DAY ONE

1. Divide the class into small groups of three or four students. Give each small group Martin Postcard, The Modern Farmer. This is a postcard image from those found at the American Museum of Photography http://www.photographymuseum.com/talltale.html. (Students may also view other postcards at the website.) Ask each small group …
• What's wrong with this picture? [Some objects are not represented to scale.]
• Do you think the picture depicts a real event? Why? [No. Eggs and potatoes that large do not exist. If they did, their weight would most likely tip over the car in which they are pictured. In addition, the eggs would crack if they were just piled in the back of the car without any form of protection or cushioning during bumpy transportation.]
• What makes the picture entertaining? [Farmers have been known to occasionally brag out the size of their crops. This picture has fun with this notion of "bigger is better". The size of the eggs and potato in the back of the car is "surrealistic" –beyond being real. It suspends reality and allows you to use your imagination to create a world where anything is possible.]

The photos are postcards created between 1908 and 1910 by a photographer named William H. "Dad" Martin. America was largely a rural society in the early 1900s. Martin used rural scenes and trick photography to produce these wildly exaggerated postcards. The postcards are like a visual tall tale.

2. Project Joe Magarac–The Miraculous Steelworker Made of Steel from the Carnegie Library collection for the whole class to see. Similar to the Martin postcard, explore the picture with your students.

Ask the class …
• What do you see? What is the man doing? [A giant squeezing hot, liquid steel between his fingers to make railroad rails. A smaller man appears to be scratching his head, looking on in wonder.]
• Do you think the picture depicts a real person? Why? [No. He is not real because a person would not be able to handle liquid steel. It is too hot and would severely burn him. He is also pictured out of scale, too large to be a real person.]
• What makes the picture entertaining? [At first, our reaction might be like the smaller man in the picture, scratching our heads and wondering about what we see. Then we get to put the laws of reality on hold as we look at the giant doing the undoable. We can give our imagination permission to dream of feats beyond human physical limitations.]

As the class looks at the image of Joe Magarac, read to them the following poem. (If you would like a handout version to pass out to students, see Student Handout 1-Poem about Joe Magarac. At this point, you may also want to hand out Student Handout 2-Joe Magarac Vocabulary to help students with unfamiliar terms in the poem. These terms were also taken from the tall tale itself.)

Pittsburgh's Legendary Hero Joe Magarac
(author unknown)

Joe Magarac - Made to make steel
Part of him legend … part of him real.
Born out of Braddock, earth, rock and hill
King of the Ingots, Pride of the Mill.
Joe Magarac, over seven feet tall
Nothing about him was timid or small.
He gathered the scrap iron, the limestone, the ore,
He fanned the white heat to angry red roar.
He poured liquid fire in each ingot mold,
And taking a handful before it got cold,
He squeezed through his fingers and watched it congeal
From taffy-like ribbons to straight rails of steel.
They talked of improving the steel that they made
And Joe overheard them and went to their aid
By throwing himself in the steely soufflé
And smiling, Joe Magarac melted away.
A true Pittsburgher, legend or real?
Joe Magarac is the symbol of steel.

To enhance this section (especially for auditory learners), purchase the CD, Tell Tall Tales Legends and Nonsense / Land of Giant, by the New Christy Minstrels, and play the song Joe Magarac in the classroom. (This can be located in the music section of Amazon.com.) Introduce the song to students by explaining that this song tells of the man in the picture. Ask students to volunteer one thing they learned about Joe Magarac from the song.


3. After students have finished listening to the poem and/or song and given you some feedback about it, begin to explain the origins of tall tales. Tell your students that in the years before television and radio, people sometimes made up stories to entertain each other. The art of storytelling included adventure stories, inspirational stories, and poignant (emotionally moving) stories. Some of the yarns were full of exaggerations, with heroes or heroines who worked in the same professions as those people making up the stories. This was an opportunity to brag about their professions with bigger-than-life characters that could perform super-human feats and engage in some humorous problem solving. These stories were called tall tales.

4. Then describe the main characteristics of a tall tale with your class, and write them on the board with space left underneath each characteristic.

Characteristics of Tall Tales …
• A larger-than-life, superhuman main character with a specific job.
• A problem that is solved in a funny way.
• Hyperbole
Ask your students if they know the meaning of this word. Then give an example. For instance, "Suzie's smile shone so bright we had to wear sunglasses when she walked in the room." or "Joe is as strong as an ox." Then ask students to guess the meaning. Finally, write the definition beside the word.

