John Winthrop

Yesterday in class we dissussed about John Winthrop's, "Modell of Christian Charity", and i was thinking are there any similarites and/or differences between his work and the early american poams we read? I found that in "The Author to Her Book", the author did not mention the the Christan God whish I thought was unusal becuase it was a puritain author. Did you guys find any differences and/or similarites??

Christopher Columbus

So before reading Columbus's letter to Luis de Santangel, I would have NEVER thought of Columbus's discovery to be anything but positive. However, after doing the activity assigned in class, I got a new perspective on Columbus's ways of colonizing and 'discovering' the Americas. The way that Columbus just assumed he could take over the Natives, because they were so weak, really shocked me. He assumed they wanted to leave their own lifestyles and convert to Christianity, becoming just another carbon copy of those in Spain. Could you imagine if someone stormed into your life (who seemed very friendly and giving) and took advantage of you? What if your life and the way you lived was completely changed because someone else took your weakness as a chance to convert you to something you might not want to become?

A Block- Post Lady Gaga

Ms. Stuart, I really really enjoy theorizing on modern day advertisements, trends, and common sense. Even though some people dread talking about theory (John Michael, HAHA), I think its truly interesting and somewhat important to exploring where all of these ideas come from.

So I know that we discussed Lady Gaga's impacts on society and theorized on her image, but what other modern day things could we theorize about?

An idea that I'd love to theorize about is how celebrities create this image about what it means to be beautiful. Society sees the typical beauty as a skinny figure, so where did this come from? I, however, think the super skinny figure to some girls makes them unattractive. Who created this specific image to beauty? Who is to judge what is beautiful and what is not? This all leads to the question of 'What is beauty'?

What do you guys think?

Last Clog Topic: Summarizing American Literature, Preparation for Memoir.

I personally thought that there was a consistent theme throughout American Lit class which is resistance. Emerson's essay about non-conformity, Thoreau's Walden both insist individual's independence from society. Beat Generation tried to go against society and chose drugs, sex, and alcohol as methods to do this. Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson isolated themselves from society and mentioned death as a total relief from the world. And I thought these all connect to common theme of resisting against society. What kind of pattern did you find in American Literature?, what did you relate to the most?