Response to Course Materials

     Over the past few weeks, our class has had many different accomplishments. We finally finished discussing Edward Albee's play, The American Dream, and I am happy to say that we are starting a new play, Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. We also read the book, The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing by Michael Harvey, which we were able to put to use when editing our college essays.


     With finishing up the class discussion of The American Dream and collectively writing a theme statement for the play, we now have a clearer understanding of what Albee was trying to express. Our boss theme statement was as follows: an increased emphasis on consumerism and greed creates a diseased American Dream that will inevitably turn around and destroy its creators. It is evident in the play that Albee wanted to warn the people of the terrible society that they were creating. However, when we learned that the Young man was in fact Mommy and Daddy's murderer, we realized that Albee was not only exposing the impending doom of society, but also that we lack the ability to clearly see all aspects of the play as well as the world around us and how certain aspects are inherently destructive. Albee was not pointing fingers at the world, but at each of us, as individuals, making his point of criticism by example.

     This past week, we watched most of the incredibly depressing movie, Death of a Salesman. I am interested to see how using a visual aid rather than the play itself for the quick read will affect how well I interpret it during the close read. The movie was good, Willy reminded me of Robert De Niro, but that's pretty irrelevant. Death of a Salesman is pretty dark in nature: waning salesman deeply depressed and schizophrenic with his only hope of sanity in the hands of his unambitious and morally lost sons. With elements of cruelty, failure, and disappointment, it seems have some connection with The American Dream. Both plays are critical to specific elements of the era in which they are set, and their common themes expose how the loss of traditional morals and the obsession with accomplishment and worth negatively affect society.

     On a Friday in class, we had the opportunity to attempt at writing out first college essay. This was a challenge because I found that each of the given prompts were both vague and specific at the same time. I have no idea how that was accomplished, but kudos to whomever is responsible. I have no doubt that as the class proceeds I will grow accustomed to these prompts and they will no longer be an issue. What was cool about the timing of the reading of Nuts and Bolts and the writing of our essays was that we were able to come back and edit the essays after we had learned so much from the book. The biggest thing that the book stressed was the destructive use of pompous writing in college essays. Students often use gargantuan words to try and make themselves seem more intelligent, but it actually takes away from their developing ideas in the piece (I used gargantuan for ironic effect). Harvey said that being concise and simple is more effective in writing, and I found this newly acquired knowledge helpful when editing my essay. I found myself guilty of using pompous language, and before this class, I was under the impression that writing styles like the ones critiqued in Harvey's novel were actually helpful. What a news flash!

NOTE: I have completely removed the section of commentary on my history book. This is because I realized that my rant on political influences in our education systems was incredibly irrelevant to the course material of the class. However, I would like to make a brief point on the subject. It would be bold to say that there is no subtle political influence in schools. Think of it this way, a person with a great deal of accomplishment and worldly knowledge and experience, like a scientist or a corporate executive, would likely feel the need to influence their direct family into their views on how to make the world a better place. Now, lets say that this person is an education administrator or professor who has a wide range of influence and power over the education systems. That person is likely to have bias when educating the abundance of youth that they are trying to make a lasting impression on. If you were to take a second, in depth, look at any critical administrative action or academic requirements in a school you might find hints here and there of party affiliation. In my commentary on the history book, I was just trying to use DIDLS to point out the political influence that I found while reading it. I may have been a bit aggressive in the process of doing so, and I apologize, I never meant to offend anyone. I was just excited because I finally had legitimate, quotable, proof of the influences I have consistently recognized since the days of forced snack sharing and class averages in secondary school.