Portfolio: Reflective Letter

-----You’re approaching the end of a narrow corridor, in a dark building, with the faint sound of screams in the background. You know you don’t want to approach the end, but you have to. You hear a rustle as you near the corner, and wonder why you ever choose this fate. Just then, everything goes black, and seconds later a bright message appears, Wal-Mart! This has happened many times when I’ve been watching TV. I sit in front of the TV, wasting away my time, surfing channels, watching old horror movies, or sitting through commercials. While sitting there, I notice the amount of excess that pollutes everything I am watching? Extra gore, super low prices, or complex love relationships, all are an example of this excess. When I see this, I just wish that it would end, or maybe not end, but adapt into a form that does not emphasize the wasteful. Sadly, that date is still a long time away, but luckily that progression can still happen, although this progression is not in what you watch, but what you read. My writing progress used to be just the same as TV is today, excessive in its explanations, but this has greatly improved over my last couple of months in Writing 101. With the introduction of college standards, my writing style has adapted to whatever has been thrown at it. My excessive nature in writing has adapted to the situations of writing, and changes from specific to lengthily when required. My writing skills have improved in adaptability and being specific.

-----My first essay showed my weaknesses in writing, wordiness and taking too much time to get to the point. This essay “Bacon’s Rebellion: Land or No Land?”, I used a lot of excess words and phrases, and in turn my words began to separate from my topics. As you can notice by just the organization of the essay, the sporadic reasonings behind the points, led to a sporadic dispersion of those points. The location and even the existence of the 2 body paragraphs before the paragraph about immigration prove this. An example of the culprit, excessive and lengthily writings is shown in many examples throughout the essay, which don’t need to be pointed out to be seen. My specificity is also a problem in this first essay, as there is a major lack of it. As I have said, my excessive writing separated my sentences from my topics, and thus they were not very specific. They began to get into a point, but just drawled on and on, losing focus and the reader’s attention. These problems were major weaknesses for me in writing, but as I grew in my adaptability to the course and it’s standards, I was able to notice what I did wrong in my writings.

-----The changes I made in my first essay show my current knowledge of writing. As noted previously, my weaknesses in writing are primarily writing excessively, which leads to me not being specific. Since my first essay, however, I learned how to control this lengthily writing, and adapt it to the situation, this situation being a one-person persuasive essay. The underlined portions show my current revisions to my first essay, and there are many. Focus on the introduction and first body paragraph for now. The revisions made there were to cut down on repetition and to make points more specific to their topics/purpose. An example is this: In the first essay, before editing, notice how the introduction began by attempting to draw the reader in by telling them a story, which was then followed by assumptions that the reader was ignorant of the subject. Now notice the revised version, and how it does not only stop telling the reader what’s going on, but showing him, it is also allowing space for both those who knew about this event and who didn’t, without making those who did feel insulted. These portions of the revised versions are only some examples of how I can implement my writing skills into past essays, although I can also implement these skills while writing as well.

-----My third essay shows my ability to use my current knowledge of writing while in the actual writing process. I have shown you my weaknesses and how they have improved, but I have not yet shown you how I can adapt these improvements to different situations. This collaborative essay contains a smaller part from me, due to my orchestration of the collaborative process within my group. The second paragraph gets down to the specifics, with the sentences following the guidelines that were set up by the topic sentence. The sources were used in proper context, such as without massive repetitive commentaries attached to them. It supports the reasons used with the commentary, and even brings the second part of the paragraph into focus. The flow of the paragraph makes is therefore easier to follow and understand because the ideas and reasons are kept under proper control.

-----The final once again shows my writing process’ adaptability, this time in a timed situation. This final essay was written during a roughly two-hour long period of time, with the only thing to go off of being the quote stated in the introduction paragraph , and a couple of questions about the idea in the quote. My main idea was that my knowledge that there are two types of people who study history allowed me to follow the guidelines for one of the study types, the correlation type. The reasons and sources following my topic sentences proved their points, and didn’t have any clutter. It followed a standard essay format, introduction, 3 body paragraphs, conclusion, and each body paragraph flowed into the next pretty well. All around, it was a very concise, reasonable essay, that contained both sides of the argument.

