THE ACTIVITIES
WALK A MILE IN MY SHOES

Description: Students will read My Antonia by Willa Cather and engage in interactive Web site activities on social issues and agrarian and urban development in the U. S. in the mid to late 19th and early 20th centuries.

GO DIRECTLY TO:

• Goals and Objectives
• Procedure and Teaching Suggestions
• Student Activity
• Extension

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

	Materials and Equipment None

The reading and Web site exploration will help students to:

• Increase knowledge of 19th Century western expansion in America
• Understand social and cultural values of the 19th century that became the foundation for westward expansion
• Increase knowledge of foundational beginnings and evolution of sprawl through American history studies
• Demonstrate and apply knowledge of 19th century western expansion to activities performed on the interactive Web site, "Within these Walls" (depicting four generations of families, their homes and significant happenings for each time period)

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PROCEDURE AND TEACHING SUGGESTIONS

Willa Cather wrote from her heart about the Nebraska of her childhood. The stories she heard and the people she met as a child live forever in the pages of her books. It is difficult to separate the actual first impressions of the author from her fictional creations. In many cases they are one and the same, as memories and imagination unforgettably interweave.

This activity is designed to supplement the reading and discussion of My Antonia, one of Willa Cather's best-known works.

Through the suggested Web site, students are better able to connect with the history presented in the novel. They will already be familiar with issues and experiences of family and home, and this Web site incorporates both as a means to teaching history. Great audio and visual photos will allow students further insight. From this Web activity many exercises may develop, such as identifying important historical events, identifying the value system of a timeperiod and identifying the existence of sprawl.

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STUDENT ACTIVITY

Read My Antonia by Willa Cather and discuss the social issues of this time period and how lands were becoming developed.

Go to the following Web site, http://americanhistory.si.edu/house/default.asp, and navigate through the text and activities.

"Within These Walls" tells the stories of five families who lived in this house over 200 years and made history in their kitchens and parlors, through everyday choices and personal acts of courage and sacrifice. Meet the Choate Family (1757-1772 colonists), the Dodge Family (1777-1789 revolutionaries), the Caldwell Family (1836-1865 reformers), the Lynch Family (1870-1890 immigrants), and the Scott Family (1941-1945 home front).

Click to "Resources" and go to the "For Teachers" subpage. Perform the activity entitled "How Has Your Neighborhood or Community Changed?"

In connecting sprawl as a contributing factor in the novel's plot and setting, it is important to include the following discussions and activities. Research the following topics and issues and conduct a roundtable discussion on all or selected activities.

1. Define sprawl in 19th century America
2. Identify and explore the emergence of the railroad as a contributor to sprawl
3. Examine the pros and cons as to why immigrants coming to America form 1860s-1870s did not migrate to cities in the East, but rather to the prairies due to the railroads
4. Portray through journal/diary entries the life on the Nebraska prairie lands for the American whose family has lived there for 200 years, and for the immigrant who has just arrived
5. Characterize frontier life versus town life

6. It is urgent that we find a new place between unrestricted growth and the kind of place we want our children, and their children to inherit. This certainly is true in the south where strip malls, auto lots, fast food restaurants and housing developments not only threaten the quality of life, but the heritage of our finest old cities. An author recently wrote that we use to think of the south as epitomizing what America was. Today it shocks us into realizing what America may become. —UNCW Chancellor James Leutze Paving the American Dream

   Identify social class as it exists in this novel and the demographics of social class
7. Discuss prejudice against immigrants and the concept of "racial purity"
8. Identify people's needs of the times and how such needs dictate sprawl (In a rapidly industrializing and urbanizing America, economic dislocations between generations were inevitable)
9. Discuss differing responses to isolation
10. Analyze the theme of American individualism
11. Analyze the theme of loyalty
12. Identify how the author's style of writing, her imagery and syntax, help to create the awe inspiring wonder of the Nebraska prairie, and to transform the unknown place to the home place
13. Create a personal reminiscence imitating Cather's writing style
14. Expand reading across the curriculum into historical research of US immigration laws and programs (1891-1986)
15. Write an essay on student's choice of topics, including: American Individualism, Loyalty, Prejudice and Social Class, How the needs of the times dictate Sprawl, etc.
16. Reflect on how reading of My Antonia was a coming of age for the student. Something in the student's awareness had to have changed based on this study. What was it? Only the student knows for sure!

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EXTENSION

Students can read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Reading The Great Gatsby immediately following My Antonia is a very good extension or continuation of this activity. The roaring 20s are in direct contrast to the "wholesomeness" of the Nebraska prairie and the gratitude for "spacious skies and amber waves of grain".

Rather, the 20s bring with them a certain restlessness for more. Likewise, the characterization of each novel's players are highlighted when foiled with one another, which further reinforces qualities of the time periods to the students. Including this activity will help students span U.S. urban, agrarian and industrial growth from 1862-1920.

Goals
Students will be able to:

• Understand life in the Roaring 20s in New York for the wealthy and for the poor (great for examination of socioeconomic demographics)
• Understand the values of this timeperiod (i.e., what was man's relationship with the land? Is sprawl an issue in this novel?)
• Compare and contrast Jim and Antonia (My Antonia) to Jay and Daisy (The Great Gatsby)
  

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