M4 Personalizing History Projec
This segment of the Personalizing History Project will focus on two topics:
- Newspaper coverage of national events in your hometowns, from 1945-1992.
- Popular music of this era.
Newspaper coverage
- First, we’ll gather materials from newspapers. Please go to your local hometown newspaper and search the archives to gather up several editorial quotes, cartoons, headlines, or other media from 1945-1992.
- If you have difficulty finding newspapers, you also may consult community newsletters, magazines, and any other publicly circulated media in your hometowns. Many of these materials are available at public libraries and historical societies.
- Please find at least four representations, focusing on the civil rights movements, anti-war demonstrations, and the conservative turn of the 1980s. Try to find representations of local reactions to national events, as much as possible.
- After you have gathered this material, create a post in which you:
- Share your representations, along with summaries of where you found the materials and how they were portrayed in the local press.
- Analyze the shifting social and political climate of your hometown, from the mid-1940s through early 1990s.
- Comment on each others’ posts, as appropriate.
Popular music
- Go back to the song that was No. 1 during the week that you were born.
- Listen to it and if possible find a copy of its lyrics.
- Find out who the artist was and do a little research on that individual.
- Create a post that:
- Analyzes the social, political, and cultural messages that are being conveyed in the song.
- Examines the song in the context of the historic events taking place in the years around which the song was popular.
- Comment on each others’ posts, as appropriate making sure to:
- Analyze how the broader outline of American history affected smaller communities during the decades we’re studying
In addition to the module readings, I recommend highly that you consult the Re-Thinking U.S. History Timeline in researching your song. You also might find the educational guide TeachRock helpful in learning more about the impact of historical events on the music of America.
Re-thinking U.S. History Timeline
Finally, after you have completed this assignment:
- Choose two or three historic detail from the material that you gathered on your hometown that interests you the most.
- Place that detail chronologically on the Re-Thinking U.S. History Timeline Wiki that we are building collectively.
- Make sure to place your name and the source where you gathered this information in parentheses at the end of your entry.
One quick note: While you are welcome to share web links and images to this forum, please do not do so on the Wiki. For citations on the Wiki, you can name the website without a link.
M4 Zine Creation
Now, please proceed to the M4 Assignment: Zine Creation and begin working on it. Please feel free to continue using this discussion forum to workshop, refine, and share your Zines with your classmates.
Evaluation Criteria
For assistance in completing your assignment utilize the resources available to you in the Library Resources, Academic Integrity and Research Guidelines page of the Course Information documents.
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