-----The progress I have made in the class is evident in my abilities to adapt to different writing situations and focus on specifics. My weaknesses were apparent at the beginning of the quarter, and coupled with my ever-increasing progress in the class, helped me to realize what I had done wrong in my writings and how to make future essays better. These evident signs of progress in my writing abilities is why I have supplied the following essays, so that you can see my progress yourself, from first to revised first to last.

Portfolio: Essay 1-Bacon's Rebellion: Land or No Land?

Bacon’s Rebellion: Land or no Land?

-----Most people haven’t heard of the Hidden Rebellion. One usually just looks over it in history class, skipping straight to the American Revolution, because it’s the most famous. Most people don’t even think where a good portion of the ideas in those founding documents came from, what the first rebellion was that spawned such ideas as “class equality” and “government relationships with people”. Not many people have heard of Nathaniel Bacon, herald of new ideas, leader of uprisings, and defender of the poor man. This man was involved in a massive rebellion in one of the first and most prosperous colonies in the New World of America, Chesapeake Bay. The government was ruled by the iron fist of greed and money, funded by the sweat and blood of the working class. When the government made a deal with the savages of the new land, they cut off the only way the poor farmer of yesterday survived, land. The Virginian land grants that were given out to the Indians caused class tension that led to Bacon’s Rebellion. If you read this paper about the massacre that has not been heard, you will find that the restrictive orders that came from the Virginian elite prevented the success of the little guy. With such restrictions, hatred and pain seeped from the cracks in society, aimed towards the Indians and those who worked with them, the grandees of tobacco.

-----Land grants caused less land to be available to the freed servants, which started a growing dislike for the grandees. The government, being mostly land owners, was not affected by the restricted land because they already had all of the land they needed. However, this was not true for the freed servants, who needed to buy more land to survive. The text book discusses this situation that created tension between the two economic classes, “The treaty that concluded the war established policies toward the Indians that the government tried to maintain over the next 30 years […]. Had the Chesapeake population remained constant, the policy might have worked. But the number of land-hungry colonists, especially poor, recently freed servants, continued to multiply. In their quest for land, they pushed beyond the treaty limits of English settlement and encroached steadily on Indian land.” (The American Promise, pg. 92). The way the first sentence is put, displays the idea that the government, which was all grandees at the time, did not need the land because they were attempting to uphold that treaty for at least 30 years. The end of the quote states that the population kept growing due to the constant expansion of freed servants, who had come for land in the first place. Being unable to get the land, they began to breach the land that was assigned to the Indian by the grants, in order to fulfill their dreams of the New World. This began to direct some anger from the colonists at the source of the grants itself, the government.

-----Having to fight Indians every day in order to make a living, the poor farmers began to think that the government didn’t care about them. When the government attempted to appease the Indians, the poor farmers just got angrier at them. Not only the Indian relationship, but lowered prices, higher taxes, and restrictive Navigation Acts greatly damaged the relationship between the government and its people. “Berkeley had refused to react to the claims that the Indians were committing murders and thefts on the frontier. The colonial governor was making a good profit from trading with the Indians, and was not willing to disrupt that business by triggering open war. Nathanial Bacon triggered the civil war (one century before the American Revolution...) by demanding a military commission that would authorize him to attack the Susquehannock Indians. [...] Bacon quickly left Jamestown, rallied a mob, and attacked innocent Occaneechi, Tutelo, and Saponi Indians” (http://www.virginiaplaces.org/military/bacon.html). Governor Berkley, head of the government, tried to keep good relationships with the Indians, where the poor farmers saw them as a major threat to their livelihood. The government also put on seemingly excessive taxes while the economic demands for tobacco were going down, while they themselves were benefiting from the trade with the Indians, which didn’t help to improve their image with the poor farmers. As a final annoyance to the farmers, England brought up the Navigation Acts, which took even more money from them. The farmers were losing a lot of money, and it seemed to them that it didn’t affect the grandees in the government as much, which was why they were attempting to appease the enemies of the poor farmer, while also putting more barriers up for them on an economic level. The next declaration of Governor Berkley, or any of that current government, would become the straw that broke the camel’s back.

