The Renaissance Period has always sparked my interest. The European Renaissance period was described as a fervent period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic “rebirth” following the Middle Ages. It was a time where people began to dig deeper and challenge each other’s thoughts. Reading about the European Renaissancehad really sparked my interest of the American Renaissance because I wanted to learn more. This was truly an important moment in history when American writers were given the same validation that European writers were getting. It was a very different time, and this is very exciting for the Americans. In high school my English teacher made us read many contemporary pieces, but my favorite work was The Scarlet Letter. I was assigned to read this genius book by Nathaniel Hawthorne and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I enjoy pieces of literature that teach us an important lesson that we can build upon. I thought The Scarlet Letter was very interesting because it dealt with women being isolated and tormented from society as well as the rights of an individual being infringed upon. This is something we currently still deal with today, but it has improved significantly since then. Hester Prynne is a perfect example of how strong women truly are. 

This would be a great work to teach my students because it would teach them that we are all people and are capable of making our own decisions that we should not be ridiculed for. Some people will except you and others will not. That is perfectly fine and there will always be those individuals who are capable of forgiveness. This may seem like a very difficult book for elementary school children, but there are underlining themes that they will definitely be able to comprehend. Be wary of your decisions because they are likely to impact others around you. With that being said, we as people will need to set personal morals, we for ourselves as an individual person as well as social expectations that our society sets up for us to abide to. Just saying to determine the sense of right and wrong is very black and white. Every human person will have different account of what they personally feel is right and wrong, so we must look beyond that. Children will need practice at this, but they will slowly learn as they make mistakes and perfect them. The American Renaissance Period began to shed light on things that the majority of people did not want to discuss. For example, in The Scarlet Letter Hester had a baby out of wedlock and this was a very serious sin and crime back then. This was something that people tried not to discuss and was kept very secret. Many of these women were stoned to death and you never heard anything afterwards. The books written during this period are great to teach to children because you will spark conversations in the classroom. You want to start getting children involved rather than than for them to be bored out of their minds like I was sometimes in high school. In order to get the students more engaged, I will let them play a game. I will create cards and write actions on them like cheating on a test, donating food to a shelter, babysitting a child, lying to your mother, stealing medicine for your child sick with cancer, etc. Some of the actions might have things that seem like bad actions but there are great intentions behind that action. This will get the kids to realize that sometimes people make bad decisions to help someone in need. Everything is not black and white. People can make very complicate decisions but should not have to suffer death or very heinous crimes because of them. The Scarlet Letter is relevant to children because they will learn lessons and build upon them for the rest of their lives. Books that kids read in school are definitely make an impact on their lives and possibly change them for the better. Thank you, Nathaniel Hawthorne, for giving us a great read like The Scarlet Letter which is so relevant to the treatment of women all over the world.