2. What role does the NASA Space Program play in American culture?
Finding Poetry in our History
Guiding Question:
What role does the NASA Space Program play in American culture?
Page 2 in your packet

3. What is it?
One of the best ways to teach students about historical events is get them 
emotionally involved in the content. So how can we do that? By allowing 
them to choose meaningful phrases from primary source documents that 
speak to the heart of the matter and to the hearts of the students.
Why Try It?
1. The process of recasting the text they are reading in a different genre helps students become more insightful readers and develop creativity in thinking and writing.
2. By providing the focus of an essential question, the process 
allows students to powerfully synthesize information found in primary sources while making connections to personal thoughts, feelings, and opinions about the historical issue.

4. OK, Enough Already! How Do We Do It?!
So what we want to do is get kids to dig into 
documents or textbooks or historical novels and 
find those things that “hide in what others say 
and write.”
Instructions:
Ask students to choose (or you select for them) a passage from a text, primary source or novel that you have selected. That selection should include a lot of strong description or dialogue.
Explain that the class is going to use the passage to compose original poems, called found poems.
Define found poems for the class as poems that are composed from words and phrases found in another text.
Step students through the process of composing original found poems
(or "raps")

5. Nixon’s Speech in the Event of Apollo 11’s Failure
Source A:
Nixon’s Speech in the Event of Apollo 11’s Failure
Take a moment to read and reflect on Source A silently on your own.
Use your highlighter to mark any phrases, descriptive words, or verbs that speak to you AND could be used to answer the guiding question: "What role does the NASA Space Program play in American Culture?"
Then...

6. What role does the NASA Space Program play in American culture?
Document Analysis
Use the "Document Analysis" graphic organizer on page 5 of your 
packet to record your thoughts and answer the following 
questions:
What words and/or phrases stuck out to you as you read Nixon’s speech?
Based on the phrases you selected, how can we best answer the guiding question?
Guiding Question:
What role does the NASA Space Program play in American culture?

7. "What role does the NASA Space Program play in American Culture?"
Your Turn!
Review the remaining primary sources
Select the words and/or phrases that appeal to you (highlight)
Consider how each document addresses the Guiding Question
"What role does the NASA Space Program play in American Culture?"
Primary Sources:
Neil Armstrong’s broadcast from the Moon
Phone conversation between President Nixon and Astronauts
John F. Kennedy’s speech
Letter exchange between NASA and Dexter, age 7

8. Now, Let’s “Find” the Poetry in our History
Now that you have FOUND phrases you like, you need to create your poem (or "rap").
Arrange the phrases you have picked out in an order that YOU feel flows
Take liberty with the tense and punctuation
Rhyming is unnecessary
Aim for at least 10 lines
Dramatic repetition is acceptable

9. What role does the NASA Space Program play in American culture?
What I Came Up With...
What role does the NASA Space Program play in American culture?
As We Set Sail
Men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations,
They bind more tightly the brotherhood of man,
One small step for man
That looks beautiful from here.
All the people on this earth are truly one,
These pioneers,
Our Earth,
One giant leap for mankind,
Space is there and we’re going to climb it

10. Let’s hear who is a poet and didn’t know it!
Let’s answer today’s Guiding Question!
What role does the NASA Space Program play in American culture?
(Students may respond in oral or written format.)

11. What skills are required/practiced for students to be able to 
complete this activity?
Comprehension
Synthesis
Creation
Evaluation

12. Westward Expansion-Manifest Destiny
Quadrant Analysis: Analyzing Primary Sources Through Objective Observation (Visual Literacy)
Westward Expansion-Manifest Destiny
American Progress
~John Gast 1872

13. What is it?
Using art in primary source analysis to synthesize information and guide students through the process of making inferences and using evidence to support those inferences.
Why Try It?
1. Students learn how to problem solve, and they also learn how to connect previously obtained information to new information.
2. The more practice students get, the better real-world problem solvers they will be.
3. Aid to memory processing: connecting visuals to memory and tapping into schema.

14. OK, Enough Already! How Do We Do It?!

15. Use your graphic organizer!
For each quadrant, identify and note details…
What do you see?
What do you notice first?
What people and objects are shown?
How are they arranged?
Describe the physical setting.
What, if any, words do you see?
Other details worth noting?
Use your 
graphic 
organizer!

17. Quadrant 1

18. Quadrant 2

19. Quadrant 3

20. Quadrant 4

21. Then, turn and share your observations with your table mates.
Now, look at the "big picture" as a whole and start to put your ideas together. What do you think is the artist's intent/message?
Then, turn and share your observations with your table mates.
American Progress

22. What did you notice?

23. Variations in Light and Geography
East is bright, warm, and welcoming – Sun is rising on America
West is dark with ominous storm clouds
Gentle rolling hills of the East give way to…
Jagged mountains in the West

24. Simple Native American travois Covered wagon Pony Express Stagecoach
Evolving Transportation Technology
Simple Native American travois
Covered wagon
Pony Express
Stagecoach
Three railroads

25. Groups of People
Native Americans
American prospectors
Farmers
Settlers

26. Woman Illuminates as she moves from East to West
Star of empire on her head
Right hand
Common School book
Emblem of education
Left hand
Stretches out the wires of telegraph
Brings intelligence to the land

27. Passage of time (Is this a snapshot? Or a progression?)
Big Picture...Key Ideas
Passage of time (Is this a snapshot? Or a progression?)
Inevitability of technological progress
Progress from East to West
Natives flee from progress, unable to adjust to shifting tides of history

28. Narrative Writing Prompt
Using the details observed in the art and your prior knowledge of Manifest Destiny, write a brief narrative from the perspective of a settler or Native American about westward expansion.
American Progress

29. Your Turn!
Brainstorm some ways to try out one (or both) of these instructional strategies.
Where in your curriculum would this fall?
How would you implement this?
What resources do you need?
BE PREPARED TO SHARE!!