Alan K. Frishman
There is a longing among aging baby-boomers (of which I am one) for a return to a sense of community that they believe existed during their childhoods. As Hillary Rodham Clinton said shortly after becoming first lady: “I want to be able to take my daughter to a park at any time of day or night in the summer and remember what I used to be able to do when I was a little kid.”5
Clearly, though, we don’t want to replay the fifties. We want to edit them. We want to keep the safe streets, the friendly grocers, and the milk and cookies while blotting out the racism and segregation, the sexism, the jingoism, the political bosses, the tyrannical headmasters, the inflexible rules, and the lectures on Americanism and the sinfulness of dissent. But, as a history teacher I must ask my students this key question: Is there any way we can have an orderly world without somebody making the rules by which order is preserved? Is it realistic to expect to recreate a community without the establishment of some sort of authority?
These questions are particularly relevant today when there is much conversation about a return to “community” and “family values” in the same time there is renewed suspicion of authority. Hillary Rodham Clinton is not the only one concerned about a return to community. That subject, or at least that word, has been championed by conservatives as well. There seems to be a connection between devotion to the free market and individual rights, the elimination of affirmative action, a concern about governmental interference and a longing for good old-fashioned community. We can see this clearly in Ronald Reagan’s 1984 re-election campaign, which was built around a series of TV commercials called “Morning Again in America.” These commercials featured the kind of stage-set small-town mainstreets the Gipper himself might have strolled down in his Hollywood days.
“American Graffiti” ends on a less optimistic note, however. A postscript to the movie suddenly broadens the scene from a bunch of confused kids in a northern California town to the country at large, with a foreshadowing of the loss of innocence that we know now is just around the corner from 1962. Curt, presumably to avoid the draft, is a writer living in Canada. Steve, the perennial home-town boy, has become an insurance agent. John, the undefeated drag-racing champion was, ironically, killed by a drunken driver. And Terry – sweet, lovable Toad – is missing in action in Vietnam. The innocent fifties are over.
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
LESSON ONE: Story of a Person from a Subculture
Rationale: This lesson works on many levels, including assisting students to apply their knowledge of history and social studies to a variety of settings. It also enables students to relate their school studies to their own lives, and to guide them in viewing life from others’ perspectives and points of view.
Each student will research a U.S. subcultural group which lives a very different life from their own. Choosing from a variety of forms such as a diary or short story, each student will tell the story of one fictitious person in that group.
Objectives: The student will be able to:
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1. Demonstrate an awareness of what constitutes a subculture
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2. Demonstrate an understanding of a hypothetical person from another subculture.
Time frame: 8-12 class periods.
Recommended for: High school English and social studies classes
Procedures:
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1. Students will research different U.S. subcultures in the library and/or the Internet.
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2. Each student will decide on one particular subcultural group which lives a life very different from its own life (such as ethnic groups like the Navaho or Hmong, groups with strong cultural/ethnic backgrounds like the 3. Amish, or a group strongly impacted by their surrounding such as California surfers or Florida trailer-park retirees).
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4. Each student will decide on a fictional format to present his/her project: a short story, diary, etc.
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5. Students will work on their projects.
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6. Students will present their projects in class.
LESSON TWO: Surveying the School’s Subcultures
Rationale: This lesson works on many levels. It encourages interdisciplinary learning, reinforces self-confidence, stimulates creativity, encourages students to work collaboratively, and fosters critical thinking. This lesson asks students to duplicate the survey mentioned earlier that was conducted by Ricardo Machine and Darin Martin where teenagers from two distant locations rated their own sense of youth subculture groups.
Groups of three students will develop a survey to determine what subculture each of their fellow students identifies with. Each group will be asked to present its findings in a 3-5-page report.
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Objectives: The student will be able to:
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1. Demonstrate an awareness of what constitutes a subculture
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2. Work collaboratively with other students
Time frame: 8-12 class periods.
Recommended for: High school English and social studies classes
Procedures:
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1. Students will review their findings from their previous lesson, “Story of a Person from a Subculture.”
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2. The students will break into groups of 3.
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3. The students will gather student attitudes and/or beliefs to determine 10 different topics.
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4. The students will use a 1-6 Likert scale (1 = strongly agree, 3 = weakly agree, 4 = weekly disagree, and 6 = strongly disagree).
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5. Each group will interview 25 other students (not in the class) using simple, clear, brief questions which are neutrally phrased.
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6. Each article must include a chart of the results and an explanation of the results keyed to the chart.
