End of the World

Like Dan said I likes this reading because in high school history was my favorite subject. Like most of these readings it did get wordy but it shows you that history does repeat itself. This is an important thing to remember as we become the generation that controls everything. We have the power to prevent the past from repeating but will we use the power.

This is the End of the World

The beginning of the story is very depressing. I'm not very familiar with the Black Death, but I know of it. This is way too graphic for my taste. I could see the dogs devouring bodies that hadn't been put to rest. I had to cringe alot during this reading. This essay seemed more like a report than a story. I believe that the plague was a punishment from God, and the 14th century must had some secret sins.

The ends of the world as we know them

I thought this reading was a pretty good one. I like history and to know what happened back then. I liked in high school the history classes. You can say I'm a history buff. I never knew that there were people on Easter Island. It was a bit wordy and didn't get to the point, but having the back up points to help the thesis was very good. It also stay on topic very well. Overall it was a good piece of knowledge to be passed down to younger generations to learn that history always repeats itself.

End of the World As We Know It

This particular story had me thinking throughout. But at certain points in the story, it started to bore me. It almost sounded like a persuasive/informal type of writing. The author, to me, wanted me to think like he/she was. It was almost uncanny to read this, having a persuasive speech coming up. I did like the details that the writer had. The writer had immense details about Native Americans and the Maya.

The Ends of the World as We Know Them

This reading wasn't the funnest to read. I felt like I was reading and encyclopedia or just a history book. However even though it might of not been fun to read to did put out many facts that many people, including myself don't really think about. Many people do not realize what if happening to the world. Many things have happened in the past to make to world a little worse, and it seems that big events keep happening to make it even worse. People do not realize what is going on, because in my opinion they really just do not care. Many people in the world are self-centered and only care about what is happening to them. They don't stop to think of how what they are doing today could affect their children or just the younger generations in the long run. Personally I feel bad for the real young generations because we aren't doing anything to help their world that they are going to grow up in.

The End of the World as We Know Them

As I started to read this essay it struck me funny because my friend and I were just talking about the same thing the other day. In my opinion the author has a good argument and obviously has put some thought into this catastrophic event that has happened many times through out history.Population control is a big one for me because how can you control any of the other factors of world destruction.If it wasn't the Soviet Union,Cuban missle crisis and The Gulf War when I was growing up .Now I have to worry about meteors,asteroids,the polar ice caps,people eating up the planet. Although technology and understanding of the planet and how it works gives us a big advantage over our forefathers. If we are not careful our children will suffer the consequences of our stupidity.Unfortunatly China seems to be the only country taking this seriously.Look at thier economy since the went to having one child.I know this would upset many Americans,but to save future generations this and many other sacrifices may need to be made.

Split At The Root

I felt this writing was alright. I didn't see it as being very great but it had its part that were good. The author could not identify what religion she wanted to associate herself with. I felt like she was confused at this point. I think she wanted to be associated with whatever religion would let her be accepted. I felt her mother felt the same way, like when she was applying for colleges. Her mother tells her if any application asks for religion to put "Episcopalian" and not none. Also i was surprised to see that she didn't see the racism till she went off to college. I figured people would have been a little more mature by this time. But then again i guess it still happens today, although i don't know why. People should be mature enough to keep their comments and actions to themselves by the time they reach the college level. Overall this reading was decent, nothing to exciting happening though which makes it a little more boring to read.

Split At the Root

I didn't like this story. It was a certain twist seeing racism from this new point of view. I thought she proved a few stereotypical characteristics about jews true. Like the relation between Jews and money. I feel sorry for the writer. She doesn't know who she wants to identify herself with. I agreed with her father's message that people shouldn't be judged by their religion, but by what type of person they are. At the end she seemed to just be rambling about her different personalities. This part of the story bored me.

