During this school year we learned a lot about other countries through the Holocaust and Colonialism. I am writing about Countries not always knowing what is best for other countries. The pieces of work that we did in class that have to do with this topic are the Torture and Obedience worksheet, the Night Themes and Insights worksheet, and the Graphic Novel Quote Responses on the Holocaust book we chose to read. I learned about this topic from reading the books, “Night” by Elie Wiesel and “Maus” by Art Spiegelman. Both of those books are about the Holocaust through Jewish peoples’ eyes. On the “Maus” Quote Sheet, we had to write quotes that we thought were interesting, what we thought about the quote, what the quote says about the book, and what the quote says about the world. On the “Night” Themes Worksheet, we had to write three quotes from the book about faith, relationships, hope, and control. We also had to write two statements and a deep question for each of those categories. These helped me learn about countries not knowing what’s best for each other because we live in a free country and we complain if our phone is going to slow, if there's traffic, or if something costs more than we want it to, but these people were fighting for their lives every day and we will never know what their experience was like. The Nazi’s were trying to control the Jewish people and wanted to kill them because they weren’t the “perfect” race. The last worksheet that helped me learn about this topic is the Torture and Obedience Worksheet. This helped me learn about the topic because it was a worksheet on a video that had to do with people shocking others if they answered a question wrong, but the people weren’t really getting shocked, and the video related to the book, “Night.” It related to “Night” because the Nazis tortured the Jewish people by putting them in gas chambers and keeping them in the concentration camps with barely any food or water. They also killed the Jews by putting them in a in a crematorium. We wait in line for the newest phones, newest sneakers, or even concert tickets, and the Jews waited in line for food and their death. Another piece of work that we did in History was a Colonialism Project. This helped me understand because after the Native Americans were colonized their whole world changed, and they didn’t want that to happen because they didn't know what the change would bring to their already formed culture but the Spaniards thought that colonization was best for the Natives even though the Spanish told them how to live their lives. An example of this in today's world is the budget cuts from the Philadelphia School District. They are taking away our rights to a better education from our electives, our sports programs, and even our counselors that help us with our college choices.

My thoughts about countries not always knowing what is best for one another changed throughout this year because I used to think that learning about other countries and the Holocaust was boring, but now that I learned about it in a different way I found out a lot more about the ways countries try to control other countries. Another way it changed my thinking was because it was in the perspective of people that were a part of the Holocaust rather than someone else’s perspective. I used to not like learning about History but the way that I learned it this year really changed my perspective on how I look at the world and it taught me that I shouldn’t take the things I have for granted.

Some Other Work That has to do with this Topic:

History Journal 9/12/12

Final Portfolio

Jules James

Looking back throughout the year in history and in english the theme this year in history, to me was seeing things in different lens helps create a better understanding of the world. We learned about what happened in the past and also what is happening now. We didn’t just stick to one subject. We learned about about a lot of things that happened in different places. One thing I remember learning about in history was the Colonialism Project. In this project we had to search any place in the world that was colonized in the past and we as individuals prepared a proposal to make an exhibit. This project really showed me that there is a way of learning without just sitting in a classroom and listening to a teacher talking our brains out and telling us to take notes. And some people, like me, consider this way to be the easiest and the fun way to learn. In some cases it’s nice to learn and find out new information on your own other than just getting a ton of facts thrown in your ear.

It wasn’t just the projects that helped me learn new things in different ways but it was also the daily journals we did. For example, one of the journals I thought was helping was History Journal #19. In this journal, the question was “What is your universe obligation?” I answered this question by stating the four people, things, or places that I that felt as though was extremely important in my life. I liked doing this journal because the answer for this question didn’t have a right or wrong answer. It was opinionated. At this time we were learning about the universal declaration of human rights. We learned about the different rights for humans such as being born free, no slavery, equality to law, privacy, and many other rights. We also learned about The Modern Day Sweatshops. It was interesting the way we gathered up all our information and used it on each other by having a trial. We performed the trial by playing in different groups such as U.S. consumers, the system of profit, the poor country workers, the poor country ruling elite, and the multinational corporation and we basically chose one group to put all the blame on for the sweatshops, that is all around the world, and we had evidence of how each other was involved in the sweatshops. “We don’t care about the employees. We just want a profit.” This is one quote that was said during the trial by the system of profit and I felt as though this was a good quote because they was really playing the role of the system.

