Reflection: Declaration of Independence

There are many examples of Propaganda techniques and faulty logic in the Declaration of Independence. The declaration of Independence was written on July 4th in the year of 1976. On June eleventh, about a month before, a five member committee was appointed to draft a statement declaring independence from Britain (Jefferson 121). These techniques are used to change the reader's or listener's views or opinion on a subject. They help you persuade someone with techniques. They are popularly used in speeches, religion, on political aspects.

As I started to read, I noticed an example. Thomas Jefferson used the King of Great Britain in his writing (Jefferson 122).
This is a propaganda technique. It fails under the testimonial category. He uses a "big name" person to make his point. When someone mentions a famous person being for or against something, it makes a person think it must be bogus. They then may drown that person speaking out because they took it too far and insulted someone they were considering agreeing with. On the other hand, name calling may be helpful. If someone is already siding with the speaker and the speaker calls their opponent a name, that may rally up the listener and get him/her excited. It may get him/her to start something like get their friends to side with them, too. It could unleash some strong emotions, but you never know how the emotions would turn out(Recognizing Propaganda).

Another use of a propaganda technique is name calling. Name calling can be very different for certain people. If someone is debating which side they want to be on and the speaker calls one side a name, the person may stop listening because name calling is inappropriate in his/her opinion.

Another example of a propaganda technique is using glittery generalities. The Declaration of Independence includes this. For example, "good" was used. Good is considered a "glad word." A glad word has little to no meaning and the statement can not be approved or disapproved(Recognizing Propaganda). In the Declaration of Independence, a sentence using a glad word is "...by the authority of the good people..." (Jefferson 122). Using glad words are a propaganda technique used in many speeches.

Thomas Jefferson also uses an either/or fallacy. An either/or fallacy is when their are only two choices that you can side with. There is no in between. You cannot be mutual. You either have to be for it or against it. It is very popular in speeches because you can not just sit their and be idle. You have to say what you think and it can only be one way or the other. Thomas Jefferson's idea is that we are either going to be with Britain, or by ourselves (Recognizing propaganda).

Another popular technique used is the bandwagon effect. A lot of speeches or persuasive writing includes the bandwagon effect. It basically says that since everyone else agrees with me, you should too. It is like peer pressure. It basically puts everyone back in high school and makes them think a certain way. No one wants to be left out. This writing does not specifically state anything like that, but it is the general philosophy of the speech (recognizing Propaganda).

Jefferson, Thomas."Declaration of Independence." American Literature. Columbus: Mc-Graw Hill, 2009. 120-124. Print.
"Recognizing Propaganda--Guide to Critical Thinking--Academic Support." 6 Mar. 2011. Web. 26 Sept. 2011. .

Journal #10

Our vocabulary assignment should be due on Wednesday, not today!

One really important reason to post pone our vocabulary quiz is because students need time to study. If we took the quiz today, a lot of the students would not be prepared. If the students are not prepared, they might not do as good on the assignment. If they do not do as well on their assignment, their grades will suffer. If their grades suffer, it looks like Mr. Langley is a bad teacher. Since he is a great teacher, that would be tragic.

Another reason that this vocabulary assignment should be postponed is because some of our students are already really behind. If this is assigned today, it will just add up to the pile of homework. For example, Morgan was absent. She was already behind in this class, but being absent just put her even more behind. If this was started on Wednesday, she would have some more time to catch up and not drown in homework.

A lot of people need to catch up. My blogs are all finished, but I have to use proper citations in my text. This will take me awhile by itself. I cannot imagine how the students who are behind on blogs feel. I am only behind on citations, and I feel like I am lost. There is just so much time consuming things. We really need this day to relax and catch up. This is why the vocabulary should be started on Wednesday instead of today.

Reflection: Patrick Henry's speech exemplifies the Rationalism

Patrick Henry's speech does a good job of displaying the Rationalism writing style. It is very different from the Puritan writing style. Thomas Marshall thought that his speech was very bold and was one of the most animated speeches ever delivered (Wilhelm 114). It must have taken a lot of guts and feelings to give a speech as good as the speech he gave.

According to Boucquey, rationalism was born from Enlightenment. Enlightenment originated in the 18th century. Rationalism was the idea that formed the basis of Enlightenment (Boucquey). Rationalism led to a lot of great works because it showed creativity and it was skeptical of the things people believed in at that time.

By standing up to the people, Patrick Henry showed that he fit in with the rationalism period. He was very skeptical and unwilling to compromise his high ethical standards (Wilhem 114). He seemed like a smart, stubborn man with very high standards for himself and for his country.

After the parliament passed a lot of new taxes on the people. Thousands of British people went to protest. Patrick Henry led the growing opposition of this (Wilhem 115). The speech gave Patrick Henry a new reputation. After he gave that forceful speech, he became a forceful proponent of liberty.

Patrick Henry wants to go to war. He feels very strong about the subject. He does not think they should raise the taxes. Giving this speech was hopefully going to be his moment of glory and the start of the war. He already had everyone's attention with the interesting subject. Everyone wanted to hear his opinion and get all the facts together. With a great introduction, he kept their attention and even attracted some other's who were not interested I am sure. He gave a very rational speech. Even though it was a rational speech, he occasionally used an emotional appeal. He also gave a lot of information and ideas. After he gave an idea, he backed it up. This is very different from Puritan writing. In Puritan writing, they just said God had everything in control. God does this, God made that a certain way. During the rationalism period, the people tended to find a logical reason for something. That is what Patrick Henry did. He gave a reason why they should go to war, and then he backed it up with facts. He rationalized his speech, and I think that worked out for the best. The phrase which is known today, "Give me liberty or give me death!" Was a great way to end his speech. It was very powerful. Even though it was a bit of a hyperbole, it still got the point across. Hyperboles are very popular and an awesome tool to use to persuade someone. His speech had a lot of nice techniques that were used to help get his point across in a great manner.

He did do something that was some what dangerous, though. He called the government "tyrants" (Wilhem 117). Calling the government a bad name can knock people off board. If they were just considering it, they would have probably stopped listening after he insulted something that they still believed in. It was a poor move on that part.

Wilhelm, Jeffrey D., and Douglas Fisher. Glencoe Literature. New York: Glencoe McGraw-Hill, 2009. Print.

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. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= GEWWII0240&SingleRecord=True (accessed September 22, 2011).

Journal #9

A rational approach is responsible way to react to an emotional situation. According to dictionary.com, rational is defined as agreeable to reason, or having good sense. Being rational is very crucial to getting through hard, emotional times.

When something horrible happens, such as when a fire breaks loose in a house, people panic. They tend to act irrational. Instead of thinking of where everyone in the house is and if they are going to be able to get out okay, they just stand there and panic. It is normal human nature to panic, but reacting in a rational manner is something everyone in a panic situation should try to do.

Being rational is a very positive way to react to something. It means you use your brain and your good sense to think about the situation you are in instead of being irrational and just doing whatever comes to your mind first without even really thinking.

Being rational also works for smaller situations. For example, my little cousin had a history test coming up and she had no idea what was going on. I like history, so I decided to help her. She wanted to just grab her book and read, thinking she would learn what she needed fast. I directed her into a more rational approach. Together we made note cards and organized all of the information from the chapter. It took longer, but she learned more information than she would have from just skimming the chapter. By taking a rational approach, she got an "A" on the test! Being rational in a situation is very helpful in the long run, even if it takes more time and effort in the beginning.

Another example that I have went through would be when a girl fainted at a cross country meet. People were panicking and did not know what to do. Luckily someone was thinking and took a rational approach. He started taking charge because someone needed to. He got someone to go get help, another person to call 9-1-1, and started looking for someone with some medical experience for immediate help. Being rational, he got her the help she needed and the situation ended with her safe and sound with her family.

Bibliography

"Rational | Define Rational at Dictionary.com." Dictionary.com | Find the Meanings and Definitions of Words at Dictionary.com. Web. 20 Sept. 2011. .

Autumn

I love Autumn! It is my favorite season. This should be an easy blog thing.

