The Last Letter Home

travelers’ lives. Harsh winds would stall the ships for months at a time, while the vessels could end up being redirected several times due to unpredictable winds, increasing the time and danger associated with the journey (Cooke 337). Furthermore, the ships were often structurally weak, leaving them helpless especially during instances of sea storms and intense waves. Therefore the journey to the new lands was often itself the beginning of the struggle for the immigrants. Indeed, a small percentage of the would-be settlers who left Europe and other destinations died on the high seas. William Bradford writes of the emotional farewell amongst families before they set off on the journey, conceding that for many of the pilgrims it would be the last time they ever saw family members they had left behind (Burnham 695). Anne Bradstreet herself was an unwilling traveler, concerned about leaving her extended family behind and fearful of the journey and the process of starting life all over in a strange land (Bartlett 295). Upon landing on the shores of the American continent, the woes of the immigrants and pilgrims were far from over, with the challenge of settling down and utilizing the land presenting new difficulties. Oftentimes, identifying an area on which to settle was difficult because finding consensus among settlers on the best area for setting up camp was never guaranteed. Sometimes the settlers would occupy different areas after failing to agree on a most ideal spot, but…

For example, one trait Marley possessed was empathy, “Our rambunctious, wired dog stood with his shoulders between Jenny’s knees, his big blocky head resting quietly in her lap… They stayed like that for a long time, Marley statue-still, Jenny clutching him to her like a oversized doll” (Grogan 49). Jenny and John had only seen the energetic side of Marley; as far as they knew, he would jump all over people no matter what. However, after Jenny came home from her abortion, Marley just knew she…

plantation Martin’s Hundred, wrote letters to his mother and father begging them to “redeem” his indenture.1 The letter written by Frethorne opened up his parents eyes and the eyes of other Englishmen to the unforsaken truth about indentured servants, the conditions they were living in, and what hardships America was going through (e.g. disease, starvation, and death.) Frethorne wrote his parents a letter in hopes of revoking his indenture and returning home to England. If the Frethorne family…

the time when John left Abigail in Braintree “...to represent Massachusetts at the First Continental Congress in August 1774 until he returned home to the renamed Quincy in 1801, upon his completion of presidency, he spent twenty-seven years in almost uninterrupted public service (Hogan & Taylor xiii).” The two formed the “best-known husband and wife partnership in American history (Hogan & Taylor xiii). In the year of 1762, John Adams wrote a loving letter to “Miss Adorable”, known as Abigail…

Word count data was collected from home journals. The students counted all words written on one page in home journals once a month. I collected the numbers from journals after adults had responded to the entry. The data measured student fluency. Home journal entries were used as data. There were eighteen journal entries in all. I measured how student writing had changed over the course of the study. I used the same rubric that the countywide benchmarks were assessed with. I used the rubric to…

“The Ransom Red Chief” In the story, “The Ransom of Red Chief,” O. Henry creates humor with the characters of Red Chief’s father, Bill and Sam, and Red Chief. First, the author creates humor with the character of Red Chief’s the father because the father didn’t pay the son’s ransom money, he did not want his child, and he acted really sophisticated. Instead, the father sent a note saying that he would take Red Chief off their hands and they would pay him $250. So, they took they offer and…

The letter was a five paged letter that was sent from a wife to a husband. The husband being Walter and the wife’s name Bess. It seems like they are talking about girls named Doe, Bertha, and Helen. This letter starts out by saying that Doe and Bertha went downtown for lunch. So Bess decided to write this letter. Then Bess goes on to talk about how Helen seems to be doing well but looks deathly thin and sick. Upon reading farther it can be assumed that Walter and Bess are Helens parents. So Bess…

All annotation information comes from Wikipedia unless otherwise noted. Romance Novels Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. Boston, MA: Ticknor, Reed and Fields, 1850 The Scarlet Letter is one of Hawthorne’s most famous titles, taught to unappreciative students in high schools across the country. It is the greatest example of his propensity for puritan literature. It tells the story of Hester Prynn and her life in puritan Boston, where her husband sent her to set up their home before he…

For some a book composed almost entirely of letters written home from Vietnam may not seem like a desirable read. However, Dear America entices one from the first letter and makes the reader not want to put it down- unless they are reaching for a tissue. The tear provoking collection of letters at first seems like a window into the feelings, thoughts, and beliefs of a soldier suffering the hardships of war, but as it progresses the letters bite at the reader’s soul and makes one feel as though…

Oddly enough, the most powerful letter in the entirety of HBO’s Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam was neither from a Vietnam veteran nor composed during the 1960s. It was the final letter in the film, likely for effect, and was from a mother written to her late son commemorating the 15th anniversary of his death. In this heart-wrenching piece, the distraught mother recalls a conversation she shared with Jim, another veteran who served with her son William during the last four months of his…