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Young TAH: Charms, Bi-County Collaborative September 23, 2010 Michael T. Young TAH: Charms, Bi-County Collaborative September 23, 2010 Silence Dogood: The Formation of Benjamin Franklin’s Wit and Ideology Typically, students in a college-preparatory or advanced American literature survey course read Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography in its entirety or an anthologized excerpt of it. Excerpts often include Franklin’s flight from his apprenticeship in Boston; his near shillingless arrival in Philadelphia with his pockets “stuffed with shirts and socks”; and his scientific experiment in moral perfection, which includes his list of virtues for which he is best known. These virtues and these accounts, according to some critics, created a glorification of the middling class in America (Wood 205) and highlighted a transition from the kind of Roman virtues typically celebrated during the Enlightenment to ones more bourgeois in intent (Staloff, lecture). Well-guided students should pause to reflect on Franklin’s vain boasting about his secretly submitted and pseudonymously published in his brother’s journal, The New England Courant. He was only sixteen at the time. The “Silence Dogood” satires read in their original format in The Courant on the Massachusetts Historical Society’s (MHS’s) web site will put Franklin in a new light for students in an American literature survey or American history course. These essays reveal a more-than-precocious adolescent exercising his wit and shaping his political and moral philosophy on which he will stake his life and career. Understanding that a sixteen-year-old could write in the voice of a forty-year-old spinster might even inspire some students to become writers themselves. Furthermore, placing these essays in the context of each edition of the Courant reveals republican ideas of the enlightenment filtering down to the masses and to young Franklin himself and shows general attitudes, superstitions, commercial activities, current events, and vices of Bostonians at the time they were written. In a history or literature class, this kind of study will foster viable primary-source research. In an English Language Arts classroom, these clever essays can teach students vital rhetorical strategies and literary terms such as satire, persona, verbal irony, pseudonym, personification, hoax, allegory, and euphemism, just to name a few. Massachusetts State Frameworks Employed in the Unit I. English Language Arts Learning Standards Reading and Literature Strand • 8.32: Identify and analyze the point(s) of view in a literary work. • 9.7: Relate a literary work to the seminal ideas of its time. • 10.6: Identify and analyze characteristics of genres (satire, parody, allegory, pastoral) that overlap or cut across the lines of genre classifications such as poetry, prose, drama, short story, essay, and editorial. • 12.6: Analyze, evaluate, and apply knowledge of how authors use techniques and elements in fiction for rhetorical and aesthetic purposes. 1 Composition Strand • 19.30: Write coherent compositions with a clear focus, objective presentation of alternate views, rich detail, well-developed paragraphs, and logical argumentation. II. U.S. History I Learning Standards The Political and Intellectual Origins of the American Nation: the Revolution and the Constitution, 1763-1789 USI.1 Explain the political and economic factors that contributed to the American Revolution. • B. How freedom from European feudalism and aristocracy and the widespread ownership of property fostered individualism and contributed to the Revolution Objectives 1. To witness and examine the formation of Benjamin Franklin’s wit, ideology, and moral character 2. To place Franklin in the context of the enlightenment 3. To promote viable primary-source research 4. To identify literary techniques and rhetorical strategies in writing Time Frame Three class periods with students working in groups and independently at home Background The New England Courant was established in 1721 by James Franklin, Benjamin’s older brother. It was the first continuously published newspaper in all the North American colonies (Wood 20). The Courant, unlike most colonial newspapers of the time, operated independently from the British colonial government authorities. In fact, James Franklin’s goal was to openly challenge and satirize the Boston establishment, particularly the religious views held by the prominent Puritan Mather family and its elitist, self-serving interests (21). In fact, the pseudonym Silence Dogood is a spoof on Cotton Mather’s Essays To Do Good. In this environment, Benjamin Franklin served as a printer apprentice for his brother, absorbing radical views through his exposure to wits less sophisticated than he. The essays selected for this curriculum unit contain a two-part