...The main focus of the passage, Frederick Douglass Learning to Read and Write, is to explain the struggles that Frederick Douglass faced as he began to learn to become literate. Even though I am not a slave or not allowed to learn, I still struggled as a child when it came to learning how to read and write. I learn completely different from many other students since I am dyslexic. Dyslexia is a learning disability that causes people to have difficulty in learning, reading, and interpreting words or letter. However, dyslexia does not affect my intelligence or my appearance. My dyslexia detracts me from learning and understanding, and that sometimes making education hard. As a child my learning differences made me feel judged or misunderstood,...
Words: 344 - Pages: 2
...English 200 Argumentative Synthesis DeAloia Length: 3—4 pages, formatted according to MLA style Audience: College-level reader familiar with the work of Frederick Douglass and of Erich Fromm at a general level Purpose: In this assignment you will use three skills fundamental to academic writing—summarizing, analyzing, and synthesizing. These skills will also help begin to build our theme, the tensions and complexities involved in the struggle between free will and obedience. Points: 100 Due Dates: 11:00 p.m., February 10: Send thesis paragraph & outline of rough draft—as a Word document formatted according to MLA style*—to instructor via UD email attachment Optional: on your own and as you wish, arrange to exchange rough drafts with a peer for feedback via Isidore Chat, visit the Write Place, and/or visit DeAloia during office hours with your questions* 11:00 p.m., February 12: Instructor provides feedback on thesis paragraphs & outlines of rough drafts via UD email attachment 11:00 p.m., February 14**: As an attachment in Word, submit final draft of Argumentative Synthesis to Isidore Assignments, “Argumentative Synthesis” *NOTE: For additional information on how to prepare...
Words: 997 - Pages: 4
...Throughout history, many great works of literature were written and the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is one of them. This book is important because its publication made people realize slavery was bad for everyone, not just the slaves. To add on, in each important piece of literature, the author has reasons to write the book. Frederick Douglass has three reasons to write this narrative and these are the reasons made his book a great book. The first reason is to bring to life a slave’s experiences as a slave. In his narrative, he says, “A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege” (1). Frederick didn’t even know his own age which is a basic right everyone has now. Slaves were deprived of their basic rights because of slavery. Douglass’s experience...
Words: 796 - Pages: 4
...Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Analysis Emancipated slave turned distinguished scholar, Frederick Douglass, uses his book Narratives of the Life of an American Slave to narrate the struggles that he went through as a slave under one of his owners, referred to as “my mistress”. Douglass uses this book to enlighten the American people about the horrors and the sheer inhumanity of slavery. In this book, written before the Civil War, he accurately represents what happened to slaves to those who weren’t accustomed to the horrors of slavery, the Northerners. He tried to convey the struggles of slavery to the people of the North to try to get them to help those agonizing in the South. Douglass accomplishes this goal by using antithetical ideas, by using metaphor and by using diction that was only expected of the upper class. Douglass begins his book by emphasizing the negative effect of slavery on the slave-owner. He explores these negative effects by discussing how being a slave owner caused his mistress to change from a “lamblike disposition to a tiger-like fierceness (line 14-15).” This demonstrates how slavery can corrupt how a person thinks and acts. Although the shift in this sentence was very apparent, Douglass implicitly discusses this shift throughout the passage by speaking of his mistress’ kind heartedness prior to owning slaves, to her ruthless behavior after owning slaves. According to Douglass, this sudden shift of behavior can be attributed to the power she gained...
Words: 544 - Pages: 3
...Advanced Placement English Language and Composition Advanced Placement English III First Six Weeks – Introductory Activities: ▪ Class rules, expectations, procedures ▪ Students review patterns of writing, which they will imitate throughout the course: reflection, narration and description, critical analysis, comparison and contrast, problem and solution, and persuasion and argument. ▪ Students review annotation acronyms, how to do a close reading, literary elements and rhetorical devices. Students also review the SOAPSTONE (subject, occasion, audience, purpose, speaker, tone, organization, narrative style and evidence) strategy for use in analyzing prose and visual texts along with three of the five cannons of rhetoric: invention, arrangement and style. ▪ Students learn the format of the AP test, essay rubric and essay structure. ▪ Students take a full-length AP test for comparison purposes in the spring. Reading: The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne Writing: Answer the following question in one paragraph. Use quotes from the novel as evidence. Some readers believe that the elaborate decoration that Hester embroiders on the scarlet letter indicates her rejection of the community’s view of her act. Do you agree or disagree? Explain your position using evidence from the text. (test grade) Writing: Write a well-developed essay addressing the following prompt. Document all sources using MLA citation. Compare Hester to a modern...
