Unit 2 — The American Dream

Learning objectives Link to heading

• I can read short extracts from American Dream sources (Declaration of Independence, James Truslow Adams 1931, contemporary critique) and trace one continuity and one rupture.
• I can use sentence-level emphasis (cleft + inversion) for argumentative writing.
• I can write a 280-word essay paragraph that holds two readings of the Dream in tension.

curriculum framework (“Bildungsplan”) alignment Link to heading

• 3.4.1 / 3.5.1 Soziokulturelles Orientierungswissen / Themen
• 3.4.2 / 3.5.2 Interkulturelle kommunikative Kompetenz
• 3.4.3.2 / 3.5.3.2 Leseverstehen
• 3.4.3.5 / 3.5.3.5 Schreiben
• 3.4.4 / 3.5.4 Text- und Medienkompetenz

(Sources: https://www.bildungsplaene-bw.de/,Lde/LS/BP2016BW/ALLG/GYM/E1/IK/11-12-LF / https://www.bildungsplaene-bw.de/,Lde/LS/BP2016BW/ALLG/GYM/E1/IK/11-12-BF)

Lead-in story Link to heading

The class read three short extracts: the pursuit of happiness line from 1776; James Truslow Adams’s 1931 phrase American Dream in The Epic of America; and a 2024 critique by an economist who argued that the phrase has outlived its statistical basis. The class spent the lesson asking: which of these is the real one?

1. Activate Link to heading

Three-source scan. Match each line to a decade: 1776, 1931, 2024. Justify each match in 10 words.

2. Input Link to heading

Reading — three extracts Link to heading

1776 (Declaration of Independence): We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

1931 (Adams, The Epic of America): The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone.

2024 (economist, popular essay): Whatever else the American Dream is, it has, since the 1980s, outlived its statistical basis. Intergenerational income mobility in the United States is now lower than in most of comparable Western Europe.

Grammar — sentence emphasis (cleft + inversion) Link to heading

Cleft: It is the 1931 phrase, not the 1776 line, that we usually mean by ’the Dream’.

Negative inversion (formal): Not until the 1930s was the phrase coined. / Only after 1945 did the Dream become a mass image.

Cleft (what): What the 2024 critique argues is that the Dream has outlived its statistical basis.

3. Practise Link to heading

Niveau E — controlled Link to heading

1. Build a cleft emphasising the 1931 phrase: ___ what we usually mean by ’the Dream'.
2. Inversion: Not until 1931 ___ (the phrase coin / passive).

Niveau E — productive Link to heading

3. Build 4 emphasis sentences (2 cleft + 2 inversion).

4. Produce Link to heading

Essay paragraph, 280 words. Hold two readings of the American Dream in tension. Use 1 cleft + 1 negative inversion + 3 academic discourse markers.

Sample Link to heading

It is the 1931 phrase, more than the 1776 line, that we usually mean when we speak of the American Dream. James Truslow Adams’s claim — that life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone — is structurally different from the 1776 pursuit of Happiness in one important way: it is a claim about outcomes rather than rights. Not until the 1930s was the phrase coined; only after 1945 did the Dream harden into a mass image of single-family homes, rising wages, and a stable career. By contrast, the 2024 critique argues that the Dream has, since the 1980s, outlived its statistical basis: intergenerational income mobility in the United States is now lower than in most of comparable Western Europe. Accordingly, the Dream survives as a rhetorical resource even as the pattern it once described has weakened. More specifically, what the 1931 phrase does well is mobilise hope; what it has stopped doing is describing reality. Both readings matter. Without the rhetorical Dream, American politics loses a shared vocabulary; without the statistical critique, that vocabulary becomes ornamental. In this regard, the most useful thing Klasse 11 readers can do is hold both — Adams’s ambition and the 2024 economist’s caution — without asking which is really the Dream.

5. Reflect Link to heading

• I can trace one continuity and one rupture across three sources.
• I can use cleft and negative inversion for emphasis.
• I can write a 280-word essay holding two readings in tension.

One thing in your notebook: Write one sentence using something you learned in this Unit.

Exam example Link to heading

Part A — Comprehension (~24 BE) Link to heading

Listen twice.

“The 1776 line speaks of the pursuit of Happiness. The 1931 phrase, by contrast, speaks of outcomes — that life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone. The 2024 critique points out that intergenerational income mobility in the US is now lower than in most of comparable Western Europe.”

1. 1776 phrase: ___ . 2. 1931 phrase: ___ . 3. 2024 claim: ___ . 4. Comparison region: ___ .

Part B — Analysis (~18 BE) Link to heading

Read the three extracts above.

1. 1776 source: ___ . 2. 1931 author + book: ___ . 3. 2024 critique: ___ . 4. Continuity / rupture: ___ .

Part C — Composition (~18 BE) Link to heading

Build emphasis structures.

1. Cleft on the 1931 phrase: → ___
2. Negative inversion: Not until 1931 ___ (coin / passive).
3. Cleft on the 2024 critique: → ___
4. Negative inversion: Only after 1945 ___ (the Dream / become / a mass image).

Mediation (~30 BE) Link to heading

Write 280 words: an essay paragraph holding two readings of the Dream in tension. Use 1 cleft + 1 inversion + 3 markers.

Downloads Link to heading

Common pitfalls Link to heading

• The American Dream read as one fixed object — it isn’t.
• Negative inversion is formal — don’t overuse.
• Don’t reduce the Dream to either celebration or debunking.

Further reading / listening Link to heading

• James Truslow Adams, The Epic of America (1931).
• The Atlantic — American Dream essay archive.

Downloads

Presentation

Download .pptx

Worksheet

Download .pdf