In english there was a lot of feelings and description going on. This year was filled with emotion and I thought this was important to state because in english not everybody have the chance to learn about these things because they are either focused to read  books or they are learning about grammar. We had the opportunity to read books and work on our grammar also. So the theme in english was language has hidden meanings and influence. There’s multiple reasons why I feel like this was the theme. For example, language played a huge role in my english 2 classes. We learned about descriptive language and poetry throughout the year that really brought out people’s emotion and thoughts. “Love don't exist in the pool of me. But the pain from is its number one visitor. As the smiles that I call bodyguards of happiness try to keep the pain out, its too strong for the bodyguards who don't use weapons except the lies of a smile.” When you read these quotes you can see that they are not just a regular sentences that you say when talk to someone. Well these sentences and more sentences like this was written in my Descriptive Writing. During our process of writing this, we was told to write different description paragraphs about things we saw or a moment we remembered from before to help us write with a lot of description. I thought this was very helpful because not only did this help me write with more description but it also helped me with looking at every little details of things and using figurative language such simile and metaphors. After writing the descriptive writing we switched to the poetry lesson.

When I heard this I thought we was going to just read a lot of poems from popular poets, but we didn’t do that. We made our own Poems and we used different styles that I never heard of like riff, ode, and found poems. Writing these poems taught me that not all poems have to rhyme just for it to make sense or have significant meaning. “But throughout life these languages will never connect. They are strangers living in the same house.” (Language vs. Language) This quote to me was separating language and poetry. The theme of language also came into place in my English Journal #10 where I had to fill in the blank, I wish ___________, multiple times. “ I wish I had tattoos. I wish I could fall in love. I wish I cared.” These quotes show that the phrase “I wish...” can go as far as to want to take it. And this is the same with language and poetry. You determine how much of you you want people to hear in your language.

In conclusion, this year was filled with different lesson that in a way all connected. And as I look back at all my works that I did for this year I realize that when challenging yourself, you are bettering yourself.

When you open to the doors, what do you see? In that case, it seems like everyone thinks differently because the uniqueness sparks their light bulb in their mind. I personally admire this quote; “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning” Albert Einstein. The key is to think deeper on your explanations. This year had been a roller coaster when we all started on the first day of school, when I stepped into English class. I saw bright new faces around me and I knew the level I am standing is different. The bigger picture is when we analyzed art and talked about modern day history. At first, I didn't know why we were studying art, but as of now art has a powerful message and I thought World History is about famous people. There are couple meaningful to address; languages is a common barrier to relationships, things that make you different also makes you unique, and different things represent power in different cultures/civilizations. These aspects will show how they are related in both subjects.

One of the journal entries #15 from English is a powerful piece that shows my accomplishments. It shows my ambitious of who I am. The journal entry also relates to a book we’ve read in the beginning of the year. People have their own dreams and hope and they will find a way to achieve it. The journal entry shows how I am my own person and in the book, Janie fight her ways of becoming a stronger woman. I learned that in journal entries, I have to use my critical thinking and my imagination.

History journal #8, talks about religion in past that spreads around the world. “Religion is the sign of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the sould of soul- less conditions. It is the opium of the people”- Karl Max . I believe there are many things to learn about religion because everyone was born with different cultures and religions. Sometimes when people worship different religions, people can’t have a relationship with them because they aren’t the same. Religion affects the history because they segregated the people to not socialize, but to hate each other. The unit religion, I have been studying many countries and learn about religion. I am open minded to all religion because they have a special meaning that does different things. The journals help me learned about other people who talked in the group discussions. Sometimes, I would talk because there aren’t any wrong answers.

In English class, we have to write an essay about how languages influence the people around the whole world and me. I wrote about my family who spoke Cantonese when I was born and how English had impacted my life at school. I had trouble writing and talking in English, but as of today, I expanded my knowledge of writing and speaking. Learning different languages makes everyone a lot easier because I can understand three different languages; Cantonese, English, and Spanish. It shows that I want to have conversations with speaking different dialect. On top of it, I created a video about my family who struggles speaking in English. I get to talk to my parents about their lives and I think about how I impacted to the community. This unit is powerful when everyone should respect how they speak

            One of my benchmark in English class is a podcast about my cousin. The topic was crossing boundaries to learn about the struggles in their lifetime. I learned that my cousin’s childhood was a lot different than mine because she would have to fit in when she moved to Philadelphia. Even though we were born and raised in California and moved to Philadelphia in our childhood, the environment is different. As of today, she loves Philadelphia more than California because she thought about the living expenses and how the city is more historical. I can also relate to my cousin because we are the oldest kids in the family and we would have to do everything when the parents always depend on us. I learned that growing up is hard, but it can be a life lesson in the future.

