LITR 4231 Early American Literature 2012 Student Midterm Samples #1. Long essay describing and focusing learning, challenges, issues concerning Early American Literature. (6-8 paragraphs)

Jill Norris

Finding the Truth In Origins

           “Where did I come from?” This is the question on every kid's brain as soon as they realize that they didn't just materialize out of nowhere. That is because it is in our nature to question our origins and ourselves; to find out who we are and how we came to be. Even though we discover the answer to the basic question of how we personally were brought into the world, it is still important to question the origin of the things around us because asking such questions will give us more insight into our day to day lives and change the way we view the world and its many cultures.
          Ask any elementary school student in America who Christopher Columbus is and they will tell you “he’s the guy that discovered America, of course!” and even though you know that this is incorrect you nod and give them a pat on the head anyway because hey-they’re just reciting what they were taught. But it raises the question of whether it is okay to teach kids such an embellished version of the true story simply because it’s more “family friendly”. I know that when I finally learned the true story of Thanksgiving I had a really hard time accepting it because it just didn’t coincide with the story that I had grown up with. I couldn’t believe that Christopher Columbus wasn’t the peaceful hero that I had learned about as a kid and this made me start to question what other important moments in history that my teachers had falsified. What I am trying to get at is that it is important to fulfill our natural desire to learn about our origins, but it is even more important to learn the truth of our origin.
          Reading Christopher Columbus’s letters as he “discovered” the new world was really interesting to me because I had never read the full story of what happened with the Native Americans when he first encountered them and attempted to settle on their territory. It also reminded me of the lesson I learned a long time ago, which is to always question and explore your origin because what you already know or might have been told in the past may not be the whole story. 
          Another origin story that may convince kids that it is important to explore origins is the writing of the Declaration of Independence. As stated in the text, the Declaration is an origin story for the United States of America, particularly for its dominant culture of immigrants and their descendents. Before this class I hadn’t really thought of the Declaration of Independence as an origin story, but now it is hard to view it as anything but that. In one document, the values of our country were established and have remained relevant since its inception over two hundred years ago. It created a system of government that is responsible for protecting the basic rights of its citizens, which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Had the Declaration not been created, the United States would be a much different place than we know it today, in fact there probably would not be any unity to our states at all. Our nation’s origin story is one that many people take for granted, yet it is probably the one that has the most direct impact on our day-to-day lives.
          Obviously, origins affect us in more ways than we can imagine. This is why it is important to know and understand the truth of them, rather than just mindlessly accepting what we are told, in order to create a brighter future. If you stop to consider what would have happened if the Native Americans had killed Columbus and his crew as soon as they made landfall, or if James Madison and Thomas Jefferson had decided to play a nice game of tennis rather than draft the Declaration of Independence, you would realize that life as we know it could have turned out so differently. But because certain events unfolded the way that they did hundreds of years ago, settlers were able to colonize a new world free from British rule and create a country in which all men are created equal and are free to worship any God they choose, or none at all.