Lesson 3

Lesson Goals

Texts

Core

• • Chapter 5: “Detached Houses: The Dream of Home Ownership,” excerpt from The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation, Jim Cullen, Oxford University Press, 2003
  • “The Dark Side of Suburbia,” Kimberly Kutz Elliott, Khan Academy, 2015
  • “The Growth of Suburbia,” Kimberly Kutz Elliott, Khan Academy, 2015

• • “Federal Housing Administration (FHA),” Marie Justine Fritz, Encyclopædia Britannica
  • “The Rise of Suburbs,” CitiesX, YouTube, 2018

Materials

Tools

• Attending to Details Tool

• Extending Understanding Tool

• Video Note-Taking Tool

• Vocabulary Journal

Reference Guides

• Literacy Toolbox Reference Guide

Question Sets

• The American Dream of Homeownership: Section 1 Question Set

Editable Google Docs

• Attending to Details Tool

• Extending Understanding Tool

• The American Dream of Homeownership: Section 1 Question Set

• Video Note-Taking Tool

• Vocabulary Journal

Activity 1: Read

We will read khan academy’s overview of “The Growth Of Suburbia” as an introduction to the history of suburban migration and homeownership in the 1950s and beyond.

On your own, read Khan Academy’s “The Growth of Suburbia,” by Kimberly Kutz Elliott, as an introduction to the history of suburban migration and homeownership in the 1950s and beyond.

Use the following guiding questions to guide your annotations:

1. What are the key ideas presented about the growth of the suburbs in America and their impact on homeownership patterns?

2. What is the meaning of the text’s claim that “the postwar exodus to the suburbs was part of a vast reorganization of power and money that affected American industry, race relations, and gender roles”?

3. What do you think might have been the impacts of that exodus on race relations and gender roles? Why?

4. What details does the text present about how American houses came to be produced “on the assembly line”?

Activity 2: Discuss – Read – Write

We will discuss information and ideas from the khan academy text and its claim that migration to the suburbs influenced many aspects of American life to prepare for a deeper discussion of how historians have viewed the rise of suburbia.

Step 1

Follow along and participate in a discussion as your teacher models an annotation and analysis of the first three paragraphs from “The Growth of Suburbia,” including the following claim:

The postwar exodus to the suburbs was part of a vast reorganization of power and money that affected American industry, race relations, and gender roles.

Discuss the meaning and implication of the following key phrases from the claim: “exodus to the suburbs,” “vast reorganization of power and money,” and “affected American industry, race relations, and gender roles.”

Share details from the text that suggest how and why the American housing industry changed—how houses came to be produced “on the assembly line.”

Speculate about how the suburban exodus might have also changed race relations and gender roles while considering the excerpt from "Detached Houses: The Dream of Home Ownership" that you read for homework.

Step 2

Next, we are going to read a second Khan Academy overview by Kimberly Kutz Elliott called “The Dark Side of Suburbia.” In this text, Elliott uses two different foreign words that are commonly used in English but may be unfamiliar to you:

• ennui

• de facto

Before we begin reading, let’s explore how these words are used in the text to determine their meaning from context.

“But many began to identify a creeping sense that there ought to be more to life than childcare and housework. Minority women did not experience the ennui of suburban life because, by and larger, they were barred from suburbia altogether.”

1. Based on these two sentences, what might ennui mean?

“Although the Supreme Court ruled in 1948 that such covenants were unenforceable,de facto segregation continued and was frequently enforced by violence and intimidation.”

2. Based on this sentence, what might de facto mean?

Step 3

Individually, read the Khan Academy overview by Kimberly Kutz Elliott, “The Dark Side of Suburbia,” and consider the following questions:

3. How does this text further explain how the suburban exodus changed race relations and gender roles?

4. How does Elliott’s choice of the words ennuiand de facto contribute to her description of the suburbs in paragraph 6?

Use a copy of the Extending Understanding Tool to answer the first question, and make connections among ideas and information in the two texts.

Discuss how the text connects to what you previously speculated.

Activity 3: Read – Discuss

We will discuss the thoughts we wrote down on our Attending to Details Tools about author and Historian Jim Cullen’s experiences as his family migrated from new york city to the surrounding suburbs of long island.

Step 1

Consider how the information in the “About the Author” note below expands your understanding of the text you have read for homework.

The personal narrative you read, an excerpt from "Detached Houses: The Dream of Home Ownership," is based on the experiences of Jim Cullen, a white historian and author whose family moved from Queens in New York City to the suburbs of Long Island in the late ‘60s. Cullen uses his personal story as an introduction to the fifth chapter of his book The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation, a comprehensive historical analysis of various aspects of the American experience that was published in 2003. This chapter is entitled "Detached Houses: The Dream of Homeownership." Following his narrative introduction (which you read), Cullen explains and analyzes the history of American colonization, homesteading, migration, suburbanization, and segregation and discrimination in housing before returning at the end to his own perspective as a suburban homeowner in Westchester County, New York.

