<p>I just wrote this. I know it's not very good, and that it's very factually innacurate. Do they grade off for getting facts wrong? Also, is this too short? I ran out of room, but had extra time. I think I write too largely.</p>
<p>Anyhow, any feedback is great! If you want me to grade yours in return, just say so!</p>
<p>Prompt:
DO we need knowledge of the past to fully understand the present?</p>
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<pre><code>History is alive. Our past does not exist in a bubble, but instead constantly melds with our present. Only by understanding this past are we able to comprehend the totality of our present. This is illustrated by both historical and literary analysis of African American history. The Black Civil Rights movement in the 60s stemmed from centuries of racial persecution. Likewise, in Toni Morrison?s ?Beloved,? its main character Denver only understands her present state by learning the details of her mother?s history as a slave. When not put in the context of the present, the past is incomprehensible.
Every school child knows Rosa Parks rose to fame after refusing to give up her bus seat to white folks in Alabama in the 60s. However, this monumental action is not fully understood without an awareness of the past. The laws that forced Rosa Parks to give up her seat stemmed from a fury of legislation passed in the antebellum South between 1860 and 1890. Though the 16th and 17th amendments were designed to ensure equality between blacks and whites, Jim Crow laws stipulated that the treatment of African Americans could be ?separate but equal,? which was warped into permitting separate and largely unequal treatment. Laws in the South limited which water fountains, stores and even bus seats African Americans were allowed to use. Rosa Parks? action was monumental because of this long history. She was not one woman who one day took the wrong seat, but a woman who challenged centuries? worth of inequality.
Knowledge of the past is similarly important to Denver in Toni Morrison?s novel ?Beloved.? Denver?s mother was a slave, yet Denver rarely hears of her family?s painful history. As a result, Denver does not fully understand why her family behaves in a certain manner and is unable to fully comprehend the present. As her mother slowly begins to break down and share the tales of her past, Denver learns why her mother?s full of sorrow and why they live the way they do, and thus gains a more complete understanding of the present.
Denver?s identity, like Rosa Parks? actions, is fully grounded in the past. Without a complete understanding of history, the present is meaningless.
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