Glendale Community College Power of Unity Visual Argument Presentation

User Generated

qvnaanc

Humanities

Glendale Community College

Description

Introduction: In the material we are reading and studying in the course, we are getting some ideas of how our country established its values. Okay, so the past wasn't all that pretty. That's how it goes in trying to create a country, I guess. Our forefathers meant well, but, in time, we've learned that what they meant well for some didn't always mean well for others. As time has marched on, we, meaning Americans, have been going through the process of "revamping" their original ideas and intent. We look upon these events of the past to learn from them, not to be afraid of the mistakes and not to ignore the accomplishments.

The Task: Take some event or issue that we have studied, and are still studying, and create a visual argument of your own to add to the conversation as to what America once valued, regardless of whether the value was right or wrong. The idea here is to make your audience think. It may provoke, comment on, or meditate on a theme or idea raised by the sources that shed light on the event or issue.

To create your visual text, you may work digitally, making one PowerPoint slide. Or, if you wish, you can create a physical poster/canvas and upload a photo of it. Either medium is okay; play to your strengths.

Requirements: Your main requirement is to include one key quote from one of our sources, which will create the theme of your visual argument. You can use additional text on the visual, but the main key quote should be prominent. For example, several lines from Winthrop's "Dreams of a City on a Hill," a key point from "Pontiac's War," or from "The Rise of American Democracy," a selection from the Constitution, a sentence from Crane's "Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," etc.

In terms of argument, or how you present the theme, you can use a variety of visuals (like a collage) that correspond directly to the quote, complicate it, or show contradictions. Consider how “social values” play out with the idea/theme/quote you want to illuminate. Your text, overall, should make readers think - and it should raise questions. Abstract or more “obtuse” responses are encouraged, yet your artist statement (see below) will have to explain the choices you have made as an artist.

The Artist Statement

With your visual, you should submit an artist statement that includes the following layers:

  • Discuss your choice for the theme of the visual. Why did you select the text and key quote? What made you want to pursue this angle further?
  • Explain your main “argument” (or thesis) for the piece. What do you want viewers to think about or question when they see your visual text? What do you hope they take away?
  • Comment on the creative process. Reflect honestly on the artistic, creative, or critical thinking you did to put the piece. What inspired you to take this route? What subtle details do you hope your viewers notice? (If you’re less confident about the artistic results, take your readers into the process and deeper thinking you did to put the piece together. Explain your intentions as a scholar/artist.)

Your statement should be typed, well-edited, and proofread. It should be a minimum of 500 words, 12pt. font, Times New Roman, double-spaced. Be sure to respond to all of the above layers. Likewise, it is also okay to refer to additional quotes from the class text(s) to help you explain your connections and insights. Citation requirements for this project are loose, but page numbers should be cited within the artist statement when quoting from a source that does have page numbers, like Uncle Tom's Cabin or Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas (a favor to your readers). Do it like this: (Stowe 146).

For digital submission: upload your PowerPoint slide or photo of your physical text and your artist statement to Canvas under the “Visual Argument Text” assignment tab. Both files can be uploaded into the submission folder.


