What is the "American Dream"? What are American values?

Today in class we read an opinion piece from the New York Times entitled "Crumbling American Dreams." You can find it by clicking here.

In class we wrote an initial response to it, identified the issues in it that most grabbed our attention, then tried to understand the point Putnam, the author of the article, was making.

We closed class by naming what he is implying are / should be American values, then included our opinion as to whether we agree that should be a value or not.

We'll use those thoughts in class tomorrow as the jumping-off point for our new unit.

*Please remember to buy the next three books: Walden, Civil Disobedience, and Self Reliance.