Thursday, December 11, 2008
Reasons
You should give me a high grade on my portfolio. This is because I am sexy, and because I feel that I wrote a good Reflective Letter. That is all.
Portfolio: Reflective Letter
---Before this year, I was starting to think that I had stopped improving as a writer. All my writing classes in high school were focusing on making us write essays about facts, and only facts, the obvious intent being to test us to see if we were paying any attention in class. I was proven happily incorrect once I came to PSEC. I never could have guessed how much room I still had to grow as a writer, including learning a whole new method of writing that included analyzing the text, trying to find its meaning as it applied to me, as opposed to listing facts. I feel that I have grown a huge amount as a writer this quarter, as shown by my grades on the two actual essays we wrote this year, and my use of the They Say/I Say format for writing.
---As I am a little bit of a “glass half empty” personality, I feel it prudent to begin with my weaknesses as a writer that I am still learning to overcome (made all the more difficult considering I would have never guessed that I was having these problems just one year ago). One of the primary problems I am having as an academic author is using an abundance of quotes. In my two essays titled “A Story of a Delawarean” and “Final Draft; Now in Color!” I used very few quotes. I feel that once I begin putting more quotes in for me to analyze and support my argument my writing will become much better. My other weakness as a writer is my reluctance to change. In my first essay (an analysis of Bacon’s Rebellion), I went through five drafts before I even realized that I was not properly using the They Say/I Say format, which was new to me at the time. I have since fully adopted this new form of writing essays, and I dare say that I have got a solid grasp of how to use it now.
---Of course, there are things that I have been doing well on, one might call them strengths. These include an understanding the concepts of They Say/I Say (post stupid drafts of my essay one), and my ability to do my work in a timely fashion. The proof for my understanding of the They Say/I Say format is conveniently given in a numerical representation. I am talking about my grade. On both essay one and two I received a ninety-one percent, even though my information was not the best quality. This shows that even when I was having a hard time including information that was relevant I was able to use the They Say/I Say format well enough to significantly impact my final grades. The second point is slightly harder to prove, but there evidence is still there. I managed to get essay one done in all of one weekend, and that included a total rewrite. All I did the final day was some grammar and semantic fixes. The same happened with the second essay, although I had it fully written out about three days ahead of schedule, as opposed to only one. I still had to do some grammar and semantic fixes, but I really don’t count those toward total time spent writing as they are often just me being a perfectionist.
---I feel that this year I have improved a significant amount as far as writing is concerned. I know that I still have room to improve, but I feel that I am much better prepared for future writing courses than I was a year ago. My strengths outweigh my weaknesses by a lot, which is not something I would have said at the beginning of the school year. With my new found grasp of the They Say/I Say format, I feel that I will be able to do better on future essay style assignment that my teachers assign.
---As I am a little bit of a “glass half empty” personality, I feel it prudent to begin with my weaknesses as a writer that I am still learning to overcome (made all the more difficult considering I would have never guessed that I was having these problems just one year ago). One of the primary problems I am having as an academic author is using an abundance of quotes. In my two essays titled “A Story of a Delawarean” and “Final Draft; Now in Color!” I used very few quotes. I feel that once I begin putting more quotes in for me to analyze and support my argument my writing will become much better. My other weakness as a writer is my reluctance to change. In my first essay (an analysis of Bacon’s Rebellion), I went through five drafts before I even realized that I was not properly using the They Say/I Say format, which was new to me at the time. I have since fully adopted this new form of writing essays, and I dare say that I have got a solid grasp of how to use it now.
---Of course, there are things that I have been doing well on, one might call them strengths. These include an understanding the concepts of They Say/I Say (post stupid drafts of my essay one), and my ability to do my work in a timely fashion. The proof for my understanding of the They Say/I Say format is conveniently given in a numerical representation. I am talking about my grade. On both essay one and two I received a ninety-one percent, even though my information was not the best quality. This shows that even when I was having a hard time including information that was relevant I was able to use the They Say/I Say format well enough to significantly impact my final grades. The second point is slightly harder to prove, but there evidence is still there. I managed to get essay one done in all of one weekend, and that included a total rewrite. All I did the final day was some grammar and semantic fixes. The same happened with the second essay, although I had it fully written out about three days ahead of schedule, as opposed to only one. I still had to do some grammar and semantic fixes, but I really don’t count those toward total time spent writing as they are often just me being a perfectionist.
---I feel that this year I have improved a significant amount as far as writing is concerned. I know that I still have room to improve, but I feel that I am much better prepared for future writing courses than I was a year ago. My strengths outweigh my weaknesses by a lot, which is not something I would have said at the beginning of the school year. With my new found grasp of the They Say/I Say format, I feel that I will be able to do better on future essay style assignment that my teachers assign.
Portfolio: Essay 1 (Bacon's Rebellion)
-----This year’s presidential election has been full of negative advertisements, advertisements intended to tarnish the other candidate’s reputation and image with the people of America. This is in no way a new or unique occurrence in history. In fact, it was going on even before America gained its freedom from England, some one hundred years before. At the time, two men were doing everything they could to accomplish what they desired. They were named Nathaniel Bacon Jr., who was a wealth plantation owner, and William Berkeley, the corrupt governor of the Chesapeake colony. They named each other traitors to England in attempts to get the populace of the Chesapeake Bay colony behind their policies on things such as taxes and prevention/retaliation against the Native American raids on the colonists settlements, much as current politicians attempt to discredit their opponent by commenting on all the negative things they have done, but with a much bloodier conclusion. Their “disagreement” came to be known as Bacon’s Rebellion. When most people look back at Bacon’s Rebellion, they seem to feel the need to victimize one of these men, and place all the blame for the event on the other. I, however, feel that both Nathaniel Bacon and William Berkeley were equally responsible for inciting and prolonging their brutal and violent war.
