Research Paper

Grade 11

American Art and Society

One of the ways historians come to understand a culture is by looking at that culture’s art. For instance, think about what art has to tell us about the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Aborigines, Native Americans, etc.

This assignment is to investigate what the arts of America says about us, about the American experience, about what it means to be American. Consider, for example, how a black artist’s paintings would be different from those of a white artist’s in that each is telling of a different, but valid, American experience. Think about some of the ideas you have studied this year about us: our love of nature, of solitude; our respect for the individual; the notion that opportunity is here for the taking, that we are a nation of abundance and beauty. Think too about the experience of Native Americans and about the experience of slavery as well as the movement West and the hope and promise inherent in that adventure. Remember that you are not doing a REPORT on an artist but rather a RESEARCH paper on an artist’s work or on an art form. That means that your paper is proving something: HOW the art reflects something about the American experience

Topic Choices

Following is a list of artists (that includes painters, sculptors, musicians, and writers) as well as art forms. Your research is to investigate not the artist, per se, but his/her art and then to explore how and why it reflects something about the American experience, how it helps to tell the story of America.

Poets:

Small town life:

Edgar Lee Masters

E.A. Robinson

Native American Experience:

Louise Erdrich

N. Scott Momaday

Hispanic experience:

Sandra Cisneros

African-American Women:

Maya Angelou

Gwendolyn Brooks

Lucille Clifton

Carl Sandburg (the Mid West)

Robert Frost (New England)

Robinson Jeffers(West Coast)

Folk songs

Songs of the Railroad and the Western Experience

Patriotic songs

WWI

WWII

Political campaign songs

Songs of the Depression

Songs of labor and struggle

Songs of Tramps, Hobos, and Migrant Workers

Songs of the 60’s (protest, hippies, etc.)

The Beat Poets

Music

Rock and Roll

Motown

Rap

Jazz

Swing bands

Rodgers and Hammerstein

George and Ira Gershwin

Stephen Sondheim

Cole Porter

Art:

American Primitive Painters

Grandma Moses

Horace pippin

American Romantics:

Maxfield Parrish

American Realists

John Singer Sargent

Thomas Eakins

George Wesley Bellows

Winslow Homer

Edward Hopper

Thomas Hart Benton

Louis Lozowick

Childe Hassam

John Sloan

Grant Wood

American West painters

Peter Hurd and Henriette Wyeth

Charles Russell

Georgia O’Keefe

Andrew Wyeth

Norman Rockwell(illustrator)

Andy Warhol

Diego Rivera (the Mural Project)

James John Audubon

Poster Art

Record Album Art

Photographers

Ansel Adams

James Van Der Zee

Dorothea Lange

Harlem Renaissance Artists/Musicians/Poets

William Henry Johnson

Aaron Douglas

Duke Ellington

Louis Armstrong

Josephine Baker

Bessie Smith

Langston Hughes

Jean Toomer

Claude McKay

Required Sources

For this paper, you will be looking at two kinds of sources: primary and secondary.

Primary sources: These are, for this paper, the art-- the photographs, the songs, the literature (if you are doing poetry or plays)—itself. You are looking at, reading, or listening to these works and making judgments about them. You will describe and discuss them specifically in your paper. Other primary source material could be a thing like diaries of cowboys, railroad men, slaves, and soldiers. Think of primary sources as the authentic thing.

Secondary sources: These are what others (critics, historians) have written or said about the primary sources. You will use the secondary sources to help you understand and interpret the primary sources. Also here you could look at some background on information on the time period and the issues your topic addresses.

Steps in research:

1.  Read, read, and read. Get a general understanding of you topic; you can’t formulate a thesis without sufficient reading and viewing. At this point you should also be constructing a bibliography for your Works Cited page. You will continue to add to your bibliography as your research progresses.

2.  Formulate a tentative thesis. It is tentative at this point because it will probably become more focused as your research continues.

Sample theses:

1. American folk songs of the 1930’s reflect an America for whom the American Dream has failed and a nation that questions the values of democracy and individualism on which many have based their lives.

2. The Currier and Ives lithographs show an often idealized picture of American life at the turn of the century; their prints reveal a people who are energetic and industrious, closely connected to home and the out of doors.

3.  Construct a tentative outline that is your “best guess” at the structure and content of your paper, those areas that you think you will be taking notes on.

For Thesis 1: “American folk songs of the 30’s….”

I.  Economic and social conditions contributing to country’s feelings of despair and hopelessness.

II.  Songs which show this:

A.  Songs of labor and struggle

a.  Title of song, some lyrics, discussion of meaning and relation to thesis

b.  Another song title and discussion

c.  Another song title and discussion

B. Songs of the Dust Bowl

a.  Title.discussion of lyrics as they relate to thesis

b.  Title…discussion of lyrics

4.  Take notes with your outline as the guide. Your research, however, should refine your outline and suggest new areas of research. Your research might also eliminate areas from your outline, which now seem unimportant.

5.  Create an Inspiration document to organize/outline notes

6.  Rough draft

7. Final copy with Works Cited page.