Topic:
=> You all have topics already, but you need to double check the Wikipedia guidelines to ensure the topic you have chosen will work.
=> Be sure that you aren’t promoting an idea or product; you need to remain neutral and unbiased.
=> Make sure that all of your information can be substantiated by secondary sources.
Sources:
=> You need to cite all of your sources using the Wikipedia guidelines. Do not use the MLA guidelines for this project.
=> Make sure your sources are reputable and trustworthy. Neither blogs, social networking sites, not personal interviews are allowed.
=> Be sure to include a “References” section at the bottom of your page.
Assignment Guidelines:
=> You need to include an introduction that features your topic at the beginning of the opening sentence in bold.
=> You need to include at least four body paragraphs with headings.
=> Try to include two or three links to other Wikipedia pages in each paragraph.
=> You need to include a heading for your reference section.
=> You may want to include a heading for external links or “See Also,” but this is not a requirement.
=> You may want to include pictures, charts, tables, or graphs, but these are not requirements.
=> Be sure to focus on the syntax and tone of your article. It should be properly punctuated and sound like an encyclopedia entry, not a personal essay or a research paper.
Grading:
=> The project is worth 225 points.
=> Punctuation and grammar are worth 50 points. The more mistakes you have, the more points this will cause you to lose.
=> Research and sources are worth 75 points. To get all of these points, you must have everything sited correctly and refer to reputable sources.
=> The overall structure, organization and use of information is worth the final 100 points.
Due Dates:
=> March 23/24 – Peer editing
=> March 28/29 – Paper Due (Post it on-line and submit a paper copy)
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
121 Paper 1 Example
Windemere: The Childhood Summer Home of Ernest Hemingway
The history of the state of Michigan is ripe with art and creativity. From Motown Records in the 1960s to Madonna in the 1980s and from Diego Rivera’s Modernist mural in Detroit to the songs and stories of Native Americans in the Upper Peninsula, the cultural life of our state should never be underestimated. It was in the midst of this cultural history that one of America’s most famous writers spent his summers as he matured into a name among names in American literature. Ernest Hemingway, having written some of the most widely read book of the 20th Century, including To Have and Have Not, A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and the Sea, and The Snows of Kilimanjaro, has influenced every generation of American life since the 1920s. Another of his books, the short story collection titled In Our Time, is primarily set in rural Northern Michigan, the same rural north where he spent his childhood summers at the family cottage, Windemere, on Walloon Lake in Emmet County. Although clearly an influential area on his life and works, little has been written about this home, a home built by his father as a small shack in 1899 and then expanded over the years before finally becoming a registered National Historic Landmark in 1968.
If one were to begin writing a Wikipedia page about this home, the obvious place to start would be on the internet. Government sites like www.nps.gov, the official site of the National Parks Service, have information about the process through which any landmark goes before actually being registered. There is no information on the NPS site about Windemere though, so looking elsewhere on the web would become necessary. The Michigan State Housing Development Authority has a brief description of the home and the home’s history, including when it was built, when it was added to both the State and National Historic Registers, and when Ernest Hemingway actually lived there.
Aside from the official, government sites, Universities and historical societies offer more information. The Clarke Historical library at Central Michigan University yields a complex history of the home and of its construction with many photographs and side-notes depicting what life would have been like in a small Northern Michigan cottage at the turn of the last century. The Michigan Hemingway Society, an organization dedicated to researching and promoting the influence that Michigan had on his works, also dedicates multiple pages on their web-site to his life on Walloon Lake, and particularly to the time he spent at Windemere. They also provide a link to a PDF file of the full text of Frederick Svorboda’s guide-book, Up North with the Hemingways and Nick Adams, a brief view into the life of the Hemingway family in Northern Michigan.
Once the Universities and historical Societies have been utilized, one should turn to on-line journals as a final web resource. Magazines like Michigan Country Lines On-Line and Home Life: An Up North Magazine have recently published fascinating articles regarding the home and the history of the area. In these articles, Mike Buda and Beth Anne Piehl respectively, demonstrate the contemporary history of the house, information that will work well on a Wikipedia page once it is coupled with the older information from the other sources. A third on-line magazine, Absolute Michigan, published the article, “Michigan History: Up North with the Hemingways,” in 2007. Although there is no author listed on the article, it is still a strong source for information and will work well as another option when preparing the Wikipedia page. After spending a little time with a search-engine like Google, it’s important to also turn to something a bit more academic like the MLA Database, a database that collects information about scholarly articles dealing with literature and history. A simple search using “Hemingway” and “Michigan” as keywords returns twenty articles from peer-reviewed journals. The first of which is from the Spring ’09 edition of Hemingway Review,” and the article titled “I Also, Am in Michigan': Pastoralism of Mind in 'Big Two-Hearted River.” This article shows the connections between Hemingway and his short story “Big Two-Hearted River.” This will be important because it makes the link between his writing and his connection to Michigan that is at the center of the Wikipedia page.
Another article found using the MLA Database is called “Hemingway’s Michigan Landscapes,” also from Hemingway Review, but this one is from the Fall ’07 edition. In it, Ron Berman explains the influence Michigan had on Hemingway’s stories in general, not just on “Big Two-Hearted River.” He also explains how the use of landscape in a narrative demands that both the writer and the reader make certain choices, choices that are central to the construction of the plot, central to the interpretation of the narrative, and central to the creation within the writer’s overall canon. It’s these choices, argues Berman, that tie the stories to Michigan and specifically to Windemere; this will again work to explain why Windemere is worthy of a page on Wikipedia.
Along with these two articles, many also exist specifically about his story “Up In Michigan” from his first book, Three Stories and Ten Poems. In this book, a book which clearly includes only three stories, the second is specifically about his childhood at Windemere so not only will these articles be of use, but the book itself will also. Furthermore, no Wikipedia entry about Windemere would be complete without references to the other stories he wrote about Northern Michigan which can be found in the book The Nick Adams Stories which was collected and published posthumously in 1972. Although it was published after his death, it brings together his Michigan stories in one volume, arranged in such a way as to follow his own wishes.
While his own works are obviously useful for a Wikipedia page, works by other writers like Gloria Whelan, a young adult author living in Northern Michigan might also be of use. The novel The Pathless Woods from 1981 is about a young Ernest Hemingway and his life growing up at Windemere. More recently, Ellen Rosewall published the short story collection Sparkle Island about life on Walloon Lake and features a story titled “Ernest Hemingway Sat Here.” These books will be important because they demonstrate the influence his time at Windemere has had on more contemporary writers, and while Rosewall is a lesser known author, Whelan’s influence should not be underestimated. She won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature in 2000 for her novel The Homeless Bird.
Once the Wikipedian includes some references to recent biographies of Hemingway like A Portrait of Hemingway by Lillian Ross from 1999 and The Hemingway Patrols, Terry Mart’s 2009 biography about Hemingway’s military career, the page will be complete. This information about Windemere will be useful to anyone interested in life in Northern Michigan in general or specifically in Hemingway’s childhood. It’s clear that Windemere was an important part of his youth and that writers, scholars, and general fans alike will enjoy learning more about this historic cottage.
The history of the state of Michigan is ripe with art and creativity. From Motown Records in the 1960s to Madonna in the 1980s and from Diego Rivera’s Modernist mural in Detroit to the songs and stories of Native Americans in the Upper Peninsula, the cultural life of our state should never be underestimated. It was in the midst of this cultural history that one of America’s most famous writers spent his summers as he matured into a name among names in American literature. Ernest Hemingway, having written some of the most widely read book of the 20th Century, including To Have and Have Not, A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and the Sea, and The Snows of Kilimanjaro, has influenced every generation of American life since the 1920s. Another of his books, the short story collection titled In Our Time, is primarily set in rural Northern Michigan, the same rural north where he spent his childhood summers at the family cottage, Windemere, on Walloon Lake in Emmet County. Although clearly an influential area on his life and works, little has been written about this home, a home built by his father as a small shack in 1899 and then expanded over the years before finally becoming a registered National Historic Landmark in 1968.
If one were to begin writing a Wikipedia page about this home, the obvious place to start would be on the internet. Government sites like www.nps.gov, the official site of the National Parks Service, have information about the process through which any landmark goes before actually being registered. There is no information on the NPS site about Windemere though, so looking elsewhere on the web would become necessary. The Michigan State Housing Development Authority has a brief description of the home and the home’s history, including when it was built, when it was added to both the State and National Historic Registers, and when Ernest Hemingway actually lived there.
Aside from the official, government sites, Universities and historical societies offer more information. The Clarke Historical library at Central Michigan University yields a complex history of the home and of its construction with many photographs and side-notes depicting what life would have been like in a small Northern Michigan cottage at the turn of the last century. The Michigan Hemingway Society, an organization dedicated to researching and promoting the influence that Michigan had on his works, also dedicates multiple pages on their web-site to his life on Walloon Lake, and particularly to the time he spent at Windemere. They also provide a link to a PDF file of the full text of Frederick Svorboda’s guide-book, Up North with the Hemingways and Nick Adams, a brief view into the life of the Hemingway family in Northern Michigan.
Once the Universities and historical Societies have been utilized, one should turn to on-line journals as a final web resource. Magazines like Michigan Country Lines On-Line and Home Life: An Up North Magazine have recently published fascinating articles regarding the home and the history of the area. In these articles, Mike Buda and Beth Anne Piehl respectively, demonstrate the contemporary history of the house, information that will work well on a Wikipedia page once it is coupled with the older information from the other sources. A third on-line magazine, Absolute Michigan, published the article, “Michigan History: Up North with the Hemingways,” in 2007. Although there is no author listed on the article, it is still a strong source for information and will work well as another option when preparing the Wikipedia page. After spending a little time with a search-engine like Google, it’s important to also turn to something a bit more academic like the MLA Database, a database that collects information about scholarly articles dealing with literature and history. A simple search using “Hemingway” and “Michigan” as keywords returns twenty articles from peer-reviewed journals. The first of which is from the Spring ’09 edition of Hemingway Review,” and the article titled “I Also, Am in Michigan': Pastoralism of Mind in 'Big Two-Hearted River.” This article shows the connections between Hemingway and his short story “Big Two-Hearted River.” This will be important because it makes the link between his writing and his connection to Michigan that is at the center of the Wikipedia page.
Another article found using the MLA Database is called “Hemingway’s Michigan Landscapes,” also from Hemingway Review, but this one is from the Fall ’07 edition. In it, Ron Berman explains the influence Michigan had on Hemingway’s stories in general, not just on “Big Two-Hearted River.” He also explains how the use of landscape in a narrative demands that both the writer and the reader make certain choices, choices that are central to the construction of the plot, central to the interpretation of the narrative, and central to the creation within the writer’s overall canon. It’s these choices, argues Berman, that tie the stories to Michigan and specifically to Windemere; this will again work to explain why Windemere is worthy of a page on Wikipedia.
Along with these two articles, many also exist specifically about his story “Up In Michigan” from his first book, Three Stories and Ten Poems. In this book, a book which clearly includes only three stories, the second is specifically about his childhood at Windemere so not only will these articles be of use, but the book itself will also. Furthermore, no Wikipedia entry about Windemere would be complete without references to the other stories he wrote about Northern Michigan which can be found in the book The Nick Adams Stories which was collected and published posthumously in 1972. Although it was published after his death, it brings together his Michigan stories in one volume, arranged in such a way as to follow his own wishes.
While his own works are obviously useful for a Wikipedia page, works by other writers like Gloria Whelan, a young adult author living in Northern Michigan might also be of use. The novel The Pathless Woods from 1981 is about a young Ernest Hemingway and his life growing up at Windemere. More recently, Ellen Rosewall published the short story collection Sparkle Island about life on Walloon Lake and features a story titled “Ernest Hemingway Sat Here.” These books will be important because they demonstrate the influence his time at Windemere has had on more contemporary writers, and while Rosewall is a lesser known author, Whelan’s influence should not be underestimated. She won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature in 2000 for her novel The Homeless Bird.
Once the Wikipedian includes some references to recent biographies of Hemingway like A Portrait of Hemingway by Lillian Ross from 1999 and The Hemingway Patrols, Terry Mart’s 2009 biography about Hemingway’s military career, the page will be complete. This information about Windemere will be useful to anyone interested in life in Northern Michigan in general or specifically in Hemingway’s childhood. It’s clear that Windemere was an important part of his youth and that writers, scholars, and general fans alike will enjoy learning more about this historic cottage.
121 Paper 1 Rubric
Topic:
=> You should all have topics already.
=> Ensure that it is noteworthy enough for the Wikipedia project.
=> Make sure that all of your information can be substantiated by secondary sources.
Sources:
=> You need to cite all of your sources using the Wikipedia guidelines. Do not use the MLA guidelines for this project.
=> Make sure your sources are reputable and trustworthy. Neither blogs, social networking sites, nor personal interviews are allowed for Paper 2, but personal interviews will be required for paper three.
Assignment Guidelines:
=> Write as though your audience are people who plan to write this Wikipedia page.
=> Explain to them where they will need to look in order to find the information.
=> Maintain a formal tone without personal comments or references to “I,” “me,” or “you.”
=> Structure it either by type of source or by how it will fit together in the Wikipedia page.
=> This paper should include an introductory paragraph and a conclusion.
=> This paper should be about four pages long.
=> Be sure to focus on the syntax and ton. It should be properly punctuated and organized.
Grading:
=> The project is worth 150 points.
=> Punctuation and grammar are worth 30 points. The more mistakes you have, the more points this will cause you to lose.
=> Research and sources are worth 40 points. To get all of these points, you must have everything sited correctly and refer to reputable sources.
=> The overall structure, organization and use of information is worth the final 80 points.
Due Dates:
=> Peer Editing – July 19
=> Paper Due – July 21
=> You should all have topics already.
=> Ensure that it is noteworthy enough for the Wikipedia project.
=> Make sure that all of your information can be substantiated by secondary sources.
Sources:
=> You need to cite all of your sources using the Wikipedia guidelines. Do not use the MLA guidelines for this project.
=> Make sure your sources are reputable and trustworthy. Neither blogs, social networking sites, nor personal interviews are allowed for Paper 2, but personal interviews will be required for paper three.
Assignment Guidelines:
=> Write as though your audience are people who plan to write this Wikipedia page.
=> Explain to them where they will need to look in order to find the information.
=> Maintain a formal tone without personal comments or references to “I,” “me,” or “you.”
=> Structure it either by type of source or by how it will fit together in the Wikipedia page.
=> This paper should include an introductory paragraph and a conclusion.
=> This paper should be about four pages long.
=> Be sure to focus on the syntax and ton. It should be properly punctuated and organized.
Grading:
=> The project is worth 150 points.
=> Punctuation and grammar are worth 30 points. The more mistakes you have, the more points this will cause you to lose.
=> Research and sources are worth 40 points. To get all of these points, you must have everything sited correctly and refer to reputable sources.
=> The overall structure, organization and use of information is worth the final 80 points.
Due Dates:
=> Peer Editing – July 19
=> Paper Due – July 21
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Book List for Lit 160
Book List for the Five Page Paper:
* Baldwin, James: Go Tell It on the Mountain
Giovanni’s Room
Another Country
* Bambara, Toni Cade: The Salt Eaters
* Beatty, Paul: The White boy Shuffle
Tuff
Slumberland
* Brown, Wiliam Wells: Clotel or The President’s Daughter
* Butler, Octavia: Kindred
Fledgling
* Cooper, J. California: Life is Short but Wide
* Danticat, Edwidge: Breath, Eyes, Memory
* Ellison, Ralph: Invisible Man
* Gaines, Ernest J: I Lesson Before Dying
A Gathering of Old Men
* Himes, Chester: If He Hollers Let Him Go
The Real Cool Killers
* Hughes, Langston: Not Without Laughter
* Johnson, James Weldon: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
* Larsen, Nella: Quicksand
Passing
* Lourde, Audre: Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
* Mackey, Nathaniel: Djbot Babhostus’s Run
* Morrison, Toni: The Bluest Eye
Sula
Song of Solomon
Beloved
A Mercy
* Mosley, Walter: Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned
Devil in a Blue Dress
* Naylor, Gloria: The Women of Brewster Place
* Reed, Ishmael: Mumbo Jumbo
Reckless Eyeballing
Flight to Canada
* Sapphire: Push
* Slim, Iceberg: Pimp
* Toomer, Jean: Cane
* Walker, Alice: The Color Purple
* Wilson Harriet: Our Nig
* Wright, Richard: Native Son
* Baldwin, James: Go Tell It on the Mountain
Giovanni’s Room
Another Country
* Bambara, Toni Cade: The Salt Eaters
* Beatty, Paul: The White boy Shuffle
Tuff
Slumberland
* Brown, Wiliam Wells: Clotel or The President’s Daughter
* Butler, Octavia: Kindred
Fledgling
* Cooper, J. California: Life is Short but Wide
* Danticat, Edwidge: Breath, Eyes, Memory
* Ellison, Ralph: Invisible Man
* Gaines, Ernest J: I Lesson Before Dying
A Gathering of Old Men
* Himes, Chester: If He Hollers Let Him Go
The Real Cool Killers
* Hughes, Langston: Not Without Laughter
* Johnson, James Weldon: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
* Larsen, Nella: Quicksand
Passing
* Lourde, Audre: Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
* Mackey, Nathaniel: Djbot Babhostus’s Run
* Morrison, Toni: The Bluest Eye
Sula
Song of Solomon
Beloved
A Mercy
* Mosley, Walter: Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned
Devil in a Blue Dress
* Naylor, Gloria: The Women of Brewster Place
* Reed, Ishmael: Mumbo Jumbo
Reckless Eyeballing
Flight to Canada
* Sapphire: Push
* Slim, Iceberg: Pimp
* Toomer, Jean: Cane
* Walker, Alice: The Color Purple
* Wilson Harriet: Our Nig
* Wright, Richard: Native Son
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Gina Sinisi: "Clothing Optional"
Should you wear your green t-shirt and corduroys today or your leather jacket and combat pants? Perhaps you feel like wearing your good old trustworthy blue jeans instead. No matter what you choose, you must choose something because in American society getting dressed is not an option. While you are not allowed to roam freely in your birthday suit, whatever suit you do wear is your decision, as is where you get your clothes and what they are made of. It’s easy to drive to the mall and consume to your heart’s desire, but what about these traditional American clothing stores? Are they the best shopping option? What if I told you your blue jeans are deadly? Literally. Are they worth the life of another person? Would you trade them for your mom? It’s important to know what you’re wearing, who made it, and wear it came from. It’s important to know you have choices.
Blue jeans are the favorite pants of Americans, but because of the toxic dying process used to make them and the unfortunate chemical –laden cotton growing practices, they put their creators in dangerous situations. I believe in the good old “Do unto others as you would have done to yourself” mantra, and like I mentioned earlier, would you trade your mom for your jeans? No? Then why ask someone else to do the same?
If you are attached to wearing jeans, and your old ones are too worn out for your liking, then it is still possible to find some new ones. One great alternative to buying new clothes is buying second hand, used, or vintage clothing. This option is the most environmentally friendly one because it’s reusing what already exists and doesn’t add to material waste. Second hand shopping is also a great bargain and usually incredibly cheap. Garage sales are a great means for selling or buying new clothes and it’s usually possible to bargain over the price. If you really get excited about clothes and know people who have enviable wardrobes, organizing a clothing swap is another option. This way, you can always borrow something back if you miss it too much, and you always know your clothes can be found on friendly bodies.
If you have a fair budget and you feel that second hand shopping doesn’t always suit your needs, then buying clothes made out of organic cotton or hemp is another agriculturally responsible decision. Typical cotton production is toxic and dangerous. “Because the cotton plant is susceptible to disease and pests, it’s usually doused with a potent mix of agricultural chemicals. Some of these poisons are carcinogenic; others have been linked to headaches, dizziness, lung infections, asthma, depressions, and birth defects” (Visscher 22). While hemp is a much more sustainable plant than cotton and grows easily almost anywhere, the government, unfortunately, doesn’t allow farmers to grow it in the States, so if you buy a product made of hemp, understand that you are not buying locally or nationally.
While searching through the racks at second hand stores and reading lables takes more time than bouncing from store to store at the mall, it is kind of like a treasure hunt and the harder you work at searching for the treasure the better the treasure is. You have to get dressed. You don’t have an option. You do, however, have the option of deciding what to wear and what role you want to play in the American clothing industry.
Works Cited
Visscher, Marco. “Imps & Elfs: Fashion Sense.” Ode. April 2006: 22-24. Print.
Blue jeans are the favorite pants of Americans, but because of the toxic dying process used to make them and the unfortunate chemical –laden cotton growing practices, they put their creators in dangerous situations. I believe in the good old “Do unto others as you would have done to yourself” mantra, and like I mentioned earlier, would you trade your mom for your jeans? No? Then why ask someone else to do the same?
If you are attached to wearing jeans, and your old ones are too worn out for your liking, then it is still possible to find some new ones. One great alternative to buying new clothes is buying second hand, used, or vintage clothing. This option is the most environmentally friendly one because it’s reusing what already exists and doesn’t add to material waste. Second hand shopping is also a great bargain and usually incredibly cheap. Garage sales are a great means for selling or buying new clothes and it’s usually possible to bargain over the price. If you really get excited about clothes and know people who have enviable wardrobes, organizing a clothing swap is another option. This way, you can always borrow something back if you miss it too much, and you always know your clothes can be found on friendly bodies.
If you have a fair budget and you feel that second hand shopping doesn’t always suit your needs, then buying clothes made out of organic cotton or hemp is another agriculturally responsible decision. Typical cotton production is toxic and dangerous. “Because the cotton plant is susceptible to disease and pests, it’s usually doused with a potent mix of agricultural chemicals. Some of these poisons are carcinogenic; others have been linked to headaches, dizziness, lung infections, asthma, depressions, and birth defects” (Visscher 22). While hemp is a much more sustainable plant than cotton and grows easily almost anywhere, the government, unfortunately, doesn’t allow farmers to grow it in the States, so if you buy a product made of hemp, understand that you are not buying locally or nationally.
While searching through the racks at second hand stores and reading lables takes more time than bouncing from store to store at the mall, it is kind of like a treasure hunt and the harder you work at searching for the treasure the better the treasure is. You have to get dressed. You don’t have an option. You do, however, have the option of deciding what to wear and what role you want to play in the American clothing industry.
Works Cited
Visscher, Marco. “Imps & Elfs: Fashion Sense.” Ode. April 2006: 22-24. Print.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Barbara Ehrenreich: "Premature Pragmatism"
The setting was one of those bucolic Ivy League campuses where the tuition exceeds the average American annual income and the favorite sport is white-water rafting – so far, in other words, as one might hope to get from the banal economic worries that plague the grown-up world. The subject, among the roomful of young women who had come to meet with me, turned to “life after college” - :if there is one” (nervous giggles). “My dream was to go into psychiatric social work,” offered a serious young woman in overall and a “Divest Now” button, “but I don’t think I could live on that, so I going into business instead.” When I protested and said that she should hold on to her ideals and try to get by on the $30,000 or so a year psychiatric social workers earn, she looked baffled, as if I were recommending an internship with Mother Teresa.
“Ideal are alright when you’re young,” declared another woman, a campus activist who certainly seemed to fit the age group for which she found idealism appropriate, “but you do have to think about earning a living.” Well, yes, I thought to myself, we older feminists have been saying for some time that the goal of higher education for women is not the “MRS” degree, but when did we ever say that it was banking?
Not that a little respect for the dollar isn’t a fine thing in the young, and a useful antidote, in my day anyway, for the effects of too much Hesse or Kahlil Gibran. But no one in the room had gone so far as to suggest a career in almsgiving, washing lepers’ feet, or doing literacy training among the Bushmen. “Idealism,” to these undergraduates, was defined as an ordinary, respectable profession in the human services. “Realism,” meant plunging almost from pubescence in to the stone hearted world of finance capitalism.
Ehrenreich 2
I find this mindset, which you will find on almost any campus today, “premature pragmatism,” and I’m quite qualified to comment because I, too, was once a victim of it. I had gone to college with an intellectual agenda that included solving the mind-body problem, discovering the source of human evil, and getting an tentative reading on the purpose of life. But within a few months, I had dropped all that and become a chemistry major – partly because I had figured out that there are only meager rewards, in this world, for those who know the purpose of life and the source of all evil.
The result, twenty odd years later is pretty much what you’d expect: I’m an ex-science major with no definite occupation (unless you count “writing,” that universal cover for those who avoid wage slavery at all costs), and I’m still obsessed with the Ultimate Questions, such as What It’s All About and Whether the Universe Will Expand Forever. I could have turned out much worse; I could have stayed in chemistry and gone into something much less idealistic like nerve-gas or plastic, in which case I might have become rich and would almost certainly have become an embittered alcoholic or a middle-aged dropout. The point is that premature pragmatism didn’t work for me, and I doubt it will work for any young person intending to set aside a “Divest Now” button for one reading “You have a friend at Chase Manhattan.”
Yet premature pragmatism has become as popular on college campuses as, in past eras, swallowing goldfish to impress ones friends or taking over the administration building to demand a better world. There has been a precipitous decline, just the seventies, in the number of students majoring in mind-expanding but only incidentally remunerative fields like history and mathematics. Meanwhile, business – as an academic pursuit – is booming: almost one-fourth of all college graduates were business majors in 1983, compared to one-seventh in 1973, while the proportions who major in philosophy or literature have vanished beyond the decimal point to less than 1 percent.
Erhenreich 3
Even more alarming to anyone whose own life has been scarred by premature pragmatism, is the decline in “idealism” as expressed by undergraduates and measured by pollsters. In 1968, 85 percent of college students said that they hoped their education would help them “develop a philosophy of life,” etc., etc. In 1985, only 44 percent adhered to such lofty goals, while the majority expected that education would help them “earn a lot of money.” There has been, in other words, almost a 50 percent decline in idealism and a 100 percent increase in venality, or to put it less judgmentally, premature pragmatism.
I concede though, that there are good reasons for the hard-nosed pragmatism of today’s college students. They face rougher times, economically, than did my generation or the generation before mine. As economists frank Levy and Richard Michel have recently shown, today’s baby boomers (and especially the younger ones) are far less likely than their own parents to be able to buy a home, maintain a family on one income, or to watch their standard of living improve as they grow older.
So the best comeback for the young woman in overalls would have been for her to snap at me, “You think I should live on thirty thousand dollars a year! Well, perhaps you haven’t noticed that the National Association of Homebuilders now estimates that it takes a yearly salary of thirty seven thousand dollars a year to be able to afford a modest, median priced home. Or that if I want to send my own eventual children to a college like this I will need well over fifty thousand dollars a year. Or are you suggesting I rely on a rich husband?” And she would have been dead on the mark: in today’s economy, idealism is a luxury that most of us are likely to enjoy only at the price of simple comforts like housing and education. The mood on campuses isn’t so much venality as it is fear.
But still, premature pragmatism isn’t necessarily a winning strategy. In the first place, what looks like realism at age eighteen may become sheer folly by age thirty-eight. Occupations go in and out of corporate favor, so that chemistry, for example – which seemed to be a safe bet two decades ago – has become one of those disciplines that prepares people for life in the retail end of the newspaper business. The same may eventually happen to today’s campus favorites – like law, management and finance. At least it seems to me that there must be an ecological limit to the number of paper pushers the Earth can sustain, and that human civilization will collapse when the number of, say, tax lawyers exceeds the world’s total population of farmers, weavers, fisherpersons, and pediatric nurses.
Erhenreich 4
Furthermore, with any luck at all, one becomes a rather different person at age thirty-eight than one was at age eighteen. The list of famous people who ended up in a different line of work than the one first embarked on includes Clark Gable (former lumberjack), artist Henri Rousseau (postal clerk), Elvis Presley (truck driver), St. Augustine (playboy) and Che Guevara 9physician). Heads of state are notoriously unprepared for their mature careers; think of Adolph Hitler (landscape painter), Ho Chi Min (seaman), and our own Ronald Reagan. Women’s careers are, if anything, even more unpredictable, to judge from my own friends: Barbara (a biochemist turned novelist), Sara (French literature professor now a book editor), cousin Barb (anthropology to medicine).
But the saddest thing about today’s premature pragmatists is not that they will almost certainly be unprepared for their midlife career destinations, but that they will be unprepared for Life, in the grand sense, at all. The years between eighteen and twenty-two were not given to us to be fritted away in contemplation of future tax shelters and mortgage payments. In fact, it is almost a requirement of developmental biology that these years be spent in erotic reverie, metaphysical speculation, and schemes for universal peace and justice. Sometimes, of course, we lose sight of these heroic dreams of youth later on, as overdue bills and carburetor problems take their toll. But those who never dream at all start to lose much more – their wit, empathy, perspective, and for lack of a more secular term, their immortal souls.
But what about the fact that it take nearly a six-figure income to achieve what used to be known as a “middle-class” lifestyle? What about my young ivy League friend forced to choose between a career in human services and what she believes, perhaps realistically, to be an adequate income? All I can say is that there is something grievously wrong with a culture that values Wall Street sharks above social workers, armament manufactures above artists, or, for that matter, corporate lawyers above homemakers. Somehow, we’re going to have to make the world a little bit more habitable for idealists, whether they are eighteen or thirty-eight. In fact, I suspect that more and more young people, forced to choose between their ideals and economic security, will start opting for a career in social change. “The pay is lousy,” as veteran writer-historian-social-change-activist Irving Howe like to say, “ but it’s steady work.”
“Ideal are alright when you’re young,” declared another woman, a campus activist who certainly seemed to fit the age group for which she found idealism appropriate, “but you do have to think about earning a living.” Well, yes, I thought to myself, we older feminists have been saying for some time that the goal of higher education for women is not the “MRS” degree, but when did we ever say that it was banking?
Not that a little respect for the dollar isn’t a fine thing in the young, and a useful antidote, in my day anyway, for the effects of too much Hesse or Kahlil Gibran. But no one in the room had gone so far as to suggest a career in almsgiving, washing lepers’ feet, or doing literacy training among the Bushmen. “Idealism,” to these undergraduates, was defined as an ordinary, respectable profession in the human services. “Realism,” meant plunging almost from pubescence in to the stone hearted world of finance capitalism.
Ehrenreich 2
I find this mindset, which you will find on almost any campus today, “premature pragmatism,” and I’m quite qualified to comment because I, too, was once a victim of it. I had gone to college with an intellectual agenda that included solving the mind-body problem, discovering the source of human evil, and getting an tentative reading on the purpose of life. But within a few months, I had dropped all that and become a chemistry major – partly because I had figured out that there are only meager rewards, in this world, for those who know the purpose of life and the source of all evil.
The result, twenty odd years later is pretty much what you’d expect: I’m an ex-science major with no definite occupation (unless you count “writing,” that universal cover for those who avoid wage slavery at all costs), and I’m still obsessed with the Ultimate Questions, such as What It’s All About and Whether the Universe Will Expand Forever. I could have turned out much worse; I could have stayed in chemistry and gone into something much less idealistic like nerve-gas or plastic, in which case I might have become rich and would almost certainly have become an embittered alcoholic or a middle-aged dropout. The point is that premature pragmatism didn’t work for me, and I doubt it will work for any young person intending to set aside a “Divest Now” button for one reading “You have a friend at Chase Manhattan.”
Yet premature pragmatism has become as popular on college campuses as, in past eras, swallowing goldfish to impress ones friends or taking over the administration building to demand a better world. There has been a precipitous decline, just the seventies, in the number of students majoring in mind-expanding but only incidentally remunerative fields like history and mathematics. Meanwhile, business – as an academic pursuit – is booming: almost one-fourth of all college graduates were business majors in 1983, compared to one-seventh in 1973, while the proportions who major in philosophy or literature have vanished beyond the decimal point to less than 1 percent.
Erhenreich 3
Even more alarming to anyone whose own life has been scarred by premature pragmatism, is the decline in “idealism” as expressed by undergraduates and measured by pollsters. In 1968, 85 percent of college students said that they hoped their education would help them “develop a philosophy of life,” etc., etc. In 1985, only 44 percent adhered to such lofty goals, while the majority expected that education would help them “earn a lot of money.” There has been, in other words, almost a 50 percent decline in idealism and a 100 percent increase in venality, or to put it less judgmentally, premature pragmatism.
I concede though, that there are good reasons for the hard-nosed pragmatism of today’s college students. They face rougher times, economically, than did my generation or the generation before mine. As economists frank Levy and Richard Michel have recently shown, today’s baby boomers (and especially the younger ones) are far less likely than their own parents to be able to buy a home, maintain a family on one income, or to watch their standard of living improve as they grow older.
So the best comeback for the young woman in overalls would have been for her to snap at me, “You think I should live on thirty thousand dollars a year! Well, perhaps you haven’t noticed that the National Association of Homebuilders now estimates that it takes a yearly salary of thirty seven thousand dollars a year to be able to afford a modest, median priced home. Or that if I want to send my own eventual children to a college like this I will need well over fifty thousand dollars a year. Or are you suggesting I rely on a rich husband?” And she would have been dead on the mark: in today’s economy, idealism is a luxury that most of us are likely to enjoy only at the price of simple comforts like housing and education. The mood on campuses isn’t so much venality as it is fear.
But still, premature pragmatism isn’t necessarily a winning strategy. In the first place, what looks like realism at age eighteen may become sheer folly by age thirty-eight. Occupations go in and out of corporate favor, so that chemistry, for example – which seemed to be a safe bet two decades ago – has become one of those disciplines that prepares people for life in the retail end of the newspaper business. The same may eventually happen to today’s campus favorites – like law, management and finance. At least it seems to me that there must be an ecological limit to the number of paper pushers the Earth can sustain, and that human civilization will collapse when the number of, say, tax lawyers exceeds the world’s total population of farmers, weavers, fisherpersons, and pediatric nurses.
Erhenreich 4
Furthermore, with any luck at all, one becomes a rather different person at age thirty-eight than one was at age eighteen. The list of famous people who ended up in a different line of work than the one first embarked on includes Clark Gable (former lumberjack), artist Henri Rousseau (postal clerk), Elvis Presley (truck driver), St. Augustine (playboy) and Che Guevara 9physician). Heads of state are notoriously unprepared for their mature careers; think of Adolph Hitler (landscape painter), Ho Chi Min (seaman), and our own Ronald Reagan. Women’s careers are, if anything, even more unpredictable, to judge from my own friends: Barbara (a biochemist turned novelist), Sara (French literature professor now a book editor), cousin Barb (anthropology to medicine).
But the saddest thing about today’s premature pragmatists is not that they will almost certainly be unprepared for their midlife career destinations, but that they will be unprepared for Life, in the grand sense, at all. The years between eighteen and twenty-two were not given to us to be fritted away in contemplation of future tax shelters and mortgage payments. In fact, it is almost a requirement of developmental biology that these years be spent in erotic reverie, metaphysical speculation, and schemes for universal peace and justice. Sometimes, of course, we lose sight of these heroic dreams of youth later on, as overdue bills and carburetor problems take their toll. But those who never dream at all start to lose much more – their wit, empathy, perspective, and for lack of a more secular term, their immortal souls.
But what about the fact that it take nearly a six-figure income to achieve what used to be known as a “middle-class” lifestyle? What about my young ivy League friend forced to choose between a career in human services and what she believes, perhaps realistically, to be an adequate income? All I can say is that there is something grievously wrong with a culture that values Wall Street sharks above social workers, armament manufactures above artists, or, for that matter, corporate lawyers above homemakers. Somehow, we’re going to have to make the world a little bit more habitable for idealists, whether they are eighteen or thirty-eight. In fact, I suspect that more and more young people, forced to choose between their ideals and economic security, will start opting for a career in social change. “The pay is lousy,” as veteran writer-historian-social-change-activist Irving Howe like to say, “ but it’s steady work.”
Monday, February 15, 2010
121 paper 1 Example
Andre Peltier
Professor Peltier
English 121
10 February 2010
Windemere: The Childhood Summer Home of Ernest Hemingway
The history of the state of Michigan is ripe with art and creativity. From Motown Records in the 1960s to Madonna in the 1980s and from Diego Rivera’s Modernist mural in Detroit to the songs and stories of Native Americans in the Upper Peninsula, the cultural life of our state should never be underestimated. It was in the midst of this cultural history that one of America’s most famous writers spent his summers as he matured into a name among names in American literature. Ernest Hemingway, having written some of the most widely read book of the 20th Century, including To Have and Have Not, A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and the Sea, and The Snows of Kilimanjaro, has influenced every generation of American life since the 1920s. Another of his books, the short story collection titled In Our Time, is primarily set in rural Northern Michigan, the same rural north where he spent his childhood summers at the family cottage, Windemere, on Walloon Lake in Emmet County. Although clearly an influential area on his life and works, little has been written about this home, a home built by his father as a small shack in 1899 and then expanded over the years before finally becoming a registered National Historic Landmark in 1968.
If one were to begin to begin writing a Wikipedia page about this home, the obvious place to start would be on the internet. Government sites like www.nps.gov, the official site of the National Parks Service, have information about the process through which any landmark goes before actually being registered. There is no information on the NPS site about Windemere
Peltier 2
though, so looking elsewhere on the web would become necessary. The Michigan State Housing Development Authority has a brief description of the home and the home’s history, including when it was built, when it was added to both the State and National Historic Registers, and when Ernest Hemingway actually lived there.
Aside from the official, government sites, Universities and historical societies offer more information. The Clarke Historical library at Central Michigan University yields a complex history of the home and of its construction with many photographs and side-notes depicting what life would have been like in a small Northern Michigan cottage at the turn of the last century. The Michigan Hemingway Society, an organization dedicated to researching and promoting the influence that Michigan had on his works, also dedicates multiple pages on their web-site to his life on Walloon Lake, and particularly to the time he spent at Windemere. They also provide a link to a PDF file of the full text of Frederick Svorboda’s guide-book, Up North with the Hemingways and Nick Adams, a brief view into the life of the Hemingway family in Northern Michigan.
Once the Universities and historical Societies have been utilized, one should turn to on-line journals as a final web resource. Magazines like Michigan Country Lines On-Line and Home Life: An Up North Magazine have recently published fascinating articles regarding the home and the history of the area. In these articles, Mike Buda and Beth Anne Piehl respectively, demonstrate the contemporary history of the house, information that will work well on a Wikipedia page once it is coupled with the older information from the other sources. A third on-line magazine, Absolute Michigan, published the article, “Michigan History: Up North with the Hemingways,” in 2007. Although there is no author listed on the article, it is still a strong source for information and will work well as another option when preparing the Wikipedia page.
Peltier 3
After spending a little time with a search-engine like Google, it’s important to also turn to something a bit more academic like the MLA Database, a database that collects information about scholarly articles dealing with literature and history. A simple search using “Hemingway” and “Michigan” as keywords returns twenty articles from peer-reviewed journals. The first of which is from the Spring ’09 edition of Hemingway Review,” and the article titled “I Also, Am in Michigan': Pastoralism of Mind in 'Big Two-Hearted River.” This article shows the connections between Hemingway and his short story “Big Two-Hearted River.” This will be important because it makes the link between his writing and his connection to Michigan that is at the center of the Wikipedia page.
Another article found using the MLA Database is called “Hemingway’s Michigan Landscapes,” also from Hemingway Review, but this one is from the Fall ’07 edition. In it, Ron Berman explains the influence Michigan had on Hemingway’s stories in general, not just on “Big Two-Hearted River.” He also explains how the use of landscape in a narrative demands that both the writer and the reader make certain choices, choices that are central to the construction of the plot, central to the interpretation of the narrative, and central to the creation within the writer’s overall canon. It’s these choices, argues Berman, that tie the stories to Michigan and specifically to Windemere; this will again work to explain why Windemere is worthy of a page on Wikipedia.
Along with these two articles, many also exist specifically about his story “Up In Michigan” from his first book, Three Stories and Ten Poems. In this book, a book which clearly includes only three stories, the second is specifically about his childhood at Windemere so not only will these articles be of use, but the book itself will also. Furthermore, no Wikipedia entry
Peltier 4
about Windemere would be complete without references to the other stories he wrote about Northern Michigan which can be found in the book The Nick Adams Stories which was collected and published posthumously in 1972. Although it was published after his death, it brings together his Michigan stories in one volume, arranged in such a way as to follow his own wishes.
While his own works are obviously useful for a Wikipedia page, works by other writers like Gloria Whelan, a young adult author living in Northern Michigan might also be of use. The novel The Pathless Woods from 1981 is about a young Ernest Hemingway and his life growing up at Windemere. More recently, Ellen Rosewall published the short story collection Sparkle Island about life on Walloon Lake and features a story titled “Ernest Hemingway Sat Here.” These books will be important because they demonstrate the influence his time at Windemere has had on more contemporary writers, and while Rosewall is a lesser known author, Whelan’s influence should not be underestimated. She won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature in 2000 for her novel The Homeless Bird.
