Name:_________________________________________

 

An American Tail: Historical Fiction or Disney Creation?

 

An American Tail is a story of immigration that has been tailored towards kids (obviously, since it’s a cartoon). The movie is designed to provide the story of an immigrant family’s voyage to the United States and the experiences they encounter once they have arrived. Due to the fact that the movie is aimed at the very young, it is important that Disney has given an accurate portrayal of the immigrant experience, otherwise, mistruths might continue to be spread. Now obviously there are some scenes in the movie that would never take place in an immigrant’s life, such as giant contraptions designed to chase away cats or a cat and mouse singing with each other, or even the fact that the whole movie deals with talking animals! However, it is your task to determine whether or not the producers and cartoonists at Disney do a good job depicting the immigrant experience.

 

Your task will be to write an essay evaluating the accuracy of An American Tail. In order to prepare for the writing of the paper, as you watch the movie, you should be looking for examples of the following. As you identify ideas, people, or events in the movie that we have covered in class, you should take notes of how that idea is being covered. At the end of the movie, you should decide whether enough of the main issues have been covered and decide how accurate the move is. If you have decided that the movie is NOT accurate, you need to explain how and where other ideas from class could have been addressed. Below are a list of ideas and events that we have covered in class:

 

·         Push Pull Factors

·         Ellis Island

·         Tammany Hall

·         Boss William Tweed

·         Tenement Living

·         Unions (Knights of Labor)

·         Sweat Shops (Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, The Jungle)

·         New York as Shadow and Light

·         Anarchy (Haymarket Square Riot)

·         Industrialization

·         Social Darwinism

·         Laissez Faire government

 

As was mentioned before, in order to answer this question accurately, you need to make the following decisions: Does the movie cover the ideas that we have discussed in class (which are also listed above).  If you think that they have been discussed in the movie, you then need to decide whether the movie portrayed them accurately.

 

Once you have determined what ideas you are going to be discussing in the paper, you will need to go back over the sources and

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The paper will be written primarily in school, but you need to work diligently to make sure that you have little to no work to do outside of school. The schedule of work will be as follows:

 

Tuesday/Wednesday, April 22nd/23rd

Watch Movie

HW – Due Thursday, April 24th – A rough draft of your thesis is due. Remember to bring a thumb drive to save!

Thursday,  April 24th

Work on thesis in class. Review sources and find relevant quotations to include in the paper.  

HW: Thesis and Sources ready for use in class.

Friday, April 25th

Work on writing paper in class.

HW: Continue to work on rough draft at home.

Monday, April 28th

Continue to work on rough draft of paper.

Conferences with Mr. Buckley. Continue to work on polishing up rough draft.

HW: Continue to work on Rough Draft.

Tuesday, April 29th

Last day of class time for paper. Conferences with Mr. Buckley. Spend time polishing the rough draft and preparing to hand it in. Work on Work Cited Sheet.

HW: Prepare Final Draft to be handed in.

Wednesday, April 30th

Final Draft ready to be handed in.

 

American Tail Process Sheet

Wednesday, April 23rd

Completed notes from movie

10 points  ______/10 earned

Thursday, April 24th

Draft of Thesis ready in class

10 points ______/10 earned

 

Thumb drive brought to class

5 points  ______/5 earned

 

Collected at least one (1) quote from each source to be used in class.

10 points ______/10 earned

 

Worked hard for entire class

5 points ______/5 earned

Friday, April 25th

Worked hard for entire class

5 points ______/5 earned

Tuesday, April 29th

Teacher conference

5 points ______/ 5 earned

 

Worked hard for entire class

5 points ______/ 5 earned

 

Completed rough draft

15 points ______/ 15 earned

Wednesday, April 30th

Worked hard for entire class

5 points ______/5 earned

Thursday, May 1st   

Final Draft ready to be handed in.

10 points ______/10 earned

Total points earned

__________/85