7th Anotation

"Bessie Smith fron NPR." nrp.org. 21 Nov 2008 .

Bessie Smith influenced alot of people for example from Mahalia Jackson to Mary J. Blige. She gave the music its raw, regal poignancy and marketability. Her feverish growls and testifying delivery has informed nearly every facet of African-American music. Incorporating a full arsenal of talent singing, dancing, and slapstick comedy Bessie was a consummate entertainer.

sixth anotation

"Bessie Smith's Blues." enotes.com. American Decade. 21 Nov 2008 .

Bessie smith was known as the " Empress of the Blues". Started touring with a vaudeville show as a dancer in 1912. A protégé of legendary blues woman Ma Rainey, she eventually became the most respected African American singer and so did Bessie when her time came.

Introduction of Bessie Smith

Bessie Smith was a beautiful, well known, and respectful woman. Bessie Smith was an exquisite blues singer and her voice caught people’s ears not just blacks but whites also. In 1912 during the Harlem Renaissance Bessie Smith broke into the singing world. A lot of people could relate to Bessie because of her hard life and struggles she had trying to become a Blues singer. From her being a black female in the music industry it was hard on her so she use alcohol and drugs to get away from her pain. Since she started to use drugs and alcohol her life revolved around drugs and alcohol and singing, which were first in her, life slowly became nothing to her and she fell out the industry.

fifth anotation

Sanders, Madelyn. "Bessie Smith." Women in History. 1/25/2008. 23 Oct 2008 .

This website was very useful, for example it told me about how Bessie Smith was born into a poverty stricken black family in the segregated south. It also stated " Bessie Smith was in the process of a comeback at the time of her tragic death at age forty-three. On Sept. 26, 1937, she was critically injured while on her way to a singing engagement, when the car being driven by her boyfriend Richard Morgan in which she was a passenger crashed into a truck on a road in Mississippi. According to legend segregation led to her death when a white hospital first refused her admission and by the time she arrived at a black hospital in Clarksdale, Miss., it was too late to save her and she bled to death. Although much has been said to dispute this claim, it is not implausible considering that this was the segregated south. The playwright Edward Albee dramatized the account in his 1960 play The Death of Bessie Smith ".

This website helped me a lot it told me about what type of family she was born into and how bessie smith life could have actually been saved after the tragic car crash but since it was a time during segregation the white hospital refused to take her so she bled to death.

Thesis Statement

Bessie Smith was a famous African American blues singers born into a time period of segregation, she was acknowledged for her singing but not for her courage. Being loved by not only blacks but whites as well, there were plenty of obstacles and situations that stood in her way.But with every success there is a down fall but she still got through it. Bessie was at the top at a time she got signed to Columbia Records and selling over two millions copies of cds to getting droped from her record company and not selling anything or making any money.

Forth Anotation

Primaryaccess.org. 24 Oct 2008 .

Bessie Smith was a talented African American blues singer. She was a rough, crude, violent woman. She was also the greatest of the classic Blues singers of the 1920s. But during her career she had her ups and downs. She was turned down by three record companies because they felt she wasn't commercial enough, but Columbia Records soon signed Bessie. Her first record "Down Hearted Blues" sold more then 2 million copies within a year. At her peak in the 1920's she earned $2,000 a week, making her the highest paid black entertainer in the country. In 1930 her career had begun to fall due to the public’s change musical taste. By 1931 the Classic Blues style of Bessie Smith was out of style. The Depression, radio, and sound movies had all damaged the record companies' ability to sell records so Columbia dropped Smith from its roster.

Third Anotation

"American Decades." enotes.com. 24 Oct 2008 .

During her lifetime the blues was regarded as a form of black expression; she performed for mostly black audiences and recorded for what were classified as race records that were not stocked in record shops catering to whites. Unlike Louis Armstrong, who reached all audiences, Smith was unknown or unavailable to most white Americans during her career. She was a black artist working with traditional black material for a black public nevertheless, Smith gave special performances for white audiences in some large cities.

Second Anotation

Forman, Roanna. "ENCYCLOPEDIA OF JAZZ MUSICIANS." Jazz.com. 24 Oct 2008 .

When Bessie's mother and father died she was left to take care of her three brothers and sisters by taking in laundry. This strong work ethic made a lasting impression on Bessie. She was determined to leave the poverty and inequality of Blue Goose Hollow, and show business was her ticket. She started street corner singing and dancing with her brother Andrew to boost the family’s income. She did an audition Stokes and later hired Bessie as a dancer, since he already had a singer Ma Rainey. During this time, she developed a reputation as a performer at black theaters across the South and along the Eastern Seaboard. Bessie was decidedly an original, and a natural singer. Bessie Smith is a soprano with a more urban, polished style. In any case Bessie undoubtedly learned how to handle herself on stage from Rainey, even though their styles were different. Things began to change after the 1920s, in 1923, Smith, then living in Philadelphia, auditioned successfully for a recording contract with Columbia and that's where her success begun.

