Reflection- Compare and Contrast two poems

Our assignment this time was to read two poems that were written by Fireside poets and compare and contrast them. Both poems that I chose to read were by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He is my favorite fireside poet because I think his poems are the easiest to understand and they aren't too lengthy. The first poem I read was Excelisor by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poem is about a man who ends up dying, but after he sees all these things both happy and sad he always yells excelisor. I was not sure what excilisor meant so I looked it up in the dictionary and it turns out it meant somethign similair to excellent. After all these things happen in the poem such as night fall which is sad and seeing these happy homes all lit up which is a happy time he always yells excillisor. I think this is a typical trait of the romanticism period because the romanticism period is sort of unrational. The unrational thing to do would be to say excellent when something is just not so exellent. Another trait of the Romanticism period is a youthful innocence. In the poem excoliser it says "
THE SHADES of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!"( Wadsworth Excelisor). The man ends up dying in the end of the poem so you know he is not youthful, but it says there that he is a youth. That is a characteristic of the romanticism period. Also another characteristic of the Romanticism is non concrete ideas, otherwise known as abstract ideas. When reading the literary criticism of the piece I found that this was said "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's study of self-sacrifice takes the phenomenon to its logical conclusion, self-immolation, in response to a completely abstract ideal"(Huff-Excolisor). Longfellow was using an abstract idea in his poem which had something to do with death I believe.

Usually poems and other pieces from the Romanticism period have something to do with nature in them because that is a common theme or characteristic. The poem excoliser did not have anything to do with nature, but the other poem I read did. The other poem that I chose to analyze, also by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was title Aftermath. Aftermath was a lot about nature. It was however about the icky and sad parts of nature, winter. I completely agree with what he says about winter being the aftermath of all the other fun seasons per say. I also read a literary criticism about this piece, and in this criticism it said At 66 years of age when he wrote this poem, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had seen many summers come and go. In its seventh line the poem states that its title refers to the gleanings of a single year's last mowing, the poet also may have been thinking of his life after he reached retirement age, the so-called golden years(Huff Aftermath). I think that the poem was not meant to be taken this analytical, but more in a literal sense of actually being about winter with all the dead crops and dead lives and bitter wind and cold. It says Not the sweet, new grass with flowers
Is this harvesting of ours;
Not the upland clover bloom;
But the rowen mixed with weeds,(Longellow Aftermath). It is comparing winter to summer and how summer is much better than winter because of the new flowers and grass, instead of the dead crops of winter.

Huff, Randall. "'Aftermath'." The Facts On File Companion to American Poetry, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CPAP0010&SingleRecord=True (accessed December 7, 2011).

Huff, Randall. "'Excelsior'." The Facts On File Companion to American Poetry, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CPAP0122&SingleRecord=True (accessed December 14, 2011).


"62. Excelsior. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Yale Book of American Verse." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More.

Longfellow, Henry W. "Aftermath." PoemHunter.Com - Thousands of Poems and Poets.. Poetry Search Engine. Web. 07 Dec. 2011.

Journal #20

You can tell that this a Romanticism piece just from the title. The title is autumn and autumn has to do with nature. One of the main characteristics of the Romanticism period is that nature is a common theme. The poem is talking about Autumn and the good things about autumn such as the golden leaves. We have read many other poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I have read poems that he wrote about pretty much every season. I read O perfect Day which was about the perfect days of summer. I also read another one that was about winter and the gloom of winter and now this one is about Autumn and how pretty it is with the golden leaves. I agree with his views on all of the seasons. I love summer and I think that it is filled with perfect warm days that he spoke of. The best part of summer is that you can sleep in if you want. Then the poem that I read about Winter was about how gloomy it was because all the good things about nature was over and the bitter coldness was just around the corner. I hate that part of year where all the leaves are dead and it is just bitter frigid cold. Then in this poem Autumn I think that he likes Autumn and enjoys it. I agree the weather for Autumn is sometimes just perfect. Not too hot and not too cold and it is also filled with beautiful leaves that are red, orange, yellow, sometimes still green, golden, and every shade in between. My favorite of the three is summer, but closely followed by Autumn and then the least favorite just like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is winter. I like him as a poet because his poems are easy to understand but still contain all the characteristics a romanticism style piece should contain. I love all seasons at times but there is also bad times about each as well.

Reflection Fireside Poem

The poem I chose to analyze and reflect on was Aftermath by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I chose to analyze this poem because it was short and I thought starting simple would be nice, and also I can relate to what the poem is talking about. The poem is about the time of year when summer has ended and the good part of fall is just coming to a close. It is that gloomy part of the year where plants are no longer pretty, there is no more pretty leaves on the trees, they are now dead on the ground, the weather is bitter, all the birds have migrated, and all that is left is the fields to harvest. It is a pretty gloomy part of the year for me, because it means that cold frigid winter is coming up. The poem is very short and it goes like this, "When the summer fields are mown,
When the birds are fledged and flown,
And the dry leaves strew the path;
With the falling of the snow,
With the cawing of the crow,
Once again the fields we mow
And gather in the aftermath.
Not the sweet, new grass with flowers
Is this harvesting of ours;
Not the upland clover bloom;
But the rowen mixed with weeds,
Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,
Where the poppy drops its seeds
In the silence and the gloom. "(Longfellow). This basically just means everything that is left from summer is gone including the birds, the leaves, the fields, there is no sweet grass or flowers. All that is left is weeds, dead plants, and snow is coming. Everyone is just in silence and gloom. I completely agree with Longfellow because this is an extremely gloomy part of the year, and here in central Illinois all of these things occur.

You can tell this is a Romanticism piece because the theme of the poem is a nature. It is about what nature does at a certain part of the year. It also uses many discription words such as dry leaves, sweet with flowrs, upland clover bloom. Both nature and being discriptive are two characteristics of a Romanticism piece. At 66 years of age when he wrote this poem, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had seen many summers come and go. In its seventh line the poem states that its title refers to the gleanings of a single year's last mowing, the poet also may have been thinking of his life after he reached retirement age, the so-called golden years(Huff). Both the time of the year, and the timing in his life would have been gloomy at that point. I think however that Longfellow is probably writing about the time of the year more, I may just think this because I am young and do not know what that part of life would be like and I can easily relate to the part of the year aspect, but I have also read some of his other poems, and one was about the perfect summer days. They were written very closely together and he was not gloomy in the least bit in the other one, because the weather was perfect and none of those changes he mentioned in this poem were occuring which is why I think it is more about the time of the year because if he is happy in the other one where he is the same age but has nice weather then it has to be more about the nature and weather more than the time of his life.

Huff, Randall. "'Aftermath'." The Facts On File Companion to American Poetry, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CPAP0010&SingleRecord=True (accessed December 7, 2011).


Longfellow, Henry W. "Aftermath." PoemHunter.Com - Thousands of Poems and Poets.. Poetry Search Engine. Web. 07 Dec. 2011.

The Devil and Tom Walker Reflection

For our reflection today we had to read two literary pieces from the romanticism period. The two pieces were titld The Devil and Tom Walker and Rip Van Winkle. After reading these two pieces and also all the other romanticism pieces I had read previously I saw that the two pieces were pretty similair. Washington Irving was a non fiction writer of short stories. In his stories I think he uses a lot of creativity and imagination. He does this by being extremely descriptive with his writing. Being descriptive is also a characteristic of a romanticism piece, so it does not really come to a surprise that he does so. The story The Devil and Tom Walker is actually a pretty simple story that probably would not of been too long if it was not so descriptive. But because it was so descriptive it took him about ten pages to tell the story. This is an example of Irving writing with a lot of discription, a classic characteristic of a Romanticism writer. I am not a huge fan of a lot of discription, but Irving does make it a lot easier for a reader to get the scene and setting pretty clear in your head. You can just picture it a lot better. An example of this from the story is when Irving is describing the remains that are left at the Indian fort, he says, "“Nothing remained of the old Indian fort but a few embankments, gradually sinking to the level of the earth, and already overgrown in part by oaks and other forest trees, the foliage of which formed a contrast to the dark pines and hemlocks of the swamp. (Irving 243)” This was very wordy and could of simply been said as there was nothing left but a few remains that were sinking into the ground. All of his writing was pretty drawn out and lengthy to give more discription.

The story Rip Van Winkle was about a man who wakes up after takinga twenty year "nap" i guess you could call it, and then he realizes that everything has changed(Watts). Obviously everything has changed, it has been twenty years...There is a whole new setting after the twenty years and Washington Irving writes about the setting also in a very descriptive wordy way. Irving writes, “On awaking, he found himself on the green knoll from whence he had first seen the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes—it was a bright sunny morning. The birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft and breasting the pure mountain breeze. “Surely,” thought Rip, “I have not slept here all night.’” Irving pretty much shares everything that Rip could have been seeing. This much like the other story is very descriptive, but that is how the literature of this time period is supposed to be. He was very descriptive, which is why he is classified as a romanticism writer.