Split at the Root

This reading got a little menotiouse to me.If this is an excerpt of her book "Blood,Bread and Poetry,"it probably has dozens more racial inuendows.I feel she has a lot of issues to deal with not only racialy but socially too.She talks about her father retiring comfortably,which suggests that they lived a modest maybe even in the upper scale of society.Maybe that is why she never heard the racial slurs until she went to college.Unfortunately the Jewish race along with so many cultures have had to endure persecution and some persecuted to the point of extintion.This, at times made me wonder if her parents did not want to accept thier own heritage.Why her father never told her about he "roots".I could tell that there was some conflict with her nationality, being both Jewish and White.I have seen this in biracial children of all races in my life time.I do not know how much of this goes on in society today.Hopefuly the auther will see this end in her lifetime and mybe she will findout her real identity.

Shooting a Elephant

I was not a big fan of this story at the start. I found it to be very boring and it kind of confused me a little bit. However the end is when I started to get interested. There is part of me that understands why he was killing the elephant, because like he said people have to put their dog to sleep if it goes mad and attacks a human. But the other part of me feel very bad for the elephant and feels like it does not need to die. Another part that interested me was at first he said he did not want to kill the elephant and how he had never wanted to kill an elephant, but he goes and does it anyway because of the crowd watching him. He wanted to be accepted by the older men. however in doing so he risked the chance of the younger men being mad at him, which ended up happening. The end of this story to me is the high point of the story, but it is also the saddest part.

Shooting a Elephant

I thought this reading was a very sad, but very understanding reading. It showed that if while under peer pressure from people, people will do about anything to be accpeted. If its killing a elephant or drinking at a party for example. The guy didn't want to kill to the elephant but he said he had to to be accpeted by the people watching him. I didn't understand the reading of why he was going to shoot the elephant until he looks back to see if anyone was looking and they were. I understand what he was thinking the gun was for his safty, but I also understand what the people thought since the elephant has killed someone that it should die or that he would kill it. Overall the reading was good not too wordy or long it got to the point fairly quickly.

Shooting an Elephant

I didn't like this story's beginning. I'm not a fan of government-like fiction unless the writer makes a way to help the reader understand the story. There was way too much Latin lingo. The story was very graphic when the elephant stumped the Dravidian man into the ground. It really starts to get too graphic describing the Dravidian's death. I've looked at most elephants as harmless, but I won't anymore. Now I would probably fear them as much as I would a tiger. I don't understand why the main character felt that he must shoot the elephant just because the natives expected that of him. All in all, I didn't enjoy this reading about a man killing an elephant to stop from looking like a fool. This story was overall depressing.

Shooting an Elephant

At the beginning of the story, the author paints a grim picture of the darkside of the law in the early 1900"s in Burma. His perspective is from one of a police officer during this time. He even said that he was stuck between hatred of the empire but his spirit seems to have been damaged by the society he lived in. It is important to understand that he lived in an Imperialistic society and the government functioned as such. The day he had to kill the elephant, made me think of the way peer pressure makes kids today feel compelled to follow along with everyone in their group and to do things they normally wouldnt do. Even though at the end I understand why he had to kill the elephant.The end of the story bothers me because, the author was glad to justify killing the elephant because the elephant killed a Coringhee coolie. That just seemed a little creepy to me.

The Rake:A few scenes from my childhood

I enjoyed this reading. Although it is a sad story it is written well. The author talks about growing up in an abusive family. Even though I did not grow up in this kind of family, I have seen many stories and heard many tales about these type of things. It really is very sad. The writer does a good job of describing how his family actually is by giving specific examples such as the part where his grandfather refuses to tell his grandmother that he loves her. This gives you a good idea of how he family functions and how they live everyday like this. All in all good writing even though it is sad.

The Rake:A few scenes from my childhood

This story made me sad for the author. Having grown up in a loving and caring family, it is a shame to hear about families members that abuse other family members. Even though as a child I did have freinds whose parents were abusive. I am certain it was hard for the author to grow up in the envirinment he grew up in. It seems that he grew up in an upscale type of home and probably had to hide the abuse he and his siter endured. Growing up through the years, I have witnessed the outcomes of abuse on a first hand basis. Even though this is not a disease, it seems to follow a gentic pattern.

