Smart Board

My Smart Board lesson taught about Homophones. It had nothing to do with the Civil War aspect of my blog, but it goes along with the literature part.

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O Captain! My Captain!

O Captain! My Captain! is perhaps one of the most famous poems about Abraham Lincoln. It has been quoted numerous times in films and television. Dead Poets Society is the first film that comes to mind where the lines "O Captain! My Captain!" were repeated throughout the entire film.

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! by Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck
You've fallen cold and dead.

My captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight

The following is a poem about President Abraham Lincoln...

ABRAHAM LINCOLN WALKS AT MIDNIGHT by Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931)

It is portentous, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,
Near the old court-house pacing up and down,

Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards
He lingers where his children used to play,
Or through the market, on the well-worn stones
He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away.

A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black,
A famous high-top hat and plain worn shawl
Make him the quaint great figure that men love,
The prairie-lawyer, master of us all.

He cannot sleep upon his hillside now.
He is among us:--as in times before!
And we who toss and lie awake for long,
Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door.

His head is bowed. He thinks of men and kings.
Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep?
Too many peasants fight, they know not why;
Too many homesteads in black terror weep.

The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart.
He sees the dreadnoughts scouring every main.
He carries on his shawl-draped shoulders now
The bitterness, the folly and the pain.

He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn
Shall come;--the shining hope of Europe free:
A league of sober folk, the worker's earth,
Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea.

It breaks his heart that kings must murder still,
That all his hours of travail here for men
Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace
That he may sleep upon his hill again?

Lesson Plan for June 17

Each student will be given a list of famous authors to choose from. Once they have chosen their author, they are to research him/her. Finding the following information, create a trading card using BigHugeLabs.com. Include a picture as well. When you have finished your Famous Author Trading Cards, you will present what you have learned about your assigned author.

Find all of this information:
~Your author's full name (Did they use another name other than the one they were born with)
~When were they born and when did they die?
~Where were they born?
~Did he/she marry?
~Did he/she have children?
~What was the author's top 5 works? (If they had that many)
~When was he/she first published?
~What work is he/she most known for?
Feel free to add any interesting facts that you find while researching.

Author List:
Jane Austen
Harper Lee
John Steinbeck
George Orwell
J.D. Salinger
William Shakespeare
Ayn Rand
Ernest Hemingway
F.Scott Fitzgerald
J.M. Barrie
Albert Camus
Lewis Carroll
Geoffrey Chaucer
Agatha Christie
Stephen Crane
E.E. Cummings
Roald Dahl
Daniel Defoe
Charles Dickens
Emily Dickinson
T.S. Eliot
Ralph Waldo Emerson
William Faulkner
Robert Frost
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Victor Hugo
Franz Kafka
John Keats
Rudyard Kipling

Happy Researching!

Sleepers by Walt Whitman

On my quest for Civil War literature, I stumbled upon one of my favorite poets and the poem he wrote relating to the Civil War...

Sleepers by Walt Whitman

1

I wander all night in my vision,
Stepping with light feet, swiftly and noiselessly stepping and stopping,
Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of sleepers,
Wandering and confused, lost to myself, ill-assorted, contradictory,
Pausing, gazing, bending, and stopping.

How solemn they look there, stretch'd and still,
How quiet they breathe, the little children in their cradles.

The wretched features of ennuyes, the white features of corpses, the livid faces of drunkards, the sick-gray faces of onanists,
The gash'd bodies on battle-fields, the insane in their strong-door'd rooms, the sacred idiots, the new-born emerging from gates, and the dying emerging from gates,
The night pervades them and infolds them.

The married couple sleep calmly in their bed, he with his palm on the hip of the wife, and she with her palm on the hip of the husband,
The sisters sleep lovingly side by side in their bed,
The men sleep lovingly side by side in theirs,
And the mother sleeps with her little child carefully
wrapt.

The blind sleep, and the deaf and dumb sleep,
The prisoner sleeps well in the prison, the runaway son
sleeps,
The murderer that is to be hung next day, how does he
sleep?
And the murder'd person, how does he sleep?

The female that loves unrequited sleeps,
And the male that loves unrequited sleeps,
The head of the money-maker that plotted all day
sleeps,
And the enraged and treacherous dispositions, all, all
sleep.

