In class essay

There is a lot that students can learn from historical movies. If students watch historically accurate movies such as 12 years a slave and Glory they can learn a lot about what it was like to live during that time. These movies show the circumstances and real events that took place.

In 12 years a slave we see Solomon Northup a free African American man get captured and sold into slavery. Scenarios like this actually happened in real life back then. The movie shows us how the capturing and selling of a slave may have happened, methods such as drugging free African American, capturing, and imprisoning them were used to acquire slaves if they get too close to the border. This movie also shows us how the slave owners treated their slaves such as Epps. Epps was a slave owner who became obsessed with a slave named Patsey and he would rape and abuse her. Epps was also known for being one of the most cruel slave masters and would wake the slaves up in the middle of the night just to make his slaves dance. All of these things are pictured in the movie and they also happened in real life but the movie helps us to see and better understand these things. Another real event which the movie pictures is how Epps wife was jealous of Patsey. As shown in the movie Epps wife actually was jealous of Patsy and would often abuse her according to HistoryvsHollywood.com "Nothing delighted the mistress more then seeing Patsy suffer."  So all these things from the movie really did happen and seeing it helps understand it better.

Glory shows us how the first black regiment came together and how they performed in war. In Glory we see the first ever Regiment in the army composed of African American men. We see Robert Gould Shaw train these men and prepare them for war. When we analyze the movie we see that this regiment was clearly if not only created for labor. When Robert Gould Shaw can finally get his Regiment into war we see them perform extremely well and actually win their first battle. At their second battle at Fort Wagner the Regiment is sadly defeated and the whole Regiment including Shaw is killed. The most interesting part of this is that I know all of this information from watching the movie, and all of these events actually took place even the most powerful scene where Shaw refuses payment unless it was equal to those of the Regiment actually took place and inspired the Regiment to train harder.

Solomon Northup was born a free man and grew up a free man and had a wife and children. And in one day it was all gone he was a slave he didn't know if he would ever be rescued or if he would ever see his wife and children again. His circumstances were ones that I don’t think anyone would wanna be under. What if one day you woke up underfed, without any rights, and all you did was pick cotton for hours in the incredible heat and get whipped if you didn't pick enough. We can see racism in the movie when Solomon aka Platt picks 180 pound of cotton in a week then the new white servant only picks 60 pounds of cotton. Instead of whipping both of them, he only whips Solomon and just kindly tells the white man that he has to get faster and leaves him alone with no consequences. This is a scene where racism is shown the way that it really happened back in this time. The film does a great job of giving us an insight and being able to see with our own eyes what it was like for slaves back then. Studying books only doesn't give us the insight that watching movies does.

1.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2024544/- Shows succes of 12 years a slave

2,3.http://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/12-years-a-slave.php- Helps divide what really happened and what was just added to make the movie more interesting.

4.http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/glory-1989- Film review of Glory

5.Http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097441/?ref_=nv_sr_1- Success of Glort

Famous quote by Solomon   Solomon arriving home       Eliza being seperated from her children

   

Scene when Shaw first saw his recruits

            Regiments first battle

This is what I learned today

1. Only use a direct quote when it adds power and stye to my writing.
2. Always make it clear, from context, that i understand the full meaning of the quote.
3. Whether I quote or paraphrase, I must always be transparent about the source and how I'm using it.
4. If I use another authors exact words or phrases, to any extent, I have to use quotation marks and give credit.
5. If

Reflection on Paraphrase practice

In these past few days we have been working on paraphrasing and on writing with quotes. I now have a deeper understanding on how to effectively paraphrase and use your own words to explain someone else's writing. This has helped me understand paraphrasing better and I now never have to worry about accidently plagiarizing someone else's work when I am paraphrasing.




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

Quote practice

"These men are proud to be soldiers, proud to wear the uniform and also too proud to accept the racism they see all around them, as when a decision is made to pay black troops less than white."


The movie Glory is about a regiment composed of only African American people. This regiment must overcome adversity and convince Robert Gould Shaw to let them go to war. As film critic Roger Ebert said "These men are proud to be soldiers, proud to wear the uniform and also too proud to accept the racism they see all around them, as when a decision is made to pay black troops less than white." The troops of Regiment 54 are so proud to go out there and fight for their country even though they are surrounded by racism including the other regiments. They continue to fight even though they are not being treated the same as the other regiments and they are not receiving the respect they deserve. Ultimately they end up winning one battle before they're defeated at Wagner.

"Paraphrase Practice"

It is up to the troops themselves to convince him they can fight - and along the way they also gently provide him with some insights into race and into human nature, a century before the flowering of the civil rights movement. Among the men who turn into the natural leaders of the 54th are Trip (Denzel Washington), an escaped slave, and John Rawlins (Morgan Freeman), first seen in the film as a gravedigger who encounters the wounded Shaw on the field of battle. (Roger Ebert)

Shaw was put in charge of a black regiment, the 54th regiment must try and convince Shaw that they can fight. On the journey to convince him we take a closer look into race and human nature. Some of these men from the regiment turn into natural leaders, such as Trip (Denzel Washington), and an escaped slave named John Rawlins (Morgan Freeman) who first encountered an injured Shaw when he was doing his job as a grave digger.

Film Review

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/glory-1989

This is the film review I will be working with.

Reflection on what we have learned

We have earned that slaves were a very large part of the cotton industry. Slaves were bought and forced to work long hours in the heat picking cotton with very little food. Booker T. Washington a former slave explained the amount of food that they were given saying that if he didn't get enough breakfast he would have to go get the leftovers from the cows and the pigs. Slaves were also fed things like opossums, raccoons and snapping turtles. Up until the invention of machines to help with picking cotton slaves had to pick all the cotton by hand which was a very slow and painful task. On average one slave could pick one pound of cotton per day but the spinning jenny doubled productivity. Things like special whips were invented to make make slaves work faster and increase the speed at which the slaves picked cottons.