On Stuttering

 I enjoyed the beginning imagery of what stuttering is like.  I have seen many encounters with stutterers and non-stutterers like the ones mentioned in this story.  I believe this stuttering ultimately came from nervousness.  It was sad and funny when he described his scariest moments.  It was amazing how he suddenly loss his stuttering when his vision was lost.  It seems that the balance of senses could become a new theory for some scientist to study.

On Stuttering

This reading had its ups and downs. I thought it got off to kind of a slow start. I know people who have trouble with stuttering and I did not realize how hard it could actually be. I wasn't aware of all the things that could trigger the stuttering. I sometimes have trouble with stuttering when i get nervous, just as he did when he got nervous. I think many people have this problem. The up part in the reading i thought was toward the end when he began to go blind. He has to rely on his speech to get him by in the day. This makes his speech better until he gets his sight back. I think that if there would have been more to read it would have turned out to be a better reading.

On Stuttering

I enjoyed the reading, at times in my life I also have been in situations to where it seemed as if I couldnt get the words out. After reading further into the essay, the author does an excellent job of making you realize how difficult it is to live as a true stutterer. It was nice to see the author making light of himself in the reading passages. Towards the end of the reading, he does again show how difficult it is to live as a stutterer. In the passages in which he went partially blind and had to rely on speech to communicate when he had almost never talked before. He had virtually eliminated his stutter when he was blind and when he regained his vision he went right back to stuttering which made me feel sorry for him. I myself know people that this has happened too.

Split at the Root Blog

This would be a complicated life to live. Torn between religion and what was deemed correct. Between sexual orientation and your family’s fear of exposure. Having so many different sides coming in on you cannot be easy. To sort all of it out and to decide to let others see those sides had to be stressful and a sometimes dreaded task. You could really see how she struggled with being Jewish but pretending to be a gentile or even struggling with being a once-married, mother of 3 and being a lesbian. I could see where she got the phrase, “Split at the root”. I think that we could see this in ourselves at some point in our lives but not nearly as much as she did or anyone else in shoes for that matter.

It was a very well written piece and it made sense of an era that many of use don’t understand because we did not live in it.

Shooting the Elephant

This was a hard passage for me to read. In fact, I didn’t even finish it, I just couldn’t.

The passage was very good. It put a perspective on peer presage. You got to see him and what he wanted to do but also got to see him with the struggle of thoughts of what the crowd wanted to see him to do.

It was difficult for me to read because of how detailed the actual shooting was. I guess I’m too emotional but I just couldn’t read anymore. I could really find a reason to shoot the elephant and I guess that’s what I didn’t like or even understand. What reasoning did the crowd have for wanting this done? We probably will never know.

As for the actual writing itself, it was strong, detailed and very good.

The Rake: A Few Scenes from My Childhood

What an intense reading! It jumped around which made it a little confusing but was really powerful.

I can’t imagine growing up in that sort of fear or finding out that your mother had been beaten as a child on a weekly basis. I wonder whether he broke the cycle of abuse. He seemed so devastated when he hurt his sister. It truly makes you look at how abuse can continue within families, when that is the only life that is known. It seems to be thought of as normal. You wonder how many times the table top had to be replaced. How his sister must have felt when her mother called her drama teacher and would not let her be in the play. Or even how they both got through those years of fear, not knowing what would set off their stepfather. It leaves you with lots of questions and wanting answers.

I would definitely like to read some of his other writings, to see if they have the same powerful, intense feel.

On Stuttering

I had read some of this previously so it was nice to get a little more. Hoagland really helps you understand his life as a stutter. He tells you his fears which are a great way to help a reader to put themselves into the author’s place and look at the situation through their eyes. I have always wondered how people who stutter seem to be able to control it and he explains this as well. I know that it is not actual control but when someone like Mel Tellis signs you would never know that he too is a stutter.

I enjoyed this reading and it was very informative.

What's Ya Name Girl

I really liked this selection from Maya Angelou. I felt very sorry for her [Mrs. Cullinan] because she obviously has low self-esteem from being overweight and pain due to not being able to have kids. I felt like the only reason she decided to start calling Marguerite Mary is from peer pressure from her wealthy friends. It disturbed me how loyal Miss Glory was to a lady who totally disrespected her name, and how she was encouraging Marguerite to get over the disrespect. I liked how at the end Mrs. C came to her senses when angry and corrected the freckled friend who insisted on renaming Marguerite, Mary.