Irving, Washington. "The Devil and Tom Walker." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 240-250. Print.

Matthews, Washington Irving. "4. Rip Van Winkle By Washington Irving. Matthews, Brander. 1907. The Short-Story." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Web. 05 Dec. 2011.

Watts, Linda S. "'Rip Van Winkle'." Encyclopedia of American Folklore. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.
Both pieces we read I think exemplified the Romanticism period quite well. They were extremely discriptive, a little too discriptive at times, and there was a youthful tie into also there was talk of nature as a mentioned previously talking of the indian remains sinking into the ground.

Reflection: Thanatopsis

William Cullen Bryant's poem is a prime example of the types of work and poems that were written in the romanticism time period. One of the commen characteristics of the Romanticism period is the writing about nature. Everything has to do with nature. This poem is about how death and nature are related. Death comes from nature and we all die and go right back to nature. FOr instance, a lot of people are buried in the ground and then become one with nature when they are buried. This whole poem used very descriptive words about nature and revolves the whole subject around nature. To Nature's teachings, while from all around Earth and her waters, and the depths of air
Comes a still voice—Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more(Bryant 13). It talks about nature teaching you with her waters, the air, and all the other aspects of nature until the final days when the sun no longer shines any more. I think William Cullen Bryant had a point he was trying to get to his readers. I think he wrote this poem as a way to make his readers feel better about death. He wanted them to feel it was a natural thing, and not to be so afraid of it because it is inevitable. This poem's subject was a little sad, with it being all about death, but I do admire his point, because whether we like it or not, death is going to happen to us, and every single one of the people we love. NO, it sometimes will not feel fair, especially the timing if they go too soon, but it happens. We all will have to return to "nature". This is very different that what a puritan writing would of looked like. If a puritan writer would of been writing about the same thing, we would not be returning to nature, we would be returning to god. It is very interesting to look at all the time periods and see how the writers behaved. I think honestly I would agree more with the Puritan writers returning to god than the romanticism and returning to nature.


Bryant's last paragraph is very interesting, but it has a more dark tone than the rest of the poem. So live, that when thy summons comes to joinThe innumerable caravan which moves To that mysterious realm, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couchAbout him, and lies down to pleasant dreams(Bryant 70-80). It incorporates the myteriousness and darkness that death has, but it also reminds you and the very end...that you are at peace. You are one with nature, and you can lie down to pleasant dreams. The last paragraph i think was a little more rational than the rest of the poem, because he is also talking about the darkness of the subject death, not just acting like it is all okay and we are just about nature and it is happy. The poet realizes that death is a dark thing, but it is also a very peaceful thing.

Byant, William C. "Thanatopsis." PoemHunter.com. 13 May 2001. Web. 22 Nov. 2011. .r

Reflection-Romantacism/ Fireside poets

The fireside poets were also known as household poets or school room poets. They were basically the first group of American poets that rivaled British poets in popularity. They were poets during the romanticism period. Their poems do not seem really romantic to me, but they are very descriptive. I found one poem that was full of descriptive words by John Greenleaf Whittier. This is an excerpt from Snow-Bound
"We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old, rude-furnished room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;
While radiant with a mimic flame
Outside the sparkling drift became,
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free."(A Brief Guide).
They use so many descriptive words that the writers of the Rationalism period did not use. They were very different writers. The rationalism writers used reason and and facts and did not really use anything that had to do with emotion. They did not want to appeal to your emotion. I think Romanticism is very different because they use all kinds of descriptive words that completely appeal to your senses and emotions. Romanticism was a reaction do Rationalism. They had much more of a value for feeling and emotion over the reason. They started writing poetry which was like an art instead of facts and figures and examples and reason that the writers of the rational period used. It was much more imaginative compared to rationalism which was much much more scientific. They do not really like civilization it seems. The romanticism writers seem much more like they like freedom and just going with the flow and nature and all the lovely things that they wrote poetry about. They did not seem to be so fond of the facts and reason that the rationalism writers just loved so much. They linked nature together with spirituality as where in the puritan writing period that was prior to the Romanticism period where God was not linked with anything he was the only thing that even mattered. Romanticism writers found beauty in pretty much everything. Even fire was beautiful to them, but in the rationalism period it seemed that they found fault in pretty much everything instead of beauty. The common themes of Romanticism love, nature, patriotism, family, god, and religion. In rationalism there was not really any common themes. The were just using reason to argue all the thing they talked about, and even prior to the rationalism period during the puritan period the ONLY theme they wrote about basically was God. Writing has changed a lot between the three periods. Mostly just between Rationalism and Romanticism. Some Romanticism writers were much more dark. They used the romanticism writing style with all the description to describe much more odd things. One writer who's work we have read through out the years in school, was Edger Allen Poe who wrote about fears and physcological things like death and others. I like rationalism period much more than the romanticism period because the way my brain works is with reason and much less with emotion. My brain just works so much better that way.

"A Brief Guide to the Fireside Poets." Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More. Web. 22 Nov. 2011.

Journal #19

Spirituality has a lot to do with the circle of life and death. I know that we are not really supposed to discuss religion and god at school. Religion is very important to the circle of life because I believe that it dictates where you go in death after life. If you are religious and you believe in God and live you part of the circle of life for god then I believe that in death you will go to heaven and be with God during death. If you do not believe in god and live your life in a horrible way then you probably will not go to heaven you will go to hell because you are a bad person. I know that this may sound hypocritical and all talking about where you go because I just like everyone else am a sinner. But I do totally one hundred percent believe in God. I obviously hope that after life I go to heaven and not hell. Nature does not have to do as much with the circle of life and death, but I can see it going with it a little bit. Maybe if you are on earth during life you should become one with the earth and then you could maybe become more spiritual. A lot of philosophies and people believe that spirituality and nature go together hand in hand. I however do not I do not really think the ground and plants and things like that have to do with God and how he is our holy savior. I do not really see the link between the two, but I know that some people think that. Life and death is actually a scary thing because you never know the times frames of either one of them. you just have to live every single day like it could be your last one on the first part of the circle of life and death.

Journal #18

Fall is an extremely beautiful and lovely time of the year. Autumn is full of colorful leaves. There are orange, yellow, and red. Sometimes there is even green left over from the summer time. During Fall there is crisp air and breezes that are sometimes too much coldness for little ol me to handle. There are many activities that people should do during fall. One is bonfires. Bonfires are very fall. The only bad thing about bonfires is the smell of the smoke fills your hair and hoodie and it is a very strong scent that is a little difficult to get out. Autumn is all about football games. It is all about the boys of fall. If only we went to a school where the boys of fall were good and we went far into the season later into fall. Fall fashion is the absolute best. I love my boots and I love my mocassins and I love my hoodies. In fall my birthday comes! I get all kinds of fun presents from all the people that I love and adore so dearly. Homecoming also comes during fall. I love homecoming. It is an excuse so spend money on pretty dresses and manis and pedis and shoes and jewelry to go out to dinner and have fun with all of your friends. Then you get to go take pictures with all of your best friends and go dance the night away. Fall is just filled with a million fun things. It is the perfect time of year. It is easily my favorite season of the year. The weather is that perfect balance of cold but crisp but still warm if that makes any sense at all. I wish the weather was like the first week of fall year round. Except I wish we did not have school during the fall because school is very boring. I love fall a lot, and i am pretty sure every single person does.

Journal #17

There were many times that I have bonded with nature. A few years back my friends, Ainsley, Melissa, and I would go out on the warm summer nights and we would lay out on the driveway and we would stargaze. For hours and hours we would just lay in the driveway at one of our three houses and we would just lay there and stare up at the stars. I felt as if I was one with the stars and the sky. It was very very relaxing and time seemed to fly by. Other times I felt I was bonding with nature was times when my mother and I would spend hours and hours on end planting all kinds of plants in the spring to make her garden look nice. Every year pretty much we would do this because when my mom was a kid she would do these things with her grandma. She really cared about her garden and how it looked. We would go out and we would buy all kinds of flowers, shrubs, and other kinds of plants. We would then go home and we would plant all the things we had bought. This would seriously take hours. All day, but we would get a tan by staying out all day and planting so that was always a plus. Nature is very nice. Nature is a wide a ray of things. I also remember when I was little I would set my alarm to the nature sounds when I fell asleep. I would stay awake and just relax and listen to the nature sounds. That was a way to bond with nature because every night when I fell asleep I would just lay there and listen to nature sounds as I was falling asleep. Nature is a beautiful peaceful and relaxing things. I think now i want to bring back my nature alarm clock and as I fall asleep I can do that.