-----One example of someone who has chosen a side in the argument is Howard Zinn. In his book A Young People’s History of the United States: Volume One Columbus to the Spanish-American War, he says that “The frontiersmen felt that the colonial government had let them down. They were angry, and they weren’t the only ones. Times were hard. Many Virginians scraped out a living in poverty or worked as servants in terrible conditions. In 1676, these unhappy Virginians found a leader in Nathaniel Bacon”, painting Bacon as a savior of the people, but ignoring the fact that through his leadership, many friendly Indian tribes were decimated by the settlers. I believe that a more apt description of Bacon can be found in an excerpt from A True Narrative of the Late Rebellion in Virginia, by the Royal Commissioners, 1677, “[Nathanial Bacon was] of a most imperious and dangerous hidden Pride of heart, despising the wisest of his neighbors for their Ignorance and very ambitious and arrogant…For he pretended and boasted what great Service he would do for the country, in destroying the Common Enemy [The Indians]”, and http://www.answers.com/topic/nathaniel-bacon provides us with a quote from a contemporary of Bacon, who said that he was a, “blackhair'd and of an ominous, pensive melancholy Aspect … not much given to talk, … of a most imperious and dangerous Pride of heart, despising the wiser of his neighbours for their Ignorance, and very ambitious and arrogant”. These two different persons both pointed out that Bacon was not someone who was truly a capable leader who would have the best intentions of the people at heart. Instead it colors Bacon as someone who is dangerous and more than willing to trick the people of Virginia into doing his will.
-----Yet another reason that I have a difficult time taking Bacon’s side in any sort of historical analysis of Bacon’s Rebellion is that although many people attempt to portray him as the people’s man, someone who had grown up in the same poverty and faced the same unjust taxation, he was not. He had been born in England, and his father was a wealthy land owner, and he later married Elizabeth Duke, against her father’s wishes (which just further points out how disagreeable a person Bacon was), which would settle down most men into the role of the caring and homebound husband. Not Bacon. Instead he became involved in a scheme to defraud an acquaintance of his, and was caught. Bacon’s father was not in any way happy with his son’s illegal activities, and arranged to have him sent to the Chesapeake colony, I would assume in an attempt to restore his families honor. Now, one could make the assumption here that on Bacon’s arrival in Virginia he could have been poor. Once again however, this was not the case. As it turned out, William Berkeley was a distant relative of Bacon, and was more than willing to help his distant cousin out. He helped Bacon buy two plots of land with the substantial sum of money Bacon’s father had given him, and offered him a share in the trade with the Indians. So obviously, Bacon had no financial motives for rebellion, but why then did he choose to wage a war against the Native Americans and William Berkeley? Well, the short answer is for vengeance. During a Native American raid on his plantation, Bacon’s friend and overseer of labor was killed. I can bring myself to understand his anger at this, but his next couple actions baffle me. He sent a request to Berkeley for a military commission to form an army and attack the Native Americans. Not just the tribe that attacked his plantation, but all of the natives. In his arrogance he did not even wait for Berkeley’s reply to build his army and set out on his spree of pillaging and slaughtering of the Indians. I can’t understand why he did not even wait for a reply, or for that matter limit his request, and thus increase his chances of having it approved, to just the tribe that attacked him. All in all, Bacon simply showed more and more through his actions that he was not a fit leader for the people of Chesapeake. He was just a man who refused to allow other people to govern him, a man led only by his own desires.
-----On the other side of the table, there are those who feel that William Berkeley was in the right, and had only the best interests of the colonists in mind. An example of this type of opinion can be shown in The American Promise, page 91 (which just goes to show that even sources that intended to be neutral seem to choose a side on this topic), when they say that Berkeley was “Hoping to maintain the fragile peace on the frontier in 1676, Governor Berkeley pronounced Bacon a rebel, threatened to punish him for treason, and called for new elections of burgesses who, Berkeley believed would endorse his get-tough policy”. The key phrase here is “Hoping to maintain the fragile peace”, because although this was indeed his objective, it neglects to mention his ulterior motives. Berkeley wanted to have peace with the Native Americans because he had a monopoly on all trading done with them. Those he allowed to trade with them had to pay a tax of every 3rd fox or beaver pelt that they traded for, thus his main reason for not wanting war with the Indians or Bacon was that he would take a hit to his wallet, so instead of allowing Bacon his commission to attack the Indians, he denied the request. Then, upon hearing of Bacon’s continuing with his march against orders, he proclaimed Bacon a traitor and demanded that he turn himself in. This was a stupid decision on Berkeley’s part. All he had to do was demand that Bacon cease his attack on the Indians, and promise to launch an investigation on the attack. This would, I think, have appeased not only Bacon, but also the rest of the colonists, as they would see that the government was taking a proactive stand in defending them.
