In Life on the Mississippi, what does young Twain jot down in his notebook?

When it becomes clear to Mr. Bixby that Twain is not
"learning the river," he gives his cub pilot some good
advice:

My
boy, you must get a little memorandum book, and every time I tell you a thing, put it
down right away. There's only one way to be a pilot and that is to get this entire river
by heart. You have to know it just like ABC . . .
.

Twain takes Bixby's advice
and soon his notebook "fairly bristled" with information. Twain says he recorded in his
notebook "the names of towns, "points," bars, islands, bends, reaches, etc." It bothers
him tremendously that his book is incomplete since he misses much of the river every
time he sleeps.

Explain how Rip Van Winkle might be seen as a model American romantic hero.What are some of his qualities that can support this?

Rip Van Winkle fits the description of model American hero
in many ways.  First of all he doesn't  conform to the mainstream guidelines of
society.  He operates at his own pace and is uninterested in any criticism thrown his
way.  He also is a nature lover and a deep thinker.  Like many Americans, he yearns to
get away from his problems and his stressful home life.  He makes this escape to the
mountains, the only place he can find solace, where he can relax, contemplate his
situation and seek peace.

When Rip awakes, he sees all his
dreams and wishes have come true.  His wife is no longer around to henpeck him and his
children are grown up, and get along with him.

Rip's
journey is one every person can identify with.  At times, we all would like to go to bed
at night and when we make up have our problems disappear.  That's Rip's adventure and
that is one why one could consider him the model American hero.

How do I create a thesis for the books Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou?

Are you trying to write a thesis that in some way compares
these two books? If so, I would focus on their differences. In
Black Like Me, a WHITE MAN pretends to be a black man and travels
through the south in attempt to experience what prejudice is like. He takes drugs to
change the color of his skin. It is a non-fiction book. In I Know Why the
Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou, a black woman, tells her life story, how she
actually DID experience not only prejudice, but many other traumas because of that
prejudice.

Do you think it is possible for someone
pretending to be black to really experience the depth of prejudice? Griffin, the author,
determined from the get-go that he would not lie to people about what he was doing, so
it was obvious, although well-intended, that he was not really experiencing TRUE
prejudice.

Perhaps you could write about the depth of both
experiences - compare what Griffin experienced to what Angelou experienced - "pretend"
prejudice vs "real prejudice". There are lots of approaches you could take. You could
focus on the "depth of prejudice experienced by Griffin vs the depth of prejudice
experienced by Angelou." You could also focus on the perspective of blacks - do some
research - how did blacks react to Griffin's experiment vs how they reacted to Angelou's
real experiences. The depth of emotion in the Angelou work is far more profound than the
Griffin work, mostly because Angelou's work reads as a novel, even though most of it is
true, whereas Griffin's is more journalistic in its approach. Does the writing style
affect the effectiveness?

I have thrown out some ideas that
I hope will help you. Good luck.

Please explain the meaning: p 157: "But, reconciled by his success,he yet refused to forego the privilege of criticizing this order."Brave New...

Taken in the context of the chapter of Brave New
World and the paragraph that it is in, this sentence is very significant. 
For, it points to the character flaws of Bernard Marx.  While he understands that there
are aspects of his society that are deserving of criticism, he wishes for the adulation
of people and the attention that his bringing of John to the New World has brought him. 
In short, Bernard is a hypocrite:

readability="16">

Success went fizzily to Bernard's head and in
the process reconciled him (as any good intoxicant should) to a world which, up till
then, he had found very unstisfactory.  In so far as it recognized him as important, the
order of things was good.  But, reconciled by his success, he yet refused to forego the
privilege of criticizing this order.  For the act of criticizing heightened his sense of
importance, made him feel larger.  Moreover, he did genuinely believe that there were
things to criticize.  (At the same time, he genuinely liked being a success and having
all the girls he
wanted.)

 Clearly, Huxley is
satirizing the man who fancies himself a "free-thinker" when he actually is subservient
to a system; he only pretends at criticizing, performing it so he can "feel larger."  In
addition, Bernard's character also supports the flaws to the utopian system since he
does not follow the design of his character.  In contrast to him, Helmholtz Watson is
truly an independent thinker.

What were the causes of European Imperialism in Africa during the period 1750-1914?

I concur with the above answer, and would also like to add
a couple of other factors that influenced Imperialism in Africa during this time
period.

Strategic Advantage -
First, consider the strategic significance of African colonies such as
South Africa and Egypt, which gave Britain control of vital waterways for trade routes
in the Cape of Good Hope and later, in the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea.  This
allowed the British Empire to maintain its dominance of the high seas, especially during
the time period you mention.  These trade routes, it should be said, made imperialism in
Asia and the Middle East more feasible
too.

Cultural Imperialism -
Underlying the desire of these countries to spread their empires was the racist and
arrogant belief that their empires, cultures, languages and religions were also superior
to the tribes and peoples of Africa, and that taking their natural resources could be
justified by "civilizing" such peoples.

How many Americans lived below the poverty line in the 1950s?

The most recent statistic I was able to find for Americans
living below the poverty line in the 1950s places the rate at 22.4%, more than one in
five.  Keep in mind this was before there were anti-poverty programs such as food
stamps, welfare and education programs.  These came into being largely during Lyndon
Johnson's administration in the 1960s and his War on Poverty
programs.

These programs, while expensive and not
addressing the root causes of poverty very directly, cut the overall poverty rate in
half, to just over 11%.  Since that time it has climbed again to nearly one in six
Americans today.

What 3 preparations had Montresor made in order to carry out his revenge?

Montresor has  meticulously planned the time, the place
and the method of his revenge well in advance. The following are the preparations which
Montresor makes to take his revenge on
Fortunato:

1. Time: Montresor
decides to take his revenge at "about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of
the carnival season," so that every one in his house especially the servants would have
gone out and that he would be able to commit his heinous deed completely unnoticed by
anyone. He had cunningly ensured that the servants would not return home that evening by
lying to them that he will be returning home only next
morning.

2. Place: Montresor
chose the innermost crypt in his vaults so that Fortunato's cries would not be heard by
anyone. He had also arranged to have the building stones and the mortar ready at hand to
wall in Fortunato. When he accompanies Fortunato into the vaults he carries with him the
instrument of revenge-the trowel.

3. The
Method: All the while "smiling in his face" Montresor flatters and traps
Fortunato by exploiting his "weak point" : Fortunato "prided himself on his
connoisseurship in wine," and Montresor deceives him by saying that he does not wish to
trouble him and that he'd rather  seek Luchresi's opinion regarding the quality of the
Amontillado that he has bought. At once Fortunato takes the bait and accompanies
Montresor into the vaults to prove that he is better than Luchresi. Once inside the
vaults, Montresor gets him drunk to slow down his reflexes and then leads him to his
death.