18th & Early 19th Century Voices in Poetry & Prose

ART I Due: final draft Wed. 2/11 Length: a minimum of 250 words Topic: Week# 3 Readings, PowerPoint, Comments Lecture Submission: Response must be posted to Blackboard Discussion Forum Assignment: Write a response to the following questions. Be sure to include short direct quotes to support your ideas: 1 Lucy Terry Bars Fight How do we interpret the tale the poem tells? What words in the poem gives us a sense of how this action was viewed? What words tells us how the narrator viewed the white colonists and the Indians? Is there any ambivalence in the telling of this tale? 2 Phillis Wheatley Earl of Dartmouth She also brings up her own capture, separation from her parents, and enslavement. What message (What trope?) does she seem to be sending by putting those ideas together? Give specific examples and explain. 3 Phillis Wheatley On Being Brought from Africa to America If being brought from Africa to America is blessing because of her exposure to Christianity, then what (What trope?) does her treatment here say about Christians? What words in the poem makes the reader question how this transition has affected the poems persona? 4 Benjamin Banneker Letter to Thomas Jefferson Why (What trope?) does Banneker send a hand-written copy of his Almanac, rather than a printed copy, to Jefferson? Why(What trope?) is he particularly writing to Jefferson? 5 Richard Allen An Address to Those Who Keep Slaves and Approve the Practice. He uses the Chosen People typology. How? How does he appeal to reason? What anti-slavery trope can you identify in the sermon? Give specific examples. 6 David Walker Appeal In Four Articles How is a Pan-African consciousness expressed? He uses of the Chosen People typology. Why? Walker includes extensive citations of world history. What is he trying to achieve? Which anti-slavery tropes can you identify in the Appeal? Give specific examples. 7 Personal response What was particularly striking about these readings for you? What questions arise from the texts? What connections can be made to other texts, films, issues raised in class discussions or personal experience? YOU MUST INCLUDE DIRECT QUOTES AS SPECIFIC EXAMPLES! Process: a) Look through 18th & Early 19th Century Voices in Poetry & Prose: The Roots of the African American Literary Tradition PowerPoint and view the audio/video links that are featured in it, read the texts assigned in the syllabus, and listen to the Comments lecture. b) All papers must be spell checked & carefully proofread. c) Weekly Responses will be graded according to the Weekly Response Assessment Rubric (see syllabus).