Final Blog

For my portfolio I am including my Research paper, the Close Reading essay, and the American Lit. essay. I believe that the Close Reading essay is my strongest. I believe that I did a pretty good job in revising to make my analysis better. My argument for this paper was that Krakauer is trying to convince the reader that McCandless left on his adventure because he wanted more out of life. I believe I did a good job supporting this throughout my paper. My weakest paper is probably my American Lit. essay. I think I spend to much time discussing why Engdahl is wrong to say that American literature is isolated and insuler. I need to put more emphasis on why I think American literature is good.

Krakauer

Overall I believe that Krakauer's research definitely helped his argument. He went in depth in his researches of Chris's family life as well as his life on the road. He was able to use Chris's journal to explain his adventure's in seclusion from other people. I also believe that his research about the authors and other adventurers were positive aspects of his book. On the other hand however, I believe that by adding his own anecdotes he made the story to personal to him and loses credibility. Also his analyses of the different quotes seemed pretty biased towards the end of the book which also took away from his credibility. For the most part I believe his research was pretty strong.

April 2

My primary source for this research essay is the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I am using this source to talk about its influence on the civil rights movement. Although it is set in the later years of the great depression and isn't about the movement itself, it was published in 1960 towards the beginning of the movment. In the U.S. today we have an African American president for the first time. That would never have happened if it hadn't been for the civil rights movement; the rallies, the boycotts, the books. I believe that racism and segregation are wrong and I believe that in To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee agrees.