Reflection #8: The Declaration of Independence

As I read "The Declaration of Independence" I did notice several propaganda techniques used by the Continental Congress in the iconic American document. I think that by visiting the website that we used in class, it really gave me an idea as to what propaganda techniques really are and how they can be used in both positive and negative ways. As I was reading the selection out of the book, I kept referring to the website to try to pinpoint the name of the technique being used. I think that the authors of the great American document were very strict with the wording used to make everything they wrote make sense to all who read the document. The first thing that caught my attention was in the Before You Read section: "A man of contradictions, Jefferson opposed slavery in principle but owned slaves himself" (Jefferson 120). This sentence really gives the readers a hint that Jefferson is probably going to use some faulty logic and bad propaganda techniques. I thought that the definition of propaganda techniques given on the website was really good. It reads as followed: "Methods or approaches used to spread ideas that further a cause: a political, commercial, religious, or civil cause" (Recognizing Propaganda). The first type of propaganda technique that the website discussed was name calling or attaching a negative label to a person or thing (Recognizing Propaganda). I think I found an example of this particular technique used in the passage from the book. He is talking about the King in Britain and he says, "He is... and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation" (Jefferson 124). I got a couple of ideas from this example and the first one is that he is trying to totally bash the King because he has no respect for him and the second is that he think that he would make a much better leader, so he is trying to tear the King down to build himself up as a person. I have noticed that human nature is really shown when one person tears another person down just to make themselves appear "more superior.” I think that another technique that I noticed that Jefferson used was “card stacking” (Recognizing Propaganda). On page 123, Jefferson says, “He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.” (Jefferson 123). I saw this as the use of the card stacking technique because the method is used to “slant the message” (Recognizing Propaganda). I think that listing all of these bad things that the King does, Jefferson leaves no room to think or talk about anything good that he has done. The website says that key words or unfavorable comments may be omitted to make the reader only see the author’s opinion. The last example that I am going to share was found on page 123 and it said, “He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.” I think that this is a really good example of faulty logic because Jefferson just floods the readers’ minds with his own opinion. Logically, Jefferson states no evidence to back up his opinion, so I do not view his opinion as being logic.


Jefferson, Thomas. "The Declaration of Independence." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 120-124. Print.

"Recognizing Propaganda--Guide to Critical Thinking--Academic Support." 3 June 2011. Web. 27 Sept. 2011.

Journal #10

Vocabulary Unit three day on should be postponed until the next Wednesday class. If we really did postpone our vocabulary until the next Wednesday, we would be waiting until October fifth to complete this vocabulary assignment.  We should postpone our vocabulary assignment until October fifth because all of these vocab assignments are the straws breaking the camel's back.  Getting an assignment to read anthology and write a five hundred word reflection blog is enough.  We do not need the added stress to complete vocabulary homework.  I have two tests that I need to be studying for for next week, so I think that I should be spending most of my time studying and not on copying definitions.  I could be so much more productive with my time over the weekend if I did not have to spend the ten minutes it takes to do vocabulary homework. Those ten minutes could be anything from eating breakfast to walking the dog. You should postpone the vocabulary assignment simply because you have over 3,300 words written to you proposing the postponement of the vocabulary assignment until Wednesday in this class alone. You should just be the nice guy in the situation and go ahead and move the due date until Wednesday.  Mister Langley, you seem like the kind of guy that would just give us the benefit of the doubt anyway.  I think that you should give me an extra ten to fifteen minutes this weekend to just sleep.  I have been so tired this whole week that you should just let us off the hook.  Now that you have already put the vocabulary assignment up on the board, I think I should go ahead and give up on this article. I only have two hundred and eighty-eight words in this journal, but I have already lost the argument so I do not even know why I am continuing to argue an argument that I know I have already lost. I really have no idea what I am going to argue about at the end of this journal because I know that I have already lost this argument.  Oh, one other thing that I am going to say is that I am going to have to spend those ten minutes this weekend working on vocabulary. People are working on the vocabulary assignment now, but because I did not have enough words in my journal I am still working on it.  I am really mad at Mitch for failing to have a good argument with you, Mr. Langley, about postponing the vocabulary assignment.

