Hunter Shirey

Mrs. Thomas
UWRT 1101
22 October 2014
After having a couple peers and Mrs. Thomas take a look at my paper, I edited my paper taking
many of the comments from my peers and Mrs. Thomas under consideration. Their suggestions
helped me take an advanced look at my grammatical errors and look deeper into my genres.
Coulter, Rob, and Brandon all had similar things to say about my paper, positive and things that
were a complete determine to my paper. I had a very generic title and they helped me think of
something with a little more pizazz that would get the reader more interested in what I was
talking about. Overall, the feedback I got from these groups helped me tremendously they
showed me what I needed to go into more detail about and how to go about analyzing the pieces
better.
Christopher Columbus Hero? Or Villain?
Christopher Columbus is considered the greatest explorer of all time to some people.
Others would call him a horrendous person that was greedy and abandoned everything there is to
know about human rights. Researchers and historians have gathered knowledge and facts
together yet are still unable to agree on how Christopher Columbus was a hero. How do we
define the word hero? How do we define the greater good? Im on the search to find out.
Through proper research and other peoples opinions I will find out whether or not Christopher
Columbus was the man we all learned of in grade school. I will research through my four genres
I have chosen, a tweet, a painting, an article from the internet, and an academic article.

The Tweet
The tweet I found was quite funny. It read, In honor of Columbus Day I will go out for Indian
food, accidentally wander into a Quiznos and kill
or enslave every person there. The man who
made the tweet is named Pat Healy. Pat Healy is a
stand-up comedian and actor. He is a very active
member on twitter with over 18.6 thousand tweets
to go along with his 11.4 thousand followers. His
tweets mainly deal with advertising his
merchandise or some silly humor with an abnormal amount of curse words. I have noticed that
his humor relies mainly on wit and the tweet I have presented before you is a perfect example of
that. He takes a noticeable stand point on Christopher Columbus. Telling from the sarcastic tone
of the tweet, he is trying to make a present day example that relates to exactly what he thinks
Columbus did when he discovered America. This is the most popular tweet that Healy has ever
tweeted, which makes you wonder is this really how people feel about Christopher Columbus or
is the audience just hungry for Healys witty humor? Humor is one thing that definitely appeals
to many peoples emotions. Healy could also be trying to appeal through logic, although he has
no facts. So the only people that would think he is appealing logically are the ones who think he
is correct. Healy was aiming to the audience that believed the same thing as him and/or think it
was just a witty joke.
Painting

In 1847 John Vanderlyn depicted the moment of Christopher Columbus and his crew landing on
the new world. This was the most distributed of all of Vanderlyns works. This was a different
time period as well which is interesting, because the world is much more liberal than it was back
in the day so its interesting to see if the time effected the views of the people. In the picture
Columbus is taking the Spanish flag and putting it in the ground as to claim that the land is now
owned by the Spanish. His crew is crowded around him in celebration of there long voyage. You
can see some crosses being held up in the background showing that they are very religious and
not afraid to show it. Columbus and his crew are
wearing lavishly designed clothing that goes
along with their weapons and armor. In the
background to the left you see more crew
members getting off the boat and celebrating
with hugs and touching the land in amazement.
In the background are the natives, with no
clothes on, hiding behind trees, and one is even
on his hands and knees. Vanderlyn shows pretty clearly how the natives saw Columbus through
the one man on his hands and knees. He is saying that the natives looked at them as if they were
gods. He put Columbus in the center of the painting possibly to show that Columbus was the
center of the natives universe. The thing that stands out to me, that shows how the crew saw the
natives is how the little boy two people left of Columbus is looking at the natives, almost as if
they were scary animals at the zoo. I think Vanderlyn uses the emotion of that little boy to show
the audience that the crew were just as scared of the natives as much as the natives were scared
of them, if not more. I think this painting definitely shows that time can have a major impact on