-----After things began to look up for the poor farmers, Berkley attacked their icon, provoking the beast which was Bacon’s Rebellion. Berkley had once before labeled Bacon as a traitor, but quickly took it back when he was voted into the House of Burgesses. This was the attempts at a “tactic” to appease the majority of the public, “Hoping to maintain the fragile peace on the frontier in 1676, Governor Berkley declared Bacon a rebel, threatened to punish him for treason, and called for new elections of burgesses who, Berkley believed, would endorse his get-tough policy. To Berkley’s surprise, the election backfired. Almost all the old burgesses were voted out of office, their places taken by local leaders, including Bacon…..When Bacon learned that Berkley had once again branded him a traitor, he declared war against Berkley and the other grandees.” (The American Promise, Pg. 93). Bacon, the leader of the poor farmers, had finally gotten in to the government and began to pass Bacon’s Laws that benefitted the farmers by pushing back Indians and cutting away taxes. Berkley, being pressured by the grandees, once again declared Bacon as a traitor, which finally pushed the poor farmers to war against the unfair higher class. The rest of the story is pretty much just fighting for a while until Bacon’s side is defeated by a very unfortunate chain of events. This rebellion might not have pushed out the grandees, but it did affect the society in many other ways.

-----Land grants prevented the quick, mass expansions of farmers in the Chesapeake Bay area. As said in the first quote of this essay, the number of farmers who needed land multiplied after the treaty was made, which forced the farmers to push on the boundary lines. The lack of land for farmers to use caused a better market for the grandees due to lack of competition, which increased the profit being made by the rich plantation owners. The mass production of tobacco by the large plantations caused lowered prices for the farmers as well. These collective negatives from the restrictive land grants made it very hard for farmers to make a living in the Chesapeake Bay area. Not only were those two issues problems for the farmers, but the Indians who fiercely protected their lands were also a major problem.

-----The land grants added to the general hatred of the Indian people because they fought anyone who tried to take their land. Ever since their arrival, hostilities have been present with the colonists and the Indians, whether it was small tensions dampened by the prospects of a new world, or heightened malicious tensions created by the greed of the colonists. The constant battles between both sides only increased these tensions, "[We must defend ourselves] against all Indians in general, for that they were all Enemies." This was the unequivocal view of Nathaniel Bacon, a young, wealthy Englishman who had recently settled in the backcountry of Virginia. The opinion that all Indians were enemies was also shared by a many other Virginians, especially those who lived in the interior." (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1p274.html). People in the Virginia area already hated the Indians due to their actions against the growth of poor farms. The mindset of the poor farmers was that Indians would rather die than civilize, which caused most farmers to treat the Indians as an incurable pestilence that could only be held back by violence and discrimination. This reason was not the only one though; the other was the desires of the colonists, land. Colonists came to the New World for land, not Indians, and when the Indians fought them, they became even angrier that they couldn’t get what they wanted. This government decision created an economic class tension, racist battles that lined the borders, and eventually a whole rebellion. All of this happened because a large group of people couldn’t become successful doing what they wanted to do when they came to the New World.

-----A current example of government laws preventing the prosperity of a certain group of people is the illegal alien issue. Currently, many illegal immigrants come into our country, which has caused a problem with people in the lower states. One of the reasons it’s a problem is because it’s against the law for these people to come across in such ways. Laws have been created that say this is illegal, “Aliens found to be in violation of U.S. immigration laws may be removed from the country through a formal process (which can include penalties such as fines, imprisonment, or prohibition against future entry) or may be offered the chance to depart voluntarily (which does not preclude future entry).” (http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/70xx/doc7051/02-28-Immigration.pdf). This summarizes a legal document that prevents the illegal entry in the U.S.A., therefore preventing a whole group of people from doing work. Like in Bacon’s times, the government has passed laws that have had a greatly negative effect on a group of people, almost to the extent of stopping them from making a livelihood.

-----The unfeeling greed of the colonial government in Chesapeake Bay would be soon confronted with the fury of almost all of the population up in arms against them. Nathaniel Bacon would lead them in this attack, fueling them with his charismatic presence and successful campaigns. Sadly, the grip of death came early for their leader, with the disease of the land he promised to give to his followers, killing him with the cruel spike of irony the Mother Nature gives out daily. With him gone, the rebellion started to crumble, and seeing this, the government brought in reinforcements which finished it once and for all. Even though all hope seemed lost for these poor farmers, in want of the success that they had given all they had for, the government realized their plight. Even though Bacon had died, his ideals lived on in the people who he was involved with. The government worked with the small time farmers against the obstacles that had held them back for so long. People began to live their dreams after waiting almost half their lives. Every day, these men and women woke in the morning looking upon a new day, and remembering the foundations of what was a dream, but was now reality. Hope, cooperation, and prosperity filled this bright future and prepared it for many more to come, all because of a man, Nathaniel Bacon.