Unformatted Attachment Preview

From John Winthrop’s “City Upon a Hill,” 1630 Now the onely way to avoyde this shipwracke, and to provide for our posterity, is to followe the counsell of Micah, to doe justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, wee must be knitt together, in this worke, as one man. Wee must entertaine each other in brotherly affection. Wee must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of other’s necessities. Wee must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekeness, gentlenes, patience and liberality. Wee must delight in eache other; make other’s conditions our oune; rejoice together, mourne together, labour and suffer together, allwayes haueving before our eyes our commission and community in the worke, as members of the same body. Soe shall wee keepe the unitie of the spirit in the bond of peace. The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as his oune people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our wayes. Soe that wee shall see much more of his wisdome, power, goodness and truthe, than formerly wee have been acquainted with. Wee shall finde that the God of Israell is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when hee shall make us a prayse and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, “the Lord make it like that of New England.” For wee must consider that wee shall be as a citty upon a hill. The eies of all people are upon us. Soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our God in this worke wee have undertaken, and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. Wee shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake evill of the ways of God, and all professors for God’s sake. Wee shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause theire prayers to be turned into curses upon us till wee be consumed out of the good land whither wee are a goeing. I shall shutt upp this discourse with that exhortation of Moses, that faithfull servant of the Lord, in his last farewell to Israell, Deut. 30. Beloved there is now sett before us life and good, Death and evill, in that wee are commanded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one another, to walke in his wayes and to keepe his Commandements and his Ordinance and his lawes, and the articles of our Covenant with him, that wee may live and be multiplied, and that the Lord our God may blesse us in the land whither wee goe to possesse it. But if our heartes shall turne away, soe that wee will not obey, but shall be seduced, and worshipp and serve other Gods, our pleasure and proffitts, and serve them; it is propounded unto us this day, wee shall surely perishe out of the good land whither wee passe over this vast sea to possesse it; Therefore let us choose life that wee, and our seede may live, by obeyeing His voyce and cleaveing to Him, for Hee is our life and our prosperity. © 2013 The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History www.gilderlehrman.org VI. Pontiac’s War Relationships between colonists and Native Americans were complex and often violent. In 1761, Neolin, a prophet, received a vision from his religion’s main deity, known as the Master of Life. The Master of Life told Neolin that the only way to enter heaven would be to cast off the corrupting influence of Europeans by expelling the British: “This land where ye dwell I have made for you and not for others. Whence comes it that ye permit the Whites upon your lands. . . . Drive them out, make war upon them.”33 Neolin preached the avoidance of alcohol, a return to traditional rituals, and unity among Indigenous people to his disciples, including Pontiac, an Ottawa leader. Pontiac took Neolin’s words to heart and sparked the beginning of what would become known as Pontiac’s War. At its height, the uprising included Native peoples from the territory between the Great Lakes, the Appalachians, and the Mississippi River. Though Pontiac did not command all of those participating in the war, his actions were influential in its development. Pontiac and three hundred warriors sought to take Fort Detroit by surprise in May 1763, but the plan was foiled, resulting in a six-month siege of the British fort. News of the siege quickly spread and inspired more attacks on British forts and settlers. In May, Native Americans captured Forts Sandusky, St. Joseph, and Miami. In June, a coalition of Ottawas and Ojibwes captured Fort Michilimackinac by staging a game of stickball (lacrosse) outside the fort. They chased the ball into the fort, gathered arms that had been smuggled in by a group of Native American women, and killed almost half of the fort’s British soldiers. Though these Native Americans were indeed responding to Neolin’s religious message, there were many other practical reasons for waging war on the British. After the Seven Years’ War, Britain gained control of formerly French territory as a result of the Treaty of Paris. Whereas the French had maintained a peaceful and relatively equal relationship with their Native American allies through trade, the British hoped to profit from and impose “order.” For example, the French often engaged in the Indigenous practice of diplomatic gift giving. However, British general Jeffrey Amherst discouraged this practice and regulated the trade or sale of firearms and ammunition to Indigenous people. Most Native Americans, including Pontiac, saw this not as frugal imperial policy but preparation for war. Pontiac’s War lasted until 1766. Native American warriors attacked British forts and frontier settlements, killing as many as four hundred soldiers and two thousand settlers.34 Disease and a shortage of supplies ultimately undermined the war effort, and in July 1766 Pontiac met with British official and diplomat William Johnson at Fort Ontario and settled for peace. Though they did not win Pontiac’s War, Native Americans succeeded in fundamentally altering the British government’s policy. The war made British officials recognize that peace in the West would require royal protection of Native American lands and heavy-handed regulation of Anglo-American trade activity in territory controlled by Native Americans. During the war, the British Crown issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which created the proclamation line marking the Appalachian Mountains as the boundary between the British colonies and land held controlled by Native Americans. The effects of Pontiac’s War were substantial and widespread. The war proved that coercion was not an effective strategy for imperial control, though the British government would continue to employ this strategy to consolidate their power in North America, most notably through the various acts imposed on their colonies. Additionally, the prohibition of Anglo-American settlement in Native American territory, especially the Ohio River Valley, sparked discontent. The French immigrant Michel-Guillaume-Saint-Jean de Crèvecoeur articulated this discontent most clearly in his 1782 Letters from an American Farmer when he asked, “What then is the American, this new man?” In other words, why did colonists start thinking of themselves as Americans, not Britons? Crèvecoeur suggested that America was a melting pot of self-reliant individual landholders, fiercely independent in pursuit of their own interests, and free from the burdens of European class systems. It was an answer many wanted to hear and fit with self-conceptions of the new nation, albeit one that imagined itself as white, male, and generally Protestant.35 The Seven Years’ War pushed the thirteen American colonies closer together politically and culturally than ever before. In 1754, at the Albany Congress, Benjamin Franklin suggested a plan of union to coordinate defenses across the continent. Tens of thousands of colonials fought during the war. At the French surrender in 1760, 11,000 British soldiers joined 6,500 militia members drawn from every colony north of Pennsylvania.36 At home, many heard or read sermons that portrayed the war as a struggle between civilizations with liberty-loving Britons arrayed against tyrannical Frenchmen and savage Indigenous people. American colonists rejoiced in their collective victory as a moment of newfound peace and prosperity. After nearly seven decades of warfare they looked to the newly acquired lands west of the Appalachian Mountains as their reward. From: http://www.americanyawp.com/text/04-colonial-society/
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Explanation & Answer

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Surname 1
Student’s Name
Professor’s Name
Course
Date
The Power of Unity
John Winthrop’s text titled, City Upon a Hill, is a good consideration for the visual
argument due to its richness in morals. “We must delight in each other; make other’s conditions
our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our
eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body (Winthrop
1630).” From a moral point of view, it is a good idea to be supportive to each other. The
founding fathers of this nation worked together in unity in the straggle to shape up a nation.
According to Winthrop, it is best that as we encourage the spirit of unity and as a result, we shall
live peacefully. The way Winthrop emphasizes on the aspect of unity and outlines its strengths
drew my attention to choose the visual argument quate (Winthrop 1630). Looking back into the
history of America and how the founding fathers of the nation succeeded in founding a
successful nation, it is evident that unity is inevitable whenever success is the goal ("The
American Revolution"). The founders of the nations were determined to succeed. From these
they embraced unity and working together as the major strategy at that time. Therefore, it is
important that as a nation, we work together as a unified nation that cares about the well being of
others.
A good relation with each other and above all, a unified nation shall be able to solve most
problems that we encounter as a nation. From the historical point of view, we have seen people
from different ethnicities, gender and race put their differences aside and work together to

2
achieve a similar goal. During the American revol...


Anonymous
Great study resource, helped me a lot.

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