Journal #16

There are many tools that as a student and part of a group can use in order to communicate with my partners in the Franklin Virtues Project partners. One tool that we can use and already have used is skyping. We skyped with the seniors who have previously done the project from Farmington. We got to talk to them to get information about the project, and get information about Farmington and what they do there and the similarities and differences to Plains. We found out that they are actually very similar to Plains. They are pretty much living in the middle of a cornfield too. They said they do not do anything really in the actual town but go to athletic games and stuff like that. It was very similar to to Plains. They are pretty much as close to Peoria as Plains is to Springfield. There are also many other tools that we can use to communicate. Email is another one. We can email them to get information about how they are doing on their projects and to transport our finished things for the project. For the people that are in my group that go to plains I can pretty much use any form of communication. Two of the people in my group are two of my good friends so it will be very easy to communicate with them because I can text them, talk to them in real life, or use all the digital communication that I have to use with the kids from Farmington. It is going to be good for us to learn to communicate completely digitally will other students because in college we pay have to do that or when we work in the workforce when we are older a lot of jobs require you to email your co workers and get information on the project at hand. This project is a good preperation in the future for us in college or in the work force.

Journal #16

It is very difficult for me to work with people probably because I am a control freak. It is very hard with me to share responsibility with other people because I am scared that they will do it wrong and I want it to be done my way. It will be even more difficult to do a group project with people that I am not even with in person. It will be difficult to get a lot of stuff, a big project with people that are not even in our school. I will have to be very patient and try to let go of my control freak ways and let people do other stuff. Hopefully the other people in my group are smart and at least have a good work ethic so that the project will get done and I will not end up doing the whole thing. I really wish we were not doing this project because I do not like group projects. Pretty much every other group project I have done I have ended up doing the whole entire thing. It is just not fun. I will have to have good communication skills with everyone in my group in order for this to work. Luckily, two of the other four people in my group are my friends. They are not in my English class because they are in regular english, but they are both people that I talk to. That will make the project a little bit easier. If I can depend on those two to get stuff done hopefully the other two in Farmington are just as hard working and they do some stuff for our project. I hope this project works out and we all get good grades on it. I will probably end up doing a lot but that is okay because I really care about my grades and I both want and need to get a good grade on this project.

Reflection- Franklin and tuckerman

Ben Franklin had many virtues that he wrote in his life. Ben Franklin wrote a list of virtues that he thought people could use in their everyday life to help them get things done in a rational way. the first thing Ben Franklin did when he wrote or made the list of virtues was to incorporate them into his everyday life and make sure that they were virtues that were correct and practical. He wanted to make sure they worked for himself before he shared them with other people and they were not good. I think ben Franklin was a very intelligent man and the virtues he came up with were smart and people could really use them. Franklin made a good observation and a ratinal one at that by realizing that you could not change your whole life all at once. You needed to master the virtues one at a time. He knew it would take time to get them all mastered. H started to conform his virtues to a new list he had came up with. By reading the literary criticism by Tuckerman I felt that Tuckerman liked Ben Franklin. In his criticism he was pretty nice to Franklin. I noticed that Tuckerman said that Ben Franklin was both "practical and he has prominent characteristics" (Tuckerman). That sounds like a pretty good compliment to me. Tuckerman's criticism is a good one because ther was support from Franklin's autobiography that supports the opinions that Tuckerman stated and I agree with most of those opinions. In Franklin's autobiography he seemed to never be hypocritical. I think that Ben Franklin was both very smart like I said before, and I also think that he was a good guy. He did not just preach his virtues out at everyone because he felt like it and felt like telling people what to do. He followed those virtues himself and i think really wanted to change people for the better so that they could be successfull too. He would incorporate these virtues into his life at the rate of one virtue per week (Franklin 150). I think that is pretty cool that Franklin organized his virtues and kept track of them. That showed that he cared about following his virtues in order to be able to rationalize to people and have data and proof that they worked. That shows that he is a rationalist. It showed that he had thought about how he should approach this and he had a method to all of these virtues that could be seen as random to somebody else. Franklin said, "And, as the previous acquisition of some might facilitate thea cquisition of certain others, I arranged them with that view, as they stand above."(Franklin 150). This was him showing that he had some order to all of his ideas and being able to rationalize it to the others. I do not know how he organized his virtues but I think that he organized them in a way of difficulty and importrance. If you had trouble with the prior virtues you would probably really struggle with newer ones.

Franklin, Benjamin, and Leonard Woods Labaree. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. New Haven: Yale UP, 1964. Print.

Tuckerman, Henry T. "The Character of Franklin." Facts on File. Web. 30 Oct. 2011.

Reflection- Philosophies of deism

Ben Franklin is known as kind of the enterpenuer of his day. He pretty much did everything. He was anything from a philopoher to an inventor, and it seems as though he succeeded in just about everything that he did. He was a very intelligent man and activily agreed with rationalism and Deism. He had thirteen virtues that he is known for. Virtues are very similair to morals. Ben Franklin's virtues were not only very wise but he was rational in the way he went about them.

He had two sets of his virtues. The first set was personal. The personal virtues are the morals or virtues that are about your attitude, activities, and the challenges that you face within your personal situations. If you have a good character you are probably going to go farther in life, or at least achieve your personal goals, or at least reach your goals in a way that you are morally okay with. The first personal virtues were temperance and order. Temperance is rational because if you do things rationally you do them in moderation, you do not just blow things up, because it can be overwhelming. The order aspect of personal virtues is rational because it is organizing and if you are a rationalist you must prove your points. The next few virtues of Franklin were resolution and frugality. Rationalists wanted a a resolution to things(Franklin). Moderation and industry were also a part of Franlin's virtues. Moderation is similair to temperance. But industry is rational becausy you are always supposed to be working and getting things done. Most rationalists probably use the industry virtue and have a good work ethic because they know it is rational to have a good work ethic in order to get things done. Rationalist are always busy(Franklin). the last two personal virtues were cleanliness and tranquility. Cleanliness is not really a rational virtue just something that i agree everyone should follow. Even though a lot of people do not... Ben Franklin's personal virtues showed how he incorporated his life and actual virtues into rationalism(Bloom).

Along with personal virtues, Franklin also had social virtues. These included things like silence, sincerity, justice, chasity, and humility. The silence aspect is rational because you can not speak bad things about other people because of karma. It will come back around and get you. With sincerity, you just need to be sincere because it is the right thing to do and you must be sincere and understanding in situations. Justice is showing that rationalists wanted peace and they just want to do what is right and have to do what needs to be done for something to get accomplished(Franklin). Chasity is not really related to rationalism, but I am sure that Franklin was thinking of something rational when he wrote his virtues. The final social virtue is humility and it says to imitate Jesus(Bloom). Rationalists did what was needed, they did not always rely on other or god to get them where they need to be, they did that themselves. The social virtues especially written by Franklin pertained to rationalism.

Bloom, Harold, ed. "Benjamin Franklin." Benjamin Franklin, Classical Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2008. Bloom's Literary referance Onlin. Facts on File, Inc.

Boucquey, Thierry, gen. ed. "Franklin, Benjamin." Encyclopedia of World Writers, 14th through 18th Centuries. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2005. Bloom's Literary Reference Onlin. Facts on File, Inc.

Journal #14

My day as Ben Franklin's apprentice would consist of many many things. We would probably do some brain exercises. Maybe he would have me do some crosswords or some sodoku puzzles? Just kidding probably not, I do not think that either one of those were invented in that time. Actually maybe he would have me do some of those magic nine squares that he invented. We learned those in like eighth grade with Mrs. Bryan. Or Maybe Ben Franklin is a bit of a mean guy and if I was his apprentice he would treat me as a lesser being and make me more like his assistant and have me do all of his little errands. I would maybe have to make his coffee from scratch. I would have to go outside and find some coffee beans in the ground or where ever you find coffee beans and get them and bring them inside, then I would have to go to a garage somewhere and find a hammer and bring it back inside and smash all of the coffee beans until they were some powder or whatever they do when you smash or grind them. And then I think you have to mix the powder with water that is hot? That is just a guess actually because I have never made nor drank coffee in my whole entire life, because it tasted like puke. It is god awful. But hey maybe Ben Franklin liked coffee. I really do not know but it is just a guess because he was a smart man and smart people like coffee maybe. I do not even know what a day as Ben Franklin's apprentice would consist of because that was a very long time ago and I was not alive obviously during that time so...I am not a huge fan of this here blog topic because it is something that is really hard to write about, especially three hundred and twenty five words. But i am actually almost there so I will now go count my words and hopefully I have enough...

Journal #13 American Dream

I think that the American Dream today is very different from all the other decades. Our American dream is to be successfull, and to be successful today is to make money. People are always wanting more and more, more money to buy more clothes, to buy a bigger house, to have more cars. It is always more. The American Dream has become very materialistic. In the decades prior I think the American Dream had to do with having a good family and having your kids be able to grow up and follow in your foot steps. It was more about things like love, and family, and how good of a person you were. It was not just about things and money. I do not totally agree with what our society has become and that we are so materialistic, but I know that I want to make a lot of money and that I want to be succesfull. I started working not even a week after I turned sixteen because I was I guess eager to start the American Dream...I want to have my own money so that I can buy my own things. It is just a lot better to have more financial stability and knowing that you have money to go out and do what you want to on the weekens and know you have money to buy those new jeans you wanted. It is actually pretty sad that our society is so wrapped up in what people think and the matarial things that in the grand scheme of things do not matter the least bit. Things like family are love and having your children succeed are more important. People want to be the best and right now to be the best it takes money and having the best things not just having a good family in being happy. At the end of the day though money is not what is important...having a family that loves you or even a dog that loves you is more important than money. People need to focus more on the important things in life not just the material ones.