First Anotations

"Biographies Life and times of the great ones." PBS.org. 24 Oct 2008 .

Bessie Smith was the most successful black performing artist of her time. She not only sang the blues she also did acting too. Bessie began her professional career by sing in 1912. She made almost 200 recordings, of which her remarkable duets with Armstrong are among her best. Although she excelled in the performance of slow blues, she also recorded vigorous versions of jazz standards. By the 1920s, she was a leading artist in black shows on the TOBA circuit and at the 81 Theatre in Atlanta. Her first recording, Down-Hearted Blues, established her as the most successful black performing artist of her time.

Topic Selection

I choose Bessie Smith for my Nation History Day project because I am interested in the time when slavery just ended and women didn’t really have any rights. Bessie is important to history because she gave colored people a lead way to who wanted to do what she did. She was the first successful, rich and well known black Blues singer. For this week’s research, I found an article at http://www.cmt.com/artists/az/smith_bessie/bio.jhtml that is telling me about her life and fame. I will read and summarize it for next week.

Service Learning Reflection (NHD)

This week the School Wide-Service Learning was canceled. But when we do have have our the school wide service learning we most likely would still be video recording each other. I don't mind because i like when we do that aanyway.

Service Learning Reflection (NHD)

At the last school service learning project my class still was video recording. On the good and bad ways how to do NHD.

What are we going to do on 5-9-2008 the next School Wide Service

On the next meeting we are going to finish recording clips of what to do and what not to do when your working on your NHD Project.

My Reflection On My School Wide Service Learning Project 5-1-2008

In my in school service learning project's meeting on Thursday my group was successful on video recording but we are still not finished yet. We was recording the good and bad ways we should do NHD. For example they recored me and Juju. I was researching my topic the right way on the computer but then Juju was interupting me by playing music then trying to tell me the wrong way how to research and instead of me ignoring him I listened to him. There is nothing I learned yet! Well there is nothing to learn. In the up coming weeks we have to get finished recording and then edit the clips on the imovie and yeah we should be finished after that. Next year I think we shouldn't even have an NHD group for an opinion for the school wide service learning project. That is because we don't need to make another imovie to tell us what to do and what not to do we only need one we already is going to cover all the topic anyway.

Service Learning Project

Next week I am going to try and change my group to that go that is trying to raise money/ have fun raisers to help the people in Africa.

Service Learning Project Reflection 2nd Meeting

On thursday the NHD group talk what topic we were going to focus on. It was out of the cult, prostitution, drugs and many more. But we all decided on one to focus on. About time we was doing that the class was over.

School Wide-Service Learning Project "What Should We Talk About"

In tomorrow's meeting I think we should pick up were we left off last week. We should all come together and discuss the outlines we did. And see if people have any new ideas about what we should do.

School Wide-Service Learning Project 1st Meeting

Friday when I went to my service learning class I discovered that I'm wasn't in the recycling class which I thought I was in. I am in the NHD class. When I went in that class I thought it was going to be boring but it wasn't as boring as I thought it was going to be I kind of liked it. In that class we were talking about how we were going to make that project. Then we all got broken up into little groups and discussed the topics (paper, documentary, play, and exbit) and wrote an outline about each topic. The questions were what were negative and positive about each topic and what you should and what you shouldn't do for each topic.

School Wide Service Learning Project

I think we should better the community by starting in the school first. At the meeting tomorrow we should talk about what we are going to do. I think we should start recycling. Recycling stuff like cans, paper, plastic bottles and etc. Since there is no recycling trash cans in this school we could go and get some and put them next to all the other regular trash cans. I think that's a good start.

Independent Service Learning Project

For my service learning project I am going to volunteering to work at Liberty Court. The Liberty Court is a place where the elderly and disable people stay. It is located on 15th and Lombard the address is 1526 Lombard Street Philadelphia, PA 19146. The contact number is 215-546-5960 I am going to be there on the 17th, 19th and the 20th of March. When I go there I am going to help and entertain the elderly and the disable people by doing stuff like reading to them and help serving their food stuff like that. I’m looking forward to doing that I think it is going to be a good experience.

Independent Service Learning Project IDEAS

For my Independent Service Learning Project I was thinking about volunteering to help my neighborhood. I live in a apartment building and I thinking about instead of my matence people doing all the work I wanted to give them a helping hand and pick up all the trash up off the ground around the complex. Or go to the playground down the street and clean up. Or go to my neighborhood libery and read to little kids. Or maybe go to a place and help out the elderly. Oh yeah that’s what I’m going to do I am going to help the elderly.