I stand in the dark with drooping eyes by the
worst-suffering and the most restless,
I pass my hands soothingly to and fro a few inches from
them,
The restless sink in their beds, they fitfully sleep.

Now I pierce the darkness, new beings appear,
The earth recedes from me into the night,
I saw that it was beautiful, and I see that what is not
the earth is beautiful.

I go from bedside to bedside, I sleep close with the
other sleepers each in turn,
I dream in my dream all the dreams of the other
dreamers,
And I become the other dreamers.

I am a dance--play up there! the fit is whirling me
fast!

I am the ever-laughing--it is new moon and twilight,
I see the hiding of douceurs, I see nimble ghosts
whichever way I look,
Cache and cache again deep in the ground and sea, and
where it is neither ground nor sea.

Well do they do their jobs those journeymen divine,
Only from me can they hide nothing, and would not if
they could,
I reckon I am their boss and they make me a pet
besides,
And surround me and lead me and run ahead when I walk,
To lift their cunning covers to signify me with
stretch'd arms, and resume the way;
Onward we move, a gay gang of blackguards! with
mirth-shouting music and wild-flapping pennants of
joy!

I am the actor, the actress, the voter, the politician,
The emigrant and the exile, the criminal that stood in
the box,
He who has been famous and he who shall be famous after
to-day,
The stammerer, the well-form'd person, the wasted or
feeble person.

I am she who adorn'd herself and folded her hair
expectantly,
My truant lover has come, and it is dark.

Double yourself and receive me darkness,
Receive me and my lover too, he will not let me go
without him.

I roll myself upon you as upon a bed, I resign myself
to the dusk.
He whom I call answers me and takes the place of my
lover,
He rises with me silently from the bed.

Darkness, you are gentler than my lover, his flesh was
sweaty and panting,
I feel the hot moisture yet that he left me.

My hands are spread forth, I pass them in all
directions,
I would sound up the shadowy shore to which you are
journeying.

Be careful darkness! already what was it touch'd me?
I thought my lover had gone, else darkness and he are
one,
I hear the heart-beat, I follow, I fade away.

2

I descend my western course, my sinews are flaccid,
Perfume and youth course through me and I am their
wake.

It is my face yellow and wrinkled instead of the old
woman's,
I sit low in a straw-bottom chair and carefully darn my
grandson's stockings.

It is I too, the sleepless widow looking out on the
winter midnight,
I see the sparkles of star shine on the icy and pallid
earth.

A shroud I see and I am the shroud, I wrap a body and
lie in the coffin,
It is dark here under ground, it is not evil or pain
here, it is blank here, for reasons.

(It seems to me that every thing in the light and air
ought to be happy,
Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave let him
know he has enough.)

3

I see a beautiful gigantic swimmer swimming naked
through the eddies of the sea,
His brown hair lies close and even to his head, he
strikes out with courageous arms, he urges himself
with his legs,
I see his white body, I see his undaunted eyes,
I hate the swift-running eddies that would dash him
head-foremost on the rocks.

What are you doing you ruffianly red-trickled waves ?
Will you kill the courageous giant? will you kill him
in the prime of his middle age?

Steady and long he struggles,
He is baffled, bang'd, bruis'd, he holds out while his
strength holds out,
The slapping eddies are spotted with his blood, they
bear him away, they roll him, swing him, turn him,
His beautiful body is borne in the circling eddies, it
is continually bruis'd on rocks,
Swiftly and out of sight is borne the brave corpse.

4

I turn but do not extricate myself,
Confused, a past-reading, another, but with darkness
yet.

The beach is cut by the razory ice-wind, the wreck-guns
sound,
The tempest lulls, the moon comes floundering through
the drifts.

I look where the ship help lessly heads end on, I hear
the burst as she strikes, I hear the howls of
dismay, they grow fainter and fainter.

I cannot aid with my wringing fingers,
I can but rush to the surf and let it drench me and
freeze upon me.

I search with the crowd, not one of the company is
wash'd to us alive,
In the morning I help pick up the dead and lay them in
rows in a barn.