Hyperbole: exaggerated details that describe things as greater than they really are in order to make a point

5. Next, divide the class into four groups. Each group will listen for different aspects of the story and answer several questions pertaining to these aspects. Distribute Student Worksheet 1-Questions about Joe Magarac Tall Tale. For assessment, see suggested answers provided in Teacher Guide to Student Worksheet 1.

6. Once each group understands what they are to be listening for, refer students again to Student Handout 2-Joe Magarac Vocabulary. This is to help them with unfamiliar words they may run across in the reading. Now read the story of Joe Magarac, Man of Steel with your students. (If you would like to read the story from a book, you may find it at your local library. Here is the book information: Stoutenburg, Adrien. American Tall Tales. New York, NY: The Viking Press, Inc., 1966, pp. 101-112. Although not the original tall tale, this lesson also provides a synopsis for those teachers without time for additional searching. You may distribute Student Handout 3-Joe Magarac Tall-Tale Synopsis to your student groups for reading along. )

7. Ask the whole class:
• What values or morals did the story teach?
[Gentlemanly kindness: Joe did not marry Mary, but suggested Pete as her groom because he saw she wanted to marry Pete.
Being able to laugh at yourself: When people laughed at Joe because of his name, he did not take offense. Instead he laughed with them. He was not ashamed of who he was.
Hard work ethic: Joe literally "poured himself into the job." He produced a steel mill that "still stands the finest and strongest ever built."]

• What was the significance to the ending of the story? [In the synopsis provided in this lesson, the ending shows pride in the strength and production rate of the area steel mill created by the legacy of Joe Magarac. In the book version, the ending shows how the workers–when yelled at with the derogatory term "magarac"–empower themselves by invoking the legacy of this tall-tale hero.]

8. Now handout Worksheet 2: Joe Magarac Writing Assignment. Students will be creating their own tall tale using Joe Magarac. The instructions are as follows:

Write an original tall tale of at least three paragraphs. Make sure you do the following in your tall tale:
• Describe the setting of your story - your town or neighborhood.
• Invent an adventure for Joe Magarac.
• Explain the problem that he has to solve.
• Tell how he solved the problem and include some extraordinary deeds.
• Tell your tall tale in the first person.
• Be creative and exaggerate. (The actions of a tall tale are not something that can happen in real life.)
• Possible starter paragraph: "I remember when Joe Magarac came back to life. Some of the steel that he was melted into was in a building in our town. The owner of the building decided to construct something else on the lot. When that building was torn down, the steel beams morphed into Joe Magarac, the man of steel."

See Assessment: Tall Tale Writing Rubric for evaluating the assignment.

DAY TWO

1. First ask students to pass forward their writing assignments from yesterday.

2. Now explain that yesterday the class learned about a fictional "man of steel" who was able to accomplish great feats in his profession. Today students will address the question, "Are there any ‘real" people who could outwork and outperform everybody else when doing their jobs?"

3. Ask students: What tasks or jobs do you have to do regularly? [Answers might be: set the table, make my bed, get dressed, brush my teeth, or take out the garbage] Choose one of those "tasks" and ask the class to break it down into basic parts or movements. For instance, setting the table might include counting out the proper number of dishes, silverware, napkins, place mats, glasses; taking them to the table; putting the place mats around; folding the napkins; placing them on the table; putting the silverware in the proper positions; placing the glasses. (The teacher could draw a diagram on the board of what a proper place setting looks like.) The main idea here is to show students how tasks can be broken down into simpler parts. This is a fundamental concept of Frederick Winslow Taylor, whom you will introduce to students later.

4. Have small groups of students participate in a competition to see which group can lace shoes the best and fastest.

Class setup:
• Designate one student as the lacing "inspector" for the class. Each laced shoe has to pass inspection before students can unlace and begin again.
• Create a "station" around the classroom for each small group of students. At each station thereshould be a stopwatch, an unlaced tennis shoe, and the lace that goes with that shoe. (Try to get shoes with the same number of lacing holes. Don't worry if some of the laces are frayed. Gym teachers may be able to lend you the necessary stopwatches, or some of your students may have watches with stopwatch features.)
• Teams have 2 minutes to prepare before the competition begins.
• Competition rules: All teams will be competing at the same time. Teams have 10 minutes to lace and unlace their shoe as many times as possible. Teams should record the time for each lacing on Worksheet 3: Shoe Lacing Competition. The inspector should initial the form each time a shoe lacing is complete.

