What Types of Artifacts Can Be Paired With Literature?
The workshop sessions focus on eight types of artifacts, explored through the disciplines in which they are studied. Workshop 1: Visual Arts This session introduces the pairing of visual art objects with American literature by examining how two paintings by the early American portraitist John Singleton Copley can help teachers and students better understand the literary project of self-representation in Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography. Workshop 2: Political History In this session, teachers use political artifacts-items such as laws and “Wanted” posters that relate directly to the political process, and items such as newspapers that reflect political views and movements-to explore the political contexts reflected in John Rollin Ridge’s nineteenth-century fictionalized story of the outlaw Joaquin Murieta and Yoshiko Uchida’s Picture Bride, a novel about early twentieth-century Japanese immigrants to the United States. Workshop 3: Social History This session pairs the social history ar
