Thursday Update

For those of you who were there for the full period, this is redundant. If you left early, or if for some reason you need a capsule of our last class, here it is:

We began the "triangular nexus" inquiry, to the extent that we read Crevecoeur's letter, "what is an American" and talked about it. At the time, I had not set the "share" feature correctly and you all could not see the document. It is now posted under "Essential Documents" so that you can (re)read it.

The date of that letter is difficult to determine exactly. Crevecoeur wrote a series of essays including this one starting in 1769 when he operated a farm in New York state. These were eventually published in 1782, bringing the author some fame and celebrity.

We did NOT yet get to look at either PBS clip on YouTube, or get into Whitman. We did however establish Emerson's thirst fot "An American Poet" which is doubtless influenced in some ways by the definition of "American" Crevecoeur put forward. The identification of Walt Whitman as that poet, and an investigation of why, is our next step in our next class (after we do a little peer editing).