autobiographical introduction to Franklin’s persona Silence Dogood, an attack on Harvard college, a humorous critique of alcohol consumption, and a reprinting of an essay on freedom of speech from London, which Franklin decided to 2 include to safely lampoon government officials for locking James in jail for a critical essay he had written the previous month (MHS). In these essays and in the surrounding articles in the Courant students can glean the building blocks of Franklin’s values, specifically regarding education and anti- “aristocratic pretensions” (Wood 218), that set him apart, say, from his Harvard-educated nemesis John Adams. We can also see the development of his moral character, which he will rehearse at the end of his life in the Autobiography and at the Constitutional Convention. For example, shrewd students will find a sprawling article written by another columnist praising “honour” and criticizing entitlement in the first edition of the Dogood series. As Wood informs us, Franklin shared remarkably similar beliefs in a letter to his daughter in 1784. Unfortunately, as Gordon Wood notes, such a virtue as “honor” would fall on deaf ears by unappreciative, and elitist, founders present at the convention (218-19). Procedures Part I: Establish historical context for the lesson. A. Through homework, lecture, and class discussion, students must be familiar with the following: 1. Basic principles of the Enlightenment and republican virtue 2. An excerpt from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin 3. Franklin’s beginnings, his loyalist tendencies, his treaty and peace brokering with France and England, his turn towards staunch radicalism, and his legacy 4. Literary techniques such as satire, irony, persona, and allegory 5. Alcohol consumption and taverns in eighteenth-century colonies Part II: Using Silence Dogood Documents A. Provide students with the link for the Massachusetts Historical Society web site so they can read them in hi-def and secure a computer lab, or copy documents for them B. Option 1: Under the guidance of the instructor, the entire class completes the study guide for document 1 so as to have a grasp of the lesson; then divide students into groups and assign each one of the other existing documents and study guides. C. Option 2: simply perform the second part of the above, skipping the first step D. Groups present their answers to the class Part III: Follow-up Assessment A. Students write a two to three page essay assessing to what extent their “Silence DoGood” essay and the New England Courant edition are reflective of certain qualities of Benjamin Franklin and the life and times of early eighteenth-century New England. 3 Works Cited Franklin, Benjamin. “From The Autobiography.” Adventures in American Literature. Ed. Francis Hodgins, et. al. Chicago: Harcourt Brace, 1989. 76-83. Lender, Mark & James Kirby Martin. Drinking in America: A History. New York: Free Press, 1987. "Silence Dogood: Benjamin Franklin in The New England Courant." Massachusetts Historical Society. MHS, n.d. Web. 22 Sep 2010. Staloff, Darren. "The Politics of the Enlightenment." Teaching American History. Charms, Bi-County Collaborative. Stonehill College, Easton, MA. 12/08/2010. Lecture. Wood, Gordon S. The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin. New York: Penguin, 2004. 4 Document 1: Silence DoGood, Essay 1, The New-England Courant, Number 35, 26 March - 2 April 1722 http://www.masshist.org/online/silence_dogood/doc-viewer.php?item_id=661&pid=6 5 6 Document 1: Silence DoGood, Essay 1, The New-England Courant, Number 35, 26 March - 2 April 1722 In most instances, the letter “s” looks like this: _________ (students print the character for “s” in the blank) Vocabulary fortnight, epistle, “leather apron man,” lucubrations, reprieve, frivolous, discretion Questions 1. According to the writer, what do audiences demand first and foremost of a writer before they can appreciate his/her work? 2. What were the circumstances of Dogood’s birth? 3. What does Dogood value most about his/her master? 4. What is the supposed sex of Silence Dogood? Explain your answer with support from the text. 5. Who, in fact, is “Silence Dogood”? How old was he at the time? 6. Revisit #2 above. Is there anything in the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin that would allow you to generalize as to why a teenage Franklin would envision the circumstances of his persona’s birth in this way? Primary Source Research Instructions: As a group, peruse the complete New England Courant for the above date on the Massachusetts Historical Society web site. Look at general attitudes about politics, religion, and current events. Read the shipping logs, advertisements, current happenings, and the lead article on the virtue of “honour.” Report to the class on the following question: What does
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