In Class Essay about 12 Years A Slave and Glory.

It is possible to analytical skills and explore real events, circumstances, and attitudes just by watching movies in a critical way, and doing some research. In both 12 Years a Slave and Glory I heard about historical events that I never had heard of before, such as the 54th Regiment and Solomon Northup and without watching those movies, I would have never heard about them before either. These movies along with my post research where I looked into the lives of Samuel Bass the man from Canada who wrote to Mr.Northup's friends in the North and Mr.Shaw from Glory the young leader of the 54th Regiment. 

              Through the films and the Research I saw the real events, circumstances, and attitudes of these characters. I saw how Shaw's attitude to his men changed, at first he was hesitant to train them as well as leave his old company behind as Civilwar.org told me, he knew he would see action in the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry and no action in the 54th Regiment, as well as only taking the job in the 54th to make his mom less worried about him. At the end of it, Shaw respected his men making sure after getting $3 less than the white soldiers that they receive the full $13 dollars like any other soldier even refusing his pay until they all got the full amount. 

                We also get an accurate portrayal from both films on the attitudes of how slaves and free black's act towards one another. In Glory it's very hostile, The slaves think the free black's are somewhat of sellouts for living freely with the white people as well as thinking they are delusional for trying to act white since they are black. While the free blacks think that the slaves are stupid for being slaves/caught. In 12 Years A Slave it's different though, When Solomon is still free and living in New York, his family goes shopping at a grocery and a Servant of a white man walks in to, he is obviously confused why Solomon is allowed to go in and talk to the shop owner like friends and wishes he was able to as well and Solomon the freed person in this situation looks away, he pities the man but knows there isn't anything he can do about it, this situation replays itself later on when Solomon is freed, Patsy looks on longing hoping that she too can be free and Solomon now free again can only pity her as the carriage drives away.     

The Films both only have limited time to tell their stories so of course a few small details get omitted, such as Solomon having 3 kids instead of 2 or Solomon getting into 2 incidents with his first Master's Overseer instead of 1. But as a whole the movies both get deep into it's source material (the book and letters) and have very little fictional elements to it. 12 Years a Slave gives us a lot of insight into what Slavery was like towards the end of the Comprise era as well as the Pre-Civil war era as well. It's a harrowing look from being set-up by Slave traders to showing what Plantation life was like. While Glory gives great examples of the Civil war and truly shows how hectic battles in the civil war were with the drumming, with the gunfire as well as with the standing in one big line shooting at each other at such a close range that you were sure to get killed or injured. 

Citations:

Time:Historical accuracy of 12 Years A Slave: I used this source to tell about the 12 Years A Slave details that were omitted.

NYT's 10/17/13 12 Years a Slave review

Genealogy/History of Samuel Bass

Glory:Historical accuracy

NYT's 12/14/89 Glory Review:     

Biography of Shaw: I used this source to talk about how Shaw was not looking forward to leading the 54th at first.

Illustration of Solomon reuniting with his family

Illustration of what a slave auction would look like.

 

Edwin Epp's house, Solomon's 2nd Master's home.

Illustration of Solomon.

Photo of the Real Col.Robert Shaw

Reflection on Paraphrase Practice

What I learned Today: 

I learned over the course of our classes how to paraphrase and quote. Paraphrasing is useful when when you want to give your own explanation of a quote, so instead of having to quote it, you can just explain it in your own words. While Quoting is good because it makes your paper stand ou

These are the things Mrs.Lawson wanted us to learn and I know them!

• Only use a direct quote when it adds power and style to my writing.
• Always make it clear,from context,that I understand the full meaning of the quote.
• Whether I quote or paraphrase, I must always be transparent about the source and how I'm using it. 
• If I use another author's exact words or phrases, to any extent, I have to use quotation marks and give credit. 
• If I use another author's presentation of facts or ideas, but put their ideas in my own words, (paraphrase) I better have a good reason for doing so, and I MUST give credit. 
• Hyperlinking is so easy, there is no excuse for not being transparent about my sources.                             

Practicing incorporating a Quotation

I thought Glory was a really good movie, I have to disagree with the reviewer though, The New York Times says, "One of the film's least effective sequences is historically true: a raid on the tiny South Carolina village of Darien during which Shaw was forced by a superior officer to order his men to plunder and burn all buildings" I thought that was one of the most powerful scenes in the movie, we see Shaw who has to chose between doing what is moral right or lose his troops to another commander of black troops who treat his troops badly and not as humans. 

What I was doing practicing incorporating a Quotation. 

Paraphrase Practice

 Paraphrase Practice

  

"The attack on Fort Wagner, which is the climax of the movie, comes as close to anything I've ever seen on screen to capturing the chaos and brutality that were particular to the Civil War battles. Weapons maimed as often as they killed. Soldiers were so disciplined that they marched in firm lines into the sights of guns fired at point-blank range. Hand-to-hand combat was commonplace".
  This is a link to the  New York Times  review of the film Glory which is what this excerpt is from. 

      The Climatic battle on Fort Wagner is an accurate example of showing the brutality and chaos of Civil War battles. A solider was just as likely to be injured as much as he was to be killed. Troops were so firm they stayed in lines and marched into the enemy fire at a range where they could not miss. Brawls were a regular occurrence on the battlefield. 

My group

Film Review: 

http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=
 950DE4D8113FF937A25751C1A96F948260

Reflective Question over the topic. #1

           In US history, We've spent the last two days discussing historical evidence. We've talked about what good evidence can tell us, and we've critiqued statements that are not supported with evidence. Finally we looked at evidence from technology and economics to understand the cotton economy of the US. Reflect on what you've learned?

What I've learned about Evidence and the cotton economy is that more land equals more profit and more cotton produced. I've also learned that some states after there land dried up after years of abuse become human traffickers and would sell slaves to states, so that farmers could go to auctions where these newly acquired slaves would be at and then sold to some farmer. I've also learned how to find better evidence and look for websites with things such as .org, and .gov instead of .com as the endings to the url, Primary Sources are the way to go when looking for evidence as well. The final thing I learned was that the whole US depended on the cotton industry, I thought it was the south only.