Journal #9

High School = DRAMA! Drama is so annoying! I consider all unnecessary emotional roller coasters in life to be drama.  I think that high school girls are the guilty ones when it comes to starting drama. People start rumors... drama. There is always drama in high school relationships. There was a certain someone who's name I am not going to mention that caused a lot of drama this weekend.  I think that she has been having a rough couple of days.  It all started when we arrived and she saw her ex boyfriend at the game will his arms around another girl. OMG, right?! I guess I really do not understand why she was upset because they broke up about three months ago.  I think that she was only really upset about it because she was already having a bad week.  I think that she was emotionally weak.  I am not the person to be really open about my relationships and how much they effect me.  I think that I am normally not usually the one who is starting all of the drama.  I hate drama! I actually kind of separated myself from that specific person at the football game because I hate drama that much! I did not even bother messing with her at the game because I knew that she was being really super dramatic.  Even though I am the blue personality type, I am not really super emotional. I think that I used to be really good at dealing with people's drama, but now I really just think that drama is super annoying.  I hate it! I think that I have stated the fact that I hate drama about six times throughout the course of this journal, but it is the truth! I think that because I have been in high school for a few years now, I have just gotten to the point that I really just try to totally ignore all of the people that cause drama. The worst thing about drama though is when people try to drag me into it.  I have a true problem with people who try to get other innocent people involved with drama.

Reflection #7: Patrick Henry

I believe that Patrick Henry's speech does indeed exemplify the characteristics of the rationalistic writing style. Let me first start out by describing what the Rationalism period writing characteristics are. The first thing that I noticed about the Rationalism period is they simply state things how they really are. There is no skipping around the point. Henry got straight to the point. I think that the Rationalism period is all about that: justifying actions. The Rationalistic writers were the one who are going to tell you something exactly the way it really is. I personally like the Rationalistic writing style because I am a person who really just wants the key parts of a story. When someone is telling me a story, I prefer to just hear the important events and I think that is what the Rationalistic writers. They are not interested in coloring the picture for you, they are only interested in getting to the chase. I hate it when someone tells me a story and they take like ten years to explain something that I could have summarized into about a thirty second thing. I think that I am going to really like the style that we are going to find in the period of rationalism.

In the rationalism period, the scientific method was developed, so people were beginning to think more logically. The truth must be developed through reason (Boucquey). I think that the Rationalism period is very good at thinking logically and not so emotionally. I think that the speech by Patrick Henry was a really good example of rationalism because he was really thinking logically. I think that he might have had a different opinion than the one he shared in the speech, but he was using a rational though process and he was thinking rationally. I believe that people need to hear rationalistic thoughts so that they are not persuaded into thinking from a point of view that is not truly their own. I think that especially with government based speeches and articles need to be written in the style of the rationalists. This makes the politics more even so that the emotions of the writer are not shown, only their rationalistic thoughts.

Patrick Henry’s famous quote is “Give me liberty, or give me death.” He made people see that the war against Britain was already well under way before the first shot was fired. He showed that the colonies suggestions and input into things did not matter (Henry 118). Britain was already doing what they wanted to do, and the colonies had no input on it. Patrick Henry made the Convention aware of the way that things were going and the way they were going to continue going unless something was done about it (Henry 116). Britain had already basically started a war against the colonies without actually stating that. Henry showed how rationalists really capture the way that the world is, not the way that people think or hope that it is by their emotions.

Boucquey, Thierry, gen. ed. "rationalism." Encyclopedia of World Writers, 14th through 18th Centuries. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Henry, Patrick. "Speech to the Second Virginia Convention." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 114-118. Print.