-----Somewhat surprisingly, Bacon was arrested and put on trial. He was found guilty of being a traitor, but instead of being put to death, he experienced no real punishment, as an army of angry farmers went to Jamestown to demand Bacon’s release. Intimidated, Berkeley held a reelection of officials, in an attempt to re-solidify his power. In a huge upset however, Bacon was voted into the seat of governor, and many of the rich plantation owners were also replaced by less wealthy farmers. After this, Bacon did something that I consider his one redeeming act of his campaign. He enacted a series of laws, later known as Bacon’s Laws, which put restrictions on people having multiple offices in the government, and made it illegal for officeholders to demand bribes to do their jobs, among other things. Although Bacon did do a great thing with the enactment of these laws, he ruined just a little later by stepping away from his seat of governorship to resume his attack on the natives.
-----Bacon’s Rebellion, when boiled down, was a war between two people who could not agree on the correct course of action. Because of this disagreement, hundreds of people died, and many farms and plantations were destroyed. Although Bacon was the one who lost in the end, I do not see either side as a winner. They both killed many people who were fighting for causes different than either Berkeley’s or Bacon’s, and neither got what they truly wanted in the end. If both of these people had died during this insurrection, I would have been quite pleased, as it would have ended much quicker. Those who feel that either side was in the right should really look deeper into their history texts, to see all of the things both sides had done.
-----One example of someone who has chosen a side in the argument is Howard Zinn. In his book A Young People’s History of the United States: Volume One Columbus to the Spanish-American War, he says that “The frontiersmen felt that the colonial government had let them down. They were angry, and they weren’t the only ones. Times were hard. Many Virginians scraped out a living in poverty or worked as servants in terrible conditions. In 1676, these unhappy Virginians found a leader in Nathaniel Bacon”, painting Bacon as a savior of the people, but ignoring the fact that through his leadership, many friendly Indian tribes were decimated by the settlers. I believe that a more apt description of Bacon can be found in an excerpt from A True Narrative of the Late Rebellion in Virginia, by the Royal Commissioners, 1677, “[Nathanial Bacon was] of a most imperious and dangerous hidden Pride of heart, despising the wisest of his neighbors for their Ignorance and very ambitious and arrogant…For he pretended and boasted what great Service he would do for the country, in destroying the Common Enemy [The Indians]”, and http://www.answers.com/topic/nathaniel-bacon provides us with a quote from a contemporary of Bacon, who said that he was a, “blackhair'd and of an ominous, pensive melancholy Aspect … not much given to talk, … of a most imperious and dangerous Pride of heart, despising the wiser of his neighbours for their Ignorance, and very ambitious and arrogant”. These two different persons both pointed out that Bacon was not someone who was truly a capable leader who would have the best intentions of the people at heart. Instead it colors Bacon as someone who is dangerous and more than willing to trick the people of Virginia into doing his will.
-----Yet another reason that I have a difficult time taking Bacon’s side in any sort of historical analysis of Bacon’s Rebellion is that although many people attempt to portray him as the people’s man, someone who had grown up in the same poverty and faced the same unjust taxation, he was not. He had been born in England, and his father was a wealthy land owner, and he later married Elizabeth Duke, against her father’s wishes (which just further points out how disagreeable a person Bacon was), which would settle down most men into the role of the caring and homebound husband. Not Bacon. Instead he became involved in a scheme to defraud an acquaintance of his, and was caught. Bacon’s father was not in any way happy with his son’s illegal activities, and arranged to have him sent to the Chesapeake colony, I would assume in an attempt to restore his families honor. Now, one could make the assumption here that on Bacon’s arrival in Virginia he could have been poor. Once again however, this was not the case. As it turned out, William Berkeley was a distant relative of Bacon, and was more than willing to help his distant cousin out. He helped Bacon buy two plots of land with the substantial sum of money Bacon’s father had given him, and offered him a share in the trade with the Indians. So obviously, Bacon had no financial motives for rebellion, but why then did he choose to wage a war against the Native Americans and William Berkeley? Well, the short answer is for vengeance. During a Native American raid on his plantation, Bacon’s friend and overseer of labor was killed. I can bring myself to understand his anger at this, but his next couple actions baffle me. He sent a request to Berkeley for a military commission to form an army and attack the Native Americans. Not just the tribe that attacked his plantation, but all of the natives. In his arrogance he did not even wait for Berkeley’s reply to build his army and set out on his spree of pillaging and slaughtering of the Indians. I can’t understand why he did not even wait for a reply, or for that matter limit his request, and thus increase his chances of having it approved, to just the tribe that attacked him. All in all, Bacon simply showed more and more through his actions that he was not a fit leader for the people of Chesapeake. He was just a man who refused to allow other people to govern him, a man led only by his own desires.
-----On the other side of the table, there are those who feel that William Berkeley was in the right, and had only the best interests of the colonists in mind. An example of this type of opinion can be shown in The American Promise, page 91 (which just goes to show that even sources that intended to be neutral seem to choose a side on this topic), when they say that Berkeley was “Hoping to maintain the fragile peace on the frontier in 1676, Governor Berkeley pronounced Bacon a rebel, threatened to punish him for treason, and called for new elections of burgesses who, Berkeley believed would endorse his get-tough policy”. The key phrase here is “Hoping to maintain the fragile peace”, because although this was indeed his objective, it neglects to mention his ulterior motives. Berkeley wanted to have peace with the Native Americans because he had a monopoly on all trading done with them. Those he allowed to trade with them had to pay a tax of every 3rd fox or beaver pelt that they traded for, thus his main reason for not wanting war with the Indians or Bacon was that he would take a hit to his wallet, so instead of allowing Bacon his commission to attack the Indians, he denied the request. Then, upon hearing of Bacon’s continuing with his march against orders, he proclaimed Bacon a traitor and demanded that he turn himself in. This was a stupid decision on Berkeley’s part. All he had to do was demand that Bacon cease his attack on the Indians, and promise to launch an investigation on the attack. This would, I think, have appeased not only Bacon, but also the rest of the colonists, as they would see that the government was taking a proactive stand in defending them.
