The 2005 Idea of America Essay Contest
Join EDSITEment in support of the National Endowment for the Humanities We the People initiative, announced by President Bush in the fall of 2002. You can support this initiative by encouraging your students to enter the We the People 2005 Idea of America essay contest. All high school juniors are eligible to enter this contest by submitting essays on this year’s theme to compete for $10,000 in prizes and national recognition for the best essays. The theme of the contest this year asks students to discuss the challenges presented to the United States by totalitarian regimes during the twentieth century, and the American response to these challenges. With over one hundred EDSITEment lessons focused on some aspect of U.S. history, literature or culture, and with panel-reviewed websites providing unprecedented access to primary documents and artifacts, EDSITEment offers you and your students a wealth of resources for studying the historical origins and core ideas and values of the American Republic.
Students can begin their exploration of the “goals, methods, and results” of totalitarianism with an examination of fascism during World War II. The EDSITEment lesson plan Holocaust and Resistance presents students with the opportunity to investigate and reflect upon those who fought against fascism and genocide. This lesson plan utilizes the EDSITEment reviewed web resource the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which will bring students in contact with the stories, documents, and images of the Holocaust. This lesson plan and web site can help students begin to frame their discussion of America’s fight against fascism in the 1940s: what was this a fight against? Students might find it helpful to join their investigation of the Holocaust with an examination of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” speech. This oration, given in his 1941 State of the Union Address, and eleven months before the United States joined the war against the Axis powers, is the focus of the EDSITEment lesson plan Freedom by the Fireside: The Legacy of FDR’s “Four Freedoms” Speech.
You may also wish to investigate totalitarianism through a reading of George Orwell’s allegorical tale Animal Farm. You can use the EDSITEment lesson plan More than a Metaphor: Allegory and the Art of Persuasion as a framework for examining both Orwell’s story and the historical events which are the foundation for his critique of the Soviet Union in the 1940s. What are the ideas embodied in the actions of Orwell’s main characters, and particularly in the pig Napoleon, who is thought to be a representation of Josef Stalin? How does the final commandment of the book—“all animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others”— compare to the ideals of the United States Constitution?
In the EDSITEment lesson plan Images at War students are asked to contemplate some of the visual responses to the war against fascism. Students may find helpful many of the posters from the Powers of Persuasion exhibition that is included in this lesson plan. This website is available from the EDSITEment reviewed web resource, National Archives’ Digital Classroom. What can we learn about the ideals that united Americans during World War II by viewing images such as Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms posters? Students may also gain insight into the underpinnings of some of these ideals by investigating the connection between jazz and the fight against fascism in the EDSITEment lesson plan Jazz and World War II: A Rally to Resistance, a Catalyst for Victory. How might a comparison of democratic ideals and the fascist agenda be made through the American and German reactions to jazz music in the 1930s and 1940s?
Students may find it useful to turn to our founding documents for a catalogue of some of our country’s most important ideals. EDSITEment has a number of lesson plans which provide historical background for framing a comparison of totalitarianism and democracy. You may wish to investigate EDSITEment lesson plans which focus on the Constitution, such as The Constitutional Convention: What the Founding Fathers Said and The Constitutional Convention: Four Founding Fathers You May Never Have Met. You may also wish to turn to the philosophies and ideas of some of our founding father by reading lesson plans such as Jefferson and Franklin: Revolutionary Philosophers, James Madison: From Father of the Constitution to President and Jefferson and Franklin: Renaissance Men. In addition, students will find a wealth of information on some of the ideas which compelled the men and women of colonial America to establish their own nation in the lesson plan Voices of the American Revolution.
While the We the People Essay Contest is limited to high school juniors, many EDSITEment lesson plans designed for younger students can provide more information on some of our founding ideals. For example, you might turn to lessons such as Declare the Causes: The Declaration of Independence, and The Preamble to the Constitution: How Do You Make a More Perfect Union? In order to highlight the principles of democratic self-government established in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. You and your students might also turn to the EDSITEment lesson plan The First Amendment: What's Fair in a Free Country, which may help students to think about not only how the court system works in the United States, but also about how they might view the court system as a counterpoint in a comparison with totalitarian regimes. Each of these lesson plans can be adapted for use with older and more advanced students.
You and your students can also find a wealth of resources by searching many of the EDSITEment reviewed web resources available from this web site. In addition to the web sites already noted above, you might pay particular attention to resources such as the American Memory Project, the Anne Frank House, Civics Online, and the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Each of these sites can provide students with a starting point for their investigations into the concepts and ideals that are at the heart of the We the People Essay Contest theme for 2005.
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