Reflection- Franklin vs. other Puritan writers

Ben Franklin as an author in comparison to the puritan writers we ahve looked at are very different. From their writing style to even what they write about it different. However, even some puritan writers vary compared to other puritan writers. Ben Franklin in my opinion was not a puritan writer. I enjoyed the autobiography of Ben Fraklin more than I enjoyed the other stories and things we have read this far because I think that Ben Franklin was a very intelligent man. I also think he was a good person. He has a very different writing style that is even a little bit weird compared to the other writers. Because is is so different it makes him stand out as a writer.

The biggest difference between Franklin's autobigraphy and the works we read prior by the puritans is that Franklin's autobiography lacks the presense of God in the writing. All of the previous Puritan writers were all about God. Ben Franklin was not a puritan though, so I understand why he would not be writing about God. The Puritan's life revolved completely around god, and everything that they did or said was for him. When life was bad, God was still praised. I do agree that we should praise god in both good and bad times, but they were a bit over the top obcessed with him. In Anne Bradstreet's Upon the Burning of our House, her house burnt down and she still praised god finding the silver lining in the situation. SHe was not the strongest Puritan of all the one's that we read, but she was stil praising god in the worst of the worst(Bradstreet 91). Mary Rowlandson was being held captive by the Indians and all she could think about was the positives and how being captures would turn out a good way in the end. God was doing it to her for a reason, and she was okay with it and just thanking him like being captured was normal. She knew God would never put her through anything that she was not able to handle(Rowlandson 83). Through reading the autobiography , we find that he did have some struggles in his life, but hey who doesn't? But he did not necessarily praise god for his hardships like both Mary and Anne did(Franklin 108).

Another difference between Ben Franklin and Puritan writers is the actual physical way they wrote. Puritans did not use the descriptive talk that Ben Franklin used. They just sort of got straight to the point unless it was about god. They could go on forever about how awesome he was. Franklin did kind of do a little bit too much describing about some things and he should of just got straight to the point. When he was talking about his stay with the nice lady, he went on and on and on about how nice she was and just kept describing about what she gave him (Franklin 107). I am not saying that describing is bad, but sometimes it is just a little boring to the reader because you just want to know what happened already!

Journal #12

If I could make up my own rules about right and wrong I would change a bunch of the rules at our school, Pleasant Plains High School. This year we have a bunch of new rules that I think are stupid and do not work well with what I agree with. I think it is right to have homeroom and give students a time to talk to everyone and a time to relax. Instead we have stupid pace, where we can not even talk and we are forced to sit there in silence. It is really really dumb. It does not benefit smart people at all, if I have to get help with homework I can not even talk to anyone because Mr. Tadla just gets really mad and will not let us talk. It is inhumane to make us sit in Pace for forty minutes each day in silence, because quite frankly I never really get anything done because I am just too focused on the fact that it is wrong to make us sit there. If i could also make rules about right and wrong, i would ban animal testing because I think it is cruel to do that to the poor little puppies. They are so cute and they never did anything wrong. Also, I would not allow people who committed awful crimes to appeal their sentencing so that we have murderers and awful people on the street. ALso, if you are a celebrity and you commit a crime you should get the same punishment and sentencing as a normal person. I do not understand why they get special treatment just because they are famous. Crime committers and murderers deserve to have punishment and stay in prison. It is just how it should be. I really just do not school, but I would not make a rule against it because we need to go to school to get somewhere in life. However, I would just make sure there is no pace.

Journal #11 - Aphorism

Someone once said, "You are only young once...but you can be immature your whole life." I completely agree with this aphorism. This aphorism really makes me think of my mom. My mom is obviously not a child, if she is mother. She is actually old. Well not old, but older than me. However, she acts as if she is a child a lot. My mom is actually pretty cool. She is always doing things like a kid. She rides on shopping carts in the grocery store, makes extremely immature jokes about child like things such as farts or poop. She is actually really immature, and I think she will be like that the rest of her life. My mom is also really happy. I think she is probably pretty happy because she does not take life too seriously because she is always acting like she is a child. Because my mom is happy and immature she may sometimes get herself into trouble. When her and my father Jackie Kieth, who is far from immature and childish, fight she sometimes gets herself into more trouble because my dad will say something trying to be serious and make a point, and then my mom will just laugh because she thinks of it as a five year old. My dad eventually gets over it and they do not fight anymore. I hope that when I am older I can act somewhat like my mom and have fun with my kids and be immature, only when it is the right time, and just live life more carefree. We should not take life too seriously...it is only life and everyone is going to have the same outcome anyway... I love my mom a lot and I am happy that even though she is old, that she is still fun and immature sometimes. She is also a really good mom, and I hope my kids love me just as much as I love her today.

Reflection Thomas Paine

The writing, The Crisis No. 1, by Thomas Paine to me was definitley a piece from the rationalism period. Just by reading the very begenning, you could tell that Paine was a rationalist. He uses reason and thought to prove his points, as compared to the puritan writing style before where a lot of emotion was used. I think that the Rationalistic writing style is much better at pursueding people and getting points across because if the reader is reading facts and reason, their mind is not left alone to think about the decision and use their emotions. Like I said, from the very begenning you can tell it is a rationalistic piece. In the very pfirst paragraph in the exerpt from the book. Thomas Paine says, "Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, had declared that she has a right (not only to tax) but "to bind us in all cases whatsoever"; and if being bound in that manner is not slavery, then there is not such a thing as slavery upon Earth" (Paine 134). This quote shows that Paine was really into getting people fired up and wanting them to stand up for what they believe in in the British Colonies. He makes it ver clear that he thinks the British Government is taking over everything and overstepping their boundaries into people's lives. I think that Paine was adressing this piece to people in the military. If you read the before you Read Section (132), it says that Thomas Paines's letter the Crisis, was to be rad at all the military camgrounds. This just makes me think he was targetting all the military people because it is obvious that people in the military show true passion for their country if they are willing to die for it, then they are most likely willing to stand up for what their country believes in.

Thomas Paine also says in the exerpt, Thomas Paine said in the excerpt, “We did not make a proper use of last winter… and the fault is all our own” (Paine 135). I think that this quote really shows the Rationalistic thinking of Thomas Paine because rationalism was a time of reasoning and deeper thought, not just emotions. Thomas Paine had obviously thought through peeople sitting around and not accomplishing a lot during the winter. I can tell he was using a rationalistic thought process because he was thinking logically when thinking that things were actually our fault. I think that by telling people they have not accompished a lot, then hopefully they will be fired up and ready to prove you wrong and do something about what they should of already been doing. That is definitley how my brain works, when somebody tells me that I can't, it makes me want to show them that I most definitley can. He just wants to get them a little stirred up about how they are being treated from the government overseas so then hopefully, they will finally do something about it.

Paine, Thomas. "from The Crisis, No.1." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 134-136. Print.

"Before you Read: From The Crisis, No. 1." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 132. Print.

Reflection- Henry

I actually do believe that Patrick Henry's speech is an example of what a rationalism period literature piece would be like. The Rationalism period is very different from it's previous period, of puritan writing. The main characteristics Rationalism writing exemplifies is they just simply state what things are really like. These use facts and data to get the point across, instead of using just believing god would take care of it, or going on pure emotion and no factual information to back things up. Also in the Rationalism period they do not just jump around and doil around the point, they get right to it. I like the Rationalism period a lot more because I like having some data and facts to prove something to me. When I read a story I like to know the events and the facts and data instead of seeing some pointless pictures or reading all the details that do not really matter. It is really annoying when an author takes four chapters to even set up the plot.

I think that the speech of Patrick Henry was a good example of the rationalism period because I think that he was think logically and not purely on his emotions. A famous quote by Patrick Henry is "Give me Liberty, or give me death." By stating this he is saying the war was well under wat before the actual war was even fired, because not everyone was on the same page, not everyone agreed. Many things leading up to the actual war had already happened. He shows that the colonies opinions do not really matter(Henry 118). Nothing they could really do was going to change where they were headed. At the Convention Henry makes everyonhe aware that if we are going to keep doing what we are doing then things are going to keep going how they are going...unless someone steps up and does something about it(Henry 116). The war was basically inevitable at this point. There was not really a way out of it, and I think Henry maybe did not even want to have this war but he was using his logic knowing that they were too far in to get out now. They had to fight this especially if they wanted to get what they wanted.