-----Somewhat surprisingly, Bacon was arrested and put on trial. He was found guilty of being a traitor, but instead of being put to death, he experienced no real punishment, as an army of angry farmers went to Jamestown to demand Bacon’s release. Intimidated, Berkeley held a reelection of officials, in an attempt to re-solidify his power. In a huge upset however, Bacon was voted into the seat of governor, and many of the rich plantation owners were also replaced by less wealthy farmers. After this, Bacon did something that I consider his one redeeming act of his campaign. He enacted a series of laws, later known as Bacon’s Laws, which put restrictions on people having multiple offices in the government, and made it illegal for officeholders to demand bribes to do their jobs, among other things. Although Bacon did do a great thing with the enactment of these laws, he ruined just a little later by stepping away from his seat of governorship to resume his attack on the natives.
-----Bacon’s Rebellion, when boiled down, was a war between two people who could not agree on the correct course of action. Because of this disagreement, hundreds of people died, and many farms and plantations were destroyed. Although Bacon was the one who lost in the end, I do not see either side as a winner. They both killed many people who were fighting for causes different than either Berkeley’s or Bacon’s, and neither got what they truly wanted in the end. If both of these people had died during this insurrection, I would have been quite pleased, as it would have ended much quicker. Those who feel that either side was in the right should really look deeper into their history texts, to see all of the things both sides had done.
Portfolio: Essay 2 (A Story of a Delawarean)
-----Twelve years ago, we Americans won independence from our “Mother”, England, in a brutal and bloody war that lasted 8 years, but cost the lives of far too many of our sons. This war that England forced upon us took a terrible tole on us, both economically and spiritually, but we can finally claim to have freedom. No longer will we have to put up with England’s stranglehold on our trade, their oppressive ruler-ship and unjust taxes. Instead we are a continent that cries out in the face of the British tyranny, a place of freedom and fairness, a place where everyone is equal, no one standing above another, with no chance of the corruption of the central government that is so rampant in England. My business can now reach a broader market with Britain’s polices and acts abolished. My fellow Delawareans and I have been ready to rule ourselves for a long time, with our strong economy and healthy government, and we can finally do so.
-----My business of buying the inner colonies’ grain and other produce and selling it to markets across the ocean is flourishing now that we are out from under the cloud that was British rule. We merchants of Delaware have always found a lucrative business in trading with the more inland Americans, and then with the various English merchants (and only the English merchants). Now though, we still have the trade with the inland people, but also with French, and Spanish merchants, who don’t completely control what they pay for our goods and we for theirs. The Navigation Acts that Britain had set were slowly destroying my business, as the English merchants knew that I could not sell my goods to any other people, allowing them to demand absurdly high prices for their goods, while paying only paltry sums for my own. Is that how a Mother should treat her children? Does it seem decent that a country half a world away should be able to so control the economic well-being of so many people, all because a piece of inconsequential paper saying that we could not legally trade with any other sovereign nation? Larry Sawers published the article The Navigation Acts Revisited, which reads, “The Navigation Acts reserved all commerce between the colonists and Europe to British Citizens (which included therefore the colonists themselves). Certain ‘enumerated’ goods bound for Europe from the colonies had first to be landed in a British port and then re-exported. Similarly, ‘enumerated’ imports from Europe had to routed through England. The Navigation Acts also mandated the subsidy of certain commodities in the colonies such as naval stores and indigo, and forbade the manufacture of other goods such as fur hats.” With such stringent rules that made it so that we had to pay England a substantial sum to get our goods to any buyers from other countries, many merchants were having a hard time keeping their money from running out. My business, and that of many of my neighbor merchants required a constant flow of trade between the inner colonies and from that to the English, so when most of the inner colonies’ products that they desired to be sold were being taken as taxes, our business took a turn for the worst. How could I not be proud that I was part of the Revolution that broke us away from England and her constraints?
-----Now, there is no way that one could claim that there were not financial problems that occurred after our bid for freedom and liberty won out. Immediately after the war our economy in the State of Delaware suffered severely, as we had to create our own currency, to further separate ourselves from the British. This combined with many soldiers returning home and demanding their promised land grants deeply scarred our economy, but not irreparably so. We have already started to recover, and the process has been helped with our new found freedom to trade with new countries, countries that until now had been forced to buy our goods at incredibly high prices from England. My business has almost completely recovered, and with the inner colonies once again shipping their surplus food to me for processing and shipping I expect that I will soon be fully back on my feet.
