Bell-Ringer: Write a paragraph (5-8 sentences) using one of the following topics to describe YOUR “American Dream”. These are words that you and your classmates came up with during the writing prompt last Friday. If you brought in your own article or image, you can write about that instead.

Adapted from Wordle.net

The “American Dream”

Car

House

Family

Number your paper 1-10 and write a sentence explaining

what each of these images have to do with the

“American Dream”.At the end, we will take time to rank the images in the order of

what best depicts our understanding of the “American Dream”.

Fireworks and Independence

#1

Home Cooked Apple Pie

#2

Coffee Shop / Starbucks / Customer

#3

Vacation / Money for a trip

#4

High School Graduation / Education

#5

College

#6

Own a Business

#7

Health Care

#8

Communication: TV (Cable), Internet (Facebook), Cell Phones

#9

Money

#10

Key Concepts:

- The “American Dream”

- Old saying / slogan “Pull yourself up by the bootstraps”

- Class Status

1. How does the “American Dream” differ fromone person to the next? Does everyone havethe same opportunities?

2. Consider the American slogan “pull yourself up by the bootstraps,” which means that if youwork hard enough, you can do anything. In what ways is this true or false?

3. In what ways does class status (determinedby how much money a family has – upper class/rich, middle class, working class, poor) impactthe “American Dream”?