Week 8 Reading And Writing Survey

Reading And Writing Survey

Week 8

My reading and writing assignments are going well this semester and they are going smooth. I am happy to see that I continued to improve the way I wrote things in my post and put more care into my pages. My favorite reading so far has to be The Royal Slave and the story of the Prince it was very inspirational and made me understand how back then nobody cared about my people. Also I understood how no matter what anyone did to us altogether we still are here today standing strong. A new reading strategy I developed reading this book is to read every introduction for each author because it makes it that much easier to understand their literature. I am happy with my class project I feel I did a way better job than I though since the hardest part id finding fictional stories when most of the readings be real life. I feel my submission was strong though and made a clear argument throughout the whole essay. My biggest accomplishment will be when I see a passing grade from this class on my report card since it difficult to understand your true grade in this class but I'm sure I have a good grade. 

I want more control on what I am able to pick for my project because the fictional stories are cool but if I could attack some of the real life issues they present in the book would make my projects even better. 

Topic Brainstorm Again Week 8 Project Work

Topic Brainstorm

Week 8

Project Work 

My first topic could be about the author William Blake's work and pulling themes and meaning from his poems to compare and contrast with the poems of author Walt Whitman. Both have literature that takes time to understand the true meaning but at the same time they used this type of inscription to talk to readers who took the time to dive into their work more profoundly. I would use the first topic choice of course to compare and contrast the elements of two different text. Looking at the poems "The Little Black Boy" Or "The Lamb" from William Blake and "O, Captain! My Captain!" from Walt Whitman.

My second topic I could use the text I could use for my project is the "Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, An American Slave" and using the text to take on the topic of how does this story teach us about a time or place differently than a history book. This narrative would be perfect for a topic like this especially since Fredrick Douglass was such an interesting story to read even as a younger child so writing about what his story teaches us would extremely enjoyable. Especially since in the history books they lie because white english people most likely wrote our history to make them look like hero's and not monsters but this narrative is history I actually can believe in. 

For a final topic I could use the text from the author Percy Bysshe Shelly and how he used his poetry to paint a picture as it does on his "Ode to the West" poem. This poem was laced with imagery and I could just use this poem and compare and contrast the elements with another story or poem and explain the ways they do this well and the things they do differently in writing. 

Week 8 Literary Analysis: Close Reading

Literary Analysis 

Close Reading 

Week 8

On pg. 465 the last poem in Walt Whitman's collection was very interesting to me. Most of his poems left me puzzled a little just trying to follow the topic of the poem. However this last poem "O Captain! My Captain" grabbed my attention because it was clear and towards the beginning the poem rhymed which was pleasing for me as a reader. And after rhyming for a while Whitman began painting a picture of the ship these sailors where aboard and how the Captain was dead. Ironically the trip they went on as a crew was difficult, prolonged, and the Captain dies right when the ship arrives to shore. "he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done"pg. 465. Even after going through so much on their voyage the Captain was dead and the unnamed character narrating is heart broken that the Captain is no longer with him. "But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead". This crew member was close to the Captain and was not taking his death well. Reading this poem felt more like a homage monologue for the Captain explaining their voyage and the way their dead Captain looked. This poem also was very interesting to me because it has my name is incorporated in one of the stanzas "From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won". My name means winner so their ship was the victor and after all of there travels and victory their Captain dies at the home stretch. The imagery and descriptiveness of this section of writing make reading this easy and it could also have a different meaning. This voyage and Captain could be a symbolic meaning for something different like something meaningful to Whitman and is letting his readers interpret their own meaning of his poem. After reading this I looked at the very bottom of the page and it say's that this was paying respect to Whitman's favorite public figure Abraham Lincoln who was assassinated. Making a huge connection to my last point of Whitman having a different meaning for this  poem. And honestly writing this close reading I looked back at the poem and is the only reason I saw the note on the bottom telling who the Captain signified. 

Reading Notes Week 8 Part B

Reading Notes 

Week 8

Part B

• Walt Whitman left an astonishing legacy by bringing free verse poetry to modern practice. He saw poets as leaders and fighters. Whitman strayed away from poetry ordinary rhyme and meter approach. His poems also included a heavy sense of prized free and sexual pleasures. 
• With this bubbling new era of poetry an era that was laced with poets who before Whitman would have no place in poetry those who were defiant, energetic, and willing to experiment. 
• Born on Long Island and moved to Brooklyn as child Whitman dropped out of school at the tender age of 11 to work random odd jobs. As he became older he worked jobs as a school teacher, builder, bookstore owner, journalist, and poet. 
• Whitman personally loved the South but imposed its slavery and petitioned against it and looked up to public figures at the time like Abraham Lincoln. 
• In 1865 he met Peter Doyle who eventually became his lover and he moved to Camden, New Jersey were he resided at for the rest of his life. 
• He worked on poet at a young age and wrote a bunch of good and bad poems and eventually came up with a collection that was titled "Leaves of Grass" which he had to revise man of times probably till his death just because how bad the critiques attacked his art but in future time he would be appreciated call Whitman ahead of his time.
• I like how Whitman structured his poems they are spaced perfectly and are long stanzas like a story. But it is truly hard to follow the meaning of his poems or should I say understanding the meanings of the poems. Starting with the titles being the subject of the poem in the beginning and as you go on reading in my experience the subject of the poem got farther away from how it was started. 
• pg. 465 this poem has to be the easiest to follow and is like a song in a musical which in the beginning introduction said Whitman enjoyed theater. says it on pg. 447 at the mid top of the left side of the page. 
• And on pg.  399 is a start of a poem that is quiet familiar to me I don't know from where but I felt like I have read it before 

Reading Notes Week 8 Part A

Reading Notes 

Week 8

Part A

• Frederick Douglass was the most important African American public figure during the nineteenth century. Even though Douglass was born into slavery and was subjected to manually labor instead of being on school. Douglass's perseverance allowed him to teach himself to read and use that to shortly become a powerful anti slavery speaker and writer. 
•  Full name Fredrick Augustus Washington Bailey was born in Talbot County in Maryland sometime in 1818. He barely knew his mom and his dad was most likely his slave master. At the age of six he had lived with his grandmother but soon went to live in his owners house. Douglass's owner at the time was one of the most wealthiest men in Maryland. 
• In this period of time Douglass recounts countless routine heartless consequences for the plantain slaves. For the better his life turned in 1826 Douglass was sent to live with a relative of his owner in Baltimore. There Hugh Auld's wife began to teach Douglass how to read and when Auld discovers his wife is teaching the slave boy how to read he becomes enraged with anger yelling that literacy would make Douglass unmanageable, not content, and would make him never be able to be a slave. 
• This knowledge changed Douglass's life find out that the key to freedom was through reading and obtaining knowledge he saw his clear pathway to being a free man. 
• Later he was send back tot he plantation where he got in to a long physical altercation with his master and freed himself by force. Although not lawfully free Douglass went back to live in Baltimore where he began to learn and work sending his wages back to his master. 
• In 1838 Douglass managed to escape and at first in his book he didn't list the strategy he used to escape slavery for good. Although after many years past he reveled that he dressed as a sailor and a free black slave gave Douglass his free papers to make it to New York where he married the women he previously met in Baltimore. He worked odd jobs and changed his name while helping the abolitionist movement.  
• Soon Douglass would begin to read an abolitionist newspaper and by chance met the editor who offered him a job and this became the start of greatness for Fredrick Douglass.