Using Maps with American Literature as Informational Texts

Teachers of American literature in middle or high school classrooms have the opportunity to select from a little over  400 years of writing by American authors. Because each author offers a different perspective on the American experience, teachers may also choose to provide the geographic context that influenced each of the authors taught in a curriculum. In American literature, geography is often central to an authors narrative.   Representing the geography of where an author was born, raised, educated, or wrote can be done on a map, and the creation of such a map involves the discipline of cartography. Cartography or Map Making The International Cartographic Association (ICA)  defines cartography: Cartography is the discipline dealing with the conception, production, dissemination and study of maps. Cartography is also about representation – the map. This means that cartography is the whole process of mapping. The  structural models  of cartography  can be used to  describe the process of mapping for an  academic discipline. Supporting the use of maps in the study of literature to better understand how geography has informed or influenced an author is made in an  argument made by  Sà ©bastien Caquard and William Cartwright in their 2014  article  Narrative Cartography: From Mapping Stories to the Narrative of Maps and Mapping  Ã‚  published in  The Cartographic Journal. The article explains how  the potential of maps to both decipher and tell stories is virtually unlimited. Teachers may use maps that help students better comprehend how the geography of America may influence authors and their literature. Their description of narrative cartography is an aim,  to shed light on some of the facets of the rich and complex relationships between maps and narratives. Influence of Geography on American Authors Studying the  geography that influenced the authors of American literature can mean using some of the lenses of social sciences such as  economics,  political science,  human  geography,  demography,   psychology  or  sociology. Teachers may spend time in class and provide the cultural geography background of the authors who penned the most traditional selections of literature in high school  such as Nathanial Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter, Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, John Steinbecks Of Mice and Men.   In each of  these selections, as in most American literature,  the  context of an authors  community,  culture, and relationships is  tied to specific time and location. For example, the geography of colonial settlements is seen in the  first pieces of American literature, beginning with a  1608 memoir by Captain John Smith, English explorer and  leader of Jamestown (Virginia). The explorers accounts are combined in a piece  titled  Ã‚  A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Noate as Hath Happened in Virginia.   In this recounting, consider by many to be wildly exaggerated, Smith describes  the story of  Pocahontas saving his life from the hand of Powhatan.   More recently, the 2016 winner of the Pulitzer Prize  Ã‚  for fiction  was written by  Viet Thanh Nguyen  who  was born in Vietnam and raised in America. His story  The Sympathizer  is described as, A layered immigrant tale told in the wry, confessional voice of a man of two minds— and two countries, Vietnam and the United States. In this award-winning narrative, the contrast of these two cultural geographies is central to the story. The American Writers Museum: Digital Literary Maps There are a number of different digital  map resources available to teachers with Internet access  to use in providing students background information. Should teachers want to give  students an opportunity to research American authors, a good starting place might be the American Writers Museum,  A National Museum Celebrating American Writers. The museum already has a digital presence, with their physical offices scheduled to open in Chicago in 2017. The mission of the  American Writers Museum is to engage the public in celebrating American writers and exploring their influence on our history, our identity, our culture, and our daily lives. One featured page on the museums  website is a Literary America  map  that features  American writers from all over the country.  Visitors can  click on a states icon to see what literary landmarks are located there   such as author homes and museums, book festivals, literary archives,  or even an authors final resting places.   This Literary America  map will help students meet several of the goals of the new American Writers Museum which are to: Educate the public about American writers – past and present;Engage visitors to the Museum in exploring the many exciting worlds created by the spoken and written word;Enrich and deepen appreciation for good writing in all its forms;Inspire visitors  to discover, or rediscover, a love of reading and writing. Teachers should know that the digital Literary America map on the museums website is interactive, and there are links to multiple other websites. For example, by clicking on New York State icon, students could choose to be connected to an obituary on the New York Public Librarys website for  J.D. Salinger,  author of Catcher in the Rye. Another click on the New York State icon could  take students to  a news story about the 343 boxes  containing the  personal papers and documents of the poet  Maya Angelou  that were acquired  by the  Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. This acquisition was featured in an article in the NY Times, Schomburg Center in Harlem Acquires Maya Angelou Archive  and there are links to many of these documents. There are links on the Pennsylvania state icon to museums dedicated to authors born in the state. For example, students can choose between Edgar Allan Poe National Historical SitePearl S. Buck HouseZane Grey Museum Similarly, a click on the Texas state icon offers students an opportunity to digitally visit three museums dedicated to the American short story author, William S. Porter, who wrote under the pen name O.Henry: O. Henry HouseO. Henry MuseumWilliam Sidney Porter, O. Henry Museum The State of  California offers multiple sites for students to explore on American authors who had a presence in the state: Eugene O’Neill National Historic SiteJack London State Historic ParkJohn Muir National Historic SiteNational Steinbeck CenterRobinson Jeffers Tor House FoundationThe Beat MuseumWill Rogers Ranch Additional Literary Author Map Collections 1. At the Clark Library (University of Michigan Library) there are a number of literary maps  for students to view.  One such  literary map was drawn by  Charles Hook Heffelfinger (1956).  This map lists the last names of many American writers along with their principal works within the state in which the book takes place. The description of the map states: As with many literary maps, while many of the works included may have been commercial successes at the time of the map’s publication in 1956, not all of them are still acclaimed today. Some classics are included, however, such as  Gone With the Wind  by Margaret Mitchell and  The Last of the Mohicans  by James Fenimore Cooper. These maps can be shared as a projection in class, or students can follow the link themselves. 2. The Library of Congress  offers an online collection  of maps titled, Language of the Land: Journeys Into Literary America. According to the website:   The inspiration for this exhibition was the Library of Congresss collection of literary maps--maps that acknowledge the contributions of authors to a specific state or region as well as those that depict the geographical locations in works of fiction or fantasy.   This exhibition includes the  1949  Booklovers Map  published by R.R. Bowker of New York which  features important points of interest across America’s historical, cultural, and literary landscape at the time. There are many different maps in this online  collection, and the promotional description for the exhibition reads: From Robert Frosts New England farms to John Steinbecks California valleys to Eudora Weltys Mississippi Delta, American authors have shaped our view of Americas regional landscapes in all their astonishing variety. They have created unforgettable characters, inseparably identified with the territory they inhabit. Author Maps AreInformational Texts Maps can be used as informational texts in the English Language Arts classroom as part of the key shifts educators can use in order to  integrate the Common Core State Standards.  These key shifts of the  Common Core  state that: Students must be immersed in information about the world around them if they are to develop the strong general knowledge and vocabulary they need to become successful readers and be prepared for college, career, and life. Informational texts play an important part in building students’ content knowledge. English teachers can use  maps as informational texts to build student background knowledge and improve comprehension. The use of maps as informational texts  could be covered under the following standards: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.8.7  Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of using different mediums (e.g., print or digital text, video, multimedia) to present a particular topic or idea. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.7  Analyze various accounts of a subject told in different mediums (e.g., a persons life story in both print and multimedia), determining which details are emphasized in each account. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.7  Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem. Conclusion Letting students explore American authors in their geographic and historic context through cartography, or mapmaking, can help their comprehension of American literature. The visual representation of the geography that contributed to a work of literature is best represented by a map. The use of maps   in the English classroom  can also help students develop an appreciation of Americas literary geography while increasing their familiarity with the  visual language of maps for other content areas.