Reading Notes Week 6: John Muir

This reading was extremely insightful and really gave me a true sense of the state that I live in. I had heard of John Muir but never really understood his importance in the history of California. I actually went to an elementary school is Antioch called John Muir and always wondered who he was and why there was a school named after him. The story starts off with John Muir exploring the Sierra Nevada. The way that Muir conveys his astonishment for the area really shows you just how much he liked California. He begins by portraying just how vast the area really is, proclaiming "These two ranges coming together in curves on the north and south inclose a magnificent basin, with a level floor more than 400 miles long, and from 35 to 60 miles wide." He also talks about how "The Sierra is about 500 miles long, 70 miles wide, and from 7000 to nearly 15,000 feet high." It really puts in to perspective just how big the range is and you get a good grasp of what Muir is seeing when he writes this. Muir continues in to talking about the Yosemite and the valley. He talks about the rocks that make up the valley as well as the rivers that flow through it. Muir uses words like "the shining river that flows in tranquil beauty down the middle of each one of them" that really help paint a picture of what Muir is seeing. In all this writing shows just how beautiful California really is. It also shows just how different what he is seeing was. Since this was written many years ago many of the places he talks about retain their natural beauty that might be lost after many years of human intervention.

Reading Notes Week 6: The Man with a Hoe

   The Man with a Hoe

   The Man with a Hoe is a very interesting poem that sends across a clear message. The message being one of giving those who work hard and are essentially working slaves a voice. The poem gives the workers the voice that they could never give, the voice that those who worked all day and had no time for education or creativity could never muster up themselves given their situation. One section I was en-captivated by was in the line "if the broken shape of God's dream is really what they want to present to God as their own handiwork." This was a direct shot at landowners and those in power who sit back and watch their workers do the labor, then proceed to claim the finished product as their own. This has been going on for generations, the first thing that came to mind was how you always hear about how great the Pharaohs were and the great pyramids but you never hear about the workers. This is exactly what the author was getting at, and it is clear that the author wants to show the true strength and value of a worker as more than a mere cog in a grander scheme.

Week 5 Analysis: Burton

The Squatter and the Don

The Squatter and the Don tackles the story of the "Don" who is the head of a large cattle ranch that is now being invaded by squatters. The squatter's name is Darrell and he agrees to pay Don for the land he is squatting on but only if the current suits over the ownership of the ranch can be resolved. This theme of ownership and control is what I feel the author was trying to depict. The struggle for power and the idea of owning land is taken in to consideration. I felt that this story was a representation of European settlers and how they acquired the United States. The Europeans came in and took the land and used their laws and their systems of government to make the United States theirs. They used violence and just ran both Native Americans and the Spanish out of their homes and villages, and then claimed the area as their own. But in actuality, whose land is it? Does a piece of land belong to the person who originally claimed it and inhabited it, or the person who currently has it and took it by force? This is a very tough question because rightfully the original inhabitant should have the rights to a property, but at the same time if you were to buy land or take something over if someone had left it, then you should be entitled to it, so in the end this back and forth can get very out of hand. I think that the way Burton wrote this story gives a more centralist perspective into the story rather than set up one character as the villain and one as the hero. The story starts out by making you empathize with Don because there are people squatting on his property, which I think many people can agree that if someone were to come on to their property this would not be alright and the person would need to leave. This empathy begins to shift as you learn why Darrell is squatting and his role in the story. Darrell does not even realize that what he is doing on Don's ranch is wrong because the land is so big that he does not even know he is stealing, Darrell is just pillaging a land he believes to be uninhabited. Darrell's way of farming and raising cattle is completely different from the Don's and Darrell being a native Mexican who knows the land and how to heard animals see's Don's ranch as something that could and should be done better. In the end the story battles a concept of morals and during this time period there is much to be debated on who was right and who was wrong. I think that the author did a good job of not leaning too far to one side of the debate in this story and instead of pushing an agenda, let the reader decide for themselves who was right and who was wrong.

Week 4 Project Planning

"The Luck of The Roaring camp" is in my opinion a tale that encompasses the time period very well. During this point in time, California's gold rush was at its peak. I read more in to the time period and many camps were very superstitious. Many would do lucky rituals and would pray to God constantly for good luck in their mining endeavors. This was most likely because if they did not come home with any gold they would not be able to eat, so they needed to do whatever they could to give themselves an edge in the gold panning market. Also, the gold era was very volatile and had it's ups and downs. Sometimes panners would go out and come home rich with gold, and other times they would come home empty handed. This cycle of fortune was also apparent in the story, where the people of Roaring Camp were initially treated with fortune after the birth of Tommy Luck, and subsequently hit with a dirge that destroyed their camp and killed many of their people. Lastly, The woman's role in life during this time, as well as the treatment of the Native Americans in this story depicts what it was like to be one of these people on a camp in California. Cherokee Sal happens to be both Native American and a woman, and she is treated unfairly on the camp. People call her a witch and a bad omen, thus furthering their hatred of her. This is how people lose respect for someone else, much like many early settlers would call Native Americans "savages" and give others cause to kill them. When Cherokee Sal is killed during childbirth, the men want to take the child to a nearby camp that has women on it so that they can care for the child. Although they do decide to keep it, their readiness to hand over the child so quickly is indicative of men not having the instinct to raise a child, and to give it to a woman, because a woman is motherly and can care for a child way better than any man on the camp could. These hardened men who will do anything for gold quickly become infatuated with the child and begin to clean up their act and become more civilized people with the child around. In all I believe that "The Luck of the Roaring Camp" has a lot of insight into Californians and their motives during this time. This story tells us a lot about the superstitions of the time period, the way people who were perceived to be different were treated, and the way of life that gold panners on a camp lived.

Week 4 Analysis: The Outcasts of Poker Flat

The Outcasts of Poker Flat

The Outcasts of Poker Flat was an interesting read that had a few different themes that I found prevalent throughout the story. The first theme that I saw was the difference between good and evil. In this story the outcasts are all initially perceived as bad people and for this they are exiled by the society in Poker Flat that decides who lives, who dies, and who is exiled. As we go further in to the story you start to realizes that some of the characters are not as bad as the others and that some of them are actually good people. This is interesting because even though some of them are good people and some are not, they are all sentenced to the same fate of exile. In the end when they all get to the cabin, Uncle Billy immediately betrays all of the other exiles and runs off with their horses and supplies leaving the rest of them to perish inside the cabin. In the end all the exiles inside the cabin die, but for the most part they were good people. John Oakhurst repays his debt to Tom, and Mother Shipton essentially sacrifices herself so that Piney can live by giving up her portion of the food to Piney so that she could live. While it is not known whether or not Uncle Billy made it to the next camp, Uncle Billy definitely had the best chance of survival with all the supplies he took. In the end doing good did nothing for anybody, since the ones who looked out for each other died in the cold while the one that betrayed the rest for his own gain most likely continued to live. This puts in to perspective good and evil. Do you get anything in return for being good? Is being evil inherently bad if you are to gain from it? I think these are moral questions that this story raises about humanity and peaked my interest while reading this story.

The second theme that I saw was luck and its roll in life. Realistically some parts of life is just luck and there is not much you can do about. Some people are born into immense wealth and can live mostly care free, while some might be born into hardship that may lead to a life of sadness and anxiety. You might live for the next eighty years or you could die next week because you left your house a bit late and get caught in a car accident, it really all comes down to luck. This theme of luck is clear even in the name of the story and the town being Poker Flat. While poker does require a lot of skill and wit to be good, Poker does have many elements of luck that can turn the tide on even the best of poker players. John Oakhurst lived his entire life off of this game of luck, and because of his immense luck and skill in the game, he was exiled. It is after being exiled that Oakhurst starts to realize what luck is and how it affects our life. Oakhurst proclaims that luck "''is a mighty queer thing. All you know about it for certain is that it’s bound to change. And it’s finding out when it’s going to change that makes you.'"It is here that Oakhurst realizes that our fate in life and death is not sealed, but just random occurences that shape our lives. It is at this point that Oakhurst took his own life. Oakhurst took his life because he was done with luck, and did not want luck to dictate if he would survive or not. Oakhurst took direct control of his life and killed himself because he wanted to be in control of his own destiny for once. The narrator recognizes this and says that "He was too much of a gambler not to accept Fate. With him life was at best an uncertain game, and he recognized the usual percentage in favor of the dealer." It was clear that Oakhurst felt that life was like a game of poker, and that when life deals you cards you are not favored to win. Oakhurst did the only thing that he could to take himself out of the game for good, and that was to take his own life.

Reading Notes W4: The Outcasts of Poker Flat, Part B

The outcasts of Poker Flat is a story that details the happenings of of small Californian community appropriately named Poker Flat. In this town the feelings of hardship and ruin are present. Townspeople feel as though the town is sinking since crimes have gone up and the towns resources are being depleted. To combat this, the city decides to form a secret commitee of townsfolk that will decide who in the town can live,  who will be killed, and who will be exiled. In this story, four people are exiled, these people being Mother Shipton, Uncle Billy, John Oakhurst, and Dutchess, all of which are notorious among their town. John Oakhurst is the quasi-leader of the band of outcasts, and they set out on a journey to a nearby camp. Oakhurst was a poker player, he won a lot of money playing poker and a lot of that money came straight out of the pockets of the secret committee. It starts to begin to feel like this commitee is abusing their power to further their own lives instead of the greater good of the town. After a long travel, Oakhurst and his band stop midway to the camp to rest.

It is at this point in the story that the characters take a turn for the worst. Oakhurst Meets a couple that are on the run from their old home and plan to get married in Poker Flat. The girl's name is Piney Woods, and the man is named Tom Simons, a poker player who happens to know Oakhurst. Oakhurst has an inner revelation and decides to give Tom all the money that he had lost when playing poker against Oakhurst if he promises to never play poker again. Delighted, Tom and Piney return to the camp with John Oakhurst, unaware that the group has been exiled from Poker flats. Oakhurst leads the group to an abandoned cabin where they decide to rest for the night and continue their journey in the morning. When Morning comes, all hell has broken lose. Oakhurst wakes up to find that it has begun to snow, and that Uncle Billy has left the cabin with all the horses. The group has no choice but to wait out the snow storm with little food and water left to run off of. Mother Shipton ends up dying of starvation first, as she goes insane and tries to save food for "the child" which is Piney, who is not a child but is viewed by Mother Shipton because of her malnourished body. Oakhurst realizes that they can not ride out this snowstorm and that Tom must go out and get help. Tom eventually finds help back at Poker Flat and the "Law of Poker Flat get ready to go save out and save them. When The Law gets to the cabin, Duchess and Piney freeze to death when the fire goes out in the cabin. Oakhurst, who accompanied Tom "as far as the canyon" commits suicide upon returning to the cabin having seen the corpses of Dutchess and Piney.

Reading Notes W4: "Yellow Bird", Part A

The author John Rollin Ridge is considered to be one of the first Native Americans to write a story. This story is called The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit. Ridge often signs his stories as "Yellow Bird," the English version of his tribal name. Ridge was born to a Cherokee father and a white mother and attended school in New England. By the 1850's, Ridge found his way to California, and during the Gold Rush he began to write for periodicals. Ridge became fascinated with a Mexican bandit named Joaquin Murieta led him to writing this novel. It is debated whether or not everything Ridge says in his novel is true about Joaquin Murieta, but he still managed to write a gripping story nonetheless

Joaquin Murieta is of Mexican Descent and was born in Sonora, Mexico. Murieta was born to respected parent but his parents did not like the status of Mexico during this time period. Murieta was fascinated with american culture, and decided at eighteen years old that he wanted to move to California to give the now booming industry known as the gold rush. Murietas fascination with America quickly changed once he actually arrived to America. Murieta had a lot of luck with mining when he arrived in California, and the natives did not like this at all. Murieta experienced countless racism and hatred from the white people. This ridicule escalated so badly that Murieta was eventually tied up and beaten while his wife was brutally raped in front of him. Next, Murieta recieved a gift of a horse from his half-brother. Again, the white people hated Murieta and accused him of stealing the hose. Murieta claimed his innocence but to no avail, and the mob of white people tied him to a tree, whipped him, and then his half-brother was hanged for the crime of theft. It was at this point that Murieta's hatred of Americans and their ways went beyond his breaking point and Murieta wanted his revenge. Murieta rounded up a gang of other Mexican born men and created a gang of banditos. Murieta and his gang including Mannuel Garcia, Pedro Gonzales, and a few other people began stealing horses and murdering people to get what they wanted. Those who wronged Murieta started turning up dead and news of these bandits began to spread quickly, frightening the men who ever crossed paths with Murieta. It was at this point that Murieta turned the tides on the racist men that held him down, and made a name for himself as a bandit out for blood.

Topic Research

Project Research

I will be basing my literary project on the story "The Luck of the Roaring Camp." I plan to go in depth about why it could be considered an artifact of history, and what it teaches about history. I think that the Luck of the Roaring camp has a lot of insight on those who migrated to California during the gold rush ear, and I also think that this piece show some insight on the treatment of women as well as Native Americans during this time period. I want to go much deeper into what this story has to offer to extract as much information about the time period as I can get from this piece. I think that this story has a lot to offer about history because it shows the reader the mindsets and the types of people that were around these camps during the time. In my case all I ever learned about goldpanners was the reason they came to California and where they set up their camps. I feel like this story can give much more insight into the types of people these goldpanners were, as well as the conditions and lives a goldpanner could have. Also, the way the men on the camp treat Cherokee Sal could be indicative of the way they treated women and Native Americans during the time since Cherokee Sal was both of these. I hope to learn more about the time period and learn more about what "The Luck of Roaring Camp" truly means.

Feedback Strategies

For this assignment I read the article "Be a Mirror." This reading was extremely insightful and the ideals conveyed through it were amazing because I have experienced much of what is said in the article. The article starts off by distinguishes the two mindsets that students have, that being a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. Growth mindsets tend to be held by those who see what it is they are doing, both right and wrong, and using this to grow their mind and become better because of it. A fixed mindset tends to convey that you are the things that you do, and there is not much that can change that. This type of mindset is not good for growth and can leave many students believing that they are unable to achieve certain goals and aspirations that in actually could be achieved! What this article emphasizes is that you are not born with one of these mindsets, you are molded in to whichever mindset you are. This means that a fixed mindset can be turned in to a growth mindset with the right instruction.

The article stresses five different types of feedback to give readers to help cultivate a growth mindset. The first is to be specific, tell the reader exactly what you thought and ask them to name the steps they took. The second is to focus on what the reader is doing, and not what the reader is missing. The third is to focus on the process and what the reader did in said process to show that their effort is important. The fourth is to make sure that this feedback can transfer into other areas, and that this feedback can be useful in a wide array of situation other than the one being critiqued. The Final one is to take yourself out of the feedback. This is the most important one, as saying words like "I think" or "I like how you" just means that you are pleasing the person, rather than focusing on what the reader did and takes the emphasis away from them.

I think that being a mirror to the person you give feedback too is very important. Telling someone that they did something well and not doing much else or saying why is in my opinion a big problem in schooling these days. Telling children that they did something good or that they did something wrong without explaining why or without taking their own process into account leads to a fixed mind. Telling someone good job just means that the person will continue to do something one way without knowing why, and telling someone they did a bad job without explanation will make the person give up because they do not know what there is too improve on. While this is meant for teachers to give to younger students, I think that this reading will help a lot in giving feedback to my fellow students this semester, and I am very glad that I read these feedback tips!

Week 3 Analysis: The Luck of Roaring Camp / Self Reliance

The Luck of Roaring Camp

I enjoyed reading both of these very much. The story of roaring camp was very interesting to me and it gave me a different perspective on people during the gold rush, as well as how women were viewed during this time period. The story also gave me a perspective on life and how easily it could change in an instant. Life changing was constant in the story, for instance the death of Cherokee Sal lead to the birth of Tommy Luck, and the death of Tommy Luck also lead to the death of Kentuck. All of this life and death may be a sign of the times when things like medicine and hygiene were not properly watched and solutions to things like infections were solved by amputations. In this story people were killed by natural occurrences, both by Cherokee Sal dying naturally to child birth and both Tommy Luck and Kentuck dying to the deluge. What this story meant to me was that death is natural and will happen to everyone, so enjoy life while you can.