Words: 3064 - Pages: 13
...Fredrick Douglass final essay Subpoint 4: The Christianity of the slaveholders is hypocritical and used to justify their actions. There are two forms of Christianity represented in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and each are described and function differently throughout the text. Based on Douglass’ personal recollections and thoughts in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, there are both real and false versions of religion and generally, the real or “true” form of Christianity is practiced by himself as well as some whites who are opposed to slavery. The false form of religion, or what the author explained in one of the important quotes in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, “the hypocritical Christianity of this land” (95) is practiced by whites, most notably Mr. Covey, and is a complete bastardization of the true ideals behind genuine Christian thought. Through his discussions of religion that are interspersed throughout The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the reader gets the sense that slavery and true Christianity are opposing forces and one cannot be present while the other exists. Not only is the simultaneous existence of the true version Christianity with slavery impossible, it appears that even if real Christianity does exist in a pure form, the introduction of slavery corrupts it inevitably and...
Words: 2185 - Pages: 9
...He had a logical analysis, a dignified tone, and a sharp memory for details to thoroughly give a vivid sense of the importance of his story. “Capable of high attainments as an intellectual and moral being—needing nothing but a comparatively small amount of cultivation to make him an ornament to society and a blessing to his race by the law of the land, by the voice of the people, by the terms of the slave code, he was only a piece of property, a beast of burden, a chattel personal, nevertheless!” (Week 14). I see this quote as a very significant part of how Douglass was able to overcome being a slave and being part of the many tragic events that he endured over his journey to freedom and stating that if you set your mind to it and maintain good moral being then you can overcome these...
Words: 820 - Pages: 4
...Course Number and Title: American Literature 1 Number of Credits: 3 Instructor Name: Sos Bagramyan Email Address: sbagramyan@aua.am Telephone Number: 51 27 69 Office Location: Paramaz Avedisian Building, 132W Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday, 8am-9am Term/Year: Spring 2015 ENGL 120 – American Literature 1 This survey course introduces students to American literature from the beginning of European contact to the present, focusing on major authors and different literary genres. It examines the historical influences on the evolution of this body of literature and the construction of a distinct and complex American identity. Through close reading, class discussion and their own research and writing, students will explore how themes such as gender, race, class, spirituality, economics, and the environment play a role in the formation and evolution of the American experience Three hours of instructor-led class time per week. Required Materials: All readings are located in PDF format on our course’s Moodle page. Academic Integrity: All graded assignments must completed individually. Plagiarism is a serious offense, and any attempt to pass off another person's ideas and writings as your own will result in severe disciplinary measures, possibly expulsion from the university. This also applies to your Informal Responses, which should reflect your own understanding of the material and not simply repeat what I or your classmates have already said. Students are required...
Words: 1348 - Pages: 6
...English 311.01 (13471): The History of African-American Writing Fall 2015 Tuesday, Thursday 11:00-12:15 JR 244 Professor Nate Millsnathaniel.mills@csun.eduOffice hours: Tuesdays 1:00-3:30 and by appointmentSierra Tower 718 | Course Description / Objectives Through a historical survey of the work of major African-American writers from slavery to the present, this course will examine the defining features of African-American expression. The course is organized around a foundational question: what makes African-American literature African-American? Is it just a set of texts that happen to have been written by authors who identified as black in their respective historical moments? Are there distinct formal and thematic paradigms that unify these texts into a coherent literary tradition? What relation do black texts bear to other black texts, as well as to the Western canon? Are African-American texts necessarily “political,” by definition protesting the social and political marginalization of black people in America? Do African-American texts represent the particular experiences of African Americans, or do they (also?) address universal problems and experiences? The cultural, literary-formal, and political distinctiveness of African-American writing will thus be the guiding theme of this course’s rigorous, fast-moving survey. Additionally, students in 311 will acquire knowledge of the following: * The ways African-American...
Words: 4012 - Pages: 17
...The SAT Essay: Building a Repertoire of Examples The SAT essay is intended to measure your writing skills, not your knowledge of any specific subject. Therefore, the essay prompts given on the SAT must be fairly open-ended, so that anyone with a highschool education and life experiences common to all teenagers can respond to them. Most of them deal with basic philosophical, psychological, moral, or social issues. In my experience as a teacher, I’ve seen that the biggest challenge students face in writing the SAT essay is coming up with rich and relevant examples to discuss within the twenty-five minutes you’re given for the essay section. Quite often, students end up using examples that are inappropriate or superficial, or they don’t know enough about the examples they’ve chosen to write about them in detail. The way to combat this problem is to create your own repertoire of examples that you are well prepared to write detailed paragraphs about. Then, when you read the prompt you’re given on the day of the test, you can simply choose the examples from your repertoire that are most relevant to that particular topic. (Of course, this method isn’t fullproof; it may happen that you are unfortunate enough to get a topic that your prepared examples aren’t really appropriate for. If that’s the case, don’t try to force your examples to fit the topic. The process of coming up with these examples and writing several practice essays will also help you learn how to come up with new examples...