Journal #8

I honestly do not have a favorite season because I have many pros and cons for all of the seasons. Fall and spring are my two favorite seasons because they are not very harsh.  I think that Fall is probably one of my favorite seasons because school starts in the fall. I also enjoy autumn because of the temperatures.  Fall has a nice balance of warm and cool temperatures.  In fall, there is not usually hot or cold temperatures, they are generally mild.  BONFIRES! I love bonfires! Bonfires are so much fun! I love to sit around a warm fire and talk with my friends.  I am actually going to a bonfire this weekend at Emma and Izzy Durham's house.  I am so excited because the temperature is just getting to the right place for bonfires. Bonfires are probably my favorite part of the Autumn season.  I just love the smell of the fire and I like how my clothes hold the bonfire smell for a long time.  Another thing that I love about Fall is Homecoming.  Homecoming week is probably the best week of school.  The teachers always realize that because we are so excited, we are probably not going to accomplish a lot of school learning.  I like the fact that the teachers are lenient on what we can wear to school for the theme of the day.  Another thing that I love about Homecoming week is that we get out early on Friday and there is a football game. Homecoming dress shopping is also an important part of the Fall season. I love to go Homecoming dress shopping with friends because I tend to try on things that I might like, but otherwise I would not have picked out by myself. Football games are probably another reason why I like Autumn because I love to watch people I know play football.  I enjoy going to the University of Illinois football games with my dad, but I enjoy going to the Plains football games more because I actually know the people that are playing.  I think that it is fun to sit in the stands with my friends and cheer on the football boys.

Reflection #6

No matter which writings you look at, Puritans writings will always be similar in one way or another. When comparing Puritans from The Crucible and other Puritan works that we have read previously, I realized that similar does not even begin to cover it. When you talk about people and you reference them, you do not tend to reference them to a religious group. But, being the way that the world is, there are always exceptions. I feel like most Christians are very similar, and that is why they do not get referenced as “Catholics” or “Lutheran” or “Christian.” They are all very similar, so you cannot really tell the difference most of the time. But then there are Jewish people and Muslim people, and they tend to be referenced to their religion. When people think of terrorists, their initial thought is Muslim. Though that is not fair, that is how terrorists are defined. Puritans, though, were such a different type of religion, that they fall into the Muslim and Jewish category.
     Puritans are whole heartedly, 100 percent, all about God. In my opinion, there is no in between. You are either a all out Puritan who believes in God in everything you do, or you are just simply not a Puritan. Throughout The Crucible, I noticed that similarity with other works by Puritans. In The Crucible I feel like everyone was totally with God, but some of them just fell short of what that really means. In my opinion, I think that Abigail and the other girls thought that they were still 100 percent with God, and they were not really doing anything wrong. They accused so many women and a few men of doing witchcraft, that they did not even think about the repercussions that would come from them doing that (Miller 48). They were just trying to save their own butts. I think Proctor really shows what a Puritan was like at the end of the story. He refused to “tell” on any of his friends or neighbors because he would not lose his good name (Miller 144). He was not going to go to live on this earth knowing that he was a liar, and God knew that too. Overall, Puritans in The Crucible were just as much Puritans as those from previous Puritan works.
     Puritans from The Crucible were just like any other Puritans of that time. From religion to government to hospitality, Puritans were similar. There was no in-between for them. You were either 100 percent Puritan, or you were not a Puritan. It is really as easy as that.
     I think that in the story, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" was very accusing therefor it kind of is similar to The Crucible. I think that although both of these writings were supposed to be Puritan writing, all people have their flaws. Even though all of the people in these stories are supposed to be devoted to God, they all have their moments where they act before thinking what God would want.

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible: a Play in Four Acts. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1976. Print.

