Semester In Review

This semester

During this semester, we have read and discussed so many great writings from Early American Literature. I have mentioned this many times, but I have read more this semester than I have ever in my life, and I am really enjoying it. One of our first assignment s was the essay of “What is American?”, by Hector Saint-John de Crèvecoeur. A great piece of writing that showed how life in America was during the Revolutionary War, there were only thirteen colonies in the United States, and Great Britain owned pretty much owned the rest of the world. Most important, they claimed to own the United States and we were fighting them for it. The struggles people were going through in their old homes and the struggles of life in America.  With this essay, Hector Saint-John de Crèvecoeur became the first American author to write a European bestseller.  Next was the great Ralph Waldo Emerson, and his work, “Self-Reliance" which states “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” A great piece of writing that makes you ask the question, who are you really? Also this week, we were able to read some of the works, of one of my favorite author’s, Edgar Allen Poe.  Poe who lived in Richmond, and went to school at University of Virginia, might be one of the most famous writers in American Literature. I still need to visit the Poe Museum in Richmond, and also Poe attended the one year old University of Virginia, where they still have his room which is only 5 blocks from where I work. I was able to listen to the audio from,” The Tell-Tale Heart” and the poems, “The Bells”, and “The Raven” , all masterpieces that will be read and loved  forever.

Next was Thoreau’s essay, “Walking” and “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For,” "Let me live where I will, on this side is the city, on that the wilderness, and ever I am leaving the city more and more, and withdrawing into the wilderness". This was my favorite assignment, we got the opportunity to take a walk in nature and talk about what we observed. It was very a relaxing and pleasant experience and I found a new lunch spot by doing this assignment. One thing that I do not enjoy reading about is slavery. I know we should all learn from our mistakes in history, but the pain and the hardship that those people had to go through during this time in history is awful. In reading Harriet Jacobs, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”, you learn what it was like to be a female slave. Having to sell her children and it also shows the sexual abuse that the female slaves had to deal with on the plantation is horrendous. Listening to the order of how the Declaration of Independence was amazing, Jefferson would write a first draft then the committee would do a draft. I was interesting to see the differences in writings between Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

People were not satisfied with the constitution, so people wanted a Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution. They were introduced by James Madison and they helped protect the natural rights of liberty and property. “The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection” James Madison’s Federalist Paper #10. Not everyone was for the Bill of Rights being added to the US Constitution, Alexander Hamilton was one and he wrote #84 in the Federalists Papers to express his opinion that the Bill of Rights is not needed to ensure the rights of the people. One place that I have visited since I moved here a couple years ago was, St. John’s Church in Richmond where Patrick Henry gave his famous speech of “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”. Cool old white church that is important in American History. Thomas Paine’s,” Common Sense”,  presented an argument to the people who lived in the Thirteen Colonies that they no longer needed to be under British Law and that they need independence from the British Crown. Selling 500,000 copies in the first year alone, he donated all of his profits to George Washington’s Continental Army.

Ben Franklin’s Virtues were great and it seemed ahead for the time he was living in, but it seems that everything that he did was ahead of his time. My Virtues are,

1.     Loyalty: to always be trustworthy.

2.     Compassion: Continue to care and help others

3.     Perseverance: Always continue fighting, never quit

4.     Wisdom: Never stop learning, Knowledge

5.     Ambition: Drive for success

6.     Honesty: No lies to self or others

7.     Acceptance: Don’t judge a book by its cover

8.     Gratitude: Appreciating things more

9.     Trust: Be able to trust others

10.   Courage: Always stand up to what’s right

11.   Creativity: Continue to be different

12.   Peace: No more fighting, words or fists

13.   Justice: Always remain fair

14.   Integrity: Marinating strong moral principles

15.   Cockiness: Knowing that I can always change how things end up

16.   Change: Always be open to change of location or heart

17.   Love: Be Loved and give it back

18.   Respect: To who should be

19.   Service: Put others before myself

20.   Expression: Talk about what bothers me or makes me happy

Semester in Review DRAFT

This semester

During this semester, we have read and discussed so many great writings from Early American Literature. I have mentioned this many times, but I have read more this semester than I have ever in my life, and I am really enjoying it. One of our first assignment s was the essay of “What is American?, by Hector Saint-John de Crèvecoeur. A great piece of writing that showed how life in America was during the Revolutionary War. The struggles people were going through in their old homes and the struggles of life in America.  With this essay, Hector Saint-John de Crèvecoeur became the first American author to write an European bestseller.  Next was the great Ralph Waldo Emerson, and his work, “Self-Reliance" which states “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” A great piece of writing that makes you ask the question, who are you really? Also this week, we were able to read some of the works, of one of my favorite author’s, Edgar Allen Poe.  Poe who lived in Richmond, and went to school at University of Virginia, might be one of the most famous writers in American Literature. I still need to visit the Poe Museum in Richmond, and his room at UVA which is only 5 blocks from where I work. I was able to listen to the audio from,” The Tell-Tale Heart” and the poems, “The Bells”, and “The Raven” , all masterpieces that will be read forever.

Next was Thoreau’s essay, “Walking” and “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For,” "Let me live where I will, on this side is the city, on that the wilderness, and ever I am leaving the city more and more, and withdrawing into the wilderness". This was my favorite assignment, we got the opportunity to take a walk in nature and talk about what we observed. It was very relaxing and I found a new lunch spot by doing this assignment.

Week 9

One of the biggest reasons for leaving the land you once called home and moving to a New Land was religious freedom. Two of those religions, Deism, and Society of Friends were two of the religions around at this time. Thomas Paine’s writings brought him a great amount of criticism, but mostly passion from the vast amount of people who read his works throughout the years. He was called the voice of the common man, he had the ability communicate the ideas of the American Revolution to the common person as easily as to intellectuals. One of his most famous, some would say most important piece of writing, “Common Sense”, came out in 1776 originally anonymously because of its treasonous content. Printed and sold by Robert Bell, Third Street, Philadelphia, it sold as many as 120,000 copies in the first three months, 500,000 in the first year, going through twenty-five editions in the first year alone Paine donated his royalties from “Common Sense” to George Washington’s Continental Army saying: “As my wish was to serve an oppressed people, and assist in a just and good cause, I conceived that the honor of it would be promoted by my declining to make even the usual profits of an author.”

Thomas Paine wrote the famous The Age of Reason in 1793 which promoted Deism. Deism is the belief that observation and reason in the natural world is enough to justify the existence of God.  Deists do not believe in miracles, the absolute rightness of the Bible and the Holy Trinity. Deism was prominent in the Enlightenment when people wanted the right to think for themselves and interpret the natural world for what is it. Deism holds that God does not intervene with the functioning of the natural world in any way, allowing it to run according to the laws of nature that he configured when he created all things. God is thus conceived to be wholly transcendent and never immanent. Deism does not ascribe any specific qualities to a deity beyond non-intervention. Deism is related to naturalism because it credits the formation of life and the universe to a higher power, using only natural processes. I am no way a religious historian so if I am wrong I apologize , but from the sounds of Deism, it seem a little similar to Judaism, in the way that they don’t believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and Deists don’t believe in miracles.

Society of Friends, or Friends is a Protestant Christian tradition originating in mid-17th century England and founded by George Fox. Society of Friends based their message on the idea that Christ has come to teach his people himself: stressing Christ's direct relationship with a universal priesthood of which everyone is a part. Going with this idea, Fox claimed that true believers could engage the risen Lord directly through the Holy Spirit without ministers, priests, or the sacraments. Everyone was capable of God’s love, including woman. Many of the early ministers were women, who travelled both around Britain and overseas to America, preaching. For this time in history, to include woman in religion was a huge step forward in the right direction. Today Society of Friends members are known as Quakers and they came to America in the 1680’s to New England and after being persecuted for their beliefs up there, they settled in Pennsylvania established by William Penn. Today Society of Friends members are also known as Quakers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense_%28pamphlet%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism

My Virtues

1.     Loyalty: to always be trustworthy.

2.     Compassion: Continue to care and help others

3.     Perseverance: Always continue fighting, never quit

4.     Wisdom: Never stop learning, Knowledge

5.     Ambition: Drive for success

6.     Honesty: No lies to self or others

7.     Acceptance: Don’t judge a book by its cover

8.     Gratitude: Appreciating things more

9.     Trust: Be able to trust others

10.   Courage: Always stand up to what’s right

11.   Creativity: Continue to be different

12.   Peace: No more fighting, words or fists

13.   Justice: Always remain fair

14.   Integrity: Marinating strong moral principles

15.   Cockiness: Knowing that I can always change how things end up

16.   Change: Always be open to change of location or heart

17.   Love: Be Loved and give it back

18.   Respect: To who should be

19.   Service: Put others before myself

20.   Expression: Talk about what bothers me or makes me happy

Mid-term Learning Reflection

In advance I apologize for not posting this on time, I guess I am the only person in Richmond that lost power yesterday. Other than this assignment, I have been on time for every assignment this semester. Overall this has been a great first half of an English class. I have been reading and listening to more great writing works over the last seven weeks, than I have my whole life. Every Tuesday I visit the weebly.com website to carefully read about what is due for the upcoming week. For the most I try to do the committee discussion responses first, but it seems like the people in my group will wait until late Monday to post it, which makes it hard to write a response if they are posting to the board late Monday night. So I will generally respond to anyone who post to the committee board before 8 p.m. on Monday. For the second half of the semester I will be responding to people’s posts in greater detail and with comments on their experiences and thoughts. I incorporate my understanding of the class material into my weekly writing assignments, or at least try to. My favorite readings so far have been the latest one, involving Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Both were so important for this country, and I love reading about our Independence from Great Britain. I loved being able to write about having an experience in Nature, for an assignment. It was a great change from reading and assignment and writing a detailed response.  One complaint I do have is that I have no idea how I am doing in this class, unless there is another place to view grades, blackboard doesn’t show any grade. Great reading so far, I hope we stay in the current time period for a little more than we have with other time periods, great readings. Overall great first half to English and I hope to earn an A by the end of it.