5

Now of the older war-days, the defeat at Brooklyn,
Washington stands inside the lines, he stands on the
intrench'd hills amid a crowd of officers,
His face is cold and damp, he cannot repress the
weeping drops,
He lifts the glass perpetually to his eyes, the color
is blanch'd from his cheeks,
He sees the slaughter of the southern braves confided
to him by their parents.

The same at last and at last when peace is declared,
He stands in the room of the old tavern, the
well-belov'd soldiers all pass through,
The officers speechless and slow draw near in their
turns,
The chief encircles their necks with his arm and kisses
them on the cheek,
He kisses lightly the wet cheeks one after another, he
shakes hands and bids good-by to the army.

6

Now what my mother told me one day as we sat at dinner
together,
Of when she was a nearly grown girl living home with
her parents on the old homestead

A red squaw came one breakfast-time to the old
homestead,
On her back she carried a bundle of rushes for
rush-bottoming chairs,

Her hair, straight, shiny, coarse, black, profuse,
half-envelop'd her face,
Her step was free and elastic, and her voice sounded
exquisitely as she spoke.

My mother look'd in delight and amazement at the
stranger,
She look'd at the freshness of her tall-borne face and
full and pliant limbs,
The more she look'd upon her she loved her,
Never before had she seen such wonderful beauty and
purity,
She made her sit on a bench by the jamb of the
fireplace, she cook'd food for her,
She had no work to give her, but she gave her
remembrance and fondness.

The red squaw staid all the forenoon, and toward the
middle of the afternoon she went away,
O my mother was loth to have her go away,
All the week she thought of her, she watch'd for her
many a month,
She remember'd her many a winter and many a summer,
But the red squaw never came nor was heard of there
again.

7

A show of the summer softness--a contact of something
unseen--an amour of the light and air,
I am jealous and overwhelm'd with friendliness,
And will go gallivant with the light and air myself.

O love and summer, you are in the dreams and in me,
Autumn and winter are in the dreams, the farmer goes
with his thrift,
The droves and crops increase, the barns are
well-fill'd.

Elements merge in the night, ships make tacks in the
dreams,
The sailor sails, the exile returns home,
The fugitive returns unharm'd, the immigrant is back
beyond months and years,

The poor Irishman lives in the simple house of his
childhood with the well-known neighbors and faces,
They warmly welcome him, he is barefoot again, he
forgets he is well off,
The Dutchman voyages home, and the Scotchman and
Welshman voyage home, and the native of the
Mediterranean voyages home,
To every port of England, France, Spain, enter
well-fill'd ships,
The Swiss toots it toward his hills, the Prussian goes
his way, the Hungarian his way, and the Pole his
way,
The Swede returns, and the Dane and Norwegian return.

The homeward bound and the outward bound,
The beautiful lost swimmer, the ennuye, the onanist,
the female that loves unrequited, the money-maker,
The actor and actress, those through with their parts
and those waiting to commence,
The affectionate boy, the husband and wife, the voter,
the nominee that is chosen and the nominee that
has fail'd,
The great already known and the great any time after
to-day,
The stammerer, the sick, the perfect-form'd, the
homely,
The criminal that stood in the box, the judge that sat
and sentenced him, the fluent lawyers, the jury,
the audience,
The laugher and weeper, the dancer, the midnight widow,
the red squaw,
The consumptive, the erysipalite, the idiot, he that is
wrong'd,
The antipodes, and every one between this and them in
the dark,
I swear they are averaged now--one is no better than
the other,
The night and sleep have liken'd them and restored
them.

I swear they are all beautiful,
Every one that sleeps is beautiful, every thing in the
dim light is beautiful,
The wildest and bloodiest is over, and all is peace.

Peace is always beautiful,
The myth of heaven indicates peace and night.
The myth of heaven indicates the soul,
The soul is always beautiful, it appears more or it
appears less, it comes or it lags behind,
It comes from its embower'd garden and looks pleasantly
on itself and encloses the world,
Perfect and clean the genitals previously jetting, and
perfect and clean the womb cohering,
The head well-grown proportion'd and plumb, and the
bowels and joints proportion'd and plumb.