LESSON THREE: Fifties Musical Playwriting Workshop
Rationale: This unit works on many levels. It touches multiple intelligences (We’ve been using Dr. Gardener’s ideas in our staff development at Career High School) and encourages interdisciplinary learning. Following along the child development model of the School Development (Comer) Project of the Yale Medical School, this unit also helps the students by reinforcing their self-confidence, and by stimulating their creativity and cooperation. This unit helps students prepare for the Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) – particularly the section on interdisciplinary assessment – by emphasizing students’critical thinking abilities.
Using songs from “American Graffiti,” I ask my students to imagine scenes that might take place immediately before and after the events of the song. The students then develop these ideas into a script, rehearse, and perform it. Throughout the process the students work in groups and critique each other.
Objectives: The student will be able to:
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1. Demonstrate an appreciation for and an understanding of the music and values of the period (late fifties to 1962).
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2. Write a coherent script based on characterization, theme, conflict, and emotional tone as found in the songs’ lyrics.
Time frame: 8-12 class periods.
Recommended for: High school English and social studies classes.
Procedures:
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1. The students watch the movie with a copy of the lyrics from the songs in front of them.
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2. The students break up into groups of 4-5
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3. Each group selects one song.
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4. Brainstorming. Each group compiles a list of ideas around which to write scenes. After one class period each group should have selected one unified idea.
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5. Students write scene.
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6. Students rehearse scene.
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7. Students perform scene.
Suggested songs:
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“Splish, Splash” by Bobby Darin (1958)
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“Mr. Sandman” by the Chordettes (1954)
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“Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and the Comets (1955)
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“Yakety Yak” by The Coasts (1958)
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“Get a Job” by The Silhouettes (1958)
LESSON FOUR: Comparing the Fifties to the Present Using Debits and Credits
Rationale: This lesson will combine the curriculum from history classes with those used in the business department, especially Accounting, one of the most popular classes in the school. (Business/computers is one the two magnet themes of Career High School.)
Each student will prepare a debit and credit balance sheet of at least ten strengths and ten weaknesses of U.S. culture as depicted in the three movies, “American Graffiti,’ “Dead Poets Society,” and “Imitation of Life.”
Objectives: The student will be able to:
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1. Know beliefs, values, and behaviors important to a select group of Americans in the fifties.
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2. Know how society’s beliefs, values, and behaviors have changed over the past forty years.
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3. Recognize key influences on our changing culture.
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4. Become aware of how our changing culture affects our lives in both positive and negative ways.
Time frame: 8-12 class periods.
Recommended for: High school English and social studies classes
Procedures:
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1. I will review what a balance sheet is for students, showing them examples from Nelke Saab, an automotive dealership I owned and ran in the eighties.
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2. Students will break into groups of 3-4.
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3. Each group will prepare a balance sheet of at least ten strengths and ten weaknesses of U.S. culture in the fifties compared to today, based specifically on the three movies mentioned above.
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4. Each group will also prepare an outline keyed to its balance sheets predicting future trends with explanations.
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5. Each group will present its findings to the class at large.
LESSON FIVE: Comparing the Characters from “American Graffiti” and “Dead Poets Society” to Students in the School Today
Rationale: This lesson will foster the students’ ability to compare and contrast two different time periods.
After watching, “American Graffiti” and “Dead Poets Society,” each student will prepare a list of eight characters from the two movies. He/she will then list several salient aspects of those characters’ personalities and discuss which are determined by the time period and which would be true today. Each student will then decide on one student from the school today who fits those characteristics and explain why that is so.
Objectives: The student will be able to:
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1. Know beliefs, values, and behaviors important to a fictional character of the fifties.
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2. Examine how society’s beliefs, values, and behaviors have changed over the past forty years.
Time frame: 10-12 class periods.
Recommended for: High school English and social studies classes
Procedures:
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1. I will show the films “American Graffiti” and “Dead Poets Society” to the entire class. Students will break into groups of 3-4.
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2. Each student will select four characters from each movie and describe the salient characteristics of those characters.
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3. I will confer with each student about his/her choices and commentary.
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4. Each student will decide which of those characteristics are determined by the time period and which would be true today.
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5. Each student will then decide on one student from the school today who fits those characteristics and explain why that is so.
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ENDNOTES
1. Doherty, Thomas, Teenagers and Teenpics: The Juvenilization of American Movies in the 1950s (Boston: Unwin Huyman) 1988, p. 46.
2. http://www.elibrary.com/getdoc.cgi?id=994.
3. Auster, Albert and Quart, Leonard, American Film and Society since 1945 (London: MacMillan) 1984, p. 42.
4. Martin, Darin and Machine, Ricardo, “Student Assignments on Youth Subculture Groups” in “Contemporary Society,” http://www.btc.coza1chap1a.htm.