Because Henry uses logic in telling people at the convention that they are going to have to prepare for a war even if that is not want they want because they need to get liberty or they are going to keep living unhappy, that makes it a rational piece of literature in my opinion. I do not even think that Henry wanted the war because let's be honest, nobody really wants war, however Henry needed to be logical in order to have himself prepared for the war, as well as convince others that they needed to prepare for it because he knew that if they did not prepare it would all be for nothing. If they did prepare then maybe they would finally get what they had been wanting this whole time, liberty and freedom.

Henry, Patrick. "Speech to the Second Virginia Convention." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 114-118. Print.

Reflection- Declaration of Independance

The Declaration of Independence was a very confusing piece of literature for me to read. It was probably so difficult because it is more of a historical piece, and I am not really into not good at history.

In our previous class period of English we learned about faulty logic and the use of propaganda. By definition propaganda is are the methods and approaches used to spread ideas that further a cause - a political, commercial, religious, or civil cause(Recognizing Propoganda). In many arguements made people use these faulty logic and uses of propaganda. The most common are name calling, which is using negative labels or names to call someone, card stacking, which is when you only present information about one side so the reader does not really have a chance to form an opinion on the other, and generalizations, where you group everyone together in their opinions and thoughts.

The Decleration of Independence did in fact use a lot of good logic and did a good way of getting their point accross in a non faulty manor. In the Decleration they list the many things that King George did, calling together legeslative houses repeatedly for invasions, making people uncomfortable, refusing to pass laws, and refusing elections(Jefferson 123). They list the many things that the King did in a factual manor and that is a good use of logic.

However, there are also quite a few forms of faulty logic and propoganda in the Decleration of Independence as well. The Decleration says "He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people"(Jefferson 124). This is a form of a bias opinion and is also an extreme exageration. The king did not literally burn the towns, ravage the coasts, or literally destroy lives of the people. This is just an exagerated opinion on how they feel which is a use of faulty logic.

There was quite a big technique that is faulty that I also picked up on. It says in one part of the Decleration of Independence that all mean are created equal and their rights cannot be taken away(Jefferson 122). They say that men are all equal, but then they spend almost the whole entire Decleration of Independence tearing the king to shreds basically and just bashing him the whole time. If all men are equal I do not think that they should sit there and right about how awful of a person he is. I also think that if Jefferson and his co-writers of the Decleration had their way they would not want the King to have rights because they talk of how awful of a person is. This is a bit of a contridiction if you ask me because if a man is as equal as everyone else, then there should not be so many awful things to say to an equal of you(Regocnizing Propoganda). Many arguements and famous documents use these. Even the Decleration of Independence uses a few of these examples and even a few other faulty logic and propoganda example.


Jefferson, Thomas. The Declaration of Independence. Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 120-124. Print.

"Recognizing Propaganda--Guide to Critical Thinking--Academic Support."Academic.cuesta.edu. Cuesta College. Web. 27 Sept. 2011.

Journal #10

Mr. Langley,

We should postpone the vocabulary assignment due date until Wednesday for many reasons. The main reason being students are more likely to succeed if we take it next Wednesday. We have just recently completed our last Vocabulary Test from Unit two this morning, only about ten minutes ago. If we were to start Unit 3 Vocab then all of the student's brains may still be focused on the words from unit two. Also today is Friday. On Friday none of the students really want to do anything therefore they are not going to put forth the effort on the vocab that they would be putting forth if it was Wednesday. This week is also mid-term. With it being mid-term students are loaded with other homework and have many tests. As a student Vocabulary is on the bottom of my list of priorities because I have so many other larger point assignments to worry about. If we wait until Wednesday to start Unit three vocab then I will not have as much homework and I will have already completed the tests that I am worried about currently. Waiting until Wednesday also gives us much more time to complete the assignment! The more time we as students receive to do the assignment, the better we are going to do on the assignment. Postponing the Vocab until Wednesday just takes a little bit of stress off of us because we are already so worried about all the other assignments and tests we have this week. If you give us until Wednesday to do the assignment I can assure you that my brain will be fully shifted from Unit two Vocab words such as exonerate, propitious, heinous, and a few others to the new fascinating words in Unit 3. Right now I just can not focus on unit three because I was up so late studying for my Unit two test that those words will just not get out of my head. We just need a little bit of a resting period in between to make the shift and become a little destressed from all the other worries in school. It would make the scores better for all of the students in the class.

Journal #9

There are many emotional situations that I have been in. During an emotional situation it is very easy to not think rationally and go purely based on your emotions. However, usually it works out better if you use a raional approach to solve the problem. About a year ago, the best dog in the whole world, Harley, became very sick. My whole family loved Harley. He was really the best dog in the whole world. We came home from work and school and Harley just would not get up from where he was laying. We all knew it just was not right. Harley always came to the door and jumped and licked all over is. We decided to take him to the vet because we just knew that something was wrong. The vet ended up telling us that Harley had cancer and it was going to be almost impossible to cure and that he would be in extreme pain. Of course we all wanted Harley to stay with us and keep playing with us and keep being the best dog in the world. Of course if we lead with our emotions then we would have had Harley stay with us. However, we had to think of what was best for him. What would be the rational thing to do. We decided that we had to put Harley to sleep. It was one of the hardest things that I have had to do because he was like my best friend, but it just would not be okay if we did not put him down because he would be suffering all the time. It was a horrible thing for my brother, my mom, my dad, and I but it had to be done. There are many times when I look at the pictures in my house and think God I miss that dog. He was perfect. I just have to force myself to remember what we did was the right thing for him and he is no longer in pain, even though we all might be emotionally.

Journal #8- Autumn

Autumn is the best season of the whole entire year. Well besides we have to be in school. Weather wise it is the best. It is after summer where it is too hot to even go outside and enjoy yourself because all you do is just sweat and you are extremely uncomforatable. Also, it is before Winter where it is frigid freezing. When you can not even go outside because it is freezing and my parents will not let me drive in the snow because they do not trust my little mini cooper to do well in the ice and snow, which actually I do not blame them. The clothes you get to wear in autumn are the best of the whole entire year. I get to break out my beautiful UGG boots that I love ever so much, and no they are not snow boots. You also get to wear cardigans, and hoodies, and jeans, and sweatpants. It is the best wardrobe you get to wear all year long! The leaves are all so pretty too when they are yellow, orange, red, and brown. They just make the atmosphere so pretty. In autumn you also get to carve pumpkins! The Apple Barn and the Farm in Petersburg are open and you may go and get some nice pretty pumpkins to carve with your best friends. It is just such a good time. Another fabulous thing about Autumn is Halloween. Halloween is quite possibly the most fun holiday there is. YOu get to dress up as whatever you want and get a lot of yummy yummy candy. Also, it is an excuse to have my parents extend my curfew. Best of all is a certain event in august that only comes once a year. That would be my birthday. My birthday is October twenty seventh. Best day of the year of course. October will be a fun month. It is homecoming, I am going to visit mizzou for their homecoming, my birthday, and there are two four day weekends. I could not really ask for a better month.

Reflection-Crucible Act 4

Throughout reading the two puritan writings the Crucible and Hands of an Angry God, which was actually a sermon, but never the less they have some extreme coincedinces in them. In Hands of an Angry God the pastor or speaker is yelling at the audience saying that they are all sinners and fake puritans. They sit in church and act all perfect high and mighty and like they are great puritans when in all actuality they are not such good people. He says that god knows and he sees that they are not good puritans and that they will be punished by going to hell and it could be soon. They are using fear and intimidation to try and talk the people of the church into being good puritans because they are basically posers as a good puritans. In the book the Crucible, they are supposed to be good puritans just like the audience of Hands of an Angry God is supposed to be. However, some of the Puritans in the Crucible are not very good. They are commiting extreme sins. There is adulty occuring with Proctor and Abigail. That is a sin for many reasons. There is lying, cheating, and non maritial sex. Also there is practicing of witchcraft. Um Hello that is obviously a sin. Witchcraft is supposedly having to do with the devil. It is obviously a sin if you are dealing with the devil. People also are accusing them of witchcraft which they never really know for sure. They accused so many women and a few men of doing witchcraft, that they did not even think about the repercussions that would come from them doing that (Miller 48).Im sure that some of the people being scolded in Hands of an Angry God were either commiting adultry, or doing some of the other smaller sins involved in adultry such as lying, cheating, or having sex with out being married to the mate. Who knows some of the individuals listening to that sermon that day could of even been practicing withcraft back then. People actually do not know what other sins that their fellow church goers commit. People do things every single day that they would not ever want a soul to find out. They know it is bad, but people do it because they think they will not get caught. And sometimes you do and sometimes you do not. In church you could be sitting next to a murderer and not even know it. It is actually really scary that some people as bad as they are go to church and they act like they are perfect and act like they are living their whole life to god when in all reality, they are committing some serious sins and are really not living their life for god nor how god would want you to live your life. The fact that people in the Crucible were practicing withcraft, no matter what their intentions were, is a little freaky. It is just wierd that people would actually even want to do that. It has to do with the devil. Personally, I would not want to do any of the things that are with the devil. I do admit I have been present during an Ouji Board and I was freaked out and just wanted it all to end and be done with it. Nobody there was trying to sin or contact or worship the devil or whatever. But it was definitley a little creepy and wierd.