-----Besides our economic situation vastly improving after our break from England, our governmental system is working splendidly. I am told that we were the first colony to develop and implement a State Constitution, one that encompasses our ideals and laws. Part of our Constitution of Delaware has been entirely too long in coming, and including Article 26, which states that “No person hereafter imported into this State from Africa ought to be held in slavery under any presence whatever; and no negro, Indian, or mulatto slave ought to be brought into this State, for sale, from any part of the world.” Slavery has been a stain on our country’s economy and image for entirely too long, and I can only hope that all of our Sister colonies have similar statements in their constitutions. Our own Declaration of Independence stated that all men were created equal, and no matter their skin color, all people are still people. Another right that has been far too long in coming to fruition has been the freedom for every man to choose his own way to worship. This is covered in Article 29 of our Constitution, in the words of, “There shall be no establishment of any one religious sect in this State in preference to another; and no clergyman or preacher of the gospel, of any denomination, shall be capable of holding any civil once in this State, or of being a member of either of the branches of the legislature, while they continue in the exercise of the pastorial function.” It is about time that every man is allowed to worship God in his own way, without the requirement of a Church to dictate how he does so.
-----It has taken twelve years, but we Americans are finally beginning to truly form a nation. It took a war, and has led to many compromises that have displeased many people, but now those who fought for so long are now starting on the upward slope leading to creating a country recognized as more than the bastard son of England. We are succeeding in forming our country because we already had a system of government that could stand without the crutch that was England, and because we gained so many trade options with other countries. Without this, there is no way that our country could have succeeded in our bid for liberty. The citizens of Delaware have been ready to separate from England for a long time, and I am glad that we finally have. It is my hope that our Sister Colonies’ economies will recover as well as ours has, and that their governments will work as well as ours does.
Smith, Barbara. "Food Rioters and the American Revolution." The William and Mary Quarterly 51 (1994): 3-38.
Sawers, Larry. "The Navigation Acts Revisited." Economic History Review XLV(1992): 262-268.
Declaration of Independence, July 4 1776. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/declare.asp
Thomas Paine, Common Sense: Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs http://www.bartleby.com/133/3.html
Constitution of Delaware; 1776. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/de02.asp
The American Promise
-----My business of buying the inner colonies’ grain and other produce and selling it to markets across the ocean is flourishing now that we are out from under the cloud that was British rule. We merchants of Delaware have always found a lucrative business in trading with the more inland Americans, and then with the various English merchants (and only the English merchants). Now though, we still have the trade with the inland people, but also with French, and Spanish merchants, who don’t completely control what they pay for our goods and we for theirs. The Navigation Acts that Britain had set were slowly destroying my business, as the English merchants knew that I could not sell my goods to any other people, allowing them to demand absurdly high prices for their goods, while paying only paltry sums for my own. Is that how a Mother should treat her children? Does it seem decent that a country half a world away should be able to so control the economic well-being of so many people, all because a piece of inconsequential paper saying that we could not legally trade with any other sovereign nation? Larry Sawers published the article The Navigation Acts Revisited, which reads, “The Navigation Acts reserved all commerce between the colonists and Europe to British Citizens (which included therefore the colonists themselves). Certain ‘enumerated’ goods bound for Europe from the colonies had first to be landed in a British port and then re-exported. Similarly, ‘enumerated’ imports from Europe had to routed through England. The Navigation Acts also mandated the subsidy of certain commodities in the colonies such as naval stores and indigo, and forbade the manufacture of other goods such as fur hats.” With such stringent rules that made it so that we had to pay England a substantial sum to get our goods to any buyers from other countries, many merchants were having a hard time keeping their money from running out. My business, and that of many of my neighbor merchants required a constant flow of trade between the inner colonies and from that to the English, so when most of the inner colonies’ products that they desired to be sold were being taken as taxes, our business took a turn for the worst. How could I not be proud that I was part of the Revolution that broke us away from England and her constraints?
-----Now, there is no way that one could claim that there were not financial problems that occurred after our bid for freedom and liberty won out. Immediately after the war our economy in the State of Delaware suffered severely, as we had to create our own currency, to further separate ourselves from the British. This combined with many soldiers returning home and demanding their promised land grants deeply scarred our economy, but not irreparably so. We have already started to recover, and the process has been helped with our new found freedom to trade with new countries, countries that until now had been forced to buy our goods at incredibly high prices from England. My business has almost completely recovered, and with the inner colonies once again shipping their surplus food to me for processing and shipping I expect that I will soon be fully back on my feet.
-----Besides our economic situation vastly improving after our break from England, our governmental system is working splendidly. I am told that we were the first colony to develop and implement a State Constitution, one that encompasses our ideals and laws. Part of our Constitution of Delaware has been entirely too long in coming, and including Article 26, which states that “No person hereafter imported into this State from Africa ought to be held in slavery under any presence whatever; and no negro, Indian, or mulatto slave ought to be brought into this State, for sale, from any part of the world.” Slavery has been a stain on our country’s economy and image for entirely too long, and I can only hope that all of our Sister colonies have similar statements in their constitutions. Our own Declaration of Independence stated that all men were created equal, and no matter their skin color, all people are still people. Another right that has been far too long in coming to fruition has been the freedom for every man to choose his own way to worship. This is covered in Article 29 of our Constitution, in the words of, “There shall be no establishment of any one religious sect in this State in preference to another; and no clergyman or preacher of the gospel, of any denomination, shall be capable of holding any civil once in this State, or of being a member of either of the branches of the legislature, while they continue in the exercise of the pastorial function.” It is about time that every man is allowed to worship God in his own way, without the requirement of a Church to dictate how he does so.