Autumn is so pretty. I love everything, from the leaves to the Pumpkin Spice Starbucks drink. Speaking of that, I could really use one of those right about now. I also quite enjoy the Pumpkin Pie Shake at Sonic. I am so hungry right now.

Autumn weather is also really nice. I love when jeans and a sweater is perfectly comfortable to wear. Not too cold, not too hot. A nice flannel is also fun to wear, like I am wearing today. Autumn makes school a little bit better. October is also a nice month because of Halloween. Halloween is a fun holiday, especially when it is a nice, autumn night. October is also a nice month because we never really have a full week of school. We get out on some Friday's early, and others we just have them completely off. My birthday is in November, so October is good because it is almost my birthday. I am so hungry. Autumn must make me hungry. That is another good thing about autumn! There is so much good food going on in autumn. There is pumpkin pie, the Pumpkin Spice Starbucks thing, the Pumpkin Pie Shake at Sonic, cookies, a lot of cinnamon stuff, pumpkin pie, caramel pie, apple cider, and a whole lot of other stuff that I can not even think of right now. Autumn is such a fun time of the year! Well, I have less words than I thought I had. So continuing my journal will be mandatory.

Autumn is also known as fall. Fall is a favorite season of hipsters a lot. Hipsters love fall. I love hipsters, so I love fall, too. Hipsters hate other hipsters, but hipsters still all love fall. Hipsters like fall because they get to wear their flannels and skinny jeans. Hipsters love fall because of the food, too. Hipsters just love fall so much. All my hipster friends love fall, which is ironic because hipsters hate other hipsters. But being ironic is also part of being a hipster, so it all fits in. Autumn is so much fun!

The Crucible Act IV

Finally finishing the Crucible, I feel accomplished. We will be ending the book with this blog. It will contain comparisons to "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."

The two novels are both examples of Puritan writing. They are pretty much revolved around God in a way. Both of the writings seem to be a little mad at God. He is very powerful. These two writings are also like the other Puritan writings we have read in this class.

"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is shorter than The Crucible. "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is basically criticizing people throughout the whole thing. The author wrote about how people are doing the wrong thing and are being bad. Criticizing the characters, the speaker seems to basically tell the characters how they are going to Hell and are horrible people. He tells the people how God is mad at them and will punish them all. He also lectured about how people are good and holy in church, but are bad outside of the church as they are on their own. This is a problem in the current day as well. I see a lot of people at church acting holy and such, but when I see them outside of church, they are cursing and not being holy at all. They are only faking themselves because God can see the people everywhere. They are just putting on an act for themselves and the church goers.

The Crucible is like this in a way. When life was difficult and confusing, they praised God and asked for help. When life got simple again, they kind of just forgot about him. When things get easy, God seems to just fall out of a person's priorities. In both novels, when they needed help they asked for it. Also in both novels, when life was going good, they forgot about God (Edwards 97). They no longer prayed as much and they no longer kept their Christian life. They started to get lazy with it. In The Crucible, people started to want to take over and they wanted power. As they tried to succeed in life, they did not care about succeeding in the after life. Their priorities were different than they were when they were struggling. When things got hard again, they started to pray again (Edwards 98).

Both of these writings did not resemble being a good Christian during the full story. Both the writings seemed to show falling away from God and falling away from being a good, respectable Christian. There is a lot of emotions in both of these writings, but none of it is really positive. All of the emotion is negative. I think these books could have been more enjoyable if they were a bit more positive. It was weird that people did not really have a happy ending in these writings. Also, when I saw novel (referring to "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God") I actually mean writing or story. It is not a a novel, but I have noticed I accidentally have said novel instead.

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York, NY: Penguin, 1996. Print.

Bloom, Harold. Arthur Miller's The Crucible. New York: Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2008. Print.

Edwards, Jonathan. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Pub., 1992. Print.

bullying and its effects on both the victims and the bully

Bullying has been going on since the beginning of time when a dinosaur would rule the land. It goes on with little things, like bugs, and bigger things, like people. Bullying is human nature for some, and to be bullied has a bunch of different possible outcomes.

There are many different effects on bullying. We will discuss about the bully's feelings first. When a bully bullies someone, they may have a bunch of different motives. One motive would be jealousy. When someone is jelly of someone, they may pick on them to take our their jealousy. Another reason that someone may bully someone is because they are self conscious of themselves. They may try and take out their anger on someone else.

The bullies can have a big effect on their victims. When someone points out a flaw to them, they may take it very hard. If they have a bad home life, they may take it even harder. Some victims act like the bully's comment did not affect them, but it still may have hurt them bad. I know that when someone makes fun of me, I act like it's no big deal and I just shrug it off, but in reality, it could have hurt me pretty bad. That is how it is for a lot of people. Cyber bullies are even worse because they do not have to say anything face to face. They can just send anonymous hate mail to a person. That could hurt the victim even worse. With all the social networking sites these days, it is easier and easier to bully someone without even being known for the bullying. It takes guts to bully someone in person, but being behind a computer screen, it is easier and easier to send hate.

People can be very cruel. Bullying is a problem in school a lot of times. The problem of bullying will never disappear, but it could get a little better. Hopefully people will realize what they are doing to others and try to be nicer to people. A lot of bullies do not even realize how bad that they are hurting their victim.

How is Human Nature displayed in the events of The Crucible

According to dictionary.com, human nature means the psychological and social qualities that characterize human kind, especially in the contrast of other things. Human nature is like a unconditional reaction, meaning you were trained to do what you do. For example, getting up when the bell rings at the end of class is an unconditional reaction. We learned about this in my psychology class, and since it related to this topic, I decided to include it in this blog. Human nature is an unconditional reaction because you do not choose to do what you do, you just learn it and it happens. It is human nature to give blame to something. When someone bad happens, the first thing someone does is put the blame on someone. For example, when the twin towers got attacked, people looked for blame. First, they thought it was an accident and that the pilot accidentally took the plane off course. Later, they learned that it was a terrorist attack. They put the blame on the wrong person, which is very popular with this human nature trait. Blame is such a horrible thing in human nature. No one can just not blame someone for something. In result, the blame is put in the wrong place a large percent of the time. When someone is late for work, it is always the traffic or the weather's fault. The driver never blames themselves for not leaving early enough.

For examples in this book, the best one would be when Betty falls ill. Even though this event happens throughout the whole book, it still is the best example. When she falls sick, people immediately look for something to blame. When something goes terribly wrong, there has to be someone to blame. In this time period, witch craft was a good thing to blame. Blaming witch craft instead of considering the possibility that she was just ill was placing the blame in the wrong direction.

Another display of human nature would be when the needle was found in the doll. The people who found it automatically assumed the worst. When we are unsure about things, we tend to think it is bad and wrong. That is exactly what they did with the doll. During this time period, they took the blame very far. For example, they killed people who tapered with the devil, even if they really did not. People were accused of things they did not do a lot during this time period.

This time period really took things too far. Witch craft was automatically assumed to be the cause of the problem when anything was sketchy at all. I can not believe this. It is truly different from our time period. When someone gets in trouble these days, they may try to put the blame on someone else, but never on something like witch craft. We have become more piratical. It is truly unthinkable how they dealt with things back then. It is also pretty interesting, though. I would be interested to see how I would survive during this time period. Being accused of tampering with witch craft seemed like a pretty easy thing to do.

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York, NY: Penguin, 1996. Web.

possible repercussions of blaming someone for something he/she didn't do

It is human nature to blame someone for something. Someone always has to take the blame in our society. Having someone to blame is like a way to take your anger away.

Blaming yourself, even when you are the one who deserves the blame, is a very hard thing. Instead of blaming themselves for their problems, a lot of people blame someone else. For example, if you are fat, a lot of people don't blame themselves for eating too much. They might blame their parents or their generation.