Notes of a Native Son

I thought this essay was very sad. The bitter, yet strong ways of his father made him a memorable character, which made this a tearjerker for me. It was overwhelmingly sad to have to "celebrate" his birthday and recieve a newcomer into the family; while losing a loved one all at the same time. I think that the fact of his father's passing while another riot was going on made the author feel as though he regretted not talking to his father as much. Considering most of his father's built up paranoia was due to racial conflicts such as the riot. I feel that his father's sickness made him change any hate he had in his heart. It was healthy for him to take a new positive outlook on life. Baldwin made peace of his father's memory by covering his pain and forcing good memories in his thoughts. He even reconsiders his interpretation of a verse in the bible that he and his dad disagreed on. I feel like his father was so full of stubborn pride that he just wouldn't allow himself to be seen as agreeing with someone. When the riots occurred Baldwin understood the fury and smashing in the streets, as a native of Harlem, whom had seen and felt all of the mistreatment. I was surprised that he didn't add to the mess.

How it feels to be Colored Me

I love the beginning of this essay. It was humorous how innocent and sneaky the author was to welcome the tourists and northerners into her home state. It was also funny that she felt that authority should "take notice" of her patriotism. As the essay goes on her innocence is continously overwhelming in Eatonville, where she was a spirited little girl. I can relate when she talks about how she didn't have to be like other blacks who were mad about the way things were. She decided she would rather focus on becoming a better person.
I admire her confidence and positive outlook on life. She seems to not allow anything to get in her way She's definitely a lover of the chase. She really feels sorry for the person who can get something taken from them. And she's proud of the surprise that she is to people.

How It Feels to be Colored Me

This story had its strong points and its low points. For most of it, I was very confused. The author kept jumping back and forth between the colored me and the white me. I really didn't know why the author did that, but I guess it was to create substance. Overall this story had me guessing for a while, which is a good thing in my book. But in the future, I hope that confusing stories end up being clarified in the end, which this story lacked.

How it Feels to Be colored Me

I like this reading. It was short, but you got enough of it to understand it. I am still confused on all the colored me and the white me. I didnt understand if people looked at that kind of way. Or maybe she was acting that way. She talked about being in a Jazz bar. And when she is with a white person, her color comes out. What does that mean. How she is acting. How she loves that music. It seems to me that she is sterotyping "colored" and "white". She says she starts yeooooowwwwwww and stuff. As the white person just sits there. Is she saying that "colored" means more colorful personality. Overall I like the peice it was short but a very good one. You can get a lot out of this. You just have to look.

Native Son

I think this is a very good writing but like most o the writings we do it gets kind of wordy. It got a little confusing with the jumping from adult to child and visa versa. It also pulled you in with the way it was written by correlating two things together and making you want to keep on reading to find out why they are exactly related. In the end i like the reading but it was a little wordy for my tastes

How it feels to be colored me

I agreed with this authors position about society. I like the way that she presented a different aspect of colored viewpoint. She held the belief that people are people irreguardless of their history and that they should take repsonsibility for their own actions as a race. She believes that the colored race needs to move on and take responsibility for their own advancement. She basically is saying that the past is history and the Colored race needs to move past the discrimination.
Ms. Hurston, still claimed to be more at ease with people of her own color. She felt thatshe was out of place when around whites. This makes her understand how it feels to be on the other end of the sword. She can relate to Whites feeling out of place and uncomfortable in a reversed situation.

Notes of a Native Son

I thought the reading was a little long. But it needed to be long to be a good piece. I thought when he went to his father's funeral drunk, thats the way I would go to my dads or familys. I really didn't understand what the main plot of this piece was. Because it jumped around between his childhood and his present day. It was a good subject since we are in black history month and also I never knew about the Harlem riots. Overall it was a good piece, lengthy, but good.