Portfolio: Essay 1 (revised)-Bacon's Rebellion: Land or No Land?

(Bolded parts are revised sections)
Bacon’s Rebellion: Land or no Land?

-----There is a time in history when a revolutionary led many into battle against greed and injustice. Savages fought the ideals and actions of prosperity for the lower class, and the rich government ignored the pleas for help. The poor were then forced to fight for a the chance at making a living, while under a ignorant and greedy government. These poor people were forced to a rebellion. You may have heard of it, or you may have not. This rebellion is where a many of the ideas in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence came from, such ideas as “class equality” and “government relationships with people”. Some people haven’t heard of Nathaniel Bacon, fearless herald of new ideas, leader of uprisings, and defender of the poor man. This visionary was involved in a massive class rebellion during the beginning of one of the first and most prosperous colonies in the New World of America, Chesapeake Bay. The government was ruled by the iron fists of greed, funded by the sweat and blood of the working class, and maintained by ignorance and social hierarchy. When the government made a deal with the savages of the new land, they cut off the only way the poor farmer of yesterday survived, land. The Virginian land grants that were given out to the Indians caused the class tension that led to Bacon’s Rebellion, and eventually the solutions to those very problems. If you read this paper about the massacre that has not been heard, you will find that the restrictive orders that came from the Virginian elite prevented the success of the little guy. With such restrictions, hatred and pain seeped from the cracks in society, aimed towards the Indians and those who worked with them, the grandees of tobacco.

-----Land grants caused less land to be available to the freed servants, which started a growing dislike for the grandees. The recently freed indentured servants needed land to make a living, but with the increasing number, land started to become scarce. This forced them to push against the Indians for more land, causing conflicts between the poor farmers and the Indians. This caused the government to solve the problem by giving the Indians land grants, which stopped the conflicts. The text book discusses this situation that created tension between the two economic classes, “The treaty that concluded the war established policies toward the Indians that the government tried to maintain over the next 30 years […]. Had the Chesapeake population remained constant, the policy might have worked. But the number of land-hungry colonists, especially poor, recently freed servants, continued to multiply. In their quest for land, they pushed beyond the treaty limits of English settlement and encroached steadily on Indian land.” (The American Promise, pg. 92). The fact that the grandees were expecting the treaties to hold for at least 30 years shows they expected they would not need the land, since they already had more than what they needed at the time. The population kept growing due to the constant expansion of freed servants, who had come for land in the first place, and being unable to get the land, they began to breach the treaties. This governmental restriction and the constant battles with Indians due to the restrictions began to direct anger from the colonists at the source of the grants, the government.

-----After things began to look up for the poor farmers, Berkley attacked their icon, Nathaniel Bacon, which provoked Bacon’s Rebellion. Berkley had once before labeled Bacon as a traitor, but quickly took it back when he was voted into the House of Burgesses. This was the attempts at a “tactic” to appease the majority of the public, “Hoping to maintain the fragile peace on the frontier in 1676, Governor Berkley declared Bacon a rebel, threatened to punish him for treason, and called for new elections of burgesses who, Berkley believed, would endorse his get-tough policy. To Berkley’s surprise, the election backfired. Almost all the old burgesses were voted out of office, their places taken by local leaders, including Bacon…..When Bacon learned that Berkley had once again branded him a traitor, he declared war against Berkley and the other grandees.” (The American Promise, Pg. 93). Bacon, the leader of the poor farmers, had finally gotten in to the government and began to pass Bacon’s Laws that benefitted the farmers by pushing back Indians and cutting away taxes. Berkley, being pressured by the grandees, once again declared Bacon as a traitor, which finally pushed the poor farmers to war against the unfair higher class. The rest of the story is pretty much just fighting for a while until Bacon’s side is defeated by a very unfortunate chain of events. This rebellion might not have pushed out the grandees, but it did affect the society in many other ways.

