FC - Future Classics Module Overview

Future Classics

Introduction

Name the Musical Artist from the 2010s who will have the most lasting musical legacy.

You may have your own answer for this - but since 2019, the following songs have been number 1: Ed Sheeran with Beyonce singing "Perfect'", Camila Cabello (featuring Young Thug) singing "Havana" and Drake with "God's Plan."

Now compare this list to the same three months just 50 years ago.

Looking at the list from 1958, one artist probably is recognizable: Elvis. However, the song “Don’t”/”I Beg of You” isn’t one of his lasting hits. Although Pat Boone did have 33 number 1 hits.

The Billboard Top 100 is only one way to measure the success of a musical artist. Of course, sometimes a lasting artist manages to have a lot of popular hits (i.e. Elvis, The Beatles, Madonna). However, this isn’t always the case. A lot of artists cited by other musicians as popular don’t have this string of hits and some of these bands never achieve popular success. Think bands like Sonic Youth, the Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, the Who, the Grateful Dead, Metallica, N.W.A., Public Enemy who have never really had hits, but who are considered musically influential (if you’ve never heard of any of the above, it’s OK they are all from my generation, but maybe check one of them out).

The point is that 50 years is not a long time in the history of any art form, including popular music. Often what is popular, in vogue, or just downright “cool” eventually fades into obscurity. Artists like the ones I have mentioned might not even be known by some of you, which doesn’t mean that they aren’t quality music, but that time will slowly consume them. However, on the flip side there are artists making music right now who will also be known in 50 years, at least among music fans.

The same is true for literature. And what we call Western Literature has about a 3000 year history, so it is impossible to know everything about every author who ever existed. It’s estimated that in the United States alone that there are between 600,000 to 1,000,000 books published each year, and most of these sell less than 250 copies, which means that probably fewer people are reading them (your mother or boyfriend doesn’t count).

It is also difficult to predict which 5-10 books in a 50 year period will be the lasting ones—often what is at the top of the Best Seller List will become forgotten, whereas some obscure writings have a way of being recognized as influential long after they have been written and even when their authors have long stopped writing.

Yet, with this unit you are going to try to do just this—predict which book from about 1985 to the present will have some lasting significance. We will get started with some College Board recommendations, and then you will delve into the book and try to figure out just what they are seeing that suggests this book will someday become a literary classic like The Odyssey, the works of Shakespeare, or War and Peace.

This module will be a bit different because you will not be taking official College Board prompts; instead you will be creating and sharing them in the discussion area; this module will prove to be one of the more challenging because you will be checking each other’s work.

Module Lessons Preview

In this module, we will study the following topics:

The New Literary Canon: This lesson will provide a brief introduction into where you are going to start with text selection.

Your Book as a Prose Prompt: Your book as a prose prompt: you will select a passage from your book and then create a prompt, and then create an analysis paper for someone else’s book.

Your Book as an Open-Ended Prompt: You will select a series of open ended questions, and in a paragraph explain how it fits these prompts.

Your Book as a Multiple Choice Prompt: Your book as a multiple-choice prompt: perhaps the most challenging assignment will be to create a series of AP level multiple-choice questions based upon a passage from your novel. You will also take some written by other students, and correct them as they answer your questions.

Literary Merit in a Post-1985 Book: Literary Merit in Post 1985 Selected Work: in the final assignment you will write a concise yet precise explanation of why your book will be still studied as a work of literary merit in the next 50 years.

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