During our last class we talked about perspective. We decided that when looking at a piece of writing and when writing our own papers that we have to think about perspective. Whose perspective am I going to offer? What point-of-view? Who is my audience? Whose voice do I want to portray? Is my writing biased? Today, we are going to look at some writings from the colonists to see how they pair up on these issues. 

"Perspective Brainstorming Activity" -- Follow this link to complete the brainstorming activity below.

Think about what you learned about relations with the Native Americans when you were in grade school and high school.

• Who wrote the majority of texts you have studied (Puritans or Native Americans)?

• For whom were they writing (Who was their audience)? 

• Whose point-of-view was expressed in the writings? Whose point-of-view is not expressed? Why?

• What was the general feeling about the Indians by the majority of Europeans? By the minority? How do we know this?

• Do the writings of that period show bias?

• How does history present what we learn about our past? Further, is it biased or unbiased? How? How do the publishers and writers of history textbooks decide was is to be included in the text?

Chances are you thought of nice people who dressed in black and wore buckles on their hats. They learned how to farm from the Indians and they all lived in harmony until the Indians began to carry guns out in the Old West. The following perspectives will help show you how different the reality was and how people within the Puritan culture looked upon the Native Americans.

Continuing assignment for the next couple of weeks 
Point-of-view shows the reader the writer's relationship to the subject and the audience. Here are some questions relating to point-of-view and perspective that you will need to ask yourself as you write your next paper: How distanced are you from this piece of writing? Why are you writing about this particular subject? Who is your audience? Revisit your Puritan handouts as well as your class notes to remind you of other questions you will need to consider. 

For the next couple of weeks, you will be writing position papers. What I would like for you to do the rest of the period is brainstorm topics that you feel very strongly about or that you could write a 3-5 page paper about. In the first paper, you will take a stand on that issue and support your stance with your own opinion while backing it up with citations from texts upon your topic, properly documenting them according to standards put forth by the APA stylebook. If you are an English, speech communications or foreign language major, consider writing in MLA style. During our next class period, I will handout a sheet that offers tips and requirements for this series of papers. 

The second part to this assignment is to write a paper taking the opposite stand and "shooting down" your position in the first paper. This is where the assignment gets tricky: If you have a topic you feel so strongly about that you do not think you could take the other standpoint, then you may want to rethink your topic. On the other hand, this assignment will challenge your beliefs and possibly reaffirm what your present stance is on your chosen topic, so you may want to stick with a fundamental belief. 

The third paper you will write for this assignment is a refutation paper. In the refutation paper, you will disprove, hence refute, the ideas you wrote about in your second paper, reaffirming your original stance. I will have a handout ready for you for our next class meeting to give you clear-cut objectives for this assignment.

The idea of this exercise is to get you to be able to see multiple perspectives of a topic and challenge those sides, forcing you to dig deeper into those things in which you believe.

William Bradford, the Puritan author of the following passages, describes interactions between the Puritans and the Native Americans. Think about who is telling the story and what the author might be leaving out. Whose perspective is present? Whose is left out? Why might the author have chosen to write this perspective in this manner? 

From the Heath Anthology of American Literature (1994) 
Of Plymouth Plantation 

Book I, Chapter IX 
Of their Voyage, and how they Passed the Sea; and of their Safe Arrival at Cape Cod

Book II, Chapter XI 
The Remainder of Anno 1620 
[Indian Relations]

 
Book II, Chapter XXVIII 
Anno Domini 1637 
[The Pequot War]

"In the meantime, the Pequots, especially in the winter before, sought to make peace with the Narragansetts, and used very pernicious arguments to move them thereunto; as that the English were strangers and began to overspread their country, and would deprive them thereof in time, if they were suffered to grow and increase" (259).

Roger Williams is the Puritan author of the following passages. Williams was a much more liberal thinker than his other Puritan colleagues, taking the side of human rights and religious freedom during the colonial period. From whose perspective does he write? Whose perspective is left out? Why might the author have chosen to write this perspective in this manner? What does Williams’ berspective offer that Bradford’s does not? 

From the Heath Anthology of American Literature (1994) 
A Key into the Language of America 

 
[Preface] 
To my Deare and Welbeloved Friends and Countreymen, in old and new England

  "For the second Head proposed, their Originall and Descent. 
  From Adam and Noah that they spring, it is granted on all hands" (270). 

 
Chapter XXIX 
Of Their Warre, &c.

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