English Honors III
Mrs. Santo
Name:
Date:
Great Gatsby Historical iWeb
Purpose: This project will demonstrate your understanding of various aspects of the
novel in The Great Gatsby including plot, setting, literary style, symbolism, imagery
and language. Your group will work together to create a 1920’s newspaper that covers
real information from the 1920’s and fictional information from the novel The Great
Gatsby. You are now journalists from the 1920’s researching and writing newspaper
articles.
Directions: The class will be divided into nine groups. Each group will be assigned a
chapter from the novel and a background focus. Your group’s task will be to design an
interactive historical newspaper using iWeb.
The original articles you write about The Great Gatsby should depict the events,
symbols, color symbolism, motifs, and/or characters specifically for your assigned
chapter. Remember every news article you write should reflect the 5 W’s: who, what,
when, where, why.
Make sure your historical newspaper meets the following requirements:
o You use iWeb
o Include all of the following:
o Newspaper title, index, and headlines
o One historical headline story. This needs to be what would be
considered the “biggest” event of that time period that “changed history”
(this will be assigned to your group)
o One fictional headline story. This needs to be what would be considered
the “biggest” event of your chapter that impacted the plot or thoughts of
our main characters in Gatsby.
o At least two articles centered around Gatsby that depict the events,
symbols, motifs, and/or characters specifically for your assigned chapter.
 At least two color symbolism articles. Focus on how Fitzgerald
uses color symbolism to convey meaning in your chapter (how it
helps further character development and such).
o Two additional historical news articles about big events in that
decade/time period/ surrounding the topic I provided for you.
o Two accurate advertisements for new products of the time. You are
finding real products, not inventing them.
o One advice column. Read a column or two by advice columnists in
newspapers or magazines from the time period to get an idea of the types
of problems people had and create an "authentic" advice column.
o Entertainment/Sports page. You will need at least one article about a
leisure activity relevant to the 1920s.
o A Cartoon strip, created by you, that deals with issues from your chosen
time period -OR-Political Cartoon.
o Works Cited
**I expect you to use outside resources so YOUR GROUP MUST use internal citations
and provide a Works Cited at the end of the newspaper**
Topics and Chapter Assignments:
Group 1  Chapter 1. Topic: Flappers/ society/ fashion (in contrast to the
previous era)
Group 2  Chapter 2. Topic: Art/Architecture/ Jazz (style, famous names,
reflection of the time)
Group 3  Chapter 3. Topic: Prohibition/ Bootleggers/Mobsters/ Speakeasies
Group 4  Chapter 4. Topic: Chicago White Sox World Series 1919/ other
historical events
Group 5 Chapter 5. Topic: Impact of World War I on the 20s / “Doughboys”
(American Soldiers)
Group 6  Chapter 6. Topic: Automobiles of the late 1910s/early 1920s
Group 7  Chapter 7. Topic: Suffrage Movement/ women’s issues
Group 8  Chapter 8. Topic: Economic Boom and events leading to 1930’s
Depression
Group 9  Chapter 9. Topic: F. Scott Fitzgerald (his life, work, influences)
Research Suggestions:
In order to create a comprehensive newspaper, you may want to consult internet
articles, (from reliable websites), transcripts of interviews, video clips, quotes from
historical newspapers, magazines or other printed sources. Please feel free to use
iTunesU, the library databases, and other print sources. Below are some reputable
websites:
http://www.history.com/search?search-field=Roaring+Twenties
http://www.pbs.org/jazz/time/time_roaring.htm
http://www.besthistorysites.net/ushistory_roaring20s.shtml
Timeline for your projects:
Monday, April 11th: Gather the rest of your historical information and create your
Works Cited page using Noodle Tools (at this point you should also determine how to
internally cite all those sources as well because they should be in your historical
pieces. Be prepared to have a list of all of the article topics to submit to Mrs. Santo
(see attached sheet) to submit for review. You should also be sure to have your
movie clips and sound bites saved, cited and ready to import into your iWeb at this
point.
Tuesday, April 12th: Begin the draft of your historical and Gatsby related articles.
You will have the class period to write.
Wednesday, April 13th: Continue to write the rest of the articles. They should be
done and ready for peer review by Thursday (feel free however, to peer review this
day if you are ahead of the game).
Thursday, April 14th: Peer review the articles for your newspaper within your
groups. Make amendments and modifications. Place all your information on your iWeb.
Friday, April 15th: iWebs due at the end of the period. We will share these with our
classmates on the Monday we return- be prepared to walk the class through your
articles.
iWeb info sheet:
Please fill out the information with your groupmates and submit the completed sheet
to Santo by the end of the period on Monday.
Group Chapter:
Group Research Topic:
Historical headline story on your assigned topic
Author:
Title:
Gatsby Headline article comes from the main event of your assigned
chapter
Author:
Topic:
Additional Gatsby article:
Author:
Topic:
Additional Gatsby article:
Author:
Topic:
**If you so choose, you may incorporate color symbolism in the
above two articles if not:
Color symbolism article one
Author:
Topic:
Color symbolism article two
Author:
Topic:
Additional historical article (comes from assigned topic)
Author:
Topic:
Additional historical article (comes from assigned topic)
Author:
Topic:
Advice article
Topic:
Author:
Leisure activity article
Topic:
Author:
The following must be included but is not original work you will find
the following elements and include them in your newspaper along with
a citation noting where the piece is originally published.
Advertisement One
Source:
Product:
Advertisement Two
Source:
Product:
Cartoon Strip/Political Cartoon
Film Clip
Topic:
Source:
Sound bite (music, radio advertisement, radio broadcast, iTunes U
lecture)
Topic:
Source: