What Does it Mean to Be an American Sharing Day

Today, your task will be to do some reflection, analysis and interpretation about how the essays that you read for today are influencing your answer about what it means to be an American.

1. Begin by reviewing your annotations from last night. Gather your thoughts (potentially even do a short prewrite in your notebook) then make a new post to your blog in which you respond to the following: What do these readings suggest about what it means to be an American? (You might want to think about political, social, economic, and cultural issues.)  How are the two readings similar/different?  Using your annotations, identify the passages/ideas that you agree with and/or disagree with the most.  Discuss why.  
2. Next, you will be commenting on what your fellow group members wrote about the essays that they read. You'll begin by reading the excerpted version of their reading in your packet in order to give you a bit more context about their post. Then read the post that your classmate wrote and post a comment to it. Make sure that you publish this comment. Repeat this step for as many rounds as you can until your teacher says to stop.

Round	Person A	Person B	Person C	Person D
1	Blog on your own readings: Boorstin and Zinn	Blog on your own readings: Baldwin and Reagan	Blog on your own readings: Billington and Kushner	Blog on your own readings: Kingsolver and Gregorian
2	Read excerpts from Baldwin and Reagan.  Read and respond to D’s blog	Read excerpts from Billington and Kushner.  Read and respond to A’s Blog	Read excerpts from Kingsolver and Gregorian.  Read and respond to B’s Blog	Read excerpts from Boorstin and Zinn.  Read and respond to C’s Blog.
3	Read excerpts from Boorstin and Zinn.  Read and respond to C’s Blog.	Read excerpts from Baldwin and Reagan.  Read and respond to D’s blog	Read excerpts from Billington and Kushner.  Read and respond to A’s Blog	Read excerpts from Kingsolver and Gregorian.  Read and respond to B’s Blog
4	Read excerpts from Kingsolver and Gregorian.  Read and respond to B’s Blog	Read excerpts from Boorstin and Zinn.  Read and respond to C’s Blog.	Read excerpts from Baldwin and Reagan.  Read and respond to D’s blog	Read excerpts from Billington and Kushner.  Read and respond to A’s Blog

3. For tomorrow-adding a layer
1. Read the comments on your blog.
2. Read the Crevecoeur and Stegner selections (end of your packet).
3. Final blog post: Where are you now in your thinking?  How do Crevecoeur and/or Stegner influence what you said before? How have the comments to your initial post influenced your thinking? Be sure to identify at least TWO speicific readings/comments that challenged you to think differently or expand your thinking.