Questions for Take-Home Exam 2

Instructions: choose two out of the following four questions to answer. Make sure to identify which question you are answering at the top of the page.

Due Date: Upload onto Blackboard by midnight on Sunday June 19th.

Format: Each answer should be at least one page long (double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12pt). Please remember to put your name and the date at the top.

Advice: the best responses will refer specifically to the texts that we read in class and offer insights into the implications or symbolic meanings of the text.

1. Using specific examples from Equiano’s text, explain how American society’s treatment of free blacks in the 18th century mirrored the treatment of the liberated and theoretically “equal” black Americans even after the passage of the 13th-15th amendments (1865-1870).

2. How are the poems “The Indian Burying Ground” and “To the Right Honorable William…” similar in style and literary devices?

3. How would the Declaration of Independence be different if certain words or phrases were not omitted from the final draft? Would there be a difference in how we read it today or how it has been read throughout history?

4. Choose one of the texts we have discussed this unit and analyze something that you find interesting, meaningful, or significant in it.

Jonathan Edwards, Personal Narrative
Thomas Jefferson, “Declaration of Independence”
Pontiac, “Speech at Detroit”
Olaudah Eqüino, Narrative of the Life
Philip Freneau, “Indian Burying Ground”
Phillis Wheatley, “On Being Brought from Africa..” “To the Right Honourable…”