Once the Wikipedian includes some references to recent biographies of Hemingway like A Portrait of Hemingway by Lillian Ross from 1999 and The Hemingway Patrols, Terry Mart’s 2009 biography about Hemingway’s military career, the page will be complete. This information about Windemere will be useful to anyone interested in life in Northern Michigan in general or specifically in Hemingway’s childhood. It’s clear that Windemere was an important part of his youth and that writers, scholars, and general fans alike will enjoy learning more about this historic cottage.
Professor Peltier
English 121
10 February 2010
Windemere: The Childhood Summer Home of Ernest Hemingway
The history of the state of Michigan is ripe with art and creativity. From Motown Records in the 1960s to Madonna in the 1980s and from Diego Rivera’s Modernist mural in Detroit to the songs and stories of Native Americans in the Upper Peninsula, the cultural life of our state should never be underestimated. It was in the midst of this cultural history that one of America’s most famous writers spent his summers as he matured into a name among names in American literature. Ernest Hemingway, having written some of the most widely read book of the 20th Century, including To Have and Have Not, A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and the Sea, and The Snows of Kilimanjaro, has influenced every generation of American life since the 1920s. Another of his books, the short story collection titled In Our Time, is primarily set in rural Northern Michigan, the same rural north where he spent his childhood summers at the family cottage, Windemere, on Walloon Lake in Emmet County. Although clearly an influential area on his life and works, little has been written about this home, a home built by his father as a small shack in 1899 and then expanded over the years before finally becoming a registered National Historic Landmark in 1968.
If one were to begin to begin writing a Wikipedia page about this home, the obvious place to start would be on the internet. Government sites like www.nps.gov, the official site of the National Parks Service, have information about the process through which any landmark goes before actually being registered. There is no information on the NPS site about Windemere
Peltier 2
though, so looking elsewhere on the web would become necessary. The Michigan State Housing Development Authority has a brief description of the home and the home’s history, including when it was built, when it was added to both the State and National Historic Registers, and when Ernest Hemingway actually lived there.
Aside from the official, government sites, Universities and historical societies offer more information. The Clarke Historical library at Central Michigan University yields a complex history of the home and of its construction with many photographs and side-notes depicting what life would have been like in a small Northern Michigan cottage at the turn of the last century. The Michigan Hemingway Society, an organization dedicated to researching and promoting the influence that Michigan had on his works, also dedicates multiple pages on their web-site to his life on Walloon Lake, and particularly to the time he spent at Windemere. They also provide a link to a PDF file of the full text of Frederick Svorboda’s guide-book, Up North with the Hemingways and Nick Adams, a brief view into the life of the Hemingway family in Northern Michigan.
Once the Universities and historical Societies have been utilized, one should turn to on-line journals as a final web resource. Magazines like Michigan Country Lines On-Line and Home Life: An Up North Magazine have recently published fascinating articles regarding the home and the history of the area. In these articles, Mike Buda and Beth Anne Piehl respectively, demonstrate the contemporary history of the house, information that will work well on a Wikipedia page once it is coupled with the older information from the other sources. A third on-line magazine, Absolute Michigan, published the article, “Michigan History: Up North with the Hemingways,” in 2007. Although there is no author listed on the article, it is still a strong source for information and will work well as another option when preparing the Wikipedia page.
Peltier 3
After spending a little time with a search-engine like Google, it’s important to also turn to something a bit more academic like the MLA Database, a database that collects information about scholarly articles dealing with literature and history. A simple search using “Hemingway” and “Michigan” as keywords returns twenty articles from peer-reviewed journals. The first of which is from the Spring ’09 edition of Hemingway Review,” and the article titled “I Also, Am in Michigan': Pastoralism of Mind in 'Big Two-Hearted River.” This article shows the connections between Hemingway and his short story “Big Two-Hearted River.” This will be important because it makes the link between his writing and his connection to Michigan that is at the center of the Wikipedia page.
Another article found using the MLA Database is called “Hemingway’s Michigan Landscapes,” also from Hemingway Review, but this one is from the Fall ’07 edition. In it, Ron Berman explains the influence Michigan had on Hemingway’s stories in general, not just on “Big Two-Hearted River.” He also explains how the use of landscape in a narrative demands that both the writer and the reader make certain choices, choices that are central to the construction of the plot, central to the interpretation of the narrative, and central to the creation within the writer’s overall canon. It’s these choices, argues Berman, that tie the stories to Michigan and specifically to Windemere; this will again work to explain why Windemere is worthy of a page on Wikipedia.
Along with these two articles, many also exist specifically about his story “Up In Michigan” from his first book, Three Stories and Ten Poems. In this book, a book which clearly includes only three stories, the second is specifically about his childhood at Windemere so not only will these articles be of use, but the book itself will also. Furthermore, no Wikipedia entry
Peltier 4
about Windemere would be complete without references to the other stories he wrote about Northern Michigan which can be found in the book The Nick Adams Stories which was collected and published posthumously in 1972. Although it was published after his death, it brings together his Michigan stories in one volume, arranged in such a way as to follow his own wishes.
While his own works are obviously useful for a Wikipedia page, works by other writers like Gloria Whelan, a young adult author living in Northern Michigan might also be of use. The novel The Pathless Woods from 1981 is about a young Ernest Hemingway and his life growing up at Windemere. More recently, Ellen Rosewall published the short story collection Sparkle Island about life on Walloon Lake and features a story titled “Ernest Hemingway Sat Here.” These books will be important because they demonstrate the influence his time at Windemere has had on more contemporary writers, and while Rosewall is a lesser known author, Whelan’s influence should not be underestimated. She won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature in 2000 for her novel The Homeless Bird.
Once the Wikipedian includes some references to recent biographies of Hemingway like A Portrait of Hemingway by Lillian Ross from 1999 and The Hemingway Patrols, Terry Mart’s 2009 biography about Hemingway’s military career, the page will be complete. This information about Windemere will be useful to anyone interested in life in Northern Michigan in general or specifically in Hemingway’s childhood. It’s clear that Windemere was an important part of his youth and that writers, scholars, and general fans alike will enjoy learning more about this historic cottage.
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