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York, NY: Penguin, 1996. Print.

Journal #7

Bullying by definition is the act of a blustering, quarrelsome, overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people. This could mean a number of things. It could be the bully that you always see in the movies where the bully pushes the small little nerd into the locker or gives him wedgies or sticks the nerds head in the toilet and gives them a swirly. That is the kind of bullying you always see in the movies. However, this is not really how bullying is in school. Most bullying is verbal. People say mean things and recently with the technological advances with social networking sites such as twitter or facebook, people do cyber bullying where they say mean things by typing them out. This can have seriously awful effects for the both of the people involved. With cyber bullying some of the victims have gone as far as taking their own lives or some victims have even gone as far as bringing a weapon to school and going on a rampage. this happened in columbine. The student who brought a weapon to school and took the lives of students at columbine was a bit of an outcast who had been bullied a lot in his life. If the victim took it as far as death, whether it be their own or some other people. The bully would then have to live with the guilt of knowing you were partially to blame for the deaths of somewhat innocent people. Bullying is actually a really sad thing. Nobody deserves to come to school every day or work or anywhere being scared and being afraid to bully. Likewise it is also sad that some people feel the need to come to school, work, or anywhere else and feel the need that they have to be mean to them. A lot of life would be a lot lot easier if bullying did not exist, but that is pretty much impossible so people are going to have to learn to deal with bullying as it evolves.

Reflection 5- Human Nature

Human nature has been relavent throughout the whole entire play, The Crucible. I took the class psychology this year because it is actually really really interesting. We learn a lot about human nature and behavior. We have not got to far in reading into human nature, but I am very excited to get to that farther into the school year. In the book the crucible the women are practicing witchcraft, even though pretty much everyone in society knows that it is wrong. When they practice witchcraft, the husbands defend them. A husband defending his wife is human nature. In the Crucible all of the husbands defend their wives of their wrongdoings(Miller III). When you care about someone and you are on their team then you are going to defend them, even sometimes when you know that they are wrong. Also throughout the whole book people are defending themselves. This is definitley human nature. Everyone needs to learn to defend themselves because if you do not then you are going to get walked over your whole entire life. Plus if you can not even defend yourself then how could you expect others to defend you?? Also in the book the crucible Abigail is looking out for herself and defending herself but she does it in a negative way. When Proctor defends himself he is not being shady and lying when doing so(Miller 117). So in my opinion Proctor is in the right. However, Abigail is in the wrong here because she is lying. She is lying to look out for herself and only herself. There is a lot of human nature with defending in this book because a lot of people are doing things wrong and they need to defend themselves because they are not doing the right thing. Perhaps if they were doing the right thing, then they would not need to defend themselves whether it be positive or negative. the whole concept of human nature is actually extremely interesting. People do things every single day and just do them without even thinking about it. If you someone calls you a liar immediatly you want to fight them on that point and prove that you are not. It is human nature to want to be right. People could call you that and without even thinking about it you could get super defensive really quick. It is just so interesting to me that your brain processes things and reacts this way so fast. You do not even have to process some things yourself before human nature takes over and you get defensive. That is exactly what many characters like Abigail, Proctor, husbands of their wrong doing wives do in the play the Crucible. People tell lies throughout the crucible. This is also a form of human nature because not all human nature is good. Some people lie in real life to watch out for the feelings of people that they love that they do not want to hurt. Or some people lie because they want to save themselves and do not really care what happens to other people. Abigail is a liar in this book and it is for the wrong reasons. She is only trying to save herself.

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible: a Play in Four Acts. Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1976. Print.

Journal #6

There are many reprecussions that could come with blaming someone for something that he or she did not do. If you blame people for things that they did not do then they could have some serious punishments even if they were innocent . What if you murdered someone and blamed and framed somebody else for it. That person would go to jail and possibly get something as bad as the death penalty. Now how bad would you feel if you killed someone and blamed someone else for that and then they had to die for you doing something absolutley awful. Then you would not just have one death on your hands, you would then have two deaths on your hand. If you had two deaths on your hands then you would probably have a lot a lot of guilt. If that was me I would always be thinking about how bad and awful I felt about what I did. If you felt really really bad then you would not be able to concentrate on your every day life. You would always be just too worried about the things you did. Basically you should never blame someone for something that they did not do because that is very bad. Or you should never do something super bad that you would have to blame on anyone else then you would never even have anything to worry about. Something that could happen to you in school and you blamed on someone else could seriously screw up their future. Maybe college would not accept them because they were blamed for something they did not do. It is just a bad situation .So seriously just do not do anything that you have to blame on anyone else, but if you do do something that is really bad, own up to it. Take the responsibility for your own actions and you need to have to deal with the consequences.
Just grow up and be responsible.

Crucible Act 2 Reflection

The characters in the book the Crucible are all very interesting people because pretty much none of them are good christians. When people are not perfect, it makes them more interesting characters because it adds some spice to the story. Nobody wants to sit there and read about boring characters that never do anything wrong because they all would be going around being perfect doing the exact same thing. The bad things they do have to do with god and sinning. They all go to church acting like they are perfect christians and go every single sunday and sit there and worship god and act like they are all perfect(Miller 42). Then, some of the people that sit there all high and mighty in church and act perfect go out and they sin. In the book there is adultry, which is a sin becacuse in the ten commandments you should not have sex without marriage and obviously if he is commiting adultry he is sleeping with someone other than his wife. That is a huge sin in the eyes of god. Also, there is a lot of practicing of the witchcraft in the forests and they are doing some wierd freaky things. This could be looked at in two ways. You could look at it like they were just messing around in the forest and not meaning anything by it. Or you could look at it like they are completing a huge sin and going against god's wishes because witchcraft has to do with the devil(Miller 27). I think it is somewhere in the middle because I do not think they are purposfully wanting to sin and go against god.

We did an activity in class about the colored personality you have. I was a green meaning I was a thinker. The characters in the story the Crucible are all very different, but similair too. I will start with Abigail. I think Abigail is an orange. This means that she is a doer. She did not really think about her actions and how they could affect her, she just went with her gut and hoped Proctor would come back to her. She is the opposite of a green because she did not think this whole situation through before she did what she did(True Colors). I think that Gooody Proctor is her opposite because I thinkt hat he is a green. He is a thinker. He thinks before he does things unlike Abigail who just does them. She has a plan for everything because she thinks it all out before she does it. think that Parris is probably in the gold category. I think this because he has a plan for everything and he just seems to be very organized. When he first found out better was "sick," he sent for a doctor(Miller 59). He thinks very logically and keeps everything in control. He is a leader among the group from what it seems because he took charge and got a doctor and thought logically not just freak out like someone might do if someone they knew was very sick. He was logical not emotional in that sense.

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible: a Play in Four Acts. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1976. Print.

"True Colors." Web. 11 Oct. 2011.

The Crucible Act 1 Reflection

The Crucible is actually quite an odd story beccause it does a lot of things that people would not think that "god" would agree with. All of the other puritan writings we read were all about how great the god was and how everyone followed him and they were all praise god and the heavens above. Act one of the Crucible is completely different. It was actually more similair to the short thing we read in class called hands of an angry god, which was actually a sermon of a preacher who was very angry and said god was angry too. In act one of the crucible, there is practices of witchcraft which is very odd to be in Puritan writing. There are some examples of the normal puritan writing in the crucible. At the begenning Parris is kneeling against his bed and is praying to God(Miller 13). God is the only ruler in the town, and a lot of people do worship him. He is the idol of the story to most people. But it is just still different than all the other Puritan writings because of the witchcraft. Witchcraft islike exploring the devil and trying to contact the dead. That is actually a sin. Having characters practice sin is a contradiction to God. It gives it a little mystery and a dark twist to the normal boring Puritan writing. In all the other stories the worst thing that happened was the bad things that happened to them and then they still were worshipping god having him be the absolutle best and praised him for everything. The bad things that happened in this story is things that were in control of the characters and they were doing bad things, such as the witchcraft(Miller 27). It was just a very different feel and tone than the other Puritan stories.

We also see somethign different in this story because in the other Puritan writings they just knew god was taking care of them like when the woman's house burnt down in the other story i read she knew god was taking care of her because she was still alive and she did not die even though she lost the rest of her things and everything else she had in life. In the Crucible, they are not just relying on god to be there for him but they are asking for his forgiveness for doing some sins such as the practice of witchcraft(Millwer 27). With sins of witchcraft going on it is taking away from the message and main theme of god because there are thigns god would not want you to do going on. It is still Puritan writing because god is a main messge and they do worship him, but there are all the contridictions of god with all the sins. I actualy liked this story better because it had some dark secrets with the adultry and there was some twists to the story it was not just god is so high and mighty and that he was the only thing the story was about. With the twists and dark secrets to the story it just makes it so much more interesting.