-----It has taken twelve years, but we Americans are finally beginning to truly form a nation. It took a war, and has led to many compromises that have displeased many people, but now those who fought for so long are now starting on the upward slope leading to creating a country recognized as more than the bastard son of England. We are succeeding in forming our country because we already had a system of government that could stand without the crutch that was England, and because we gained so many trade options with other countries. Without this, there is no way that our country could have succeeded in our bid for liberty. The citizens of Delaware have been ready to separate from England for a long time, and I am glad that we finally have. It is my hope that our Sister Colonies’ economies will recover as well as ours has, and that their governments will work as well as ours does.
Smith, Barbara. "Food Rioters and the American Revolution." The William and Mary Quarterly 51 (1994): 3-38.
Sawers, Larry. "The Navigation Acts Revisited." Economic History Review XLV(1992): 262-268.
Declaration of Independence, July 4 1776. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/declare.asp
Thomas Paine, Common Sense: Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs http://www.bartleby.com/133/3.html
Constitution of Delaware; 1776. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/de02.asp
The American Promise
Portfolio: Final Exam (frame 1)
---Far too many people, especially children, in the United States are illiterate considering the heavy dependence most of us have on this crucial skill. Geoffrey Meredith writes in his “The Demise of Writing”, “one-fifth of the population is functionally illiterate. A small percentage of these are older people with little formal education. A much larger percentage are youths- high-school and even college graduates, who, despite their degrees, can’t fill out a simple employment form.” Meredith continues to say, “From our current perspective this seems strange. Yet we are fooled by thinking that our time represents the way things always were and always will be. When it comes to reading, today’s 80% literacy rate is an anomaly, the result of dramatically higher education levels.” He seems to be saying that despite more people being able to do the basics of reading, they often do not know how to read anything other than their textbooks. You can see this illiteracy in public schools, businesses, and even as you walk around a city and see the homeless. However, it is not a problem that is unfixable. If parents, or even the government, would be willing to set limits on their children’s consumption of television shows and computer forums, we could easily start seeing large jumps in their abilities to read.
---I have seen this illiteracy at my high-school, and I have to say that it makes me sad. Whenever the teacher would assign some sort of reading assignment, the same five students would come back the next day complaining of it being “too long” or “too hard to understand”. Now, it could be that they could in fact read, or that they were just not motivated to. However, is having the ability to do something yet refusing to act on it not the same as not having the ability? I say that it is. Another question that comes to mind is whether or not their unwillingness to read comes from them having easier and more readily available means of entertainment. Why should they read a book, something that requires them to create their own mental images, when they can just turn on the television and have all of the visual elements already created for them? Television is an excellent medium for receiving news and some entertainment, but it should not be your only source of entertainment, as it does not stimulate the brain nearly as much as reading or writing. It has been proven that reading stimulates brain activity to a far greater extent than watching television, so the idea of having a society that takes reading and writing for granted in exchange for the easy and effortless act of watching television seems like an excellent example of a society that does not ever have any technological, social, or economic advances. Reading stimulates the creative centers in the brain, and by training those centers of the brain, one can become more creative. Since TV does not train this center of the brain as much, I don’t think it would be a stretch to assume that taking away reading, or even decreasing peoples desire to read, would seriously hurt the innovative nature of the United States, if not the world as a whole.
---It is not too late to stop this downward spiral our society seems to be facing however. There are several ways that we can convince our children that reading is a better alternative to sitting on the couch watching TV. One way has already been tested, though in my opinion it was poorly put into practice, and that is the national government stepping to put in a much higher emphasis on teaching students to read in public school. They could create and maintain quality institutions that are there specifically to help children who can’t afford more expensive tutoring programs to learn to read, and have some sort of reading requirement for students to graduate high-school. A more local level of help that is available for students struggling to read is their parents. Who else has the authority to limit the child’s intake of TV? If the parents were to put into effect some sort of limit, say 2 hours of TV a day, or some sort of bargain, 30 minutes of TV for every hour of reading, I am willing to bet that we would see significant increases to America’s population's literacy rates.
---Without the ability to read, much of our ability to communicate over expanses is lost. I am not talking about expanses in the sense of miles, instead expanses in the sense of time. How much would we know of the Ancient Egyptians had not developed a system of writing? Would we have a bible for the most popular religion in the world if we could not read? So much of our identity as citizens of the United States, and indeed our identity as modern human beings, is based on our ability to convey accurate information to those who will later need it. So, how can we ignore this problem of lowering literacy in the United States? In short, we can’t. We have to do something about it now, or it will harm us in the end.
---I have seen this illiteracy at my high-school, and I have to say that it makes me sad. Whenever the teacher would assign some sort of reading assignment, the same five students would come back the next day complaining of it being “too long” or “too hard to understand”. Now, it could be that they could in fact read, or that they were just not motivated to. However, is having the ability to do something yet refusing to act on it not the same as not having the ability? I say that it is. Another question that comes to mind is whether or not their unwillingness to read comes from them having easier and more readily available means of entertainment. Why should they read a book, something that requires them to create their own mental images, when they can just turn on the television and have all of the visual elements already created for them? Television is an excellent medium for receiving news and some entertainment, but it should not be your only source of entertainment, as it does not stimulate the brain nearly as much as reading or writing. It has been proven that reading stimulates brain activity to a far greater extent than watching television, so the idea of having a society that takes reading and writing for granted in exchange for the easy and effortless act of watching television seems like an excellent example of a society that does not ever have any technological, social, or economic advances. Reading stimulates the creative centers in the brain, and by training those centers of the brain, one can become more creative. Since TV does not train this center of the brain as much, I don’t think it would be a stretch to assume that taking away reading, or even decreasing peoples desire to read, would seriously hurt the innovative nature of the United States, if not the world as a whole.
