In Their Own Words: “My Dream of America” in Common Voices, 2006 (PJClements)
This course will examine the
fluid idea of “a
dream of America.” Students not only will examine literary and
historical commentary on the idea of America, but will also explore deeply the words of the common
man and woman. Reading a wide range of authors, from Jefferson, de Toqueville, Whitman and Douglass to Studs Terkel and
immigrants from Ellis Island and JFK, students will experience a variety of American
culture. Extending their studies beyond the classroom, students in the course
will meet and write about Americans of all kinds in their own communities. The
major work of the course will be planning, designing, composing, building, and
publishing a modern collection of “Dreams of America,” an anthology
of representative New
Jersey men and women articulating their own “dream of
America.”
Course Texts
Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich
My American Century, Studs Terkel
Hunting Mr. Heartbreak, Jonathan Raban
What They Fought For, 1861-1865, James McPherson
The Real American Dream: A Meditation on Hope, Andrew Delbanco
Resources
America, the Dream
of My Life, Selections from the Federal Writers’ Project’s New Jersey Ethnic
Survey, David Steven Cohen, editor
In Search of America, Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster