American History discussion

Essential Question: What does it mean to be American?

Goal: Annotate the text you highlighted yesterday

Agenda:
1. Finish the Formative from yesterday and then read.
2. Close read the short story American History.

Close Reading: Today you will add notes to the items you highlighted yesterday. We will then have a class discussion about what it means to be American.

Discussion Question 1: What passage from the text shows someone pursuing the American dream? Using this evidence, is the American dream only an ideal or is it also a reality?

Discussion Question 2: Where in the text do you see immigrants being excluded? How has America changed in the past fifty years? What do we still need to work on?

Discussion Question 3: How does JFK's death unite the characters in the book? Is it true that Americans are only united by tragedy?

Narrative Structure: Conflict. Complete chart on page 47


When you are finished with everything:
1. Work on vocabulary chart
2. Read silently