Romantic Poem Reflection

The "Snowbound" poem was one of the most vague poems I have ever read. At first, I could not understand most of the symbolism. But after the in class discussion, I understood the more blatant symbols of the boys digging the tunnels. However I still for the life of me cannot find an example of smell and in the poem.

Nature Connection

Out of the entirety of nature I would choose the "circle of life" to relate to my outlook on school. You start school and you go through phases such as in pre-k when you don't have any worries then when it shift to middle school and you wish you could reuse all of those naps that you didnt want to take. Then it virtually reverses for high school, you begin nervous and gradually relax until you finally get "senioritis."

H.U.A.C.

HUAC stands for the House Un-American Act Committee. What they did was investigate and judge if the actions of anyone accused were unAmerican or Communitst. If you were found to be a Communist or tied to Communism they would make you list names of other Communists that you know or hold you in contempt of Congress.The names that were given could then be blacklisted. http://www.nps.gov/archive/elro/glossary/huac.htm.

My first impression upon hearing this was: I did not know there was this much detail to the hearings. Upon reading this I began to wonder if people could honestly think like this. How could people honestly rat out their friends and collegues? Similarly to Arthur Miller getting called Communist. Could people honestly just call someone a Communist like that and live with themselves knowing that they had ruined their friends' lives?

Mayflower Voyage: William Bradford

Apparently, William Bradford's parents died and he was passed through his relatives, almost like a real life game of hot potato. He first experienced religion at the age of 12 in the town of Scrooby. King James 1 wanted to force all of the congregation out of the country; they fled to the Netherlands. His journal became the story "Of Plymouth Plantation." The Mayflower was 90ft long and 26ft accross. They had to cram 102 passengers on this ship. About as close you can get to literally being "packed like a can of sardines."

The Crucible

Not gonna lie, I absolutely hated the first like 25 pages of the first act. The ending of the first act however; was pretty interesting. After being told about the connection to the McCarthy Hearings, I can see how this play could be linked in numerous ways. I still can't believe that these witch hunts actually occured. It is just outstanding that people could actually think that people were performing witchcraft. The only thing that has ever come close to witchcraft was the alchemists with their converting half of a metal coin into gold.

Witch Trials

The worksheet that we did about the witch trials today made me wonder how many alleged witches were killed. I found a sight that said that anywhere from 50,000-200,000 alleged witches were executed. Surprisingly, about half or less than half of witch trials ended in execution. Also, apparently the burning of witches at the stake is grossly overexaggerated too. This sight also says that burning at the stake was illegal in the English colonies. There were many other gruesome means of execution but it would probably be frowned upon to go into detail.
http://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/witch/werror.html#Millions

John Smith

This is pretty much just a very short version of the John Smith story we read. However as with all videos it does leave out many important facts and generally focuses on the easy to grasp concepts like starvation and trading with the Powhatan.

Cherokee Beliefs

As I was looking on the internet and other sections of the literature book I noticed that the Cherokee are monotheistic. Makes you wonder if Europeans had contact with the Native Americans prior to the founding of select religions such as Buddhism. Now to my knowledge there is no documentation of these encounters.

When the Europeans encountered the Native Americans did the religions that the colonists bring with them effect the Native Americans' religions. For example did the Cherokee take the idea of monotheism from Christianity or Catholicism.