Journal #7

Bullying is a terrible thing.  I think that bullying effects both the bully and the victim, but mostly the victim.  I think that everyone in the world knows that bullying is a bad thing, but human nature makes us do it.  I think that people bully others because they are insecure about themselves. I think that by tearing someone else down, it would make the bully feel better about themselves. Bullies are probably the people in the world that are the most insecure and unhappy with themselves.  They feel like they are not accepted, so they think that by tearing someone else down, they feel better themselves.  I think that it is sad that the world is always going to have bullies.  I think that it is impossible to have a Utopian Society, so there are always going to be  those silly bullying people all over the world- it is no use! I think that the teachers should be the ones to report the bullying.  Sometimes I think that the act of bullying is seem by the teachers, but they do not report it because bullying is defined as "repetitive acts on one person that are intentionally meant to be harmful." I think that sometimes the teachers do not report something is because they are not sure if the behavior is repetitive.  I have seen bullying going on a lot in our school, and I think that this needs to be stopped.  Everyone should have the right to come to school safely and feel good about doing so.  I know that there are people in our school that are so two faced. It kills me to think that people in our extracurricular activities are the people that are being the bullies to the people that are not involved.  I think that the "popular" kids are bullies just by showing to everyone else that they think they are so much better.  News flash! All of the students at Pleasant Plains are equal. No one person is better than another.

Reflection #5

     Throughout all of The Crucible, human nature has been pretty evident. Some of the human nature is positive in a sense, but there is also some negative human nature flaws. Humans are really interesting to me. I love psychology because I get to learn a lot about the way human brains work. Throughout the witch trials, the husbands are all trying to defend their wives (Miller III). That is human nature. You protect what is yours and what you love. That would be considered positive human nature, in my opinion, because you are trying to help someone. Also in Act III, Proctor defends himself (Miller 117). That could go along with the protection that I mentioned previously. Proctor was defending himself because that is just what us humans do. When someone wrongly accuses you, you tend to defend yourself. I think if you do not defend yourself, then you are probably just a coward. But in the case of some of the women in The Crucible, they started to believe that they were actually possessed by the devil (Miller 79). That is also human nature. When you hear something so much, you start to believe it. Even though you may have initially flat-out denied it, once it is said so much, it makes you question yourself. Human nature that we think of today is essentially the positive kind, and that makes sense. We do not fault ourselves, so going along with human nature, we do not think that we do any wrong.
     Although we think of the more positive side of human nature, there are definitely plenty of negatives. In The Crucible, Abigail is the definition of negative human nature. She is only trying to save her butt, but in doing that, she has to lie. She has accused so many innocent women of doing wrong that there is no way she could take it back (Miller 48). That is definitely negative human nature. Once you are in so deep, it is hard to turn back the right way. Mary Warren also shows some negative human nature qualities. She became an honest person and confessed that she and the rest of the girls had been lying about everything that they saw (Miller 102). That shows positive human nature because it shows that you have a conscience, and that it sometimes gets the best of you. But when very few people believe her and Abigail keeps denying the whole thing, Mary becomes so overwhelmed. She lowers herself to the rest of the girls, and she accuses Proctor of being of the devil (Miller 118). Throughout all of The Crucible, negative human nature is prominent.
     Overall, human nature is human nature. That is the best way to put it. Everyone is a human being and with being that comes human nature. It is what we do. We use our instincts. Human nature is both negative and positive in a sense, although most people do not really recognize the negative side of it. Human nature is in everyone, even if they do not think it is.

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible: a Play in Four Acts. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1976. Print.    

