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(2016
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2016 (index to #3 samples) #3: Web Highlights |
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Austin Green
I Really Hope We Don’t Have the Exact Same Ideas
Even though this is the third part to this assignment, I decided to take
the advice provided and start by reviewing three of the essays already posted by
former classes. Browsing the list of provided assignments, I was able to find a
few that appeared (based on the title) to be about the same focus areas I was
planning to use when writing my own paper. The titles were
“Is this Fiction or Non-fiction?”, “Which America Do We Teach?”, and
“Teaching About America”.
In “Is this Fiction of Non-fiction?” a 2014 essay by Thomas Dion, the
author struggles with what fiction is and what non-fiction is in relation to
historical literature. He writes about the differences in what he was taught
between Columbus, and what realities he’s learned later on about him. How we
seem to have formed a fictional story that we celebrate enough to have a
national holiday dedicated to him. If we were to look at it as the non-fiction
his story really is, we would see that he might not be worthy of our praise. He
then proceeds to discuss another explorer, De Vaca, and how he was not able to
find any information about him in a few high school textbooks he checked. He
ends with a call to read more, and only then will you be able to know true
history, and not just fiction.
While
the idea he was questioning was very interesting, and the Columbus example was
strong, the Cabeza de Vaca example was a little weak. I do not mean the
information was wrong, but I wish it tied in a little better to the fiction vs
non-fiction argument. It seemed to me to be a better topic for a “Which America
is being taught?” essay. The rapid
fire of other texts near the end (by John Smith, James E. Seaver) were more
interesting to me than the paragraphs before it, and I wished he talked about
those texts in greater detail. I do
think the ending call to read more to fully understand was a good conclusion. It
was a good way to wrap up the argument, since the only real answer that can be
found beyond the surface level “this really happened” or “this was made up” is
to know more about the context and times of the literature.
The next essay I read was “Which America Do We Teach?” written in 2012 by
Lauren Weatherly. This was an interesting personal account of taking two
separate Early American Literature courses, and how they compared to each other.
The two classes she took appear to fit firmly on either side of the which
America do we teach, “Dominant Culture” vs. “Multicultural” question. It was
interesting to see this play out for someone in real time almost note for note
how it was discussed in class. My favorite part of the essay was right at the
start: “we began the semester with the Puritans. No mention was made what so
ever about the Indians, and as I recall, very little was said even about
Columbus. Genesis, the major Christian origin story.... At the time, I gave the
lessons and their starting point no second thought.” Immediately we see pretty
much exactly what we talked about in class, how often the dominant culture is
the only one we learn about. The second half of the quote shows how dominant the
culture can be. She did not even know she was missing out on anything! It makes
me wonder how far back we can peel the layers back to what we know. Would we
eventually hit an actually starting point, and if so, could we even be sure of
it?
The last essay I read was written in 2014 by Elizabeth Sorensen and was
titled “Teaching About America.” This essay argued about the education the
author had received, and how she was taught different things about the same
events or people, and how she plans to use this when she goes into teaching. She
also describes how literature and history, when given the appropriate subject,
can be the same thing. The same materials can, and should, be used to teach
both. I agree with her that the “real” America is the one that should be taught,
but like mentioned in the first essay I mentioned, the line between fiction and
non-fiction in historical literature can be really blurry.
Reading these essays definitely helped shape how I will be writing my own
main essay. I can see that the thing that struck me the most in the first
semester is the same thing that struck these other students. Why is there such a
big change in what we are being taught and what is “true”, and why is there this
gap? I hope to address (or attempt to address) this in my own essay.