Debrief: Ask students what helped them do their task faster. [Some teams may have allowed one student to do the task every time, and practice helped that student perform faster. Some may have taken turns. If time was spent arguing, that may have taken up more time. Some students may have had inferior equipment (frayed laces) that detracted from their efficiency.] Guided discussion will help students realize that observation, analyzing the task, learning from the analysis, practice, and organization may have helped the winning team complete the task more efficiently.

5. Now relate what the students learned in their shoe lacing competition to history. Explain that in factories and businesses, workers often have to perform the same task over and over. In steel mills in the early 1900s, men often had to move heavy loads from one place to another. Working conditions were pretty brutal. Men often worked 12-hour shifts seven days a week, with the last day being a 24-hour shift so that the worker could swing into a week of 12-hour shifts at night.

Display Image of Frederick Winslow Taylor. Tell students that this man, in a series of "scientific studies" at Bethlehem Steel, developed guidelines for management to increase the output of their work force. Taylor realized that mental and physical fatigue were problems that needed to be overcome. (Ask the timekeepers of the shoe lacing competition if they noticed fatigue was a factor. Did the lacing time slow down if the same person repeated the task the whole time? Would it have been a factor if the competition were extended from 10 minutes to an hour?)

Tell students that by offering extra money, Taylor found volunteers who were willing to repeatedly carry heavy loads up a ramp. One of those volunteers, Henry Noll, was exceptionally strong. Taylor named Noll "Schmidt" in his reports. By observing, timing, and analyzing Noll's work, Taylor was able to suggest ways that others could do their work more efficiently. For instance, he suggested building into the schedule short rest periods. (Today, weight lifters and trainers know that to build muscles, an athlete needs to work, and then rest the muscles in order to get the most benefit.)

Because of Taylor's time management studies, workers were enabled to work efficiently, were given regular rest periods and frequently had their pay increased. In the BBC History Magazine, June 2003, author David Boyle wrote, "Taylor was responsible - maybe more than anyone else - for the unprecedented wealth created by 20th century industry. Between 1907 and his death [1915], manufacturing efficiency per employee went up by a terrifying 33 per cent every year."

Ask the class what they think Taylor did to study and improve the efficiency of workers. Write ideas on the board. Below are the scientific steps Taylor used to analyze efficiency. Compare the class answers to these steps.

Taylor, in his scientific method did the following:
1. He broke down each job into all its basic parts or movements.
2. He timed each of those parts to find out how quickly they could be done by the most efficient workers.
3. He eliminated unnecessary parts.
4. He added extra time for rest and unavoidable delays.
5. He set up pay scales so that the most efficient workers would earn more.

Read and Discuss: Have small groups of students read and discuss the following paragraphs from Taylor's The Principles of Scientific Management (New York: Harper Bros., 1911). http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1911taylor.html)

Students should address the following questions …
• Would you like to work for Taylor? Why or why not? [Student answers may vary. Does the student feel they work best in a highly competitive atmosphere? Do they need rules imposed from others, or do they already internally create high expectations for themselves? Would they like to create the rules? Do they enjoy physical labor, or is the student more a creative thinker?]
• Would you like to have Taylor manage your company? Why or why not? [If my company depended on product development and labor efficiency, yes I would like Taylor to manage it. He is able to increase production and overall profits.]

Excerpts from The Principles of Scientific Management:
". . .in the case of any . . . individual the greatest prosperity can exist only when that individual has reached his highest state of efficiency; that is, when he is turning out his largest daily output.
"The truth of this fact is also perfectly clear in the case of two men working together. To illustrate: if you and your workman have become so skillful that you and he together are making two pairs of shoes in a day, while your competitor and his workman are making only one pair, it is clear that after selling your two pairs of shoes you can pay your workman much higher wages than your competitor who produces only one pair of shoes is able to pay his man, and that there will still be enough money left over for you to have a larger profit than your competitor…"
Report back: A representative from each small group summarizes group responses.