I once blamed my sister for something bad that I did. I ate the last cookie from the cookie jar that was supposed to be saved for my dad when he got home from work. Eating the cookie, I was not even worried about the punishment because I figured I could blame my younger sister. When my mom found out that there were not any cookies left, she questioned us. I immediately denied and told her that I saw my younger sister, Maddie, eat the cookie. Maddie, flabbergasted, denied. Eventually, my mom found out that I ate it. I got in even more trouble for lying. When you blame someone else, you get in even more trouble and have an even worse consequence for the bad thing you did if someone finds out the truth. If you blame someone else for something that you should take the blame for, like being fat, then you are just lying to yourself. Lying to yourself cannot be very good for your personal being, especially if you honestly believe that lie.

The previous examples are pretty much all minor blaming issues. There are also bigger blaming issues, such as ones that involve the government. For an example that is relevant to this time, when the twin towers were attacked, people blamed the terrorists. The terrorists were the one who should have been blamed for this act. Later on when people did "research," some people blamed our own government. That was putting the blame in the wrong place, which is not good.

Reflection - Discuss several main characters in terms of their True Colors personalities

All of the characters in this book are different in some way, just like in real life. For example, I could be a happy, go along with everything person, while one of my classmates would be a pessimistic trouble maker. Just like in real life, the characters in this novel all have different personalities.

Last class, we went over colors that represented different types of personalities. The colors we discussed were orange, blue, green, and gold (True colors). A pretty odd choice of colors if you ask me. Anyways, orange would have excitement and energy while blue would be a conservative romantic type of person. Each person in this book has a different amount of each color in them.

The first character I would like to discuss is John Hale. I think that John definitely has a green personality. He was a very smart man, even if he did use his intelligence for evil (Bloom 80). John's green personality stopped him from making stupid mistakes, but at the same time, he was too hard on others. That is definitely a trait of someone with a green personality. For example, he was too hard on Abigail and he thought he was doing the right thing.

Next, I would like to discuss Giles Corey. Giles seems to have a mixture of colors. I think he has a little orange in him because he is always enthused (True colors). He seems like a clown. Giles brought adventure with him everywhere he went, just like orange personality beings do. Orange people also take risks all the time, which is what he did when he was accused for being involved in wicthcraft (Bloom 66). I would definitely say that Giles Corey has an orange personality.

Thomas Putnam is the next character that I would like to discuss. I think Thomas Putnam has a mixture of colors, too. He might be a little blue because he seems harsh, but at the same time he seems like he has a soft side on the inside that he wants someone to bring out (Bloom 91). Putnam also has some orange in him because he likes challenges and things that keep him going. He is not gold because of his grudge that he holds against the nurse. Gold people usually help people. That also makes him less blue. I guess I would have to say he is a mixture of green and blue, with a little orange stripe inside of him (Bloom 75).

The last character I will discuss in this blog is Abigail has a lot of different colors in her too, it seems. She is smart, so she has some green in her (True colors). I think she is smart because of how she covered for herself in front of the adults. She has a quick mind. I also think she has some orange in her because she is quick to join any excitement or thrill. Being a good liar, I think she uses her orange and green personality for evil. I am sure she is very successful with it, but she could be using those personality skills for other things. Being a servant, I think she has a little gold in her. I think this because she likes to help others. Occasionally showing a passionate side, she even has some blue. Blue meaning sensitive, I think she is a rainbow of colors!

Bloom, Harold. Arthur Miller's The Crucible. New York: Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2008. Print.

Dictionary.com | Find the Meanings and Definitions of Words at Dictionary.com. Web. 20 Sept. 2011. .

"True Colors." True Colors International. Baytech Web Design. Web. 18 Oct. 2011.

a fair 21st Century punishment

Being a teenager who spends most of my time on the internet, I would personally hate having my internet usage taken away.
Technology has become a huge part in my life, as well as many other teenager's lives. Although some teens are addicted to Facebook, I am more interested in blogging and learning new things. I do not want to fall behind in the world of technology, I want to be ahead. That is why I spend my much spent time online participating in blogging and learning about new technology.
If I was being punished, the worst thing you could do to me would be to take away my internet access. Spending most of my day on the internet, I would be missing my blog and I would fall behind on my school work. I keep organized by the internet. I write papers in Google Docs. Taking away my internet would just make me lost.
Taking away my phone would not hurt me as much, though. If my phone was taken away, but not my internet, I would be fine because I could use the internet to communicate just as thoroughly. If you took away my internet, but not my phone, I could still communicate with friends, but I could not use the internet. On a lot of teenager's phones, internet is accessible. Although it would be harder to blog and such, it would still be possible.
The article that Mr. Langley read assumes that students are obsessed with Facebook. Claiming that taking away Facebook would be ending the world, it takes a dramatic turn that does not apply to everyone. For example, that does not apply to me. I do not need to be on Facebook at least once a day. My blogging site is different, though. I do not need Facebook to survive. I could delete it, and be okay. I rarely use it, really.