Words: 3449 - Pages: 14
...Name: |Date: | |Graded Assignment First Semester Final Exam Directions • Mark your answers to the multiple-choice questions on the answer sheet at the end of the multiple-choice section. Use a black or blue pen. • Remember to complete the submission information on every page you turn in. Multiple-Choice Questions (1 hour) Section 1 consists of selections from prose works and questions about their content, form, and style. Questions 1-10. Read the following passage, from "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlote Perkins Gilman (1899) carefully before you choose your answers. You may refer to the passage as often as necessary while answering the questions. It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer. A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house and reach the height of romantic felicity—but that would be asking too much of fate! Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it. Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted? John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage. John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures. John is a physician, and perhaps—(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)—perhaps...
Words: 10762 - Pages: 44
...Bibliographic Essay on African American History Introduction In the essay “On the Evolution of Scholarship in Afro- American History” the eminent historian John Hope Franklin declared “Every generation has the opportunity to write its own history, and indeed it is obliged to do so.”1 The social and political revolutions of 1960s have made fulfilling such a responsibility less daunting than ever. Invaluable references, including Darlene Clark Hine, ed. Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Evelyn Brooks Higgingbotham, ed., Harvard Guide to African American History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001); Arvarh E. Strickland and Robert E. Weems, Jr., eds., The African American Experience: An Historiographical and Bibliographical Guide (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2001); and Randall M. Miller and John David Smith, eds., Dictionary of Afro- American Slavery (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1988), provide informative narratives along with expansive bibliographies. General texts covering major historical events with attention to chronology include John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr., From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000), considered a classic; along with Joe William Trotter, Jr., The African American 1  Experience (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001); and, Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine, and Stanley Harrold, The...
Words: 6155 - Pages: 25
...A TEACHER’S GUIDE TO THE SIGNET CLASSIC EDITION OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON’S UP FROM SLAVERY By VIRGINIA L. SHEPHARD, Ph.D., Florida State University S E R I E S E D I T O R S : W. GEIGER ELLIS, ED.D., ARTHEA J. S. REED, PH.D., UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA, EMERITUS and UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, RETIRED A Teacher’s Guide to the Signet Classic Edition of Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery 2 INTRODUCTION Booker T. Washington’s commanding presence and oratory deeply moved his contemporaries. His writings continue to influence readers today. Although Washington claimed his autobiography was “a simple, straightforward story, with no attempt at embellishment,” readers for nearly a century have found it richly rewarding. Today, Up From Slavery appeals to a wide audience from early adolescence through adulthood. More important, however, is the inspiration his story of hard work and positive goals gives to all readers. His life is an example providing hope to all. The complexity and contradictions of his life make his autobiography intellectually intriguing for advanced readers. To some he was known as the Sage of Tuskegee or the Black Moses. One of his prominent biographers, Louis R. Harlan, called him the “Wizard of the Tuskegee Machine.” Others acknowledged him to be a complicated person and public figure. Students of American social and political history have come to see that Washington lived a double life. Publicly he appeased the white establishment...
Words: 13713 - Pages: 55
...process of writing the paper. I’d like first to give my grate to my dear teacher, Andy, who generously gave me his kindly help and instructions during the whole process of my paper-writing. Then I’d like to give my many thanks to my classmates who helped me a lot with my information collecting and paper-polishing. Most important of all, I want to give my thanks to my mother university and all the teachers in the English Department, who educated and cultivated me to be a qualified graduate in the future. Abstract When Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852, the novel was a huge success. It talked about the slavery which was a controversial issue at that time. Many critics made comments on this novel. With the passage of time, attitudes to the book changed considerably. The history of African American in US has always been considered as a bitter story. In recent years, their status...
Words: 5443 - Pages: 22
...Women and their forgotten role in Slavery Nigel Sadler Sands of Time Consultancy Often when the history of slavery is studied the argument is over whose history is being told. This debate rarely goes beyond whether it is the history as written by or about the white or black involvement. There is often an assumed male history. History books mainly reflect the involvement of men. The abolitionists (Clarkson and Wilberforce), the Slave traders (Canot) and the enslaved (Equaino). In portrayal of enslaved people, men appear more frequently. In the movie Amistad it is told from the point of view of Cinque; in the TV series Roots it follows Kunta Kinte. This male dominated history fails to acknowledge, belittles and devalues the role of women at all levels of slavery. What about the female slave traders, slave owners, enslaved females, female rebels and abolitionists? Are they really invisible? Verene Shepherd, in Women in Caribbean History states that up until the 1970s Caribbean books neglected women because early historians looked at colonisation, government, religion, trade and war fare, activities men were more involved in. Also some historians felt that women’s issues did not merit inclusion and where women could have been included, such as slave uprisings, their contributions were ignored. Shepherd believes changes occurred with the influence of women’s groups who tried to correct the gender neutral or male biased history. There was also a shift into social history...
Words: 6900 - Pages: 28
