u/nadandocomgolfinhos

I am not a historian. I teach an ESL class and those students are in US history 2. I am trying to align my readings to the history class because my students have zero background knowledge about the US.

I had no idea who Mother Jones was until a few weeks ago and I’m now reading her autobiography. In it, she references a Chicago Tribune article where it “suggested ironically that the farmers of Illinois treat the tramps that poured out of the great industrial centers as they did other pests, by putting strychnine in the food.”

Is anyone familiar with this article? It seems like it would be a great piece to teach and analyze and it would help students to understand the context of that time. I can also hit my rhetorical analysis standards, author’s purpose, audience awareness, etc.

I have no idea how to go about finding it. How can I narrow down the time period? Is it famous? My American history knowledge is woefully lacking, hence the stack of books I’m trying to work through to learn as much as possible so I can be the best teacher possible.

Mother Jones’ book is a good read and I’m definitely going to incorporate her writing into the class. Does anyone know how heavily edited the autobiography is? Is there any background knowledge on her that I should know?

Please ELI5. This is all overwhelming.

Building off of the post and the use of the word “negro”. I teach one ML ELA class and I spend a lot of time on the n word and why my students should not use it and why it’s never allowed in class.

Personally I pause and replace that word with my silence.

Dr Hiram Smith of Bucknell just published a book, “Wassup my nigga?” and on a recent facebook post he said that there are over 2000 instances of that word in his book. I have ordered the book and I plan on reading it over the summer. Has anyone else heard of it? Read it?

One interesting tidbit is that no one ever asked for the linguistic perspective.

Linguistics is my first love. I’m teaching history by accident- I was asked to teach an ML ELA class in addition to Spanish and my ML students are all having an awful time with their history class so I’m working to align my curriculum with that class.