Journal #4

This summer my family took a vacation to Mexico.  The trip was about 12 days long, so I consider it a long trip.  I think its funny how you are always looking forward to when you vacation is going to start from like weeks and weeks in advance, but when you are about to get home after the whole thing... you just want to be home! I really do not like to fly and in the particular case of this vacation, we had to fly. We had a a flight scheduled for 7 o' clock am, so we stayed the night in St. Louis the night before.  It was really exciting the next day when we were at the airport because I knew the fun was about to begin.  I also realized that I was about to hear 95% of the important information in spanish for the next 12 days. For some reason I found that exciting! The airplane was a larger airplane because it was a non stop flight. I think that having a larger airplane was a good thing because then it seemed like the turbulence did not seem to be as powerful.  I sat next two really little girls whose parents were sitting across the isle. These two little girls were so annoying because they kept screaming, and their parents just happened to be asleep across the isle.  They were pinching each other and hitting each other, and they were doing everything that a small child should never do on a airplane. It was lucky that the flight was only about four and a half hours because I was about to "accidentally" strangle one of them! I ended up watching a movie for the remainder of the flight because I was tired of listening to those kids while I was trying to read my summer novels. It was Grapes of Wrath to be honest, and let me tell you that is a difficult book to read around screaming children.

Journal #6

The repercussions of blaming someone who did not actually commit the crime can potentially be really bad. I hate it when people blame me for something I did not do, so I cannot even imagine being blames for murder.I think that I would go absolutely crazy because I would be so mad at the people who accused me of the crime I did not commit. I think that I have probably at one time accused somebody of something that they did not do, but I did not ever do it on purpose. I work at PASSAGE, so I am sure that some kids there have been punished for something that they did not do, but I do not like to punish any kids that I am not positive about then doing anything wrong. I think that is stinks when people blame me for something that I did not do, so I really do not understand why people continue to blame things on others even though they are not for sure who did it. I remember one time that I was blamed for somethiv that I did not do. I was about ten or eleven years old and the soap in the laundry room spilled all over the floor. I was not even the last person to do the laundry, so I do not even know why I was the innocent one that got blamed. Becausemy sister was not home, I guess I was the only person to blame. I wax punished for the incident and I did not even do it. It would be so bad if I was accused of practicing witchcraft during the Salem witch trials. I think that I would tell the judge that I was pregnant too, so they did not immediately hang me.  I think that they obviously did not deal with the cases the way that they would today because people are not tried for a crime unless there is evidence to back that up.  i would hate to be put in jail for something that I did not do.  I think that would be one of the worst ways to end up in jail because you would have absolutely no control over the situation what so ever.

Reflection #4

In the second act of The Crucible, there were many characters mentioned. Arthur Miller did a good job of including people of all different personality types in the story. All of the characters were very different though. They all had different personalities. In many cases today, the personality of a person is referred to as a color. There are gold, green, blue, and orange personalities. I am more of a blue personality. I tend to be the one who is always upbeat, personable, and dramatic. I feel like many of the characters in the second act of The Crucible had different "colors." There were not two characters that were the exact same, but they had similarities.

One of my favorite characters was Elizabeth. She is Proctor's wife, and she is definitely a people pleaser. I think she is more of a blue personality, but with a hint of gold. She is almost ashamed of herself when she forgets Proctor's cider for his dinner (Miller 51). She also wants Proctor to just tell someone about what Rebecca told him (Miller 53). In this, I feel like she just wants to do what is right, which is kind of being blue. She does not want anything bad. Overall, I feel Elizabeth is more a blue, but with a tad of green.

Mary Warren, the Proctor's servant, is definitely an orange. She is going to do what she wants to do when she wants to do it. I feel like it would be hard to be a servant with an orange personality because you get told what to do all of the time, and you can not argue with it. But Mary Warren stands her ground when going up against Proctor. She tells him, whether he likes it or not, she is going to be going to the court everyday (Miller 58). She is definitely a strong orange personality.

Cheever has a gold personality. He does what he is told no matter what (Miller 72). I do not think that his personality really shines through too much, but he definitely likes things set out straight for him and then he can accomplish them, if that makes sense. Hale also has a gold personality in my opinion. He does what he is told, and goes along with other people. Gold, in my opinion, is the one who does what they are told, but also is sometimes uneasy of it. Although he does want to say it, he tells Elizabeth how she is accused of murder (Miller 76). I feel like this shows how he does not want to do something, but it is something that he must do. Gold personalities are very complicated in my opinion.

