blog four jrc Reflection of cluster

                              
                                       Throughout this english 101 course i have come across many themes in " When I Was A slave" edited by Norman Yetman as well as "Southern Horrors" edited by Jacqueline Royster.
While slavery itself is a theme, I had already found myself disecting  it more to find other themes within it.
In the book "When I Was A Slave" themes such as slave culture and work culture would apear many times.  Another theme that showed up many times in the book would be the caste system within slavery. It explained how some slaves were treated better than others and were even trusted by their owners. While reading "Southern Horrors" most of the themes came from our exercise of using keyword strategy. I was able to find themes such as Negro Dominance, which is defined as African-Americans developing in a southern white society. Another theme that came out of "Southern Horrors" was White Honor, which was a theory that conversing with a black person as if  they were of equal caliber to the whites would be unruly.   One theme that i have seen even outside of english 101 class would be rights.
                                   The theme of rights is very common but i have been able to make different connections to it  while going to my Law and Human rights class and Linguistics. For an example, slaves did not have rights and they were not even considered human beings. They were considered no more than property. We learned this in Law and human rights class when reading the Plessy vs.ferguson case. I have also learned in linguistics class that Language is very much connected to rights. Again in "Southern Horrors" the government; more specifically the democrats were the reason why black people were limited of their rights. They used language through their written laws and regulations such as the Jim Crow laws and the Black Codes. These laws were specifically created to limit the power of blacks.
                                       The different classes we have differ because of their own uniqueness but still manage to relate to each other when we discuss rights as a whole. English 101 seems to cover all of the detailed slave accounts and stories from the 1800's and into the 1900's. I would say it is the class that is heavily based on background information of before and after the civil war. Law and Human rights leans more toward the government and explains how they either worked against society or with them.  It brings up the issue of whether or not we have the ability to use our rights to the full of their potential. Lastly linguistics class would appear to be far more complex when comparing it to themes mentioned. It possess the same characteristics as English 101  in relation to the heavy level of information given, however it is far more focused on the science of language and the many ways it can be used.
                                The fact that our class is diverse helps us all to learn about other cultures and backgrounds. A lot of us have misconceptions about each other such as religion and government and to have the opportunity to meet somebody from that particular culture creates a very fascinating  learning environment.  Another thing that is interesting is the fact that just by observing us you cannot tell that we belong to many different cultures and are multilingual.  By being in a multicultural environment it helps to answer a lot of questions and even find similarities between one another. It has been a very familiar and interesting experience for me and i am enjoying it. I also love the idea of a cluster because it is a great way to introduce a high school graduate into the intensive academic world of college.
                                        Our LIB class is really a reflection on all of our studies as a whole. It is the one day we have the whole class period to think about and discuss the familiarities between each class. Many topics have came up in class such as rights and language. Then we disucss how language can be used as a way to take away someones rights, which connects to slavery in the 1800's as well as racial driven violence in the 1900's.  As far as any more connections that can be made within the cluster, i have to say i am very much pleased with the amount of information given and the connections being made. I can't think of anything we might have missed or overlooked.