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Catch-All/Student Discussion Questions Reading and Film Presentations and Discussion Short Essays and Responses

ERA All the Pretty Horses 139-179

In reading the first part of chapter 3 we find out that the boys have gotten in trouble with the men that they stole Blevins back from.  This is an important part of the story because Rawlins and John Grady are led to where the incident of Blevins horse took place.  They road many days with their hands cuffed, with cold nights and minimal food.  Eventually they are lead back to a dark and ominous old school house, they are lead into the back of it and this is where they see Blevins.  He does not even know how long he had been in the cell, but he knows that he has been treated poorly.  John Grady and Rawlins question him to see if Blevins sold him out after the guards caught him stealing his horse back and they cannot justify why he had been locked in this cell in such conditions with the only crime was just stealing his horse back.  The boys keep pestering Blevins with questions as to why he is here and he won’t answer, it is only until the guard says something in Spanish and holds up three fingers.  The boys don’t know what he said and what the three signifies but the eventually figure it out that Blevins has killed three of the guard’s men.  Blevins denies this information and does not confirm that he actually did the crime. The guards then make John Grady and Rawlins confess to crimes they did not commit and they take the boys south to the prison at Saltillo.

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Catch-All/Student Discussion Questions

All The Pretty Horses: CH1 Part1 Reflection

In the first chapter of the novel, All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, the author goes in depth about how the main character John Cole decides to leave his life behind him and decides to travel to Mexico.  This is due to the troubled family history he has dealt with in his family and through losing his family farm that his mother would rather sell than let him take over. 

A very powerful paragraph that was pointed out to me was in just the first few pages of the book.  On page 6, it starts with, “What he loved in horses…”  This is a very powerful quote in the sense that it integrates the title of the novel as well as what John Cole feels.  He relates horses to men in the sense that they are naturally wild and they must be tamed in order to ride them.  But they cannot be too tamed that they do not want to ride.  This shows how a balance of freedom and constraints is key in life.  One must be able to realize that they are being constrained by society. And must break free every once in a while, allowing for growth and exposure in different aspects of life.

This also evokes the aspect of individuality in man that only comes out when they are truly independent and on their own.  When someone is alone and not interacting with any other humans that is when you truly find out who someone is. Whether they are messy or clean, passive or aggressive, being on your own there is a plethora of self findings that one discovers about their self.

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Catch-All/Student Discussion Questions Short Essays and Responses

Who Are We? CH4-Expo.

The definition of nationalism can be found in the fourth chapter of Who Are We? By: Samuel Huntington.  He describes it as the “Cultural Core” and it derives from the nation’s religion, language, race, ethnicity and ideology.  Meaning that each one of these core aspects shapes and molds the people it is around.  Having similar traits to the people around you allows you to become more familiar and antiquated with them and accept them more.  Whether you are born into the culture or you are just passing through it, you have to take their culture appropriations into consideration while greeting, speaking and interacting with the nation’s people. 

              This is the main reason that we can detect an outsider from one of our own.  All we would have to do is watch them for about 5 minutes and see how they act.  A person’s body language and eye contact can tell a lot about where someone is from and how they were brought up. 

Samuel Huntington mentions that there is an over defining culture of a people and there are “subcultures” branching from it.  An example I thought of was as follows:      

Imagine you are on the subway headed early to a baseball game. Most people are in their work attire and looking down at their phones, across the train you see another fan headed to the game, wearing the same team’s jersey that you are.  You have just associated into the other fan’s subculture and you have something in common.  You go over and talk to the fan about how poorly the team has been doing the past few games, you are both upset about the team’s performance.

From this example we can infer that cultures and subcultures share emotions with each other, there is more to it besides just the color of your skin or your common language.  People from groups of passion that is shared among everyone and people feel upset and happy for other members of the group to console them and in order to help them become affiliated with the strength of the group again.

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Catch-All/Student Discussion Questions Reading and Film Presentations and Discussion

Who Are We?-CH1 Post

The age long ebb and flow of American nationalism has never been consistent.  With Americans believing and not believing in their country.  This has been a problem since the start of America when immigrants were coming across the Atlantic/Pacific Oceans to the New World.  It must be hard for someone to get behind a people’s beliefs if no one is from the same place.    But when the immigrants were coming to America, there also must not have been a sense of nationalism for everyone to get behind because the country was so new, no one has formed a group/following for people to embrace. 

After the World Wars, the country had the strongest sense of nationalism ever.  This was due to the fact that almost every family was invested in the wars in some way, either having a son, husband or father across the seas, or the fighting was back in your home country in Europe. People were cheering in the streets of every major city across the country when the war ended, people were kissing complete strangers in the middle of the streets, it must have felt like everyone was cheering for the same thing in the US. 

The next strongest sense of nationalism our country was involved in with was on September 11, 2001.  The entire nation prayed as they watched the news in awe while there was turmoil on our country’s own soil.  The support from the local firefighters and the volunteer first responders was amazing.  Our president brought the nation together when he announced that this action would not go unnoticed and that there would be a response from our armed forces on the people responsible.

I feel as though flying the American flag is not directly related to a sense of nationalism, while Americans do not openly show it, when the time comes, we unite and come together to support each other.  While it is usually because of national disasters or attacks to our country, when our country needs support and love from its people, our people deliver.  I would rather have what we have in America over any other country in the world, because when people need our support, our citizens and our government group together and deliver.  In other countries, when there is a conflict, it is usually the people against the government, and it splits its own people against themselves.  It is very hard to come back from a fight involving your own people and there is a tear in your countries fabric forever.

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Catch-All/Student Discussion Questions Reading and Film Presentations and Discussion

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America excerpts (The Present and Probably Future Condition of the Three Races that Inhabit the Territory of the United States-Post Response

In Alexis de Tocqueville’s piece on the three races of early American society he describes his view points on democracy.  The buying and selling of slaves in Southern America defiantly helped with the South’s economy as it was primarily driven by slaves.  The work that they did in the corn, cotton, tobacco fields were the causation’s of many southern wealth and prosperity, even to this day.  Tocqueville agrees that the slaves were a necessity to the economy, but they did not offer democracy for the slaves, who did not have a say what so ever about becoming enslaved.  Especially the slaves that were born on American soil, who were born directly into slavery without knowing a life of freedom. 

A reason that I respect and can read with certainty that I am going to hear both side of the argument while reading Tocqueville, is because he always argues from both sides.  Whether talking about democracy in America or how the colonists of America would be different if they were Europeans, instead of people seeking for religious suffrage by coming to a new land, Alexis de Tocqueville always brings up both sides of the argument and explains why he is right. 

A question I had after reading this piece was: Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to control/have power over someone if you either had the same religious/economic beliefs as you?  Maybe this is why the slave owners of the South completely disregarded and disproved all of the religious beliefs that their African slaves had when they came over on the boats.