-----The land grants added to the general hatred of the Indian people, which increased the relationships between the rich and the poor. Ever since the colonist’s arrival, hostilities have been present between the colonists and the Indians. The constant battles for land between both sides only increased these tensions, "[We must defend ourselves] against all Indians in general, for that they were all Enemies." This was the unequivocal view of Nathaniel Bacon, a young, wealthy Englishman who had recently settled in the backcountry of Virginia. The opinion that all Indians were enemies was also shared by a many other Virginians, especially those who lived in the interior." (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1p274.html). People in the Virginia area already hated the Indians due to their actions against the growth of poor farms. The mindset of these people was that Indians would rather die than civilize, which caused most farmers to treat the Indians as an incurable pestilence that could only be held back by violence and discrimination. This mindset only increased as the farmers began to spread out for land, as the colonists met opposition to their livelihood. Colonists came to the New World for land, not Indians, and when the Indians fought them, they became even angrier at them, since they couldn’t get what they wanted. As the government attempted to fix these problems by pacifying the Indian side, they unknowingly created an economic class tension and racist battles that lined the borders, and eventually a whole rebellion. As the rebellion ended, everyone agreed that the main enemy was not class, but the Indians. It was the Indians who wouldn’t civilize, it was the Indians who wouldn’t give up their lands, and it was the Indians that forced the government to put such land grants in place in the beginning of the conflicts. These poor farmers were unable to fulfill their dreams of success, which caused uprisings in the colony to the point of changing the government policies.

-----A current example of government laws preventing the prosperity of a certain group of people is the illegal alien issue. Currently, many illegal immigrants come into our country, which has caused a problem with people in the lower states. One of the reasons it’s a problem is because it’s against the law for these people to come across in such ways. Laws have been created that say this is illegal, “Aliens found to be in violation of U.S. immigration laws may be removed from the country through a formal process (which can include penalties such as fines, imprisonment, or prohibition against future entry) or may be offered the chance to depart voluntarily (which does not preclude future entry).” (http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/70xx/doc7051/02-28-Immigration.pdf). This summarizes a legal document that prevents the illegal entry in the U.S.A., therefore preventing a whole group of people from doing work. Like in Bacon’s times, the government has passed laws that have had a greatly negative effect on a group of people, almost to the extent of stopping them from making a livelihood.

-----The unfeeling greed of the colonial government in Chesapeake Bay would be soon confronted with the fury of almost all of the population up in arms against them, leading to a change in government direction. The poor farmers rose up against the ignorance of the higher social class, creating bonds between people and government that never existed there before. The government learned that it needed to respect and listen to it’s citizens, and the people realized the benefits of having a say in government. Unfortunately, these realizations were held together near their creation by the common hatred for Indians, and their obstruction in the process of growth. People and their government need to have healthy relationships, or else anarchy and death ensues. Constant maintenance is required, and sometimes that maintenance can be somewhat unethical, but is necessary to prevent national collapse.

Portfolio: Essay 3- The Feds

The bolded section is what I wrote)
The Feds

-----Sometime during the 1990s, the team captain of a football team had some of the best players in the league on his team, but they didn’t cooperate because each player was trying to get glory for himself. The team captain didn’t like the fact that they didn’t play together and tried to show them an example of how playing together can benefit them. At half time their team met together for discussion, and the coach gave his demonstration. He took out one pencil, and broke it in half. He later took out 13 pencils and tried to break them but couldn’t because they were too strong. All he said after that was, “If you play by yourselves, you will be beaten and broken, but if you play together, you will be strong and nobody can defeat you.” A similar situation happened during the 1800s. Some of the states, the Federalists, wanted to ratify the constitution and unite into one big country, while the others wanted to stay as states and grow by themselves. These Anti-Federalists states believed that the Constitution needed to have a bill of rights, that the executive branch and the national government had to much power, and that this unification under one government would overpower the individual identities and powers of the state governments. Georgia supported ratification because it created a large collective nation, which they believed was paramount for protecting independent rights. The Federalists believed that the connected states would be a stronger nation that better protected individual rights.

