I will never forget reading an excerpt from Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. I was so grossed out that I did a full-body shiver. YUCK! And then I thought…what a great way to get students’ attention! The gross-out factor is always an easy way to hook your students, and there are a few times in a US History course when the opportunity arises to use such a ploy. If you are covering muckrakers and the Progressive Era, excerpts from The Jungle are a must. I poured over pages of the book and compiled my favorite passages here.
So how can you use these passages? I used them with window notes. (If you are not familiar with window notes, you can watch a short prezi on them here, but I think you will understand the basics just by looking at my PowerPoint slides.). Essentially, you are allowing students to take notes in such a way that it appeals to different types of thinkers and multiple intelligences. First, display this PowerPoint on the board for the students to copy. Then, you have two options:
1- Read some of the passages aloud. If you do this, I suggest that you read them twice. The first time through, have all students put their pencils down and just listen and focus on what they are hearing. Then, during the second reading, allow students to fill in the notes as you read. (I loved hearing the students’ reactions as I read the gross parts out loud!) If you read these, I suggest only choosing a couple of passages, as reading them all might stretch your students’ attention spans too much. Plus, the point can be conveyed thoroughly with only one or two of these passages.
2- Have students read the passages silently and fill in the notes as they go.
The PowerPoint that I have created has two different options to give you an idea of what you can do. You can be very general or very specific.
Other Options:
- Use an excerpt as a bell ringer to introduce muckrakers or labor unions.
- Read one aloud and have students write a short freewrite as an exit ticket.
- Have students create a poster protesting the working conditions in the meat-packing factories.
- Have students imagine that they are a worker in a meat-packing factory and have them create a journal entry about a day at work.
Also, for you economics teachers out there, you can use these to introduce the importance of government regulation and how it protects the public. Even if you don’t use them, the excerpts are a great read…and they’ll definitely make you more appreciative of the FDA!