Mr Cook's Website

Mr Cook and my class often work on the webside that he made for his students to look up biographies of the people we learn about in class. I like the idea because we can study the information again if we need to and it is easy because we do not have to search on the internet. Working on the website is also useful so that we can improve our writing and summing up important information. But I think most of the students do not make use of this opportunity although it is not a bad idea. I do not kow why... Maybe we could add the information (biographies) in the very beginning of the time when we begin to learn about someone so that we can better memorize it and after a certain time we are going to add some things if we learn more about that person. For example there could be a certain day (for example thursday or friday) where we always add these things that came to our mind in the last days (more information, thoughts etc.).

Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., graduated from Morehouse College (B.A., 1948), Crozer Theological Seminary (B.D., 1951), and Boston University. He was the son of the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. King was ordained in 1947 and in 1954 he became the minister of a Baptist church in Montgomery, Ala. He led the black boycott (1955-56) of segregated city bus lines and in 1956 gained a major victory and prestige as a civil-rights leader when Montgomery buses began to operate on a desegregated basis.
King organized the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which gave him a base to pursue further civil-rights activities, first in the South and later nationwide. His philosophy of nonviolent resistance led to his arrest on numerous occasions in the 1950s and 60s. His campaigns had mixed success, but the protest he led in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963 brought him worldwide attention. He spearheaded the Aug., 1963, March on Washington, which brought together more than 200,000 people. In 1964 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM TO JAIL

On Good Friday in 1963 Martin Luther King and a group of blacks demonstrated in Birmingham to protest the existing segregation laws. The clergymen wanted them to stop these demonstrations and so they wrote a letter to Martin Luther King that was also published in newspapers. In his answer he wants to justify the desperate need for nonviolen direct action, the absolute immorality of unjust laws that were no laws and in his opinion they had not lived up tp their responsibilities as people of God.
In the very beginning he explains the blacks' actions that were well thoughtful planned. “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue”.
In my opinion Martin Luther King and his "members" were entitled to start demonstrations against their rights. I like the way he asks the clergymen for improvement and respect, especially the paragraph where he mentions a lot of (personal) situations e.g. where blacks are not allowed to do something: "(...) when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"(...)." For me everyone is the same and has the same rights, there can not be make a different between your skin color, where you come from or how you behave; every single person is made from God and God wants us to protect the given land, our earth, and to be responsible for that. We are living to make the world a better place and not to argue or to fight.

12/13/09: The last part of the letter:
Furthermore he talks about the Church. He explains again why he thinks that their demonstrations were necessary: If someone is ignored he will become violent and he will fight for their "God-given" rights.
King also explains that “black nationalist” groups are becoming prevalent in society and he has faith that the “Negro Church” has had direct influence in keeping the violence from erupting. Concerning the Church he is disappointed: “In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the Church. There can be no deep disappointment where there in not deep love”. In the end he sums up what he wants to achieve with his letter: he wants the Church to become active and to stand up for the African American rights and at the same time to prevent that they become violent.
I like King's way he writes, he sounds like a diplomat and tries to convince the reader.

Henry David Thoreau

12/07/09: Today we began to read Henry David Thoreau's essay "Resistance to Civil Government"
Homework assignment for today is to comment on this statement:
"The only thing I owe the government to do at any time is to do what I think is right."
In my opinion a single person, for example a king, can not make decisions on his own; there should be a majority of the same opinion. Advices might influence a certain opinion or decision and these should be taken into consideration. Therefore I agree with Thoreau that the government can not decide on his own but they can concentrate on conscience. The government should include the inhabitants' opinions and advices to think about right and wrong more thoughtful and to make a final decision easier. This is what he says: "(...) But government in which the majority rule in all cases can not be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which the majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?—in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable?"

12/08/09: The question is: What does Thoreau want the government to do and to improve and to change?
Especially in the last paragraph of his work he talks about human being and being an individual with rights and more power. The government should respect the people's opinions and advices and they could also learn from them. As I said, the government's majaority does not mean that they their opinion is right and that it is the right way and decision; it is just the statement of this group of people.This is what he says: "The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual. (...) Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? (...) Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, (...)". With these statements he explains that he would like to have a free and enlightenment state and also to get more power for all humans.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

BIOGRAPHY:

Ralph Waldo Emerson lived from 1803 to 1882 and was an American essayist, poet and philosopher. He is born in Boston and died in Concord (Massachusetts). He was one of the most important representatives of the transcendental philosophy and in America his great works influenced the American culture and literature.

from: Encarta 2008

The American Scholar

In 1837 Emerson delivered his speech "The American Scholar" in front of the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard.
One year earlier his essay "Nature" was published; first it was anonymous and it was not important, but today it is Emerson's most significant work, that describes his transcendental philosophy. He wanted people to feel free.
In "The American Scholar" he transferred his thoughts to cultural and intellectual problems.
Ralph Waldo Emerson says in the speech that men were supposed to be one being and that they are separated into different beings with different jobs and titles. In addition he says that they need to become one being ("man-thinker").
His work advocates "that scholar is educated by nature, books and action.". He uses especially the term "man-thinking" to denote an independent thinker; his mind is engaged by the spectacles of nature. Furthermore the scholar sees his connection to nature and his soul's reflection: to study and contemplate nature is to study contemplate one's soul (as he mentions in his speech). Emerson also mentions books and knowledge, however, in his opinion the true "man-thinker" uses his rich source of information to create ideas relevant and reflective in his day.

Ralph Waldo Emerson is often positioned as the “father” of American literature. As a poet, preacher, orator, and essayist, he articulated the new nation’s prospects and needs and became a weighty exemplum of the American artist. Throughout the 19th century, Emerson’s portrait gazed down from schoolhouse and library walls, where he was enshrined as one of America’s great poets. His daughter Ellen, accompanying her father on one of his frequent lecture tours, reported the fun of “seeing all the world burn incense to Father.” His calls for a scholar and a poet who would exploit the untapped materials of the nation served as literary credos for subsequent generations of writers, from Rebecca Harding Davis, Walt Whitman, and Frederick Douglass, to Hart Crane, Robert Frost, and A.R. Ammons.

from:http://college.cengage.com/english/lauter/heath/4e/students/author_pages/early_nineteenth/emerson_ra.html

What do I think about the scholar?

It is hard for me to explain it... In my opinion everybody should try the best to learn and to achieve something. Learning from books is very useful if you use them correct - that is what Emerson questions in his speech. Knowledge is something what is developing in your entire life and every minute you improve it in some way.

12/04/09: Today in class we read the third part of the speech and we discussed the most important aspects with our partners.
Gigi and me, we found out these aspects:

- Self-trust
- The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances
- Man Thinking
- in his private observatory, cataloguing obscure and nebulous stars of the human mind, which as yet no man has thought of as such, --watching days and months, sometimes, for a few facts; correcting still his old records;--must relinquish display and immediate fame
- must relinquish display and immediate fame
- accepting the fashions, the education, the religion of society, he takes the cross of making his own, and, of course, the self-accusation
- he is to find consolation in exercising the highest functions of human nature.

Thomas Paine

Common Sense
Introduction

The "Common Sense" was published anonymously in 1776 which is a strong defence of American Independence from England.
It challenged the authority of the British government and the royal monarchy. It was written by Thomas Paine, who is also called the "Founding Father".
In his introduction of his revolutionary pamphlet Paine gives reasons for writing the document and he uses motivated language. In the last paragraph he says that he speaks for other people without including personal opinions and says that higher as well as lower educated people can understand him.
Paine also names disadvantages of the connection and the advantages of independence. France and Spain will not be their enemies when they were independent from England.

In class we talked about these quotations and their meanings:

"Time makes more converts than reason."
It means that people learn more from own experiences they gain over a certain time.

"The wise and worthy need not the triumph of a pamphlet."
Paine does not write it for fame; he writes to spread knowledge.

Olaudah Equiano

BIOGRAPHY

Olaudah Equiano, also known as Gustavus Vassa, is born in 1745 in what is now Nigeria and died in 1797. As a child he already learned how to shoot and at the age of nine he was sold to British slavers and transported first to the Barbadoes in the West Indies and then to a plantation in Virginia.
Olaudah was one of the most prominent Africans involved in the British movement of the abolition for the slave trade. His autobiography depicted the horrors of slavery and helped influence British lawmakers to abolish the slave trade through the Slave Trade Act of 1807. Olaudah worked on a seaman ship and he also was a merchant and explorer in South America, the Caribbean, the Arctic, the American colonies and the United Kingdom.
It is curious that although he did not live with poor living conditions or was not a member of a poor family, he was send into slavery. For me it is terrible to think about being sold into slavers, but at an age of a child it is even more terrible.

"The Interesting Narrative of the Life"

In class we read the first pages of his "The Interesting Narrative of the Life" and there were groups which presented the different chapters to the class.
The chapters 1 to 6 can be found at
http://history.hanover.edu/texts/equiano/equiano_contents.html.

"The Interesting Narrative of the Life" was published in London, England in 1789. Two years later when it was reprinted in New York, it found an enthusiastic audience. This publication history suggests its centrality to the antislavery cause. Furthermore Equiano was the first African before Frederick Douglass, who spoke so movingly to the American audience about inhumanity. With his stories he tried the British government to abolish the slavery.

What is an epistle?

An epistle is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people. It is usually a letter, very formal and often didactic and elegant. The epistle genre of letter-writing was common in ancient Egypt as part of the scribal-school writing curriculum.

Slavery

Slavery refers to a situation where a human being is considered to be the property of another and is therefore obligated to perform tasks for their owner without any choice involved.

A letter concerning George W. Bush and the Iraq War

from: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200910/bush-torture#

The article from the website listed above are open letters to George W. Bush in hope that he will do something against the consequences of the Iraq War. A lot of Americans do not agree with the president's action and behaviour and are disappointed. After the revelations of Abu Ghraib (in 2004), Bush told al - Hurra, the U.S. - sponsored Arabic television station: " 'This is not America. America is a country of justice and law and freedom and treating people with respect.' " Bush said: " 'The people of Iraq must understand that I view those practices as abhorrent.' "
In the end of the first letter the author mentions his aim that she/he wants to achieve: ''The point of this letter, Mr. President, is to beg you to finally take responsibility for this stain on American honor and this burden on a war we must win.''
With this letter he asks him ''to stop blaming others for the consequences of decisions" he made.

I can understand the disappointment and the disagreement with Bush's actions. In my opinion we have the right to tell people our opinions, agreements and disagreements, if we do it in a friendly way. I really like the idea of writing a letter to him and I hope that these people can achieve something, although they cannot really influence his action. I do not like wars at all and I am sure nobody really likes them. Everybody can find a way to behave, to react and to act without fighting and even killing other people, who maybe do not have anything to do with the war. If one people is affected and gets hurt, other people (e.g. family) are hurt at the same time, too.

Declaration of Independence

The United States Declaration of Independence is a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain were now independent states, and thus no longer a part of the British Empire. Written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration is a formal explanation of why Congress had voted on July 2 to declare independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. The birthday of the United States of America- Independence Day-is celebrated on July 4, the day the wording of the Declaration was approved by Congress.

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence

Thomas Jefferson succeeded Benjamin Franklin as minister to France in 1785. His sympathy for the French Revolution led him into conflict with Alexander Hamilton when Jefferson was Secretary of State in President Washington's Cabinet. He resigned in 1793.
Sharp political conflict developed, and two separate parties, the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, began to form. Jefferson gradually assumed leadership of the Republicans, who sympathized with the revolutionary cause in France. Attacking Federalist policies, he opposed a strong centralized Government and championed the rights of states.

from: http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/thomasjefferson/

The Declaration of Independence
While reading this well argued essay you will see that some sentences/phrases are discarded. The reason is that if this kind of contract would include these sentences it would not be signed by the representatives of the colonies, for example: "(...) This piratical warfare, the opprobium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain (...)."

document can be find at: http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/congress.htm

J.Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

BIOGRAPHY

In 1755 John de Crevecoeur (Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur) immigrated to New France in North America. There, he served in the French and Indian war as a surveyor in the French Colonial Militia, rising to the rank of lieutenant. Following the British defeat of the French Army in 1759 he moved to New York State, then the Province of New York, where he took out citizenship, adopted the English-American name of John Hector St. John, and in 1770 married an American woman, Mehitable Tippet. He bought a sizable farm in Orange County, N.Y., where he prospered as a farmer and took up writing about life in the American colonies and the emergence of an American society. In 1779, during the American Revolution, the faltering health of his father forced him to travel to Europe.
(from Wikipedia)

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN FARMER

Letter 3
In short the first pages of Crevecoeur`s third letter are about how to define an American.
He points out that every American is different and that different areas will produce different people. He also compares America with Europe: "It is not composed, as in Europe, of great lords who pass everything, and of a herd of peole who have nothing. Here are no aristocratical families, no courts, no kings, no bishops, no eccelesiastical dominion (...)" (ll.10-12). In the following I sum up some definitions:
An American...
...loves his country.
...is formerly poor and punished people who create a new democracy.
...is a new race that builds up a new world without discrimination.
...gets what he deserves: reward for hard labour.
...has ancestors from all over the world (e.g. mostly pilgrims: industry, art, science).
...has a mixture of european blood.
...lives according to the new principles: declaration of independence.
...entertains new ideas and forms new opinions.
...is a free person and an equal citizen.
...leaves behind ancient prejudices, traditions, manners as well as values.
...participates in the country (e.g. to elect politicians).
...is independent from Europe.

In my opinion Crevecoeur is right, America was and is an independent country and you are free. A lot of people from Europe immigrated to America because there was a new social system, more work, they did not make big differences between poor, rich and new laws, "no courts, no kings" (p.300, l.10). They are "melted into a new race of men" (melting pot).

I think it is really important to learn something about America's history, about its beginning and how it went on. Especially these documents, like Crevecoeur's letters help you to understand how the situation was like and which differences the American saw between the New World and Europe. If you do not have a certain backgroundknowledge of the American history it may be harder to understand how the life differed from Europe and America. I am from Europe and you could mean that I have an imagination how the life was like, but although I am an European I did not really know a lot of things from the past. So for me it was even more interesting to see how people or in this case important humans or maybe historicans desribe and see the differences between Europe and America. This quotation of Crevecoeur's third letter surprised me in the beginning: "It is not composed, as in Europe, of great lords who pass everything, and of a herd of people who have nothing. Here are no aristocratical, famalies, no courts, no kings, no bishops, no eccelesiastical dominion."

I think although the papers and documents we read and discuss in class or in our life are over 100 years old, they are still right and important to know. I often wonder about how much we can learn from things that people have written down a long time ago. For me are these documents not only papers that are written down by someone at some time but they are written by a person who wanted to let others know about his thoughts, emotions and stories. I think these people must had a reason for poblishing their work.
For me Literature is a collection of all important and significant works. It does not matter how long they are but I think when you deal with them you will find out a kind of message why the authors wrote them.

Anne Bradstreet

BIOGRAPHY

In 1612 Anne Bradstreet was born in Northampton, England and her parents were Thomas Dudley and Dorothy Yorke. At the age of 16, Anne married Simon Bradstreet, a 25 year old assistant in the Massachusetts Bay Company and the son of a Puritan minister, who had been in the care of the Dudleys since the death of his father.
Anne and her family emigrated to America in 1630 on the Arabella, one of the first ships to bring Puritans to New England in hopes of setting up plantation colonies. The journey was difficult; many perished during the three month journey, unable to cope with the harsh climate and poor living conditions, as sea squalls rocked the vessel, and scurvy brought on by malnutrition claimed their lives. Anne, who was a well educated girl, tutored in history, several languages and literature, was ill prepared for such rigorous travel, and would find the journey very difficult.
Bradstreet was one of the first female poems writers at this time. Although women were not allowed to publish their opinions, she was very brave and continued writing. In her poems she describes how her life was, mentions problems like poor living conditions and she points out that women often felt at an disadvantage. She also tells the reader about diffult moments on her journeys.


"To My Dear and Loving Husband"

This is my favorite quotation:

"Thy love is such I can no way repay, The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray. Then while we live, in love let's so persevere. That when we live no more, we may live ever."

from: http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/Bradstreet/bradhyp.htm