Fight for Freedom

3^rd Entry – Fight for Freedom.  Consider Douglass’s speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”  What logic does he use to make his point?  His speech contains a lot of emotion, including anger.  His anger is certainly justified, but does his anger take away from the effectiveness from his argument?  Describe a time when you argued a position you were angry about.  Were you able to make an effective argument?  Why or why not?

Week 3 (One entry this week)

4^th Entry – Rationalization.  Consider Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.”  A common (mis)interpretation of the poem is that it’s about taking the nontraditional path.  However, it seems to be more about a poem about rationalizing one’s actions, as described in the video below.  After reviewing the video, comment on this tendency of humans to rationalize actions.  Why would this narrator tell a story where he/she clearly alters events?

Embedded Video Player: Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”

Week 4 (Two entries this week)

5^th Entry – Creative Nonfiction: In the preface to nonfiction (p. 2803 of your text), the editors tell us that creative nonfiction illustrates that “no direct duplication of reality is possible in language, that all writing is affected by the author’s point of view” (Baym et al, 2014, p. 2803).  Do you think that is true?  Can there such a thing as a truly reliable narrator?  Consider the excerpt from Danticat’s Brother, I’m Dying that you read this week as you prepare a response to this question.  How is this point made (or not) in Danticat’s writing?

6^th Entry – Conclusion: Write a summary and evaluation of how well you met the goals you set for yourself in the first week of class.