Preparing to Write the Reflective Essay

Step 1:
Products
• Lifestyle/way of living
o Drug use
o Little to no money
o Living in random places
o Travelling all the time with no plan
• The different modes of transportation
o Cars
o Hitchhiking
o Railway
• Religious beliefs
o Buddhism
o Many didn’t think they had religion
• Music and jazz
o Describing the music in the clubs
o Bob Dylan’s influences
Activities/Assignments

• Reading Jack Kerouac’s works helped introduce the Beat Generation the most clearly
• Being a visual learner seeing the pictures really helped me get a better feel for the culture
• Music says a lot to me about the person that wrote it and helps me picture a scene in my mind of where a song like that would be played, so listening to a few songs of that time period helped understand the culture better
• After reading Kerouac’s writing’s and then hearing his voice on a CD read them himself make everything click. I wish we were able to have heard his voice before we read his works to know the tone in which it was written

Step 2:

The most distinctive features about the culture are the lifestyles of the Beats as well as the music that was not only created during this time but was played throughout the generation. These are the most distinctive to me because although the ways of living have changed many times throughout human history, none parallel to the ways of the Beat Generation. The music is not only something that is distinctive to me personally in a general sense, but because although music has changed over time, much like the lifestyles, the music of this era is very unique. Each time period has their own styles of music, but the music of this time period is not only recognizable, but is still played often today.
Step 3:

Artifacts
• In class notes
• Previous paper assignments
• Hand outs
• Assigned readings

The activities that we did in the course that helped me better understand the culture were the order of topics discussed, the meditation exercise, the videos and music we were able to watch and listen to and the class discussions we had both between my classmates and Colonel Ball but also with the guest speakers. Taking the culture one aspect at a time really helped round out the understanding of the Beat Generation. We first talked about what it meant to be Beat itself and discussed some word meanings. Then we jumped right into written works of that time that were composed of people that lived during that time period which was extremely helpful to have this account from a perspective of someone who was there. We talked about what was going on in the country and around the world at the time which helped understand the whole picture clarifying the reasoning behind the actions of the beats. We then touched on the topic of religions and read more texts from the people of that time on how they expressed their religious beliefs which was enlightening. Not knowing much about the Beat Generation prior, doing the readings from On The Road and the Portable Beat Reader really helped me contribute to the class discussions and able to ask the right questions. Hearing Colonel Ball’s firsthand accounts of time period really brought the class to life as well as hearing the Dean play his music and watching the videos.

Step 4:

1. The most distinctive features
a. The lifestyles
b. The music
2. The activities we did in class
a. Meditation exercise-to practice what they practiced
b. Acting out some scenes from On The Road-to get a better feel for the characters and situation
c. Listening to the music of that time-to help us visualize the scene by hearing what they heard
d. Watching the videos from the people we were reading about-put real life faces to the names
e. Listening to Jack Kerouac himself read his own works-to hear what Kerouac put emphasis on
f. The organization of the lesson topics
3. Things to possibly improve
a. Listen to Kerouac read earlier in the semester-so we could read his works with is voice in our minds to get a better feel for the things he was trying to express
b. I would have liked to hear more of Colonel Ball’s firsthand accounts
c. Possibly study other Beat Generation writers and characters-to get lots of different perspectives on the culture