Scottsboro Synthesis Project

Transcription

1 Scottsboro Synthesis Project Synthesize researched material from reliable secondary and primary resources in order to answer and support your guiding question in a multi-genre project. Creativity Make the audience think and reflect on the question and conclusion

2 Example: Guiding Question: How did the trials affect the boys lives? Resource Documentary Scottsboro: An American Tragedy (PBS) Analyze: Facts, quotes, structure, statistics, audience, author They were literally living like dying men might live. Stevenson They have a death sentence hanging over them and they're like drowning individuals, grasping for a life raft, grasping for a life preserver, grasping for straws. Carter their hope was fading; Kilby prison was closing in around them like a shroud. I was busy living from minute to minute. Everything was rumbling. I dreamed bad dreams, with freight trains, guards' faces, and courtrooms mixed up with the look of the sky at night. Patterson Conclusion your thoughts It seems like everything revolves around this one moment, like their lives stopped at Scottsboro and everything after that is just waiting. I would have thought they were waiting for their lives to start again, but it seems more like they were hopelessly waiting for death.

3 Example: Guiding Question: How did the trials affect the boys lives? Resource Letters/Journals From Olen Montgomery Roy Wright Heywood Patterson Analyze: Facts, quotes, structure, statistics, audience, author Punishment shall bee death in a chair Olen It was not a fair trial I ain t crazy no way Olen Lonely and thinking of you Roy Please don t write or tell me anything to make me feel good. Roy I have gone Chicken crazy. Roy I am innocent, as innocent as the tiny mite of life just beginning to stir beneath my heart. Heywood Conclusion your thoughts These letters seem so sad. The innocence and unfairness of the trial stands out in all of the letters. Roy didn t want to know anything good from the outside, like he didn t want to know about his other life because he had stopped with it. Heywood s description of the tiny mite of life tells me that he mostly doesn t feel alive. There s only a tiny piece of life stirring in him.

4 Guiding Question: Did this case ruin the lives of the Scottsboro Boys? Conclusion: All of the Scottsboro Boys suffered mentally and physically. Most of their lives they felt like they were not living, but just waiting for death. Even when they were released, most of the boys lived recklessly instead of living a regular life.

5 Found Poem from the letters of Olen Montgomery, Roy Wright, and Haywood Patterson I have been in jail for over five years. And it s a shame. I am in here for something I know I Did Not Do. Our punishment will be Death in the chair. I am innocent I will always say I am Innocent-- I will die with that word In my cell, lonely, Thinking of you. Your devoted son, Waiting. Linder, Douglas O. Letters from Alabama. Famous American Trials: The Scottsboro Boys Trials. UMKC, Web. 24 Nov

6 This found poem shows how the boys lives were put on hold. Because it is from their letters, it takes their words and combines their ideas which makes the reader realize that they were simply waiting in a jail cell with their lives on hold. The emphasis on their innocence also puts the blame on Ruby Bates and Victoria Price which is part of my conclusion. These two girls are responsible for essentially stopping the boys from living a real life.

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8 Linder, Douglas O. Biographies of the Scottsboro Boys Famous American Scottsboro Boys Trials. UMKC, Web. 7 Nov Trials: The Scottsboro Defendants. Encyclopedia of Alabama. Alabama Humanities Foundation, Web. 7 Nov People and Events: Clarence Norris, Scottsboro: An American Tragedy. PBS/WGBH, Web. 7 Nov Stevenson, Bryan. Transcript. Scottsboro: An American Tragedy. PBS/WGBH, Web. 7 Nov

9 This collage of images and quotes shows how the boys lives were put on hold. I chose the close-up images of the boys because their expressions look vacant and sad like people who ve given up their lives for no reason might look. I also washed out the image of the boys when they were arrested because I wanted it to show that from that one moment, their lives were being wiped out. The quotes come from the same boys who were in the close ups. They each indicate that they were done living or soon to be done living. Clarence Norris s quote came from much later when he had fought for a pardon, but it still shows that he thought that his life was given up for the fight for his own rights. Stevenson said the red quote in the documentary and it matched with all of the individual quotes and clearly shows how much the boys lives were changed.