Natalie Sanchez

Nikhail James

Matthew Scuderi

 The Promised City on a Hill

 We are destined to be blessed

God looks on us with eyes that shine

With the glorious glow of admiration

As long as our steps follow in the path

The great one has made

We will be great rulers with prosperity for all of our days

All we have to do is remember to raise him

With undying devotion

We must stay true to our God, sisters and brothers

For he has made us the city upon a hill

The beautiful diamond

Shinning on the eyes of others

 There is a diverged road before us

Of life and good

Another of death and evil

In order to be blessed we must live like he would

 Like a seed whom,

Is watered and cared for,

In a proud mother’s oval belly,

Life emerging from her womb,

We will be multiplied,

We will thrive,

In this land,

With promise justified

 If we his word neglect,

Our promise turns barren,

The land left to possess,

Will be another’s gain,

 Let us follow him,

For with him comes life,

And in this new land,

We will powerfully thrive

 Gather here

Listen all

We must rise and never fall

We must seek prosperity

Harness it in a manifest destiny

It is his will

Some must fulfill

 We must join together as sister and brothers

Take the promised shining city on the hill from the others

We shall smite the faces of evil

Prevail with the might of our God

 We must obey his voice, we have no choice

We shall no longer be disgraced

By evil’s false gods

It’s time to go fourth this land

It’s no longer request, its demand

Only

Only way to stop our mind body and soul from falling behind

Only way to keep up with the rate of the costliness of posterity

Only way to continue in the great counsel of Micah

Only way of love and mercy humbly for our God

Only way to maintain ourselves on the right track

Only way

Only way

Only way

Only way to rejoice and enjoy the

Supply of our necessities

Only way to keep the good of the

Spirit in the band of peace

Reflection:

            For my NHD project, I chose to research the Spanish American war. I was originally going to research the history of Ellis Island, and create a project surrounding the topic, but I changed my mind when I came across a website about the Spanish American war. I was researching Ellis Island, when I remembered that we were learning about wars in history class, and thought that it would be a better idea to research wars instead. I started researching U.S. wars, when I found the Spanish American war. I read that in this war, Puerto Rico was involved. I am Puerto Rican, so this caught my attention. When I opened this page, I read about the Spanish misrule over Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines. I also read about how the United States defended Cuba from their oppressive leaders. The aspect that most caught my attention, however, was the yellow journalism involved with the history of the war. Hearst and Pulitzer were newspaper publishers who used yellow journalism, or exaggerated political cartoons, to inform the New York public about the events of the war. Soon their newspaper publications gained a lot of fame throughout America. The citizens of, not only New York, but also America, looked to these newspaper articles to get all of the latest news on the war. The history of the war was fascinating to me because of yellow journalism’s pertinence to it.

            I had many presentation formats to choose from. I could have made a documentary, set up a live performance, written a paper, or create a website. I didn’t want to make a documentary because I am not very good with imovie, and I didn’t want to set up a live performance because I was afraid of performing in front of too many people. I had already written a paper last quarter, and it didn’t turn out as strong as I would have wanted it to, so I went with the website. I felt that if I chose to create the website, it would be easiest for me and I would be able to manage it easier and videos and pictures and links pretty easily. This was the category where my strengths could be displayed.

            I ran into some trouble with the project when it came time to actually put the information on the website and on the essay. I knew what happened in the war, and I researched the history thoroughly, so I knew the facts. It was just extremely hard to develop an idea. I talked to Ms. Laufenberg about this, and she suggested that I should bring up aspect of yellow journalism in the war. I went with this, and decided to go with the debate theme of the NHD project. I posed the question, did yellow journalism start the war or not? In the end, I answered the question while backing up my points with quotes from secondary sources and also with primary source images.

            The best part of the project was looking for the history of the war. I love digging into the history of things and finding things out about the past and how they pertain to the present. It’s exciting; like finding a diamond in a pile of soil. I thought I did a very good job in stating facts about the war, and laying out the timeline of the war.

            If I had the chance to do this over again, I would probably make the website a bit more crappier, make it a bit more interesting. I would also, develop more points of the war and be more thorough with the explanations of my points. 

This is a video that I created to tell the history of John Bartram and his historic house and garden. 

Here is the link to my annotated bibliography:

Here is the link to the script for my project:

Thomas F. Donatucci 

http://www.schooltube.com/video/b76dec0daeb3aa2cb0b3/Francesca-and-Alissas-EnglishHistory-Benchmark

Alissa DiBartolomeo & Francesca Brennan 

Link to citation

Here is my blog: http://perelmanbuilding.blogspot.com/

My Annotated Bibliography: https://docs0.google.com/document/d/1WHNhPPsD7pH7v-xok5dnRpEULBv2_j2Fs1jObA0--dE/edit?authkey=CM3NgfwH#

-Ian McClendon