Self-Reliance

The next reading was Self-Reliance. this was different than the others because this was a poem that had no real story or characters, but instead was about the author describing a man that he viewed as ideal. The author James Whitfield was a free black man during the times of slavery and was a big proponent of abolitionism and freedom. Self-Reliance had a lot of ties to God and religion in this story and I think it helped emphasize how strongly he felt about this ideal person he described in his story. To me Whitfield was describing slaves in his poem and how they were still good, godly people even though they were seen to the rest of the nation as less than human. Whitfield had pure aspiration for these slaves and felt their pain even though he himself was a slave. I feel that even though slaves most likely could not read at the time he maybe hoped for his poem to reach them and to inspire them to persevere, and hopefully his dream of abolitionism would come true for them.

Reading Notes W3: Self-Reliance, Part B

Background:

James Whitfield is an African-American man who was born a free man in the late 1800's. He lived in New York and worked as a barber before deciding to move to San Francisco to pursue his career in writing. During his lifetime Slavery in the south was still happening and Whitfield was big on abolitionism. Whitfield wrote a lot about abolitionism and his support for freedom during the Civil War. From what we know, Whitfield wrote about abolition and the freedom of slaves until his death in 1871.

Summary:

This reading was different from the rest of the stories we have been reading, but nonetheless it was still interesting to read. Unlike the rest of the stories this was a poem with no true characters or plot, but was more about self reflection and ideals. Whitfield talks a lot about the ideal man, and the characteristics that the ideal man could portray. Whitfield talks about a strong man that "cares not for the world's applause" and "seeks the welfare of his kind." It is clear that Whitfield is a godly man, and I think that being a God-focused man during this time period is to be expected. Whitfield is constantly referring to God in this poem, and drives across the notion that being one with God and practicing God's teaching will make you into a better person. Whitfield talks a lot about adversity and overcoming said adversity to make you into a stronger man. I think that in this context when Whitfield uses words like "When all the powers of earth and hell Combine to break his spirit down" he is possibly talking about blacks during slavery. I believe that Whitfield is writing this as a message to others that blacks in the south that are not free men and are still slaves are hurting and facing the biggest adversity imaginable. But through all their hardships the black people should persevere and keep going on, without giving up hope. Whitfield was a true believer in abolitionism and believed that an end to slavery should and could happen and it did! This poem was a reminder that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel, and to never give up hope of a brighter day.

Reading Notes W3: "Luck of the Roaring Camp", Part A

Characters:

The Luck of Roaring Camp was an interesting story that gave me a new perspective about life in the early days. The story introduced a plethora of different characters all of which have different personalities. The first character is Cherokee Sal, who is the only woman who is on Roaring Camp. The men are somewhat scared of her and is called a "sinful woman" In the story Cherokee Sal gives birth too her son Tommy Luck, but unfortunately dies in childbirth. Tommy Luck is put into the hands of another person in the camp named Stumpy. Stumpy is a proud man, and he is loved by the rest of the men on the camp. There are a few other characters, like Oakhurst who comes up with the name for Tommy Luck, and Kentuck who tries to save Tommy later in the story.

Plot:

The Plot revolves around Cherokee Sal giving birth to her son Tommy Luck. During the childbirth Cherokee Sal dies, and Tommy Luck is put into the care of Stumpy. The men on the camp are unsure what to do, since there are no women on the camp the baby can not be raised correctly. The camp considers taking the child to another camp called Red Dog, because there are women on that camp that can raise the child. The men decide that the best option is to keep the child, and feed him milk from a donkey for the time being. The men make preparations for Tommy Luck by decorating him a room, making sure he was attend to, and having all the men within the camp clean themselves up and wear at least minimal clothing whilst the child was within the camp. Over time the camp became a clean place to live and the gold was plentiful. As winter came the conditions around the camp became worse. The snow was deep and as such made it harder to find their gold. Then out of nowhere a deluge hit the town and caused major confusion and discord within the camp. After this they go to a riverbank to find a man known as Kentuck and Tommy Luck sitting close by. Tommy Luck is dead, and soon after being found, Kentuck is dead as well. Kentuck's final words are "Luck is taking me with him" and he passes on.

Personal Thoughts:

Too me the story has a theme that depicts the cycle of life. With the birth of Tommy Luck comes great deeds for the rest of the camp, and because of all the great things that happen after his birth, the entire town becomes happier. They are better fed, better equipped and become better people because of Tommy Luck being in their presence. Eventually they begin to take this for granted, and the happiness that Tommy Luck brought must come to an end. The winter deluge was natures way of putting things back in order, since Tommy Luck should have never been motherless in a camp full of miners. The deluge takes away Kentuck and Tommy Luck, and since the the story ends here you are left to wonder if the town becomes as bad as it was before Tommy Luck arrived, or if the miners learned from having the child within their camp and became better people because of it.

