John Brown Annotated Bibliography
To the Teacher:
John Brown was a larger-than-life figure. He generally appears in history text books, noted as a person who tried to take over Harpers Ferry prior to the start of the Civil War. Usually, there is no more than a paragraph or two of information as texts quickly move to a discussion of the war itself.
Brown is a historical figure in American history who still stirs controversy among historians. Was he a zealot? Was he insane? Was he a man working for justice? Was his judgment flawed or was his insight into the situation beyond other mortals? Did he precipitate the start of the war? Did he raise awareness of the injustices of slavery? Did he hurt the cause he gave his life to support?
Lyric Opera of Kansas City presents this curriculum on the opera John Brown to address some of these questions. It supports your students as they prepare for the opera experience. The unit consists of 14 lessons plus additional resources that can expand opportunities to support student interests outside of the lessons. It is web-based in that many of the resources and supporting material are found online. If your students do not have access to computers during their study, the lessons have been designed so that you can copy most of the sites and use the information in a non-web centered class. We hope that you can access the web to make use of the interactive features.
Each lesson has a brief introduction, objectives, alignment of the lesson to Kansas and Missouri state standards, a materials list and a procedure for implementing the lesson. These are followed by possible extension activities for students younger than and older than the target age - the middle school student.
We hope you find that the lessons support and enrich your curriculum. Our additional wish is that students become immersed in the questions surrounding John Brown and that the experiences help support their growth in decision-making and evaluative abilities.
Lyric Opera of Kansas City presents John Brown to you and your students during their 2008 season on Saturday, May 3 and Friday, May 9 at 8:00 p.m.; Monday, May 5 and Wednesday, May 7 at 7:30 p.m. and on Sunday, May 11 at 2:00 p.m. Tickets may be purchased from the Ticket Office at 816-471-7344.
Sincerely,
Martha A. Henry, Ed. D. and Keith S. Murray
Authors