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York, Penguin, 1996. Print.

Journal #5

Some parents take away cell phones, make their kids delete their facebooks, ground them from things like online games and the computer. Before we had so many technological things parents would legitemiditley ground their child by making them stay home and stay in their rooms, not allowing them to go out with their friends. I do not really know how I feel about the punishment of children. It is actually a grey area. There is not a black and white way of how you should punish your child. It actually really depends on what the child did. If they did something absolutley horrible and awful such as trap their little brothers in an oven and turn the oven on. If a person did something that bad then yes, they should be grounded from a phone, the computer, the tv, their friends, and everything else that they enjoy doing because trapping a younger sibling in an oven is not ok! Believe me this actually happens. I was watching the show super nanny on oxygen tv, channel fifty eight, and a boy who was thirteen years old, obviously old enough to know better than to do this to his sibling. The thirteen year old actually did this to his younger brother, who was a young little guy. He was only about four. Shockingly enough the parents did not even punish the thirteen year old. This would probably be why he thought it was okay to stick his younger brother in the drawer under the oven and turn the oven on. He thought it was okay because his parents never had taken anything away from him before, so he had nothing to be afraid of. If I knew I was going to lose my phone, facebook, computer, television and all the other technological things that I enjoy, then I would never do some of the things that would get that taken away from me. Some parents are just over the edge with taking this stuff away however. If the kid gets a little lippy or misses their curfew by one minute then the parents go crazy and ground their kid from everything. Now that is just a little excessive.

Journal #4

Vacations for the Engle family have both good and bad impacts on me...Some of them have made me never ever ever want to have children. Vacations where we went on a family reunion were the all time worst. We went to Colorado on Vacation to see my dad's family for a family reunion a few years ago. I have a lot of smaller cousins who are the biggest brats in the world. I was stuck babysitting and dealing with them, and that made me never want to have a child of my own because those children were so awful. However, some vacations or trips have been good. When I was in middle school, every year my mom, brother, and I would go down to Marco Island, Florida to visit our old neighbor's and stay in their time share down there...the best part was room and board was free! Being on the beach with not a worry in the world but if I was gonna get tan or not for a whole entire week was a great week. It was a week to get away from everyone, everything, and just relax. I also got to spend some time with my mom and brother away from home. Being away from home made us not fight and get along actually for a week. Vacations are always a good time. Sometimes they are difficult, but sometimes they are fun too. Actually in every one of the vacations I have been on have had at least some good times to it. I have got to go on top of a mountain in the middle of summer where I had flip flops and shorts and a tank top on, but when I got to the top there was snow on it. I have also got to see dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico. I have seen some awesome things on all of our vacations. I also got to see Mt. Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Monument which was a history lesson during the summer.

Reflection 2

Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford is very similar to the other two stories we read, Upon the Burning of our House and A Narrative of Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. They were all so similar because they were obviously all Puritan writings. Of Plymouth Plantation was not a very fun story, it was very boring, but it was pretty short. It was a very straight foward story. The author basically just told you what happened and then told you his opinion about what just happened in the story. It just got old quick. At the begenning of the story I noticed the obvious red flag of a Puritan story, and that was the center focus of God. Awful things could be going on such as death, murder, divorce, and other awful things, but people are always just focused on god and how important he is(Bradford 64). In the story When the pilgrims first step off of their ship and onto the land, they are so overwhelmed and happy that they drop down to their knees to pray and thank the Lord (Bradford 65). The very fist thing the pilgrims do upon arrival into this new land is drop down to the ground and just praise god. The pilgrams had many struggles throughout everything, but they always knew that it was going to be okay and left everything into the hands of god. During a voyage such as this it was completely different than it is now. There was no technology, actually they never even really had proof that they were sailing the right way and going to where they were headed. A trip like this would be extremely difficult and nothing like it is today. They knew it would be difficult but they also knew that god would take care of them and get them there.

The pilgrims believed that this whole entire trip was to please god and to live for him. This story completely resembles the regular puritan writing style. Even though when they were at sea the pilgrims were facing many troubles, they always had faith in God and trusted things were going to be okay. Voyages on the sea of the time period were very dangerous (Bradford 63). The whole entire thing is about god. The story gets really old after awhile because it seems like they just keep reinstating the point over and over and over and over again. Dont get me wrong, I believe in God and believe in everything with him and know he would be there for anyone and actually almost completely agree with a lot of the Puritan's feeling about how important god is, but that does not mean that I want to read about it over and over again when I already understood it a long time ago. This kind of literature is not really my style, but we are being forced to read and reflect on it. So I will do that much, but I do not enjoy this type of writing. One because it is boring and two because I understand the point of it already and it keeps reinstating the point. Like come on I get it already. I just do not really like these types of stories. They are just not for me.

Bradford, William. "From Of Plymouth Plantation." Glencoe Literature. Ed. Jeffery D. Wilhelm, PhD. American Literature ed. Columbus: Mc-Graw Hill, 2009. 64-67. Print.

Reflection 1

After I had read Upon the Burning of our House and A Narrative of Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, I actually found many similarities in the writing style that was used in both of the stories. Both of the stories were examples of Puritan Writings. Puritan is a very religious word. I looked up the definiton and it pretty much told me that Puritan meant living a pure life of religion and god(Puritan).

We read upon the burning house. This is a story where her house burns down and she loses everything she has. She seemed a little bit snotty, but she says that Burning of the house, she wanted freedom for the harsh effects of daily life (Bradstreet 90). She actually found the silver lining in something as awful as your house burning down. When her house burnt down she lost everything she had. Her house, all her belongings, and everything in her life she had up to that point. However, she still had one thing, and that thing was her life. Mrs. Mary Rowlandson had god to thank for this. She had god to thank that she was still alive. This is a very typical Puritan trait, that in happy moments praise god, but in said moments praise god as well. It was very obvious that both stories wanted to glorify god. I actually think that both the stories did quite a nice job of glorifying god and showing that he was the higher power and you had to thank him for everything. They both looked up to god for some advice in their times of needs, and asked for his help and wanted him to heal them. In the narrative of Mary Rowlandson, she sat there and held her ill son in her arms and asked that god would heal her son. In the other story, the main character, sent all of her worries and cries to God. She wanted God to help her with all of the problems that she was currently going through in her life. Anything that was wrong with either one of the main characters in the story, they would just send their cries to god in hopes that he would give them what they wanted and needed.

These stories were a little boring. It was like they were not really happy but I guess they were not that sad. This was probably because they were trying to get their point accross about God being everything and wanted the reader to concentrate on that. Puritan writings are all very religious writings because back then religion was the most important thing in their life. Religion was everything to the Puritans, and it was all they had ever known. They had to write about that. Because this was all that they knew, all the Puritan writings have to do with religion and are all similair in that aspect. Even though I did not really like the woman who's house burnt down as a character, because she seemed kind of rude, I did like that she found the silver lining with something as tragic as a house burning down. She still somehow found the good in that. I just do not think I would be able to look at it as positive as she did. However, I respect that she left it all up to god. It was a very Puritan thing to do, and was a very good thing to do. I did like Mary Rowlandson because I thought she was a good hard worker. She worked for pretty much everything she had(Rowlandson 83).


Bradstreet, Anne. "Upon the Burning of Our House." Glencoe Literature. Ed. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph. D. American Literature ed. Columbus,: McGraw Hill Co, 2009. 91. Print.

Puritan | Define Puritan at Dictionary.com." Dictionary.com | Find the Meanings and Definitions of Words at Dictionary.com. Web. 11 Oct. 2011.

Rowlandson, Mary. "A Narrative of Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson." Glencoe Literature. Ed. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph. D. American Literature ed. Columbus,: MrGraw Hill Co, 2009. 82. Print.

Journal #3

Personally I think that being held hostage would be one of the worst things in the whole entire world. It would just be so scary. I think of the Jaycee Dugard story. I guess she was not really held hostage, but she was kidnapped and had to live in a shed for over ten years. The kidnapper did awful things to her, and I just can not even imagine how she had to have been feeling through all of the years she was trapped in there.

I know the whole time that I was being held hostage or kidnapped I would just be plotting a way for me to escape and become free again. I would also probably be panicing majorly, and hyper ventalitating and sweating worried about if I was going to die. I would probably be having asthma attacks and anxiety attacks as well. It would obviously just be an awful situation. Actually when I was little and I would be the last one awake in my house and play all these scenarios in my head and I would think about getting kidnapped and things like that. I would actually worry about being held hostage, as silly as that sounds, I really did. Hopefully this never ever ever happens to me or anyone I know.

If a friend or somebody I knew was being held hostage with me, that would make the situation a little bit better. It would still be really tough obviously, but better. I really do not know how people like Jaycee Dugard could do being kidnapped by an awful family for that many years. After watching her story I was shocked, she was actually very normal for what she had gone through. I really respect her for being able to overcome the trauma she must of gone through. She is actually a very remarkable person. I can not believe that being held hostage and getting kidnapped actually happens to real people in this world, and that they actually have to go through awful things like this.