The soul is always beautiful,
The universe is duly in order, every thing is in its
place,
What has arrived is in its place and what waits shall
be in its place,
The twisted skull waits, the watery or rotten blood
waits,
The child of the glutton or venerealee waits long, and
the child of the drunkard waits long, and the
drunkard himself waits long,
The sleepers that lived and died wait, the far advanced
are to go on in their turns, and the far behind
are to come on in their turns,
The diverse shall be no less diverse, but they shall
flow and unite
--they unite now.

8

The sleepers are very beautiful as they lie unclothed,
They flow hand in hand over the whole earth from east
to west as they lie unclothed,
The Asiatic and African are hand in hand, the European
and American are hand in hand,
Learn'd and unlearn'd are hand in hand, and male and
female are hand in hand,
The bare arm of the girl crosses the bare breast of her
lover, they press close without lust, his lips
press her neck,
The father holds his grown or ungrown son in his arms
with measureless love, and the son holds the
father in his arms with measureless love,
The white hair of the mother shines on the white
wrist of the daughter,

The breath of the boy goes with the breath of the man,
friend is inarm'd by friend,
The scholar kisses the teacher and the teacher kisses
the scholar, the wrong'd is made right,
The call of the slave is one with the master's call,
and the master salutes the slave,
The felon steps forth from the prison, the insane
becomes sane,
the suffering of sick persons is reliev'd,
The sweatings and fevers stop, the throat that was
unsound is sound, the lungs of the consumptive are
resumed, the poor distress'd head is free,
The joints of the rheumatic move as smoothly as ever,
and smoother than ever,
Stiflings and passages open, the paralyzed become
supple,
The swell'd and convuls'd and congested awake to
themselves in condition,
They pass the invigoration of the night and the
chemistry of the night, and awake.

I too pass from the night,
I stay a while away O night, but I return to you again
and love you.

Why should I be afraid to trust myself to you?
I am not afraid, I have been well brought forward by
you,
I love the rich running day, but I do not desert her in
whom I lay so long,
I know not how I came of you and I know not where I go
with you, but I know I came well and shall go
well.

I will stop only a time with the night, and rise
betimes,
I will duly pass the day O my mother, and duly return
to you.

Data Lesson Plan

Lesson Plan:
The students are to read a book of their choice and create a word tree using their favorite passages from their book selection. The students must also show what passages they chose and explain why they chose the passages they did. They can choose from the list of books provided or select one of their own and get it approved first. The students should get out of this a more thorough understanding of the characters and plot in the book they chose. Instead of just reading the book to take the test, they will have to interpret why they liked specific passages from the book using context clues and close reading.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Animal Farm by George Orwell
1984 by George Orwell
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Frankenstein by Mary Shelly
Dracula by Bram Stoker

I have provided a wide range of novels for you to choose from...Happy Reading!


My Word Tree...
In keeping with the civil war theme of my blog I chose The Red Badge of Courage for my example of what the lesson will turn out as...



The three passages I chose are:
1. "He felt that in this crisis his laws of life were useless. Whatever he had learned of himself was here of no avail. He was an unknown quantity. He saw that he would again be obliged to experiment as he had in early youth. He must accumulate information of himself, and meanwhile he resolved to remain close upon his guard lest those qualities of which he knew nothing should everlastingly disgrace him."

2. "He suddenly lost concern for himself, and forgot to look at a menacing fate. He became not a man but a member. He felt that something of which he was a part—a regiment, an army, a cause, or a country—was in a crisis. He was welded into a common personality which was dominated by a single desire. For some moments he could not flee, no more than a little finger can commit a revolution from a hand."

3."His self-pride was now entirely restored. In the shade of its flourishing growth he stood with braced and self-confident legs, and since nothing could now be discovered he did not shrink from an encounter with the eyes of judges, and allowed no thoughts of his own to keep him from an attitude of manfulness. He had performed his mistakes in the dark, so he was still a man."

"Four score and seven years ago..."

Novels and poems are not the only form of literature. Perhaps one of the most famous pieces of literature ever written, besides the Declaration of Independence, is the Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation consists of two executive orders issued by Abraham Lincoln. The first one, issued September 22, 1862, declared the freedom of all slaves in any state of the Confederate States of America that did not return to Union control by January 1, 1863. The second order, issued January 1, 1863, named ten specific states where it would apply. Lincoln issued the Executive Order by his authority as "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy" under Article II, section 2 of the United States Constitution.

