DeePruett

Portfolio # 3

I am thrilled. I figured it out. I was having a really hard time linking sites, and my link worked. I know some of these were for portfolio #2, but I think they show my improvement with blogging.
Entries

Training

Booker

Uncle Remus

reflections
Comments

John Henry

I will be adding more, but I want to publish this so that I know it is completely working.

Portfolio #2

My links did not show up when I previewed it.
I recently have come to the conclusion that I'm an idiot when it comes to computer usage. I spent three hours trying to link the pages, and talked to three different people on how to do it. I can't figure it out. I'm sorry. I can't seem to do anything right in this class.
I've really started to try to blog better items. I had reread some of my previous blogs, and I admit they were pretty lame. On one, I just mentioned that the actor didn't get to attend a show. Since last week, I've tried to really improve them. I think that I did that with my 4 most recent entries. I also was bad at commenting on my peers sites. I commented on several today and yesterday, and I tried to add to what they had wrote. I know that Ian had a really interesting blog on John Henry that I responded to. Leah also had one about Uncle Remus that made me curious to ask her more. I see how if we keep up with the blogging, it can really add to our overall experience of the class. Nobody commented on my recent entries. I hope they do. I have been checking it everyday.

Of the Training of Black Men

"Hence arises a new human unity, pulling the ends of earth nearer, and all men, black, yellow, and white. The larger humanity strives to feel this contact of Nations and sleeping hordes of the thrill of new life in the world, crying, "If the contact of Life and Sleep be Death, shame on such Life." This entry started out so powerful. He has a way of capitolizing certain letters that make me look at the words differently. I'm not really sure what all this means. I know he is talking about the first of three streams of thinking when the first slave ships were coming in. He refers to them as both a slave ship and a death ship. The way the entry started out confused me. I thought it was going a different direction, then it started talking about schools. In the last paragraph, why is Truth and Veil capitolized? I wasn't sure.

Of Mr. Booker T. Washington

"It startled the nation to hear a Negro advocating such a programme after many decades of bitter complaint;it startled and won the applause of the South, it interested and won the admiration of the North, and after a confuse murmer of protest, it silenced if it did not convert the Negros themselves."
When I first read this passage, I was confuses as to why it was being protested. When I read on, I think it was because he told them to give a lot up, and concentrate all of their energy on industrial education, the accumulation of wealth, and the conciliation of the self. I can see why people may have been against doing that.

Uncle Remus

I did not read the comment that Professor Jerz left on my blog until I came home tonight. I had commented on how sad it was that the actor who portrayed Uncle Remus could not attend the premiere due to race. I was asked if I found anything puzzling or illuminating in any of the passages. I found that the story Why the Negro is Black a fascinating tale. More so after the class discussion. We talked about why he would tell this story to a white boy. Why did all the black people want to be white. I said that I believed that he was telling the boy this story to prove that we are all the same. "De Injun en de Chinee got ter be 'counted'long er de merlatter. I ain't seed no Chinee dat I know un, but they tells me dey er sorter'twix' a brown en a brindle. dey er all merlatters." Uncle Remus replies that is because they stuck their hair in the pond and straightened it. Again I maintain he is saying that inside, we are all the same. To throw another Disney movie in the mix, how about Tarzen. He realizes that he is different. When his mother, who is an ape, looks at him, she shows him how they are the same when he places his hand in hers. The question was asked on why everyone that jumped into the pond wanted to be white. I think we have to consider the audience he was telling it to. A white boy. If the boy was Chinese, would the story be a little different. Those types of stories were told and retold to suit the story teller and the audience. It could have been changed somewhat to make the boy understand.

Personal reflection on blogging

I hate computers. I know that sounds strange in this modern, high-tech day and age, but I do. I can't say it's my age, because I know lots of people older than me that work in the computer field. I have never taken an online course, or had a desire to. Part of the frustration that I have with computers comes from not understanding them. Another part comes from my own computer. It has something wrong with it. It takes forever to get online and research anything. I have somewhat fixed that problem, and it has become less frustrating. With that out of the way, I really struggle with blogging. I don't always know what to say, and I don't want to write anything that someone might read and think is stupid. So when I do blog, it is very plain. Not much thought goes into what I write. I'll be honest about that. Anyway, I've thought about what was said last week in class. About how the purpose of it is to bounce ideas of our peers, and interact with them. It is meant to be a learning experience, so from here on out, I'm going to put more effort in it and use it as a learning experience. Now that I've written this, I hopefully can get over the self conciousness that I feel about sharing my thoughts with others.

Brer Rabbit

I remember the story of the Tar Baby from when I was a child. I have a Disney Trivia game that I was playing with a child that I work with. He knew every movie that they talked about, but he had never heard of Brer Rabbit and Uncle Remus. Is that story one that is still available to buy?

Uncle Remus and the little boy

"All a settin' Brer Foxx. Spose'n you drap roun'ter-morrer en take dinner with me. We aint got no great doin's at our house, but I speck de ole'oman en de chilluns kin sorter scarmble round en gir up sump'n fer ter stay yo' stummick." This part stumped me for a while. I kept reasding it several times before I figured out what he was saying. If I heard someone read it outloud, I thimnk I would have understood it better.

Uncle Remus

I love these sories, though they are somewhat hard to understand. I had heard some of them before, but I didn't know that brer meant brother.I think that it was awful that the actor that played Uncle Remus was unable to attend the premiere because he wasn't allowed to stay in a hotel.

Smith- intro

" A book so clearly great, yet with such evident defects, poses a difficult critical problem." I thought that this book was very good, but I had trouble reading about the abuse that Huck's father dealt him. The section talks about Huckleberry having no sense of humor. I think that his character comes across as a survivor. He overcomes any odds that he encounters, and seems to adapt to most situations.

Huckleberry Finn ( 1-24 )

"Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn't let on. Kill the women? No-nobody saw anything in the books like that. you fetch them to the cave, and you're alwasy polite as pie to them, and by-and by, they fall in love with you and never want to go home anymore."
I loved how everything he read in books, he believed was true. I also thought it was unusual for a boy of that time period and age would be so well read.

Flower

This is a pretty poem, but I'm clueless as to what it means. I have read it several times, and I don't understand it. I like the visual of the daffodil "unties her yellow bonnet." Does she mean the beauty of nature is something that is a gift to enjoy, but not keep?

Emily Dickinson

I liked the poem I Taste a liquor Never Brewed.
Is she drunk on life, the sunshine, and nature? " Inebriate of air am I,
And debauhes of dew," It seems like everything around her gives her pleasure.

Other Poe works

In Science, there was again the talk of birds and wings. This time a vulture. The birds he uses seem are birds that are hunters, scavengers, that seem to symbolize death.
In the beginning of The Haunted Place, I thought it was a lighter story. Then it grows dark and dismal.

The Raven

I like the way the verses flow. It is so smooth to read. I understood the story, but the one part confuses me. "Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!" I'm going to try to look them up in a dictionary.