Overall, there were many different personalities in the second act of The Crucible. Like in today's world, no two people are exactly the same. In my eyes people can be have the same "color" personalities, but it is impossible to have exactly the same. In The Crucible, many of the characters are similar with their "color," but none are exactly alike.

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible: a Play in Four Acts. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1976. Print.

Journal #5

I am not really sure what a good punishment would be for today's society.  I am never punished by my parents. They mostly just talk to me about what I have done wrong or sometimes they yell at me if it was really bad.  I remember one time when I was actually spanked.  It was a Sunday morning and my family was at church.  After church I was supposed to go to Sunday School in the classroom.  On my way to the classroom I saw my cousin and he asked me if I wanted to go sit in "Big Church" with him.  Of course I wanted to, so I went ahead and went to church again with him. Little did I know that church lasted one hour and Sunday school lasts for only thirty minutes.  My parents went to pick me up from Sunday school and the teacher told them that I wasn't even there today.  They absolutely freaked out! They had no clue where I was and my parents went ahead and sent out a search party consisting of my grandparents, my mom, my dad, and my sister.  After looking around the church building for around half an hour, I found them as soon as I got out of church.  They were so mad at me! If I recall correctly, that is the only time that my parents have ever physically punished me.  I have never had my phone taken away (knock on wood). I think that taking my phone away would be a good punishment for me because I do use it a lot.  I don't think that my parents would ever take my computer away because I use it for school a lot. I think that they would be crazy if they made me miss homework assignments just because they were punishing me for something that I have done.  I know that a punishment that wouldn't do me any good would be to ground me from the television.  I never watch television at home anyway during the school week especially while i am involved in a school sport.  I have to spend most of my spare time doing homework.

Reflection #3

      The first part of The Crucible, in my opinion, was kind of confusing. I also thought that it was very interesting. I do not feel as though it was written by a Puritan. It did not totally possess all of the qualities that I have previously seen in works by Puritans. The "pure" writing was not really there. Arthur Miller really did not reference God. There were talk of spirits, but not necessarily the spirits of God. The talk was also kind of different compared to the "normal" Puritan writing. I do not think that Puritan writing was reflected very well within the first part of The Crucible.
      God was not very well referenced in the first part of The Crucible. I actually only remember him being referenced once. When giving the background information, mainly the introduction of the story, it was mentioned that old scores could be settled in heavenly combat between Lucifer, which is the devil, and the Lord (Miller 8). That is the only reference that I remember towards the Lord and other things that are spiritual in that sense. Spirits were mentioned many times, but I do not feel as though they were quite the spirits we hear of. Abby says how Parris knows that Tituba conjured Ruth's sisters to come out of the grave, which is a big no-no (Miller 18). When Betty finally awakes, she says she wants to fly and fly with her mama. The only problem is that her mother is dead (Miller 19). This leads me to believe that her mother is in heaven, so that could be another reference to God. Overall, I do not feel that God was a big priority in The Crucible. Other Puritan works seem to have a lot stronger belief system, and it was not well represented in this novel.
     The type of writing was also not what I expected when referring to Puritans. Most Puritan works do not use figurative language, but more straight-to-the-point talk. In the first part of The Crucible, the talk is not elaborate, but it is not as to-the-point as previous works. The work seemed to be in more detail. Abigail talks about all what she and the other girls did and their repercussions from their actions. But everything was in great detail (Miller 20). I would have expected it to be straight to the point. I imagine, if written by another Puritan, it would have said what they did and what happened to them. That is all. There would be no great details, and everything would be right there in front of you. The writing style was just not what I imagined from a Puritan.
     Overall, I do not think that the writing was very "Puritan-like." It did not include a strong belief system like previous works by Puritans. It also did not have the people totally trusting in God. The writing style was a little different. It was not flowery, but it was not straight to the point like other Puritan works. I do not think that Arthur Miller's The Crucible, well act one, was a very good representative of Puritan writings.

MIller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York: Penguin, 1982. Print.