---It is not too late to stop this downward spiral our society seems to be facing however. There are several ways that we can convince our children that reading is a better alternative to sitting on the couch watching TV. One way has already been tested, though in my opinion it was poorly put into practice, and that is the national government stepping to put in a much higher emphasis on teaching students to read in public school. They could create and maintain quality institutions that are there specifically to help children who can’t afford more expensive tutoring programs to learn to read, and have some sort of reading requirement for students to graduate high-school. A more local level of help that is available for students struggling to read is their parents. Who else has the authority to limit the child’s intake of TV? If the parents were to put into effect some sort of limit, say 2 hours of TV a day, or some sort of bargain, 30 minutes of TV for every hour of reading, I am willing to bet that we would see significant increases to America’s population's literacy rates.
---Without the ability to read, much of our ability to communicate over expanses is lost. I am not talking about expanses in the sense of miles, instead expanses in the sense of time. How much would we know of the Ancient Egyptians had not developed a system of writing? Would we have a bible for the most popular religion in the world if we could not read? So much of our identity as citizens of the United States, and indeed our identity as modern human beings, is based on our ability to convey accurate information to those who will later need it. So, how can we ignore this problem of lowering literacy in the United States? In short, we can’t. We have to do something about it now, or it will harm us in the end.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Reflective Letter V2.
Before this year, I was starting to think that I had stopped improving as a writer. All my writing classes in high school were focusing on making us write essays about facts, and only facts, the obvious intent being to test us to see if we were paying any attention in class. I was proven happily incorrect once I came to PSEC. I never could have guessed how much room I still had to grow as a writer, including learning a whole new method of writing that included analyzing the text, trying to find its meaning as it applied to me, as opposed to listing facts. I feel that I have grown a huge amount as a writer this quarter, as shown by my grades on the two actual essays we wrote this year, and my use of the They Say/I Say format for writing.
As I am a little bit of a “glass half empty” personality, I feel it prudent to begin with my weaknesses as a writer that I am still learning to overcome (made all the more difficult considering I would have never guessed that I was having these problems just one year ago). One of the primary problems I am having as an academic author is using an abundance of quotes. In my two essays titled “A Story of a Delawarean” and “Final Draft; Now in Color!” I used very few quotes. I feel that once I begin putting more quotes in for me to analyze and support my argument my writing will become much better. My other weakness as a writer is my reluctance to change. In my first essay (an analysis of Bacon’s Rebellion), I went through five drafts before I even realized that I was not properly using the They Say/I Say format, which was new to me at the time. I have since fully adopted this new form of writing essays, and I dare say that I have got a solid grasp of how to use it now.
Of course, there are things that I have been doing well on, one might call them strengths. These include an understanding the concepts of They Say/I Say (post stupid drafts of my essay one), and my ability to do my work in a timely fashion. The proof for my understanding of the They Say/I Say format is conveniently given in a numerical representation. I am talking about my grade. On both essay one and two I received a ninety-one percent, even though my information was not the best quality. This shows that even when I was having a hard time including information that was relevant I was able to use the They Say/I Say format well enough to significantly impact my final grades. The second point is slightly harder to prove, but there evidence is still there. I managed to get essay one done in all of one weekend, and that included a total rewrite. All I did the final day was some grammar and semantic fixes. The same happened with the second essay, although I had it fully written out about three days ahead of schedule, as opposed to only one. I still had to do some grammar and semantic fixes, but I really don’t count those toward total time spent writing as they are often just me being a perfectionist.
I feel that this year I have improved a significant amount as far as writing is concerned. I know that I still have room to improve, but I feel that I am much better prepared for future writing courses than I was a year ago. My strengths outweigh my weaknesses by a lot, which is not something I would have said at the beginning of the school year. With my newfound grasp of the They Say/I Say format, I feel that I will be able to do better on future essay style assignment that my teachers assign.
As I am a little bit of a “glass half empty” personality, I feel it prudent to begin with my weaknesses as a writer that I am still learning to overcome (made all the more difficult considering I would have never guessed that I was having these problems just one year ago). One of the primary problems I am having as an academic author is using an abundance of quotes. In my two essays titled “A Story of a Delawarean” and “Final Draft; Now in Color!” I used very few quotes. I feel that once I begin putting more quotes in for me to analyze and support my argument my writing will become much better. My other weakness as a writer is my reluctance to change. In my first essay (an analysis of Bacon’s Rebellion), I went through five drafts before I even realized that I was not properly using the They Say/I Say format, which was new to me at the time. I have since fully adopted this new form of writing essays, and I dare say that I have got a solid grasp of how to use it now.