Strategies for invention

When I write i ten to think aboutit alot before i write so i know what i am going to write down. It seems like once I start it either is just a bunch of random ideas or i leave out information that i wanted to get in because i over analyze it. When I do write it is usually Brainstorming or free writing i dont ever really loop it gets me all confused and jumbles up in my thoughts cause i would tend to get unorganized. I think it would help me to do alittle less braing storming and just try and get all of my thoughts out so i dont erase something because it is worded wrong.

Notes of a Native Son

This story really took me by surprise. I was really astonished by the way James Baldwin wrote this story. I really liked the fact that it had so many transitions. From "One", to "Two", and so on. This clearly represents how I was brought up after my father left me. I really didn't understand it like James did, but I still trudged on knowing that it was only me and my mom now. We just had to make it and make sure that I made it through high school without incident. Having a father walk out of your life, unlike James, is very traumatic, and you tend to have misplaced anger.

Overall, I really liked this story and hope to read something more of this caliber

How It Feels to be Colored Me

This was an ok writing for me. It seemed like a long statement of self confidence. I am not saying that being confident is bad but there is such a thing as too much. I didn’t get much from it except an understanding of who she was. I do agree that color shold not have anything to do with a job, education or anything else for that matter. We all put our clothes on the same way.

Native Son

Part One

In this passage, the intro again helps you to prepare for the excerpt. It sounds like he had a very hard time because of his color and his father. It really shows us that without living in the time period, what things were actually like. As he remembers his father, he sees how his teacher changed something in him and yet his father saw her as the enemy. It explains how his treatment by whites caused him to want to commit murder. Does thos show up in today’s society? Absolutely! Bullies in schools today are why we have some of the violence we hear about everyday.

Part Two

This section takes you through his father’s last day , his last visit with him and the birth of his sister. It seems to concentrate more on the chaos around them than their actual activities. But all in all it gave me, as a reader, a very good sense of what was happening in a time that was so historical for our country.

Part Three

This section is very intense. You can see how he feels about all sorts of things and how his father’s funeral, his birthday and the birth of his sister bring back memories and start to raise questions for him. When the riots start, he starts to realize how hatred can overcome someone and he begins to remember things that his father had said and I believe finally starts to completely understand him and his words.

Over all this reading was insightful and can really make you want to examine your relationships with those you may feel you hate but truly love.

Notes of a Native Son

I enjoyed this reading. I have never read any of James Baldwins's work but after reading this short story i would not mind reading another one. He uses great details and really makes you understand what is going on at that time. I also like that it is about his own life and his own growing up, I think this makes stories like this much more interesting because they can talk about what actually happened instead of using facts from other people. I think people that write about their own experiences can just go into a lot more detail and depth.

This short story hooked me with the first couple lines," On the twenty-ninth of July,in1943, my father died. On the same day, a few hours later, his last child was born.". This just made me want to keep reading because I wanted to know what that meant. The other interesting thing about this story that I liked was his relationship with his father. Just the way he talks about it makes it intense just to read. Like when he said he did not want to see his father because he wanted to keep the hatred, and how people were so stubborn about hate because they don't want to feel the pain anymore. I like this statement because I think it is very true. It is a lot easier to deal with something you hate or dislike, when it is not around you.

Notes of a Native Son

I enjoyed this reading. James Baldwin grew up in New York City during the black segregation period. Mr Baldwin does a good job of portraying the type of life that his father lived. He tried to teach his children that white people shouldnt be trusted. Later in his life this would come to be true. Even though he associated with whites, he was segregated as a black man evn though he was discrimanatory towards whites. It wasnt that he hated white people, but he was brought up to distrust the white race and later in life lashed out at the white race.

I thought the part about negro boys going to war rather than staying in the south was a very powerful statement. It was evidence of the hardships and rough existence the black race had to endure during time period. Reading about his father passing away brough back memories of my own Parents' death. All of the things you resent your parents for goes away when they die. After their passing, the grief is very difficult to handle as an adult and even more so as a child. During the funeral scene, I was reminded of all the people that you had not seen in a very long time and probably wont until another death or tragic event that will bring family members together. I also feel it is hard to reach out and find answers when your parents are gone and now you seem to be alone and always missing their advice and Love.