Reflection: How does The Crucible display the qualities of Puritans

The Crucible displays many qualities of Puritan writing. After reading the novel and not fully understanding the details, I read the summary on SparkNotes to get the full idea.

The similarity that stuck out the most to me was that the government in this novel was a theocracy. A theocracy is a government ruled by God (Miller 60). Obviously this fact is similar to the Puritan style because the Puritans were all about God.

During this time in Salem, God was a central aspect. Just like in the Puritan writing style, they tried to involve God with everything that their town was a part of. Even starting out in the play, a man is already praying. During this time, if anyone was sick and they could not deem a reason for it, they assumed it was witchcraft. After the possibly bewitched being goes to trial, the town determines if they are truly bewitched (Miller 65). Being involved in witchcraft was a horrible sin. No one should even dance, let alone communicate with the devil. In the other Puritan styled writing, nothing this evil and against God has been discussed (in my experience with the few readings we have done in class.) This reading has ventured further off from God and dealt more with sin. Even though it is still saying witchcraft is wrong, it is still the most evil reading that I have read so far. In my opinion, it is different than the other readings so far because of its level of evil.

In this novel, it was clear that if a member of the town was not a good Christian and did not follow the bible properly, it was the whole town's business (Miller 60). Everyone seemed to assume that the person accused of witchcraft definitely had something to do with it without even talking to the person. The town was spreading rumors faster than a wild fire spreads. I find this ironic because gossip is a sin, and that is what they were doing. They were gossiping about one of their town member's being bewitched. Everyone had their own little spin on it, too. Nothing was official and a lot of false things were being said. That in itself is a sin. Maybe the townsfolk should look at correcting themselves instead of so hardly, and falsely, judging others wrongdoing.

Another thing is that Betty's father seems to be more worried about his reputation than his daughter getting better (Miller 63). This writing seems to be like the Puritan writing style because God is the center of it, but the characters do not seem to be good bible followers because they judge others and let their own sins slide. It is rather ironic, really.

Believing in God is a strong belief of the Puritans. In the previous readings, the characters always turned to God for help when they were in a tough spot. They always believed that God would get them out of their mess. In this book, Betty's father did pray for her, but he did not seem to ask God for the right things or even thank him for the little things (Miller59). He just seemed unhappy and mad. That was not like the other Puritan writing examples at all.

Works Cited

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York, NY: Penguin, 1996. Web.

"SparkNotes: The Crucible: Act I: Opening Scene to the Entrance of John Proctor." SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides. Web. 07 Sept. 2011.

"True Colors." True Colors International. Baytech Web Design. Web. 18 Oct. 2011.

Experience of Traveling

My experiences of traveling have been favorable. I quite enjoy leaving the crappy town of Springfield to go explore a new area. My family and I do not get a long too well, so when I travel, I prefer to not go with them. This past weekend I got to drive to Milikin University with my friend, Kara. Even though it was only a forty minute drive, I still enjoyed it a lot. Driving makes me happy. I love being in new areas. I felt free and happy traveling out of Springfield into the unknown. I can not wait to travel further when I am older.

My experiences traveling with my family have not been horrid, though. I do not prefer to be locked in a car with them, but sometimes with music and books it is not too atrocious.

