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(2016
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2016 (index to #3 samples) #3: Web Highlights |
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Melissa Holesovsky
In the Interest of Origins
In the assigned readings for Early American Literature, there are many
origin stories and some are in places one would least expect to find them. In
considering the meaning of “origin,” most probably think of the Earth’s
beginnings or the beginnings of mankind, but there is more to the scope of this
word. While I know this has been of great interest to me, I have also noticed,
in reviewing the model assignments, that it has been a great interest to many
others.
In Cassandra Rea’s 2014 Midterm submission, she highlights this exact
point. Rea is surprised that so many submissions have come from the same class
on the same topic, but vary so greatly in explanation. In her web review, she
looked at submissions by Jill Norris, Roberto Benitez and Diego Gutierrez.
Norris approached her topic from the perspective of a young person in a
classroom learning the beginnings of our nation and encouraged their questioning
of what is being learned. Rea then moved to Benitez who argued the past is only
meaningful if we understand where things began. In Gutierrez’s submission, Rea
focuses on Gutierrez’s interest in religious teachings regarding creation and
his research on the subject. Rea was able to point out that all three
submissions were about origin stories, but each had their own approach to
explaining why they matter now.
Cristen Lauck wrote about the Enlightenment movement in her 2014 midterm
submission and concluded it to be the origin of today’s open-mindedness. Lauck
begins by explaining her interest in the movement; what were the consequences of
this shift in thinking? Lauck reviews Benjamin Franklin’s writings and analyzes
how his ways of thinking, his acceptance of multiculturalism, must have been
controversial at the time of their publication. Following Franklin, Lauck
examines Columbus’s writings and notes that he wanted to convert the Indians to
Christianity since he believed them to be without a god. Lauck contrasts
Franklin’s enlightenment thinking with Columbus’s old world, dominant culture
thinking to demonstrate the difference the enlightenment movement made in the
way of reasoning. In Lauck’s conclusion, she points out that today’s acceptance
originated in the enlightenment movement as it paved the way for today’s more
rational and reasonable thinking.
Also a 2014 midterm submission, Sarah Roelse’s essay on origins examines
the intertextuality amongst the origin stories read in Early American
Literature. Roelse argues that the origin stories have in common lessons on
morality and idealistic utopias and that there is syncretism in some of those
read in class. To Roelse, Genesis and
the Native American origin stories seem to all teach a lesson of morality
stemming from the creation of mankind though they come from cultures that were
worlds apart. She also points out that Columbus’s landing seems to have affected
the origin stories of the natives he came into contact with, such as those in
the new world, and theorizes that stories may have evolved after between told
between cultures. Roelse also examines the utopias mentioned in many of the
origin stories. Most are set in beautiful, fertile lands where plants and
animals are in abundance. Roelse concludes her essay by stating the
commonalities of origin stories help bridge the distances between different
cultures seen in the world today.
Though all my selections are from 2014, they all vary greatly in their
approach to origin stories. What is promising about so much diversity in the
discussion of this topic is that this very discussion will keep the origin
stories, and the cultures they are attached to, relevant in today’s world. For
all the students that have written over origin stories before me, there will be
many more to come after me and this keeps the conversation alive and continues
to make them matter now.