Join a three-person reading team with other students who addressed the same guiding question from the homework reading as you did. The questions again are as follows:

1. What details does the author present to explain why his parents chose to move from the city to the suburbs?

2. What details does the author present about his experiences growing up in the suburbs?

3. What details does the author present to explain why he feels a sense of shame about his upbringing in the suburbs?

Compare what you wrote on your Attending to Details Tool in response to the question you chose.

Step 2

Discuss the excerpt from "Detached Houses: The Dream of Home Ownership" as a class. As the class discusses the three guiding questions and Jim Cullen’s experiences, share the details your reading team identified and the observations you formed about aspects of White flight to suburbia with regard to moving there, growing up there, and feeling a sense of shame.

As a class, discuss how details in the excerpt from "Detached Houses: The Dream of Home Ownership" relate to the following claim from “The Growth of Suburbia”:

The postwar exodus to the suburbs was part of a vast reorganization of power and money that affected American industry, race relations, and gender roles.

Discuss the various perspectives about homeownership and suburban life that Cullen presents in his narrative.

Activity 4: Read – Write

We will examine excerpts from Cullen’s narrative in “Detached Houses: The Dream Of Home Ownership” to study his use of language and syntax, in particular, how he links ideas using transitional phrases and punctuation.

Step 1

Reread Paragraph 3 of "Detached Houses: The Dream of Home Ownership," which begins, “But Port Washington was also problematic for my parents.”

Consider the following questions as you examine the writing closely:

1. Cullen presents three reasons why living in Port Washington was problematic. What are they?

2. What words does Cullen use to link and sequence these three reasons?

Think about a decision you have had to make, and identify three outcomes of that decision. Using the same three linking phrases as Cullen uses, write a four-sentence paragraph mirroring the paragraph’s first statement and the three sentences that explain that statement.

Step 2

Reread Paragraph 8 of "Detached Houses: The Dream of Home Ownership," which begins, “Looking back now, however, I see their flight from Queens—and our forays back there—in a less heroic light.”

Pay particular attention to the sentence that begins, “I have tried to take refuge in any number of justifications…”

Consider the following questions:

1. In your own words, what are the three specific justifications that Cullen mentions?

2. What punctuation does Cullen use to structure this sentence? How does his punctuation structure the ideas in the sentence?

3. How does Cullen use the word that to link the three parallel clauses he uses to identify the justifications?

Writing from this model: Think of a situation in which you or your parents have had to justify a decision you have made. Using punctuation and the word that as Cullen does, write a sentence that mirrors Cullen’s and explains your justifications.

Activity 5: View – Write

To learn how other experts have analyzed suburban expansion in America, we will watch “The Rise Of Suburbs,” a video that presents a conversation between a Harvard economist and a Historian, and then compare their thinking to what we have learned from the khan academy and Cullen texts.

Watch the video “The Rise of Suburbs.” Write down evidence you find in the video related to the following claim from Khan Academy’s “The Growth of Suburbia”:

The postwar exodus to the suburbs was part of a vast reorganization of power and money that affected American industry, race relations, and gender roles.

You might use a copy of the Video Note-Taking Tool to help you take notes.

Use a copy of the Extending Understanding Tool to draw comparative conclusions among the texts and the video you studied in this lesson and to write down your conclusions.

Activity 6: Read – View – Write

We will view a video about suburbia based on a 1962 satirical folk song by Malvina Reynolds titled “Little Boxes.”

On YouTube, view “Little Boxes by Pete Seeger,” a video interpretation of his 1963 recording of the satirical folk song “Little Boxes.”

Read the lyrics to the song in your unit reader.

As you watch and read along, use a copy of the Video Note-Taking Tool to note images and phrases that stand out to you as satirical condemnations of suburbia.

Examine the aerial photograph from the text “The Growth of Suburbia.” With a reading partner, discuss how the photo helps you understand the lyrics of the song.

Activity 7: Read

For homework, we will learn about how the United States government has historically supported the dream of homeownership through legislation and federal agencies. We will read an informational article from the Encyclopedia Britannica about the creation of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) in 1934 and about the history of the FHA as it relates to homeownership for Americans.

For homework, read and annotate the online informational article “Federal Housing Administration (FHA)” from the Encyclopedia Britannica. Consider the following guiding questions while annotating:

1. How did the National Housing Act of 1934 encourage Americans to build or buy homes?

2. How did the National Housing Act of 1934 affect homeownership for racial minorities in ways different than for White Americans?

3. What does the history of the FHA suggest about the government’s role in both encouraging and limiting Americans’ access to the dream of homeownership?

Write new or interesting words you encounter in your Vocabulary Journal.