-----The Constitution promoted better protection for each state through the whole nation. One of the primary arguments anti-federalists used in their favor was that they were against the fact that in the ratified constitution, the nation had the right to hold an army during peacetime. For the growing states, ratifying the constitution would be a good idea because at the rate they were expanding, they would run out of room in the remaining states. This means that they would have to press upon the Indian lands, which would cause conflicts that would require a military. Even if the states banned this pressure on the borders, people would still push against the boundaries, as shown in previous conflicts. Without an army, they would have no protection and many innocent lives would be lost. Having an army during peace time is crucial to the states for the safety of its residents. For example, Georgia found it very important to ratify the constitution. The reason for this was, "Georgia sought the protection that a stronger national government would afford against hostile Indians and Spanish Florida to the South" (The American Promise pg. 275, paragraph 2). It was bordering enemy territory, and having a large national army would greatly help them in times of danger. This army would serve as the most important and primary defense against immediate and serious threats. If the states ratified the constitution, then their army would be very large in numbers and strength, protecting the nation, and the freedom of the citizens.

-----The check and balance system was the superior form of rights security because one did not have to list out every individual right, which was impossible, but instead used the governmental actions themselves to hold itself in place. The check and balance system that was outlined in the Constitution, places the 3 branches in control of one another; the legislative branch controls the budget, pass laws, and impeach officials from the other branches, the executive branch can veto legislative acts and also nominates judges, and the judicial branch can declare executive acts unconstitutional as well as declare legislative laws unconstitutional. This system controlled the government in such a way, that by doing their appointed duties, they controlled each other. This made it so that no branch could rise above the others, since one other branch could always contain it. The Federalists believed that the system of checks and balances was elite and could not be breached. Due to this thought, the Anti-Federalist demands for a Bill of Rights sis not seem very important, and in fact seemed to even weaken the Constitution, or at least in their perspective, "The separation of powers into three independent branches protected the rights of the people. Each branch represents a different aspect of the people, and because all three branches are equal, no one group can assume control over another. A listing of rights can be a dangerous thing. If the national government were to protect specific listed rights, what would stop it from violating rights other than the listed ones? Since we can't list all the rights, the Federalists argued that it's better to list none at all" (http://library.thinkquest.org/11572/creation/framing/feds.html). Since the people’s perspectives and ideas on what their rights were was always changing, as soon as a set of them were written down, they would become unfair, as new perspectives and ideals would emerge, or old ones would change. The Federalists believed that by writing the rights down, it was a more oppressive act than not writing them down, as certain rights would be partially recognized, or fully ignored. Their belief that the checks and balance system was all that was necessary to keep the government in check was exactly what they thought was right for the collective states. This belief is proven by the fact that state identities are still preserved, not smashed, under the national government.

-----The constitution brought the states together as one, but it also gave them their individuality. One of the most important factors of individuality in the states was the ability to set up their own laws. The state could control everything within itself. The state government was picked by the citizens in the state, not by the national government. The government controlled the schools, trade, and infrastructures. They could decide what would be built, where, when, and how, they could set laws picking what could be traded and with whom, and they could control how much money was put into the schools, who can attend, and who would teach in the schools. They also controlled the land where the citizens could live on. The national government still controlled most of the state, but that didn’t mean that they overwrote the laws of the state. Some of the government officials were there solely to represent the state in Congress, which prevented the state rights from being squashed by the national government: two were sent to Congress, and a number of representatives went to the House of Representatives, depending on the size of the state. This system of representation is plenty enough, which was also believed by the Federalists, "...Senate (with two representatives per state) adequately represented state interests" (http://www.polytechnic.org/faculty/gfeldmeth/chart.fed.pdf). The National government can still pass laws that affect the state, but these laws are more widespread, where the state laws are more specific. These abilities allowed them to maintain its individual identity, while also staying under the policies and rules of the national government.

-----The ratification was the better choice for protecting individual rights, not as separate states but as a nation. The United States Constitution increased the amount of physical protection, by defending and supporting the individual and their rights. They did not create a list of rights because there would be loop holes. The check and balance system left it to the actions of the branches of the government to hold themselves in place. States had their own identity, but still were a part of one nation. This created more stability and security for each state. If the ratification of the constitution never occurred, our country now would probably not have as a sufficient government as it does. People’s rights would probably not be protected to the extent they are, and they would be divided. As Abraham Lincoln said “United we stand, and divided we fall”.