1. American Literature Targets

2. Harlem Renaissance Poets were inspired by: Spirituals Jazz Blues
Street Talk

3. Themes influence of slavery black identity
the effects of institutional racism
the dilemmas of performing and writing for elite white audiences
how to convey the experience of modern black life in the urban North

4. Effects
 African American artists engaged culture to work for goals of civil rights and equality.
African Americans paintings became absorbed into the mainstream culture.
Visual arts made a strong statement during the Harlem Renaissance, creating images based on newly developed consciousness about heritage and culture.
The art produced at that time varied greatly in theme and it ranges from the illustration of theatrical urban lifestyles to ordinary rural landscapes; from the daily actions of individuals to the all- surrounding and meaningful themes of slavery and cultural origins in Africa.

5. Elements of The American Drama
Conflict
Protagonist - common man
external and internal conflict
exposition
the influence of the audience
realistic drama/4th wall and why drama shifted
a revolt against realism; playwrights are free to express themselves

6. The Crucible
Compare/contrast the harm done to the reputations of townspeople by the social hysteria resulting in the Salem Witch Trials with the harm caused by the social hysteria of another era.
Miller’s purpose in using the Salem Witch Trials as the setting for presenting views on the hypocrisy (McCarthyism) within a society.
The power of fear on a society or individual.
Crucible: a ceramic or metal container in which metals or other substances may be melted or subjected to very high temperatures.
AND
a situation of severe trial, or in which different elements interact, leading to the creation of something new.

7. Contemporary – Consumerism Causes Conformity
Atom Bomb/ WWII
WWII brought previously unimaginable horrors: millions of casualties, The Holocaust and nuclear weapons
Struggling to come to terms with this destruction, authors wrote in a Modernist style: detailed, realistic, somewhat detached accounts of war, told by an outside observer
Much of the most powerful literature was straight nonfiction
John Hersey’s Hiroshima
John Steinbeck’s “Why Soldiers Won’t Talk”
Elie Wiesel’s Night
Joseph Heller’s Catch-22
Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five

8. Contemporary
Vietnam
WWII brought the country together, while Vietnam drove it apart
Writers questioned authority, conventional values and even the nature of reality
Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried

9. Contemporary Civil Rights Writers examined issues of race and equality
Built on the earlier Harlem Renaissance, they explored the dynamics of race relations and the injustice of discrimination
Ann Petry’s The Street
Richard Wright's Native Son
Gwendolyn Brooks wins a Pulitzer Prize
Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Anne Moody’s Coming Age of Mississippi