Mark Twain - A History of a Great American Writer

This section will outline the different steps that must be followed in order to complete this unit.

1.  Biographical study of Samuel Langhorne Clemens also known as Mark Twain, his history, his genre, his personal and professional life.

First you will work individually using various different resources.  You MAY NOT USE WIKIPEDIA.  Resources available include the public library, the school library, various search engine results.  You must document the sources of each item you use.  You will record your research chronologically.

Here are some additional websites that may be of interest:

Mark Twain's boyhood home and museum in Hannibal, Missouri http://www.marktwainmuseum.org/

Mark Twain's home and museum in Hartford, CT http://www.marktwainhouse.org/

An encylopaedic documentation of the history and origins of the Mississippi River http://encyclopedia.stateuniversity.com/pages/15247/Mississippi-River.html

Next,  you will be assigned to a group of 3.  These three people will be your group for the remainder of this unit.  You and your group will share with each other your chronological research results.  It will be perfectly acceptable to update your own information with information learned from the group AS LONG AS THE SOURCES ARE DOCUMENTED.  Additional documentation will be to state which other student you "borrowed" the information from.

Finally, one document containing all the results of the combined effort, listed in chronological format, and including all the sources of each item will be created and handed in for review. 

2.  Successful completion of 20 Multiple Choice questions about Mark Twain, his biographical history.

This quiz about Mark Twain will be the culmination of the research done by the groups in class. There are six groups of 3 in this class.  The quiz will include three questions from each groups research results plus two questions added in that no group came up with.

3.  Written essay about Twain using the historical data and information learned about him, presented any way chosen.

You will return to individual work for this next part.  Based on your research, and using the combined research results from your group project you will write an essay about Mark Twain.  You can use any style you want, any essay format is acceptable.  You may be humorous, you may be factual and straight forward, you may be conversational...but  you must be historically accurate.

After your draft of your essay is complete, you will return to your assigned groups for peer review.  Essentially, all sitting in your circles, you can pass your essay draft to the person on your right for peer review.  What you will be looking for as a peer editor is spelling and grammatical errors, sentence structure, historical accuracy of the content, clear presentation of the writer's ideas to the reader, and satisfactory introduction, paragraph development, and conclusion of the essay.  The document that was edited by your peer will be submitted for teacher review.  The same document will be your guide to your final draft essay.

4.  Creation of 20 interview questions that one would want to ask Mark Twain, and based upon historical information that was already obtained about him.

You will return to individual work during this part of the Unit.  This will be the time where you will imagine yourself as the Journalism Student of the University of Missouri, presented with the opportunity to interview Mark Twain.  You will create 20 interview questions of your choosing.  Create these questions carefully and wisely.  Use the research information you have about Mark Twain and create questions that you feel your reading audience would be interested in knowing about Mark Twain...maybe questions that are somewhat probing, detailed, and have never been asked before.  Keep in mind that you, as the interviewer, will probably never get a second interview with Mark Twain so you won't necessarily get a chance for any follow up questions. 

Before writing your questions, you may want to review some YouTube videos of famous interviewers over the years...you may use the attached links. This may give you some ideas of the types of questions you may want to ask and perhaps help you develop your interview style.

5.  Written magazine article resulting from the 20 question interview with Mark Twain.

Time Magazine article about how Mark Twain changed the face of American Politics and how far ahead of his time he was on politics and race. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1820144,00.html

Barbara Walters interview with Hugo Chavez http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDaSJ23DRjs

Mike Wallace interview with Aldous Huxley http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGaYXahbcL4

During this final stage of this Unit, you will return to class with your 20 interview questions prepared for Mark Twain.  We will go around the room and you will ask ONE question from your list, pretending the teacher is Mark Twain.  This process should take the whole class period. 

Homework this night will be the writing of the magazine article about Mark Twain resulting from this interview.  You may use any style you like to write the article.  You can set it up as an interview ("20 Questions with Mark Twain") you may write a Biographical piece using the information from the interview, you can write it as though you interviewed him personally back in the late 19th to early 20th century, or you may write it from modern perspective looking back.  Your choice.

Returning to class with your completed draft essay, you will return to your assigned group for peer review.  Same rules apply for peer review of this article as the Essay before.  Peer Edited drafts will be submitted to the teacher, and the same edited draft will be returned to you for your final draft.