whether something is considered moral or not. Vanderlyn shows this by portraying the crew as
civilized people, while he portrays the natives as animals who arent smart enough to figure out
they are worshipping humans. Vanderlyn portrays Columbus as a hero who took the land away
from a bunch of animals and let it become the civilization all land was supposed to be. To
Vanderlyn, Columbus was nothing less than a hero.
Article on the Internet
This article is found on http://www.history.com/topics/exploration/christopher-columbus. This is
the History Channels website and they have a lot of interesting information. The article talks
about what he did, how he did it, and his legacy left behind. This is a much unbiased article
showing many pluses and minuses about Columbuss four voyages. The main point that I saw as
a game changer was that none of Columbuss ideas were original. He was not the first to think
the world was round, he was not the first to think that sailing west would bring you to Asia, and
he wasnt even the first European, let alone person, to discover America. Leif Eriksson was the
first European to do so when he found Greenland in the eleventh century. They do tell both sides
of Columbus by saying he started the movement of the exploration and exploitation of the
Americas by European powers and to this day the world would not be the same without him. Just
because the world wouldnt be the same without someone makes them a hero? Did Columbus
change it for the better or for the worst? The article then goes on to say that Columbus destroyed
the Native American population by bringing in disease and environmental change, not to
mention the wars and slaughtering by the conquistadores. The History Channel wrote this for all
the people who dont know everything about Columbus and are more interested in looking him
up. This article appeals logically because, it is giving all the facts that it could about Columbus

and is allowing the reader to choose between Columbus being a hero and Columbus being a
villain.
Academic Article
The peer reviewed article I have found is called Elite Revisionists and Popular Beliefs
Christopher Columbus, Hero or Villain? It is written by three authors named Howard Schuman,
Barry Schwartz, and Hannah Darcy in the spring of 2005. This article caught my attention by
the way it jumps straight to the question we are all trying to answer, and that is, Christopher
Columbus hero or a villain? It gives facts, much like the article from the internet I saw, about
how Columbus is both a hero and a villain. The authors took a survey and these are the results.
The survey indicates that most Americans continue to admire Columbus because, as tradition
puts it, "he discovered America," though only a small number of mainly older respondents speak
of him in the heroic terms common in earlier years. At the same time, the percentage of
Americans who reject traditional beliefs about Columbus is also small and is divided between
those who simply acknowledge the priority of Indians as the "First Americans" and those who go
further to view Columbus as a villain. So with that survey they have shown that Americans are
just not knowledgeable about the topic as much as they should be to take a stance. It is hard to
take a stance when you actually recognize Columbus as the first person to discover the Americas.
The next thing the authors start to do is dig into the grade schools textbooks to see what the kids
are getting taught. Through the textbooks they find out that the kids arent getting the whole
story. They are actually getting mostly false information. This article continues to go back and
forth between who the revisionist are and Columbus, which dont have that much to do with each
other. They tie everything together at the end of the article where they came up with how most
elite revisionist feel about Columbus and that is that he is a no good navigator who is indeed a

villain. They go on to say that the public opinion of Columbus has changed distinctly in the past
twenty years thanks to the elite revisionist getting their word out there. This article was written
for the people who arent knowledgable enough to come up with a stance Using logic and pathos
to appeal to the audience these authors show the facts given by the elite revisionist and make
their decisions about Christopher Columbus.
Wrap Up
Through these four genres I have learned that there are many views on whether Columbus was a
hero or a villain, but it has made me think. The thoughts it has given me are very mixed. I will
use the thoughts, facts, and ideas that all four genres have given me and use it whenever it is
necessary.
Reflection:
Coulter- He said that there are a lot of good connections, but sometimes the sentence structure
was off
Rob- He said that I got the appeals spot on all my genres, but my last genre didnt have much to
do with the topic
Brandon- Brandon saw many grammatical errors and also said that last genre was off topic,
however, he did say that there were really good parts
After hearing my peers advice I decided to completely change my last genre to a more on topic
article. I also tried to change the grammatical errors and awkward sentences. I still dont think
this is a strong paper but hopefully I can change it up enough to make it great for the portfolio.