by Elizabeth Milligan, Lake Forest College
Frank Sinatra's starring role in "The House I Live In" serves as a spring board for asking questions about different groups of people in American society during World War II. As change rapidly permeated throughout global and American society, groups of people were affected in different ways. Sinatra's plea for tolerance provides a window into the historical issues of 1945 that were shaping World War II society.
Teacher Introduction
Frank Sinatra poses an authentic historical question for students of history. A teen idol, son of Italian immigrants, young man excused from the draft, Communist collaborator, leftist political activist, and a man hunted by the FBI for his alleged connections with the Mafia, Sinatra illuminates historical issues at many different points throughout 20th century American history.
As the McRAH strategies indicate, the use of primary sources makes history more engaging and authentic for students. Thus, by starting with the film as a primary source and as the center of the historical problem, students are examining different aspects of the American identity in an engaging way. They are asked to make comparisons and consider the effects of global relations during World War II on the American home front. Additionally, they are working within the intersection between politics, culture, and the social makeup of World War II America.
Additionally, I have selected this particular approach because it makes most sense in a web quest. I originally designed this web quest for students to examine Frank Sinatra's own history and rise to fame, but after a long inquiry process of my own, I determined that web resources about Frank Sinatra, save the multi-media, are not credible nor particularly revealing. Perhaps a more advanced project would be evaluating the sources that do exist and examining why more information about Sinatra does not exist as readily accessible on the internet. This would provide for an interesting information literacy exercise in comparing web and print resources.
My goal for this web quest, however, was to create a process of inquiry for the students to practice information literacy and effectively use web resources such as the Library of Congress and Digital History Project to search for pertinent information and sources. This web quest provides a more authentic approach to the problem than would a textbook: students are able to search for images and actually watch the film online.