Today’s Agenda

• Review of the Armenian Genocide & discussion of the Turks “Ten Commandments”

• Image Analysis “The Artist and his Mother”

• Discussion of Identity & freewrite

• “What’s In A Name?” Reading

The Armenian Genocide

• Turks: Islamic/Armenians: Christian• Originally a millet group (second class citizens)• Battle of Sarikamis with Russia was turning point• Genocide refers to the massacres and forcible

removals of hundreds of thousands to over a million Armenians, during the government of the Young Turks from 1915 to 1917 in the Ottoman Empire

• Turks “Ten Commandments”

The Artist and his Mother

by Arshile Gorky

• List what you see.

• What is the mood of this painting?

• Analyze his choices of color, mood, scale, and arrangement.

• What story does he seem to tell in the painting?

• What do you know or suspect about the artist’s identity from the painting?

Let’s Set Up A New Folder

• My Documents– My Classes

• History–*New Folder, called sderstine_website

• Now open a new document in Word

• Call it “What’s In a Name?” and save it in your new folder

5 minute Freewrite

• Think about your own identity• Free “type” for 5 minutes on the subject of your

own name – first name and last name • Type the entire time

– (think ‘stream of consciousness’)• Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation,

proofreading, erasing, etc – write one big long sentence if it moves you!

• (Want some inspiration? My Name, Jorge the Janitor, Two Voices)

• Be ready to share!!

So…

Why on earth are we studying

names and identity?

What does this have to do with the Armenian Genocide?

Popcorn Reading: “What’s in a Name?

• As we read, underline things that you think answer the questions:– What influences the way we understand the

world around us?– What role does family play in the way we see

ourselves and others?– How important is it for us as individuals and as

members of various groups to acknowledge past injustices?

– What connections do they each draw from their family name?

The intense need of the Armenians as individuals and as a community to have the genocide be acknowledged and known by the world teaches us something about ourselves as human beings.

First, our identities are rooted not only in our group, but in the history of our group. For a complete identity, we must be integrated not only with our individual past, but also with our groups’ past. Perhaps, this becomes especially important when our group is partly destroyed and dispersed; our families and ourselves have been deeply affected; and in a physical sense we have at best fragments of our group.

Second, we have a profound need for our pain and suffering, especially when it is born of injustice, to be acknowledged, known and respected.”

-Ervin Staub, The Roots of Evil

• What does he suggest about the relationship between identity and group history?

• Based on your analysis of the picture and the reading, how does history shape individual identity?

• When does history restrict an individual’s ability to find his or her own voice?

• What can we learn about ourselves from someone else’s history?