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Connections between the Industrial Revolution & literature of the time

Introduction

This lesson was developed as part of the San Diego Unified School District's Triton Project, a federally funded Technology Innovation Challenge Grant.

This lesson is designed to help students discover how historical events, specifically the Industrial Revolution in England and America, can change and shape culture and society,by looking at how events and conditions of the Industrial Revolution influenced Romantic and Victorian literature.

Content Area and Grade Level

This lesson is designed to be a humanities unit for ninth grade language arts and world history.

Curriculum Standards

Students will research, analyze, understand and synthesize how politics, society, culture and economics influence and affect each other. This lesson uses existing standards from the California, San Diego Unified School District, and other frameworks.

Social Studies Standards Addressed (SDUSD)

History-Social Science Content Standard 9.4:

The student explains the importance of the Industrial Revolution and its effects on individuals and on social, political and economic systems

Performance Standards

• 9.4.1 Identify and explain the major geographic and human characteristics in England that led to industrialization.
• 9.4.3 Analyze the important relationships between the geographic, economic and political factors that encouraged the development of mechanized industry.
• 9.4.5 Explore the connections between industrialization and critical responses to it, such as labor unions, humanitarianism, romanticism and socialism and discuss the ideas and roles of such individuals as Blake, Wordsworth and Dickens.
• 9.4.7 Trace the expansion of industrialization into other nations and regions.

 

Language Arts Standards Addressed (SDUSD)

Language Arts Content Standard 9.3 (Reading)

The student understands, analyzes, interprets, evaluates and extends the meaning of a wide variety of significant nonfiction, fiction, poetry and drama

• Performance Standards
  • 9.3.1 The student responds to nonfiction, fiction, poetry and drama using interpretive, critical and evaluative processes. (evaluates structural development of a story's plot; explains the effect of point of view; makes inferences and draws conclusions about fictional and non-fictional content, events, characters, setting, theme and style; interprets effect of leterary devices; demonstrates how fictional and non-fictional literary works reflect the culture that shaped them)
  Language Arts Content Standard 9.4 (Reading)

  The student understands, analyzes, synthesizes and evaluates informational text and public and functional documents, connecting text with prior knowledge and experience.

  Performance Standard

  • 9.4.1 The student reads informational materials to develop understanding an expertise and produces oral and written work.
  Language Arts Content Standard 9.5 (Writing)

  The student writes effectively for a range of audiences and a variety of purposes, following the conventions of standard written language and using steps of the writing process as needed.

   

  Performance Standard

  • 9.5.1 The student demonstrates control of the rules and conventions of the English language.
  Language Arts Content Standard 9.6 (Writing)

  The student produces both literary and informational text by completing authentic tasks characteristic of the real world. In the process, the student demonstrates awareness of audience and purpose, command of standard language and the process.

  Performance Standards

  • 9.6.2 The student produces a response to literature in which he or she engages the reader, advances and supports a judgment, demonstrates understanding of the work, anticipates readers questions, recognizes possible ambiguities, nuances and complexities and provides closure to the writing.
  • 9.6.4 The student produces a report, e.g., in social studies or science, in which the writer synthesizes and paraphrases information from multiple sources and assigns precise credit to sources; engages the reader by establishing context; develops a controlling idea; creates an organizing structure appropriate to purpose, audience and context; includes appropriate facts and details; excludes extraneous and inappropriate information; provides a sense of closure to the writing and uses a wide range of appropriate strategies.
  Language Arts Content Standard 9.8 (Speaking, Listening and Viewing)

  The student listens to, views and responds critically to a variety of multimedia communications and demonstrates a variety of organizational strageties and delivery techniques to convey meaning effectively.

  Performance Standard

  • 9.8.1 The student makes informed judgments about television, radio and film productions.

During this unit, students will:

• Identify and evaluate the causes and effects of the Industrial Revolution
• Identify how economic, political and literary trends during the Industrial Revolution spread to other countries, particularly America
• Read a Victorian novel ("Alice in Wonderland"), and/or discuss and analyze poetry and short stories from the Romantic and Victorian periods (both English and American)
• View and analyze a film interpretation of novel(s) written during the Victorian Period (ie.--"Jane Eyre," "Great Expectations" or "David Copperfield," "Moby Dick," "Billy Budd," "Tom Sawyer" or "Huckleberry Finn," etc.
• Write a research report in which the student identifies how a political or social aspect of the Industrial Revolution effected a cultural or social aspect

San Diego teachers may wish to use the language of the District's Applied Learning Standards which were drawn from the the National New Standards Project.

Implementation Overview

The lesson is organized so that students first research how to organize and write a research paper. They then investigate, evaluate and analyze the Industrial Revolution. They will also read and analyze Romantic and Victorian poetry, essays and a novel (recommended novel: "Alice in Wonderland"). Ideally, students should do research on the Industrial Revolution in history class, with reading and analysis of literature and learning how to write a research paper done in English class. The research paper would then be written in both classes. The project ideally should take about a month to execute. The lesson is organized so that students do internet research in three phases, then write a research paper.

1. Students will look up specifics of how to write a research paper, including documenting sources
2. Students will research aspects of the Industrial Revolution from specific internet sites, print out materials, read, share and discuss information gathered
3. Students will

Resources Needed

To implement this lesson, you will need to have access to the following resources:

Internet:

How to write a research paper

Effects of Industrial Revolution and how they affected poetry and literature of the Victorian Era

Classroom:

• class set of history books
• pictures on the Industrial Revolution
• Computer Encyclopedia
• Romance and Victorian poetry
• Class set of Victorian novel ("Alice in Wonderland")
• Videos of films based on Victorian literature

(It is expected that the project will be implemented and monitored by the history and language arts teachers. It is also recommended that if students are not be computer literate, they are trained by a technology teacher. It is also recommended that teachers' aides be available to assist in the computer lab during internet research time and computer writing time.)

Entry Level Skills and Knowledge

Students will need to know how to do internet research and input a research paper into a word processing program.

Teachers should know how to do internet research and be able to guide students in the steps of writing a research paper. Language arts teachers should feel free to use their favorite literature from the British and American Romantic and Victorian eras.

Evaluation

A task list for the research paper matches a rubric assessing whether the standards listed above were met in the writing of the final research paper. Rubrics can be developed to assess shorter assignments and readings for individual lesson.

Conclusion

The ultimate goal of this project is to help students see connections between historical events, economic and social shifts and changes and how those impact society and culture, specifically, literature and the other arts.