My favorite part about traveling is the feeling I get. I feel free and like I have no worries. It makes you think that the people who do not go to college and travel instead may not be so insane. I am going to go to college, but I am going to travel after that. New areas just make me feel so alive! I also love being somewhere where no one knows who you are. You can just be yourself and do whatever you want. After I graduate from college, I hope to move to some hipsteresque culture and start a nice business. I want to start something fun and creative, like a frozen yogurt shop or a park. So obviously I want to go to a business school and suffer through all the math that is not my specialty. Maybe I'll find someone to take care of that part for me. Obviously I drifted off topic a little here, but I think this will still work. I like traveling and the feeling I get from being somewhere new. It's exciting.

Reflection Blog: How does the writing of Bradford reflect the qualities of Puritan writing?

"Plymouth Plantation" was written by William Bradford. Bradford, being thirty years old, was a very religious man. He was on the Mayflower in the year of 1620. A lot of people in his spot were also very religious.

The pilgrims had to migrate from the Netherlands, and since they did not enjoy it there, they went to America. They did not like the Netherlands because of the culture. With America being new, there were a lot disease that effected the pilgrims (Bradford 67). A lot of them died from the diseases. The winter time also killed off a lot of the pilgrims. Some areas of America can get extremely cold!

Bradford's writing are great examples of Puritan writing. For example, Bradford wrote about how we do not chose when we die. We live until God wants us to die. When someone died on the Mayflower, the other pilgrims knew that it was God's choice that he/she died. This is like the Puritan writing style because the Puritans also believed that God controlled when they lived and died. If God was ready for you to die, you would die (Bradford 67).

Even when people died, the pilgrims still thanked God for getting where they are in life. For example, when they were near Cape Cod, the pilgrims thanked the Providence of God. They were in the wrong place, too. They still thanked God for everything. They were very dedicated to their religion. They were thankful to be on land. In this day and age, if someone was on a plane and the plane landed in a different country, you would be mad. We would not be thanking God for letting us reach land; we would be mad about him putting us in the wrong place. But in this day and age, we do not stick to the Puritan way as strongly.

The quote "And yet the Lord so upheld these persons as in this general calamity they were not at all infected either with sickness or lameness..." (Bradford 66) shows how only God chooses who lives and dies. He keeps people alive until he decides that their time on Earth is up. People had no decision on whether they lived or died. I find it very interesting that all of these people were that dedicated to their religion. People these days usually have doubts or do not strictly follow their religion, but in the Puritan writing style it seems that there are no doubts and everyone follows the religion very strictly.

This writing also reflects the Puritan writing style because of helping. Helping other people was very important in the Puritan religion. Squanto helped the pilgrims with some of their problems. He teaches them things, too (Bradford 66). They say that he has been sent from God. When something bad happened, they were positive about the little things and thanked God for them. This writing is very dedicated to God, just like the Puritan writing style. Everything good that happened to them was because of their dedication to God (Bradford 66).

Bradford, William. "Of Plymouth Plantation." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 62-68. Print.

Hostage Situation!

I once read a book about how a girl was held hostage and then buried alive. It was definitely one of my favorite books. Ever since I read that back in middle school, I've always wondered what it would be like to be held hostage. In the book, someone saved her at the last minute, but I know that in real life, that doesn't always happen.
If I were held hostage, I know I would be very scared. I would probably cry and have a panic attack, to be honest. A lot of people would say that they would be brave and do whatever they could to get out. Some people may even think that, but when they get in that situation, they have no idea how the will react. You never know how being held hostage would effect you until you have actually been held hostage. For example, my classmate claims that she "could probably escape pretty swiftly." I am sure it would not be easy, at all, to escape from a fully grown man being a teenage girl.
If I were in a hostage situation, I think I would try my best to not upset the hostage-taker. Someone would find me soon, at least I would hope. I would try to just be quiet and hopefully the hostage-taker would not harm me in any way. If any harm was going to happen, I would try to convince him not to. The stories on the news where there's a burglar who enters a store to rob it, but ends up finding God with help from an employee working are very interesting but do not seem like it would be any easy task. I'm sure that is an incredibly rare occurrence, but anything is worth a try. I would hope someone would notice that I was gone very soon after I was taken hostage so the police could try and find me as soon as possible. Hopefully I would never have to endure such a thing.