Reflection on NHD

For my National History Day Project I worked with a group. That’s what I wanted to do, I didn’t want to work by myself. The people who worked with me were my friends of course their names were Kameko, Shaquetta and Kate. When it came down to the point where we had to pick a topic we all wanted to do something on women but we didn’t know what. First we picked Women’s Suffrage but our history teacher Mr. Brasof said it was to board. We got stuck and couldn’t find a less board topic so Mr. Brasof just told us to do our National History Day Project on The Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery. When it came down to the point when we had to do our research on our topic in the beginning I thought it going to be easy but I found out it was kind of hard but I got through it and finished my 25 annotations. Then it was time to decide what were we going to do a documentary, an exhibit, or a performance. We all sat down and had a little discussion, we had pros and cons. A paper was out of the question because if I did that I would have had to do that by myself, a documentary was out of the question too because first of all, none of us didn’t know how to work the computer. So we were left with doing an exhibit and performance. Everyone was doing an exhibit and we wanted to be different so we picked performance. We all took parts in writing the script. Kate wrote the process paper and I did the annotations (I had to put all of my groups annotations together in ABC order). Every thing worked out fine. Everybody liked our performance and guess what we made it to city’s of course. What I think we could of did better was making the script longer and getting along with each other because we stayed arguing with each other. What I would have kept the same would be the people I worked with. I got better at researching. And there is nothing else I have to say about The National History Day Project. Oh yes I do NHD is very stressful and it annoyed me. If it were optional I would not even do.

My final grade in english class should be an A. I think I really deserve it. The reason why I said that is because I never disrupted his class, I do all my work and I pay attention.

I never disrupted Mr. Romero’s english class. Even though I never really participated in his class I was engaged with group work. I also reacted a play in front of the whole class. And also stood in front of the class and told all the students the traits of the character Huckleberry Finn. That’s not like me because I’m a shy person I don’t usually do things like that.

I do all my work in Mr. Romero’s english class. Even though missed a {whole week} couple of days of school I still managed to come back to school and catch up and do all my work.

I pay attention in Mr. Romero’s english class. Even though my peers some times be a little talkative a times I never really give into it. I always pay attention to whatever he got to say.

There was never one time he ever called on me because of me being talkative or just being disruptive in his class. I pay attention, I do all my work and I never disrupted his class what more can you ask for. That’s the reason why I believe for my final grade I should get an A.

The person I choose for my African American Literature Biography is Richard Wright. The main reason why I choose him is because I heard of him before but I never really knew what he did so I think this is the prefect time to research him. I’ll be telling you about his early childhood, what he did and some of his accomplishments.

Richard Wright was born on a cotton plantation near Natchez, Mississippi year 1908. His father deserted the family when he was five. A few years later, his mother became ill. Richard and his brother lived with different relatives and for a time then put in an orphanage. Before age 12 Richard did not have a single full year of schooling. Then he moved to Memphis, Tennessee where he began writing. When Richard was growing up he was poor. He was unable to get a book in order to borrow one from the library in Memphis he forged a note from a white borrower.

Richard literary career began after he moved to Chicago. There he became involved in radical politics. He joined the communist party and began writing for Lefist magazine. His interest turned to fiction by the time he left for New York, he had begun Uncle Tom’s Children. His first major success came in 1940 when he published his novel Native Son. He changed today’s life by being the first written book by an African American to be chosen for the book of the month club. Black boy the story of his early life in the south, appeared in 1945 and became a bestseller. Many thought that book was a masterpiece.

After Richard moved to France he continued to write fiction and nonfiction books. At the time of his death in year 1960, he was working on the Eight Men, which was published in the year 1961.

In conclusion, I told you about Richard Wright’s early life, what he did and his some of accomplishments. I’m glad I’ve chosen Richard Wright to be the person to write about for the African American Literature Biography aren’t you.

Should the book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn be taught in school

The book that is called Adventures of Huckleberry Finn should be taught in school. The reason why I said that is because that book can be very educational and could show the students how a book can be compared to real life situations. The main reason why I said the book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is educational is because the book teals you about a slave trying to escape to freedom and that’s in the history book. The reason why I said the book that is called Adventure of Huckleberry Finn is realistic is because in the story it was talking about Huckleberry Finn going to the dinning room table with dirty hands and clothes and being told by his guardians to go and change his clothes into some clean ones and go and wash his hands and you know almost every child was told that at least a few times in their life to do that. Now you know that’s a real life situation. That’s why I think the book that is called The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn should be taught in school.