I Hear America Singing

Complete each activity below, incorporating details from both poems over the course of your work. Be ready to share your work or findings with peers, as well as an analysis of your process (such as how your ideas evolved, or what surprised you along the way).

1. Use scholarly sites and resources to briefly investigate major events in American history that preceded the publication of each poem (1860, 1914).

First, for each poem, note 3-4 historical events whose tone, impact, or outcome in some way befits the mood and theme of the poem that followed. Begin two timelines that you either draw by hand or create in a slideshow format by compiling your events with dates.

Collect a series of visual images that depict the events you chose. These can be photographs, but they can also be newspaper headlines, works of art, cartoons, works of propaganda, magazine covers, or other primary source documents. Print and paste or copy and paste these to your timelines in a visual array. Sites such as this “Primary Source Timeline” from the Library of Congress might be helpful both in noting timeline events and finding primary source images.

Add the lifespan of each poet to their respective timeline.