I hope for my students to use comparison to shed light on their sixties topics.  I mean, I will be excited to read about Woodstock – Three Days that Defined a Generation – but I’m afraid most of my students have never heard of the famous music festival.    In a case like this, I suggest to explain one thing by comparing it to a second, more familiar thing.

My students know the Coachella Festival:  the music, the performers, the fans, the ticket prices….  The basis for comparison exists.   I want to say to my students, “The connections you make will draw your readers deeper into your essay.”

Vietnam and Afghanistan. The Women’s Movement and the Me Too Movement.  The 1964 Ford Mustang and the new 2021 Ford Mustang model.   This will be fun.  In class, I plan to compare the lives of Janis Joplin and Taylor Swift.  I’ll share their hopes and dreams and trials and tribulations.  I’ll also play some of their music on the classroom projector. I hope to capture important meaning for their lives in pieces of their songs.  As passionate as Janis and Taylor were/are for their music, it’s no surprise that their lyrics often express their heartbreak for relationships lost.  I mean they both are known for their free spirit and independence. It’s hard to imagine either of them ever slowing down.  How hard for them to maintain normal relationships – their lovers must have always felt  secondary to their music. 

Marilyn’s Monroe’s struggles to control her drug and alcohol abuse can be mirrored in today’s troubled Hollywood Starlet Lindsay Lohan – apparently, things haven’t changed much in 50 years. Marilyn was a heavy user of prescription drugs.  She used amphetamine-like drugs to keep her weight down and stay up with her work schedule.  She took painkillers to sleep at night.  That’s not a healthy combination.  Lindsay had a cocaine habit.  The drug took over her life.  There was no place left for her acting. On screen, Marilyn always made us smile.  She was both beautiful and innocent.  We all could relate to her characters. Sadly, we never knew the darkness of Marilyn’s private life.  Maybe it was the pressure of being a star that drove her to drug abuse.  Her death will always be a mystery.

On the other hand, we know more about Lindsay Lohan’s problems than we really care to know– they are front and center in social media.  She was once a rising star.  Now, she’s forgotten.  Her cocaine addiction and arrests destroyed her career.  In the fifties and sixties, Marilyn lived a much different life than the stars of today.  There was no 24-hour cable news.  Not social media.  No internet.  For the most part, she was probably protected by her studio.   Many of her secrets we will never know about.  Fifty years later, we don’t know the truth of how she died.  For Lindsay, it was much different.  Sadly, her brilliance on screen has been blackened out by her personal problems.   We see her more on court TV and other scandal shows than we see her on the big screen. We know way too much about her.  She is no mystery at all.

Jay’s Note to His Students:  I know. I know. The sixties seems so long  ago and far away.  But, I was there.  I  can help you search for the information and research materials you need.  You may start out not knowing much about your sixties topic, but through our classroom workshops and online assignments, you will see your research paper come alive.