star of David, she comforts patients who receive hard news. Some of her longtime patients ask for news about Grandma Betty, too, since she talks about her all the time.

The two women have had respectful generational differences over faith and feminism. Ms. Ames keeps a kosher home but will sometimes drive on Shabbat. And while she’s felt pressure from family to marry, she’s proud of who she is as a single 30-something. She’s financially independent, at peace. She’s grateful for her upper-middle-class family’s help paying for college. 

“My grandparents and my parents worked very hard to provide a good life for the next generation,” Ms. Ames says. That conjures the Hebrew phrase l’dor vador , “from one generation to the next.” 

Along with the freedom to practice her faith, that’s the spirit of the American dream, she says. 

“We want to do good for ourselves, but better for the next generation,” she says. 

Out of Sudan to a home in Alabama

Raga always had to hide two decades ago when she was a young woman in Sudan. The Janjaweed militia in her area was known for spreading terror and raping women, so when they passed through she would bury herself under clothes, blankets, or whatever she could find. 

In the early 2000s, she joined countless other Sudanese who fled to an infamous camp for displaced people in Darfur. It offered little shelter from the horrors of war.

Born in 1988, Raga, who asked to use only her first name for privacy, lived in relative peace. Her father hung a swing from a tree. Her mother made orange juice. Without electricity, the moon shone so brightly that children could play games outside at night. They’d toss a coin or a bone, something that would shine, and then see who’d find it fastest on the moon-white ground.

For a decade she waited in the Zamzam camp in Darfur. For seven more years she waited with her husband in Jordan. They registered with the United Nations as refugees. In 2022, an agency resettled the couple and their two young daughters in the U.S. A place called Alabama. 

They were excited when they first heard. But “when we first came, I wanted to leave,” Raga says in Arabic. She didn’t know anyone, and she was scared. 

With the help of a local resettlement agency, Inspiritus, the refugee couple secured a home and a few months of financial assistance. The nonprofit helped connect her to volunteers, and they grew into something like family, she says. When she and her husband struggled to get to the grocery store, one of their new friends gave them a gift: a used car.

The car guzzles a lot of gas, Raga says. “But we say, ‘Thank God.’” 

The weather in Sudan and Alabama, as it turns out, feels similar. The heat, the heavy rains, the lightning that cracks the sky. All the city lights in the Birmingham suburbs, though, dull the moon glow here. 

She feels happy and safe in the U.S. But once again, Raga finds herself waiting.

Learning English is a long-term goal. She dreams of opening a salon or a restaurant, but she knows that will take time. Her husband works, but their expenses outpace his modest income. She aches for her family members still in Sudan, worrying about their lack of food and medicine. She’s heartbroken that she’s unable to send them money, and that the violence endures. 

Raga finds solace in her Muslim faith. When she used to work at a church-run food pantry, she says her fellow workers didn’t object when she excused herself to pray, which she does faithfully, five times a day. 

“Religion doesn’t have a place or time,” she says. “You can do it anywhere.”

They face struggles, but Raga hopes that she and her husband can build a life in the U.S. that gives their young children a safe place to flourish. “I hope, God willing, I have all the strength to give them anything that they wish for,” Raga says. That includes a good education. 

She plays with her daughters, always addressing them in Arabic, and offers homemade orange juice to guests. The drink is sweet and silken on a warm spring day.

“I thought after being here a few months, I would be able to achieve all my dreams,” she says with a laugh. Two years have passed. “We try as hard as we can to stand on our own feet.” 

Yasmeen Othman contributed Arabic interpretation for Raga’s interview. Ms. Othman works for Inspiritus.  

Shaking off “imposter syndrome”

Marco Escobar was itching for a job at age 14. The shy Utahan wanted to buy a new jacket, a new pair of shoes, something cool. But he didn’t want to bother his cash-strapped parents. 

Then his parents dropped the truth. “We have something important to tell you,” he recalls them telling him.

Marco wasn’t an American. In fact, he was living in the U.S. illegally. His family brought him into the country as a small child in the 1980s to join his mother, who was already here. She was seeking a better future, financially, for her son. Three decades prior in 1954, an American-backed coup overthrew the country’s leader, tilting Guatemala into chaos. 

“As a 14-year-old, you already don’t belong,” Mr. Escobar says. “Here, you’re being told that you literally – technically – don’t belong.” 

The “earth-shattering” news deepened his feelings of difference. Kids at school teased him because of his secondhand clothes – and his accent, which he worked hard to change. There was also the shame of walking down the hall to claim his free meal tickets. Marco felt small next to American boys. 

Beyond the shame, however, he also remembers the generosity he experienced. Like the surprise bounty of Christmas gifts, from what may have been a youth church group. Mr. Escobar prized the orange Hot Wheels car he received that night. It proved to him, he says, “people’s goodness.”

Despite being a straight-A student, the high schooler sacrificed dreams of college. He feared that applying might somehow expose his status to the government. But he did have a love for computers, nurtured in a special high school class. Mr. Escobar brought his knack for technical troubleshooting to a job at a local car dealership, even though he was hired as a seller. Relationships he built helped him land his first tech job.

As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he says his faith helped him to be grateful as he strove to find success. 

Eventually, with the help of lawyers, he says he was able to get an employment-based green card through his father’s employer. He continued on to jobs in software and met his wife at work. In 2016, he became a citizen. 

Now in cloud software sales, he shares a spacious house with his wife and four children in mountain-flanked Herriman, Utah. He also welcomes new immigrants, many Venezuelan, as he volunteers with local nonprofits.

He still feels a kind of “imposter syndrome,” he says, a shadow he can’t shake. But he measures his success by the pairs of shoes he owns – now over 10. And he funnels a portion of his paycheck, every month, into a college fund for his kids.

“I have learned to live the American dream, even though a broken process existed for me,” Mr. Escobar says.

He eventually lost, and then replaced, the Hot Wheels car, that small engine of hope. Earlier this year, moved by hearing Mr. Escobar’s story, a neighbor bought him a mini orange convertible, too. Mr. Escobar treasures both toys – placed on his desk with pride.

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