The Emancipation Proclamation was criticized at the time for freeing only the slaves over which the Union had no power. Although most slaves were not freed immediately, the Proclamation did free thousands of slaves the day it went into effect in parts of nine of the ten states to which it applied . In every Confederate state the Proclamation went into immediate effect in Union-occupied areas and at least 20,000 slaves were freed at once on January 1, 1863.

Additionally, the Proclamation provided the legal framework for the emancipation of nearly all four million slaves as the Union armies advanced, and committed the Union to ending slavery, which was a controversial decision even in the North. Hearing of the Proclamation, more slaves quickly escaped to Union lines as the Army units moved South. As the Union armies advanced through the Confederacy, thousands of slaves were freed each day until nearly all were freed by July 1865.

Near the end of the war, abolitionists were concerned that while the Proclamation had freed most slaves as a war measure, it had not made slavery illegal. Several former slave states had already passed legislation prohibiting slavery; however, in a few states, slavery continued to be legal, and to exist, until December 18, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment was enacted.

Harper's Weekly

**http://www.civilwarliterature.com

This website gives readers access to 15 Civil War stories....

Harper's Weekly was an American politial magazine that featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects and humor.It began as Harper's Monthly in 1850, but became so popular that by 1857, it was Harper's Weekly. By 1860, one year before the outbreak of the Civil War, Weekly's circulation had reached 200,000. Illustrations were an important part of Harper's Weekly content. Among its recurring features were the political cartoons of Thomas Nast who was recruited in 1862 and remained with the Harper's Weekly for more than 20 years.

So as not to upset its wide readership in the South, Harper’s took a moderate editorial position on the issue of slavery. For this it was called by the more hawkish publications “Harper’s Weakly.” Harper's Weekly supported the Stephen Douglas presidential campaign against Abraham Lincoln, but as the American Civil War broke out, Lincoln and the Union received full and loyal support of the publication.

After the war, Harper's Weekly became more supportive of the Republican Party, playing an important role in the election of Ulysses S. Grant in 1868 and 1872.

Harper's Weekly was absorbed by The Independent in 1916, which in turn merged with The Outlook in 1928. In the mid-1970s Harper's Magazine used the Harper's Weekly title for a spinoff publication. Actually a biweekly for most of its run, the revived Harper's Weekly depended on contributions from readers for much of its content.

A story of a civilization Gone with the Wind...

How could I have forgotten the most famoust piece of literature set during the Civil War...Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. First published in May 1936, this romantic novel is set in Gerogia during the Civil War and Reconstruction. We follow Scarlett O'Hara, a spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner, who is infatuated with Ashley Wilkes, who, although attracted to Scarlett, marries his cousin Melanie instead. At Ashley and Melanie's engagement party, Scarlett meets Rhett Butler, who has a reputation as a rogue. As the Civil War begins, Scarlett accepts a marriage proposal from Melanie's brother, Charles Hamilton, who soon dies of disease in training. Scarlett's main concern regarding his death is that she must wear black and cannot attend parties.

After the war, Scarlett inherits Tara and manages to keep the place going. When Scarlett cannot get money from Rhett to pay the taxes on Tara, she marries her sister's fiancé, Frank Kennedy, takes control of his business, and increases its profitability with business practices that make many Atlantans resent her. Frank is killed when he and other Ku Klux Klan members raid a shanty town where Scarlet was assaulted while driving alone. Remorseful after Frank's death, Scarlett marries Rhett, who is aware of her passion for Ashley but hopes that one day she will come to love him instead. Scarlett eventually comes to realize that she does love Rhett, but only once the couple has been through so much that Rhett has fallen out of love with her.

In 1939, Gone with the Wind was made into a film that recieved 10 Academy Awards. It starred Viven Leigh as the ever-stubborn Scarlett O'Hara, Clark Gable as the entrprenure with an air of aristocratic pomposity yet loving, Rhett Butler, Leslie Howard as the old-fashioned and sincere AShley Wilkes, Olivia de Havilland as the kind and sweet Melanie Hamilton-Wilkes and Hattie McDaniel as the fiesty Mammie.