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Two Years Before the Mast

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Two Years Before the Mast A TEACHER’S GUIDE TO THE SIGNET CLASSICS EDITION OF RICHARD HENRY DANA, JR.’S TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST By COLLEEN A. RUGGIERI NATIONAL BOARD CERTIFIED TEACHER BOARDMAN HIGH SCHOOL, OHIO SERIES EDITORS: W. GEIGER ELLIS, ED.D., UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA, EMERITUS and JAMES E. MCGLINN, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA 2 A Teacher’s Guide to the Signet Classics Edition of Richard Henry Dana, Jr.’s Two Years Before the Mast TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 3 General Historical Review .............................................................................................4 People in Two Years Before the Mast ............................................................................... 5 Synopsis ............................................................................................................................ 6 Preparing to Read ......................................................................................................... 10 Maritime Vocabulary ............................................................................................11 A Glossary of Maritime Personnel ......................................................................12 Vocabulary Study ..................................................................................................12 A Guide to Literary Allusions ............................................................................. 15 During Reading .............................................................................................................16 After Reading ................................................................................................................. 21 Dealing with the Novel as a Whole ....................................................................21 Print Resources for Further Reading ..........................................................................23 Online Resources ...........................................................................................................24 About the Author/Editors of this Guide ...................................................................25 Copyright © 2006 by Penguin Group (USA) For additional teacher’s manuals, catalogs, or descriptive brochures, please email [email protected] or write to: PENGUIN GROUP (USA) INC. Academic Marketing Department 375 Hudson Street New York, NY 10014-3657 www.penguin.com/academic In Canada, write to: PENGUIN BOOKS CANADA LTD. Academic Sales 90 Eglinton Ave. East, Ste. 700 Toronto, Ontario Canada M4P 2Y3 Printed in the United States of America A Teacher’s Guide to the Signet Classics Edition of Richard Henry Dana, Jr.’s Two Years Before the Mast 3 INTRODUCTION Two Years Before the Mast is a powerful 19th century personal narrative that will provide students with an authentic understanding of America’s maritime heritage and the tremendous difficulties endured by sailors who outfitted the country’s ships. The book was written after Dana, who suffered weakened eyesight after an attack of measles, dropped out of Harvard College in 1834 and signed on for two years as a common seaman “before the mast” on the brig Pilgrim. The narrative established the tradition from which Herman Melville wrote, and it inspired other autobiographies which provided real accounts of life at sea in the great age of sail. Two Years Before the Mast would enrich any curriculum, especially courses in American literature, and would best fit into a curriculum during the period of Romanticism. For thematic purposes, the book would serve readers well in exploring themes such as adventure and survival, status and social class, freedom and individuality, maritime life, and exploitation. Students reading Dana’s adventures will be able to analyze the concept of national expansion, and they will recognize the struggles associated with the abuse of power. Readers will appreciate the fact that sometimes the privileged must overcompensate in order to gain respectability for their intellect and work ethic, and they will sympathize with the tyrannies and injustices endured by workers due to the personal weaknesses of their bosses; in Dana’s case, the abuse from captains. Teens will readily identify with the book’s themes of persevering through life’s challenges, working as a team, surviving difficult working conditions, and wanting to explore the world. Two Years Before the Mast will prove challenging to sophisticated high school readers as they delve through nautical jargon. However, memorizing terms and nauticalese is in no way necessary for understanding the story; students should be encouraged to push their reading forward rather than get lost in Dana’s use of specific terminology. While all students will benefit tremendously from reading this book, those living in the western United States may have an even greater interest in the narrative. This is because the story highlights Dana’s experiences in California, which was part of Mexico at that time. By reading Dana’s descriptions of his stops at Monterey, San Pedro, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Santa Clara, all learners will gain a stronger understanding of the region and the people living there in the early 19th century. The hardships of those working commerce during the age of sail, the plight of indigenous people, the strong sense of nationalism, and a realistic portrayal of events make the novel one that will resonate in the mind of its readers. This teacher’s guide presents an active learning approach for the study of the book. It emphasizes the importance of the genre of personal narrative, the connection of historical events to today’s times, and the significance of this work to the modern reader. The first section is primarily for teacher preparation, as it provides an overview which includes a synopsis of the plot, background of the author, a description of the literary period in which Dana wrote, a brief historical overview, and a list of people. The second section contains suggestions for teaching Two Years Before the Mast. Questions and assignment suggestions are arranged according to the order in which they could be completed as students read the book. Activities before reading will prepare students for handling the work, engaging them with themes or ideas to be encountered. Activating schema and setting the stage are essential for student investment in the reading, and materials in this section will help instructors to enable their students to connect with prior knowledge so that there will be a vested interest in studying the book. Vocabulary words, maritime/nautical terms, and a list of literary allusions are also included to assist students with their studies. Activities while reading are presented next; these materials include questions for discussion, writing prompts, quotations from the text which serve as springboards for discussion, and creative lesson ideas. Questions and assignments are written directly as they might be presented to students, rather than with instructional pedagogical terms that would be used exclusively by teachers. Honors students might be assigned all of the items for each section of reading, while instructors might scaffold and choose specific assignments for less equipped readers. Finally, activities for post-reading are also included. These activities focus on the book as a whole, including questions for discussion and writing, research topics and suggestions for projects. The guide concludes with a bibliography of resources. 4 A Teacher’s Guide to the Signet Classics Edition of Richard Henry Dana, Jr.’s Two Years Before the Mast DANA’S LIFE Richard Henry Dana, Jr. was born in Massachusetts on August 1, 1815. A case of measles weakened his eyesight, and under medical advice he left his studies at Harvard. He signed on as a common sailor aboard the Pilgrim and made the voyage around Cape Horn to California, where he worked for several months and then shipped back to Boston aboard the Alert. His health restored, Dana returned to Harvard, graduated, and went on to study law. He was admitted to the bar in 1840, just prior to the publication of Two Years Before the Mast. The book achieved tremendous success, and it was Dana’s only noteworthy literary work. From a literary perspective, the book is important because during Dana’s lifetime, most sailors could not read or write; therefore, publications about life at sea were typically penned from the captains’ perspectives. Two Years Before the Mast was the first to present the realistic voice of the common seaman, and he noted that the book was his attempt to correct the overly Romantic portrayal of maritime life presented by James Fenimore Cooper. Dana hoped to use this literary success to promote the rights of men who chose maritime careers, and published a legal manual, The Seaman’s Friend, which was very popular among sailors. Dana served as a delegate to the Free Soil Convention of 1848, appeared in many cases defending fugitive slaves, and served as a counsel for the United States in the trial of Jefferson Davis. He was writing a book on law when he died in 1882 from pneumonia. THE LITERARY PERIOD Dana wrote during the Romantic period of American literature, which lasted from 1830 to 1865. His contemporaries included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Though a nonfiction narrative, Two Years Before the Mast exhibits qualities of Romantic literature
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