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(2016
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2016 (index to #3 samples) #3: Web Highlights |
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Eric Howell
Connecting the Dots: Multiculturalism in Early America (Web Highlights)
Certain modern schools of thought interpret the ancient Greek word “paideia”
(education/upbringing; the culture of society) as a channel in which students
may connect different courses and themes to one another, providing
exemplification to the “bigger picture” of society. Throughout the semester I
feel that the texts, lectures given not only by Dr. White but as well as my
peers, as well as previous students’ posts in Early American Literature have
shed light on the fascinating threads which intertwine and connect not only the
literature of America but the eras, themes, and individuals throughout the
Nation’s history, including modern times. Upon reviewing Lauren Weatherly’s
Which America Do We Teach?, Melissa
Sandifer’s Unity Through Diversity: This
is America, and Elizabeth Sorensen’s
Teaching About America this “connecting of the dots” moment was intensified
by the connection of America’s multicultural history and the allusions of the
American narrative, while focusing on one of the Nation’s oldest minority
groups: Native Americans.
Sandifer embodies the pluralism of the
American origin story by highlighting the viewpoints of early Americans and
their interactions with Native Americans through Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah
Equiano’s captivity narratives and Christopher Columbus’s letters. By comparing
these tales, Sandifer encompasses the diverse nature of early America, while
providing a broad scope and in-depth analysis of American history. She endorses
the importance of “…acknowledging the author of the text, but also acknowledging
who the author was writing about” in order to promote the inclusion of Native
Americans in the American narrative. However, I somewhat disagree with her views
that “…modern America being so diverse today” is why we must promote the
teaching of American literature in a diverse way. I feel that if this class has
taught me anything, it is that America has been embedded with diversity since
the country’s discovery and that we must teach the literature diversely because
we have failed to acknowledge the true diversity of the narrative for too long.
Weatherly provides an excellent example of the ignorance brought on by the lack
of multiculturalism in the American narrative being taught when she references
Simon Ortiz’s poem A New Story. When
reading this poem in class, I was captivated by the emotion and tone that fell
over me while listening to words that carried such depth and weight. However, I
feel that I failed to realize the severity of the woman’s lack of knowledge of
Native Americans as she lusted over Ortiz being a “real Indian” and wrote off
her stereotypes to an isolated incident, when I myself have been guilty of
generalizing Native Americans. Weatherly points out that “the
content outlines the blatant lack of knowledge, or desire to change one’s
perspective on how they view the world,” which evoked a feeling of unease due to
my personal lack of knowledge concerning the subject at hand. By magnifying this
particular poem, she depicts the previously mentioned importance of
acknowledging the author as well as whom the author was writing about, in a
slightly different, reversed sense.
Sorensen is short and to the point when concerning the watered down, one size
fits all American narrative. She explains the importance of how captivity
narratives, whether good or bad, can provide perspective and insight to the
historical times of the texts. She argues a valid point in that “events are left
out or sugar coated which in a sense warps the actual history into something it
is not,” further demonstrating how multiculturalism and diversity in the
American narrative has always been present, and when there is a lack of such
characteristics, a grave disservice has been implemented.
As a future educator, I am continuously learning of the importance of
multiculturalism. I never would have imagined seeing such complex diversity
being illustrated in early American literature, in part to my primary education
and the seemingly watered down, one size fits all narrative of American history.
Although there were glimpses of multiculturalism in the classrooms, we never
went in to such detail and depth, or strayed from the stereotypical United
States origin story.
The connections and pluralism brought out by these three essays through the
analysis of early American texts brought out a different perspective in myself.
Multiculturalism and diversity is not something new we must include in
curriculum but something that has always been in the fabric of our nation,
something we must turn our attention to and celebrate through the education of
the true American narrative.
Works
Cited
Melissa Sandifer: Unity Through
Diversity: This is America,
Elizabeth Sorensen: Teaching About
America
Lauren Weatherly: Which America Do We
Teach?