Journal #2

Why, Hello there! Is everyone paying attention because I have some very important lessons for you to learn today. My lesson today includes manners, and who do I have here to teach you these manners you ask? Well I have my dog Wrigley here to do so. Wrigley is a very kind polite dog, so let's bring him on out. Wrigley can only bark so we are going to have a translator here to tell us all of the manners he is teaching...What exactly are manners? Well, according to Dictionary.com Manners are things people do in order to remain polite. The certain manners I will be teaching you about are hospitality manners. These to me are the most important of manners. It all starts when you come in the door of your house. The right thing to do is to take your shoes off. For example I do not wear shows but you can bet your bottom dollar that when I come inside I wipe each and every one of my paws off on the mat before I step on to the tile or walk on my mom's pretty white carpet. Also, another polite thing to do is never to talk back. A lot of time I get in trouble with my mom or dad at home and they yell at me. Sometimes it is just better to keep your mouth shut and not bark back at them because it gets you in more trouble. It is not always the easy thing to do to just be quiet, however sometimes it is the best thing to do. There are other manners that are just commenly understood, but I will still go over them with you. There is a lot when it comes to eating. One...do not eat until everyone has their food. Two...do not put your elbows on the table. Three...say please and thank you. Four...do not ever belch at the table. That is pretty much all the manners and lessons I have for you today.

Journal #1

As humans today we all know that dogs all bark, some are yippy and ear piercing as where some are deep and scary. Times have not always been this way. A long long time ago a dog never had a bark. The dog was just silent and could not speak for its own self. Everyone would just take advantage of all of the poor dogs and just talk down to them and say whatever they would like to because the dog could not defend itself and say anything back to any of the humans. However, one day there was a really really bad storm and as mean as the humans where, they left their dogs outside in this awful storm. The dogs were all running around without being able to talk and they were all really scared. In the middle of this awful storm lightening struck down in between all of the dogs, as a huge boom of thunder came as well, and it shook the whole entire ground causing all the dogs to jump because the lightening strike scared them. The mean humans of the time also were scared and awoken from this loud thunder and lightening strike. The dogs right away started running around away from where the lightening had touched down. None of the dogs knew that they could bark yet. The dogs were all so scared they just kept running and running until they reached where other humans lived. These humans were the good Native American's that had respect for animals such as the dog. As soon as the dogs arrived they treated them with such respect that the old human owners never gave them. The dogs were much much happier here. The Native American tribe knew how they had came because this had happened before. As result of their new friends arrival the tribe began to teach the dogs how to communicate and bark. While all of this was going on the old human owners were lost without their dogs. Even though they were mean to the dogs and talked down to them, they were all so used to them always being there when they needed something. Even at this time the dog was a man's best friend.

From this story one can learn that you must always treat your companions with respect and be kind otherwise they will then have a reason to leave for something better than you if you are mean.

Blog 50

My final blog, My final blog, My final blog!!!!!! I can not wait to get this over with...

I think I will blog about what my least favorite book was. It was actually a hard decision to make because none of them were even that bad to read. However, I must make a choice in order to finish my fifty blogs.

My least favorite would have to be The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. It was just really really...really long. It was over four hundred long long pages, and was 28 chapters. That is just a lot of reading! Also, the book was extremely depressing. The whole book was about Hardship and the sad things the Joad family was having to go through(Steinbeck 117). It just gets so boring reading about a family struggling and dying for twenty eight chapters. Maybe if the book was a bit more happy at times then I could actually read twenty eight chapters with out getting annoyed. Also, the author did something I can not stand when author's do. He did not give us an ending. As a reader it gets so frustrating not knowing what happened to a whole family you have just been reading about for basically my whole summer. I wish there was just one more chapter that was happy telling us that the Joad family was going to be happy and survive and live happily ever after. I highly doubt that is how the story would work out, but I am just saying what I wish.

It was still a decent book, with a good message. The message was to keep perserving and do not get beaten by defeat. However, the reader never knows if the Joad famly does end up getting out and being happy because we never got a definite ending which makes it hard to get the message. The theme and message would of just came off better if we saw the Joad family being rewarded for perserving this whole book.

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.

Blog 49

I really can not believe that I have completed the questions we have to answer and I am down to my final two blogs out of fifty. I actually did not know if I was even going to finish my blogs to be honest. But thankfully I am almost completed and will be officially done today, actually with a day in advance:)

For my second to final blog I think I am going to decide which book was my favorite and why was it my favorite. I actually think that the Old Man and the Sea was my favorite book out of the three. Santiago went so long without catching a little fishy(Hemmingway 21). As a reader you just can not help but picture him as a cute little old guy and you just feel for the guy and want him to succeed. I never got bored in this book. It probably kept my attention so well because it was a very short book .I am sorry, but the Grapes of Wrath was over four hundred pages long and it was getting boring and tedious by the like fifteenth chapter. The Catcher in the Rye was also an easy read and it was a good story as well, but the Old Man and the Sea would still have to by favorite.

As far as the books go for Honor's English this years books were probably the best stories. I actually almost did not mind reading them. They honestly were all pretty good books. My freshman year's books were god awful. I hated the Great Expectations. It was literally the worst book I have ever read. I did like Of Mice and Men that year, also because it kept my attention because it was not very long. Life of Pi I also read that year and it was horrendous too. Then, on my sophmore year reading list was Jane Eyre, 1982, and the one about the basically robot babies. I can not remember the name to save my life. Jane Eyre was alright I guess, but the others were not. By far this years reading list was the easist to read, the best messages, and not to bad to waste my summer doing.

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 2003. Print.

Blog 48

Ah, I am finally on the last question that I have to answer out of the twenty four for the three books put together! Too bad it is such a difficult question to answer! How accurately does this novel reflect events in history? What responsibilities does the author believe exist between various groups in society, such as workers and bosses, men and women, blacks and whites, etc.? What people, ideas, and events probably influenced this author?...this question kind of sucks because there is basically nothing about social classes or event in history during the late nineteen fourties or early nineteen fifties, which was when the book was written. There was barely anything going on but wars and the coming to the end of wars. In the Catcher in the Rye there is no talk about the war or anything else boring going on in the time period. So actually this question is almost impossible. Especially when question five is almost the exact same. I already complained about how hard that one was to answer in myb log about question number five. Oh well, However, I will do my best to get an answer and blog about it...

One thing that I can realte to the accurate time period is that you can tell that the economy was coming out of the depression. There is no talk about not having money and the hardships everybody was facing because of the economic problems. Where as in grapes of Wrath the whole book was about the hardships of the great depression. The crops were dry, people were unhappy, and everyone was depressed(Steinbeck 91). In the Catcher in the rye there is no talk about this, which is good and a lot let depressing than the other book, the Grapes of Wrath! Maybe that is why I enjoyed it as much as I did, even though I can not really answer the questions we have to answer because I do not feel like this book is the right piece for students to read and analyze for school...


Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown and, 1991. Print.

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2002. Print.

Blog 47

In the book The Catcher in the Rye, the author J.D. Sallinger I believe was trying to use multiple techniques to catch the readers attention. There was one imparticular that caught my eye. That technique was the characterization of the main character Holden Caulfield. The author makes him a very interesting character. The author also creates a special bond between the reader and the main character, Holden. He does this by letting you become so close with Holden because through out the whole entire book you are right there with Holden going on every adventure and daily activities that he does through out the whole book. I did like the book, The Catcher in the Rye, but this is not one of my favorite techniques that authors use. Some techniques I like are using suspense and dark/mystical things that happen in the story. The author of the Grapes of Wrath used more of the techniques that I like. Even though it is not one of my favorite techniques authors use. I still enjoyed the book and think that J.D. Sallinger did a good job in writing the Catcher in the Rye to capture the reader's attention and make the reader have a relationship with the main character, Holden. J.D. Sallinger, the author, did such a good job capturing the reader that I almost felt the emotions that Holden Caulfield was feeling by the end of the book! I think that was one of the reason that I enjoyed the book so much. THe point where I felt like I was sharing his emotion was towards the end of the book when Holden is watching his sister Phoebe in the rain and you can see that he loves his sister and is happy for her. I felt happy like he was. I really do think he was happy for his sister and was not just thinking about himself getting wet as he watched Phoebe in the rain(Salinger 275). Overall I liked the book a lot, and like J.D. Sallinger as an author!

When Holden was watching his sister, Phoebe, on the carousel, I felt the joy that Holden was feeling as he sat there and watched her in the rain. I think that the readers were also engaged in the story because there was so much detail. I think that the detail that Holden was sitting in the rain watching his sister made it much more apparent that Holden was truly happy for his little sister and he did not care about himself getting wet as he sat there under the protection of his hunting hat (Salinger 275).

Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown and, 1991. Print.