Of course, there are things that I have been doing well on, one might call them strengths. These include an understanding the concepts of They Say/I Say (post stupid drafts of my essay one), and my ability to do my work in a timely fashion. The proof for my understanding of the They Say/I Say format is conveniently given in a numerical representation. I am talking about my grade. On both essay one and two I received a ninety-one percent, even though my information was not the best quality. This shows that even when I was having a hard time including information that was relevant I was able to use the They Say/I Say format well enough to significantly impact my final grades. The second point is slightly harder to prove, but there evidence is still there. I managed to get essay one done in all of one weekend, and that included a total rewrite. All I did the final day was some grammar and semantic fixes. The same happened with the second essay, although I had it fully written out about three days ahead of schedule, as opposed to only one. I still had to do some grammar and semantic fixes, but I really don’t count those toward total time spent writing as they are often just me being a perfectionist.
I feel that this year I have improved a significant amount as far as writing is concerned. I know that I still have room to improve, but I feel that I am much better prepared for future writing courses than I was a year ago. My strengths outweigh my weaknesses by a lot, which is not something I would have said at the beginning of the school year. With my newfound grasp of the They Say/I Say format, I feel that I will be able to do better on future essay style assignment that my teachers assign.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Reflective Letter
---Before this year, I was starting to think that I had stopped improving as a writer. All my writing classes in high school were focusing on making us write essays about facts, and only facts, the obvious intent being to test us to see if we were paying any attention in class. I was proven happily incorrect once I came to PSEC however. I never could have guessed how much room I still had to grow as a writer, including learning a whole new method of writing that included analyzing the text, trying to find its meaning as it applied to me, as opposed to listing facts. I feel that I have grown a huge amount as a writer this quarter, as shown by my grades on the two actual essays we wrote this year, and my use of the They Say/I Say format for writing.
---As I am a little bit of a “glass half empty” personality, I feel it prudent to begin with my weaknesses as a writer that I am still learning to overcome (made all the more difficult considering I would have never guessed that I was having these problems just one year ago). One of the primary problems I am having as an academic author is using an abundance of quotes. In my two essays titled “A Story of a Delawarean” and “Final Draft; Now in Color!” I used very few quotes. I feel that once I begin putting more quotes in for me to analyze and support my argument my writing will become much better. My other weakness as a writer is my reluctance to change. In my first essay (an analysis of Bacon’s Rebellion), I went through five drafts before I even realized that I was not properly using the They Say/I Say format, which was new to me at the time. I have since fully adopted this new form of writing essays, and I dare say that I have got a solid grasp of how to use it now.
---Of course, there are things that I have been doing well on, one might call them strengths. These include an understanding the concepts of They Say/I Say (post stupid drafts of my essay one), and my ability to do my work in a timely fashion. The proof for my understanding of the They Say/I Say format is conveniently given in a numerical representation. I am talking about my grade. On both essay one and two I received a ninety-one percent, even though my information was not the best quality. This shows that even when I was having a hard time including information that was relevant I was able to use the They Say/I Say format well enough to significantly impact my final grades. The second point is slightly harder to prove, but there evidence is still there. I managed to get essay one done in all of one weekend, and that included a total rewrite. All I did the final day was some grammar and semantic fixes. The same happened with the second essay, although I had it fully written out about three days ahead of schedule, as opposed to only one. I still had to do some grammar and semantic fixes, but I really don’t count those toward total time spent writing as they are often just me being a perfectionist.
---I feel that this year I have improved a significant amount as far as writing is concerned. I know that I still have room to improve, but I feel that I am much better prepared for future writing courses than I was a year ago. My strengths outweigh my weaknesses by a lot, which is not something I would have said at the beginning of the school year. With my newfound grasp of the They Say/I Say format, I feel that I will be able to do better on future essay style assignment that my teachers assign.
---As I am a little bit of a “glass half empty” personality, I feel it prudent to begin with my weaknesses as a writer that I am still learning to overcome (made all the more difficult considering I would have never guessed that I was having these problems just one year ago). One of the primary problems I am having as an academic author is using an abundance of quotes. In my two essays titled “A Story of a Delawarean” and “Final Draft; Now in Color!” I used very few quotes. I feel that once I begin putting more quotes in for me to analyze and support my argument my writing will become much better. My other weakness as a writer is my reluctance to change. In my first essay (an analysis of Bacon’s Rebellion), I went through five drafts before I even realized that I was not properly using the They Say/I Say format, which was new to me at the time. I have since fully adopted this new form of writing essays, and I dare say that I have got a solid grasp of how to use it now.
---Of course, there are things that I have been doing well on, one might call them strengths. These include an understanding the concepts of They Say/I Say (post stupid drafts of my essay one), and my ability to do my work in a timely fashion. The proof for my understanding of the They Say/I Say format is conveniently given in a numerical representation. I am talking about my grade. On both essay one and two I received a ninety-one percent, even though my information was not the best quality. This shows that even when I was having a hard time including information that was relevant I was able to use the They Say/I Say format well enough to significantly impact my final grades. The second point is slightly harder to prove, but there evidence is still there. I managed to get essay one done in all of one weekend, and that included a total rewrite. All I did the final day was some grammar and semantic fixes. The same happened with the second essay, although I had it fully written out about three days ahead of schedule, as opposed to only one. I still had to do some grammar and semantic fixes, but I really don’t count those toward total time spent writing as they are often just me being a perfectionist.
---I feel that this year I have improved a significant amount as far as writing is concerned. I know that I still have room to improve, but I feel that I am much better prepared for future writing courses than I was a year ago. My strengths outweigh my weaknesses by a lot, which is not something I would have said at the beginning of the school year. With my newfound grasp of the They Say/I Say format, I feel that I will be able to do better on future essay style assignment that my teachers assign.
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