Project Topic Brainstorm

Topic #1

The first topic that interests me is choosing a reading that reflects on historical, social, political and/or economic context. This is the most interesting topic to me because I like to read a lot of philosophy and this fits perfectly with that narrative. Some of my favorite works include Aristotle, Descartes, and Sartre. I very much enjoy reading works that were made hundreds, possibly thousands of years ago and the commentary of the author fitting in current day society. Connecting the dots of old work, and learning about why certain people might have thought that way during the time (i.e. Renee Descartes writing about God even though he did not really believe in one, only because his culture would not allow him to publish work that denounced God) is very fascinating to me. In all finding a topic that I could digest, while learning more about a culture and the meaning behind a reading is something I would thoroughly enjoy doing.

Topic #2

The second topic that I would be interested in is choosing a female character to focus on in a piece of fiction. In all honesty, women are viewed differently throughout history, for better or for worse. I believe that reading a work of fiction and seeing how an author portrays their female character would be very interesting. Analyzing the work and analyzing the time period that the work was made in, I would like to be able to see if the authors views on women in their society matches what the world's view on women in society would be. Also, I would like to compare how my attitude towards this female character would be, and I would like to see if the writing of the character could be misleading just because the character is a female. Overall I think this would be a very fun case study to do and analyzing a work of art in this way seems both challenging and entertaining.

Topic 3

The third topic that I would be interested in is picking between love, work, and freedom and discussing those selections in a piece of literature. These three things all have a big impact on my life, since I have a girlfriend, work, and go to school all at the same time, my life can get kind of hectic at times. Managing time is something that is important to me and the triangle of love, work, and freedom is hard to keep in line. I think that reading about this subject and analyzing what goes wrong and what goes right depending on the decisions the character in the story makes could actually be beneficial to me in my own life. This topic sounds very intriguing to me, and even though the concept is rather broad I think that this would be a fun subject to write about if given the right material to study.

Topic 4

The last topic that I would be interested in is comparing and contrasting the elements of two different texts. I put this last because somewhat like my topic 3 I feel that this could be a very broad topic. Finding two pieces of literature that are comparable might be difficult or it might not, I am not sure yet. If I were to find two texts that I could compare and contrast with then I would definitely enjoy doing this topic. Searching through texts and seeing the viewpoints of different author's on how they view the world is very intriguing to me. I think that looking through different works and seeing just exactly why they would portray characters in a certain way is fun to do, especially if there is background on the author that might show you why they might be compelled to write characters in the way that they do.

Week 2 Analysis: The Creation

Reading The Creation was different, and the structure of the story was different than most stories you hear or read. This difference is most likely attributed to the difference in culture, considering that his is a story of Native American origins. In The Creation, there is little back story and characters are introduced constantly without much exposition. Characters like Earthmaker and Coyote just sort of appear out of nowhere without much reason or backstory. While this style of storytelling may be a bit confusing and weird, it was a refreshing change of pace from the normal mode of story telling. Being able to tell such a story with just two characters that show up out of nowhere is actually very fascinating. I enjoyed reading The Creation and have become infatuated with this style of writing.

Both parts of The Creation are just as the title suggests, stories about creation, but in this case these stories discuss the creation of our planet. The first story centers around two characters, Coyote and Earthmaker. Both Coyote and Earthmaker have arrived on what is presumed to be planet Earth, and they want to make the world their own. Earthmaker, staying true to his name, wants as much lands as possible to fill the world. Earthmaker then proceeds to find a piece of land, and stretches it out as much as possible. Earthmaker is something of legend to the Native American people. They thank Earthmaker for the land they stand on and the grounds that keep them up. If it was not for Earthmaker the world would most likely be covered in nothingness and water. As for Coyote, Coyote wanted to make sure that this world was inhabited with beings. Coyote wanted to "paint the world in blood" but in a different sense than you would think. Coyote wanted all beings to have blood for what I believe to be a reminder that we are all living things that are built from the same thing. Both Earthmaker and Coyote together made up the two things that mean the most on the planet, The world itself and the beings which inhabit it.