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LITR 4232: American Renaissance  |
Final Exam Essays 2013 Sample answers for
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A1.Mickey Thames
America The Romantic—How the Romantic
Shaped American Life
When looking back on my time in American
Renaissance, the most important idea for me that emerged was that of
Transcendence. Most especially, the idea of an American Transcendence, or a
destiny, not for all men, but just Americans to embrace. This somewhat
troubling, somewhat uplifting image stands in stark contrast to the nation’s
founding words of “all men created equal.” Finding out the origins of this
belief, and where along the way it diverged from the beautiful uplifting nature
of Whitman and Thoreau, to become a rallying cry for war was quite an
enlightening experience. Transcendence no longer is just for the Eastern, inward
looking religions, but it means, for me, any sort of worldview that aims to lift
above crude physical goals, and instead looks toward a “higher” way. Whether
that be of religion, or philosophy, or politics, “taking the high road” can mean
a number of different things now.
When I first opened up the course site, I was
surprised to see the vast amount of historical background available. It was
refreshing to be just a click away from a historical explanation, or context of
the piece, since I usually ended up researching the book myself. Literature
never happens in a vacuum, or so my studies here at UHCL have taught. Now,
instead of hoping Wikipedia has appropriate links, I’m getting a snapshot of
history as designed by a legitimate professor, not some keyboard historian. And
having that information there served as a guide in case I did want to venture
out anyway, as I did with my Lincoln presentation. Using the background sources
on the site, I learned more about Lincoln, and his writings, than I ever would
have learned guiding myself.
I hope you don’t mind Professor, but I’m going to
be stealing some ideas from you when I teach. One thing we’ve been taught in our
education classes that carries over to my literature courses has been the idea
of ubiquitous technology, or technology being available anytime. If the
technology is going to be available all the time, the information needs to be
available all the time. I can’t imagine how different my writing papers at 4 in
the morning would be if I had to use nothing but a book that I may or may not be
able to afford, and forgot to check out at the library. By putting all, or most
depending on copyright, of the texts I plan to teach online, I’m going to give
my students the freedom to read whenever they are most comfortable. While paper
books will, in my opinion, have a place in the classroom, embracing the
technology available to make our lives easier (and cheaper!) is an asset.
My research project, done entirely online,
concerned the idea of Manifest Destiny. While I knew what it was going in, I had
no idea of the long-standing effect it ended up having, nor the scope of its
political influence. My paper threatened to overflow with information on the
politics regarding Manifest Destiny, and organizing it into a brief overview
proved difficult. The number of authors that we read who participated, or
supported the movement, showed how often these writers actually interacted with
each other, and how their political views shaped each other. Our brief one week
stints into Whitman and Thoreau turned into all-night readings over their essays
regarding Manifest Destiny, far extending the course than I had planned. In this
way, I believe doing a journal was the better option than the research paper,
since it was more of a pure learning experience, and attempting to synthesize
arguments based on things not covered in class is always challenging.
The last thing I’ll address is the difficulty of
the class. I believe whatever difficulties someone might have in this class is
the freedom allowed to the individual. Going from highly structured, 2 essays
and 2 tests classes can be a shock, especially when the essays come up. So often
one wants to know “what is the teacher looking for?” and this class isn’t
teaching that. It is asking “what are you looking for” in its assignments.
While, yes, the essay topics are there, you are quite free to answer how you
please. This took some retraining on my part, to just write and worry about form
later. This admittedly got me into trouble a few times, but adjusting to a more
content based answer, as opposed to structure, frees up the mind for more
creative thinking. Any class that encourages more of that is on the right track.
1865 flag of the USA