Memoir

http://teacher.scholastic.com/writeit/readpoem.asp?id=8801&genre=Memoir&Page=4&sortBy=state
I enjoyed this blog out the most out of the 20 or so I looked at. The memoir actually starts out with a paragraph from the future. I'm not sure if you can still call it a memoir, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.
I enjoyed the memoir because of the descriptions the writer put into the small details. The description of the dust tornado, "...dust tornado would whirl by in the rocky desert, and I would watch it twirl and twirl until there was nothing left of it but a puff of smoke floating up into the sky." This creates a very vivid image in a reader's head, and "experience" the dust tornado, which is one of the goals of a memoir - to let others read about their experiences. The memoir does lack a real lesson learned. Since the story is based in the future, the lesson he learns is hypothetical, seeing as he's not guaranteed to accomplish anything. However, by writing the hypothetical future in the way he did, it shows that he was inspired by this experience, and eventually wants to build houses for kids.
As a story though, the memoir is okay. He describes his brother as a whining kid, and that's all he describes him as. There's no depth to the kid, just that he whine constantly about everything. The father also is poorly developed, and he shows no real personality. He appears to me as basically a paragon of dads. 

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a war fought between and Northern and Southern Vietnam, with the North being pro-communism and the south being anti-communist. Naturally, the US felt obligated to stop the spread of communism, and decided to provide support to Southern Vietnam. America suffered huge losses (58,000), and the idea that so many lives were lost/ being lost in a war that wasn't really directly related to them led to division among the American people. President Nixon ordered the withdrawal of all American troops in 1973. The communists forces then captured Saigon, marking the end of the Vietnam war. The following year, 1976, the country united as the Socialist Republic of China

http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/vietnam/index.cfm

Let America be America Again - Langston Hughes

I do not like this poem. It is way too long. But this isn't the point of the post.

I feel as if Mr. Hughes is describing America as a land devoid of the "American Dream." People who aspire for the American Dream almost never obtain it, and those who do obtain or have it, corrupt it by removing everything about the Dream besides money.
I also feel like Hughes makes a really big point about equality. Besides the one obvious reference to equality he has in the 15th line, he says things like "Where never kings... by one above." and "I am the poor white... crush the weak." These lines point to how America is not much different from monarchies. The poor stay the poor, despite promises of riches and new life. Man still acts as though one is superior to another, as a king does to his subjects.
Another theme of the poem would be hopeless jobs (best title I can think of). From Hughes' writing, I feel as if though he is complaining about the useless, super-grind jobs that people take to live a futile climb to reach their "American Dream." The fact that people are doing useless jobs is ubiquitous (VOCAB WORD) across the U.S.A.
All in all, Mr. Hughes is saying that he wishes America would be the America that everyone dreams of, and not the one that he lives in.