Designing the American Dream

Thomas Jefferson,
author of Declaration of  Independence

The American Dream--what is it, and is it still obtainable for us, the 'regular Joe's'? 

 The Declaration of Independence did not initially set up the idea that we think of as our stereotypical 'American Dream". I'm pretty sure that Thomas Jefferson never thought, "Hey, I hope everyone gets a house out  of this deal."  In fact, the Declaration of Independence uses words and phrases such as, "All men are created equal and there are certain unalienable rights that governments should never violate". However, we know that this dream was not applied equally to everyone--otherwise slavery would have never existed. So, who was he selling his dream to?


In class you were asked to answer questions about your beliefs and why you held these ideologies. Today in class we will look at your ideologies and I will ask you to compare your answers with those of your peers. In order to better understand what the American Dream we must appreciate that the dream for each person is, in fact, different. You and other students may have similar beliefs, or aspects of what the American Dream is, but at its core it will be different. We will play a little game of Give One/Get One, where you will share out your answers and write them down. You must follow all the rules of the game otherwise it won't be meaningful.

As I present information follow along with the Designing the American Dream Introduction PowerPoint with your partner. Please, do not wonder off--I know the web is interesting and you can find all sorts of wonderful things to pin on Pinterest, but were busy figuring what our dream is over here.

Time to build our dream,

Mrs. Ordway