A project I have been studying is about religion. I created a blog on wiki spaces and researched about the history of religion. Even though people believe in different God, and I learned that there are different symbols that brings people together because they need something to praise for. This project shows the relationship between the societies on how it is important to them. Religion is very powerful to everyone because the cultures and traditions are different; therefore religion is a unique topic to learn about. I am aware of how people think about other people as of today. People should accept who they are and I think religion just bring people together to have sets of beliefs.

Lastly, my first benchmark in history class, I wrote monologues about Pipelines that the United States planned to build it in the south. I wrote about how it will affect everyone in the society when families will have to leave. The tar can also impact the environment a lot worst. This was one of my favorite projects because I learned about the current history that may affect my future. I also watched videos about the Pipelines and read several articles.

Everything I learned from both classes isn’t about just reading, there are opportunities to engage the learning spaces such as writing, activities, watching videos and going on field trips. I want to show how much I have learned. I learned by having group discussions, working together as a team for projects and sometimes working independent. Having Mr. Block as a teacher for two subjects of challenging my own actions. As a new stage, walking to 11^th grade, I will always remember the critical thinking and how people should back up with their opinions.

“I think religion helps us to deal with what we don't understand, with what overwhelms us, with what makes life hard. It helps us gain an anchor” A quote that I was able to grab and collect in my journal entry #13 along with other very insightful quotes and my reactions to them. In the religion unit that was taught in history class I realized that religion can either unite us or separate us. Journal entry #13 sort of shows the positive side of religion but in journal entry #9  it shows a bit of the opposite. It talks about orientalism and how much ignorance it brings. Religion seems to be the backbone or foundation that some people tend to fall back on when they have nothing else. In that there can and will come unity and acceptance with oneself and others. But then there are some other people who tend to go bit extreme to the point where other people’s lives can be in danger. Journal entry #9 is an example for orientalism is still out there today. But that doesn't mean we can't change it. I have come to analyze at many different angles that religion can be both good and bad but it is mostly up to the people and how they choose to take it to decide.

I’m a 16 year old high school student, currently going through a large budget cut along with 1,000’s of other students in the Philadelphia School District. In the midst of this havoc I’ve have learned things that make me forget the lack of hope our state has for our education. Mr. Block, my 39 year old English/ History teacher plays a pivotal role in this experience. In his classes he has allowed words not to only stain our pages, but our perspective on life. Starting off the year with descriptive pieces, language essays, to creating dance pieces, no matter what the style Mr. Block has allowed our creativity to be catharsis.

Poetry

“Little hips swish as her fate crashed into a hoop”

(Above is a link to my poems)

We began a new unit with a name I know far too well, poetry. Something I believe a classroom could not teach, instead it must be naturally instilled in a person. But I proceeded learning many different styles, one in particular was my favorite, abstract. When using the abstract style you use words to leave your audience questioning the thought or story you were trying to portray, depending on the audiences perspective. Mr. Block had us write a number of poems all of which we used different style. Throughout this unit I had the chance to display my musings and share them with my fellow classmates. This had to be one of my favorite units. The only way these poem could be written was after I used my creativity to speak of things I never would speak of, which is a reason why I love abstract so much. It allows you to say what you mean without having to say it.

Playwrights

Refuge

(Above is a link to my play)

Then there came this lady Kate McGrath was her name, energetic, whimsical, and determined to haul a play out of us. I was very excited to write an extensive piece of work and be able to call it mine, but then the actual work kicked in. Long hours of thought to come up with creative dialogue that only covered about half  of page. The long editing process along with the lengthy emails kate had sent us with some ideas on how to better our pieces. I was tired and I wanted to give up. Then came the Playwrights retreat, there I met some amazing playwrights and other students who were trying to better their plays. We read each others plays and I received some amazing feedback, had an awesome lunch, and exchanged some numbers. This made me push myself to conclude my play. Then May rolled around, it was time to submit my play and I had no idea on how to bring it to an end so I thought. I used everything I had learned from Kate, Mr. Block, and the playwrights retreat, but I had to allow my creative juices flow and there it was. My ending.  

Modern Day Slavery

Sweatshop Trial

(Above is a link to my sweat trail)

I shop a lot in places where the source laborers are hidden, for example one of my old favorites Forever 21. Well, this use to be a franchise build on sweatshop labor, using undocumented immigrant to make our clothing. Paying them less than minimum wage and turning a blind eye to their undocumented selves, yet ratting them out if an inspector would make a visit. While also making them work in unsafe conditions sometimes abuse would be form of consequence. Later on we watched a documetrary of a few women who worked in Forver 21’s sweatshop and watched them struggle to gain their justice. At the end of the movie they accomplished their goal they forced Forever 21’s CEO to pay them more and better their working conditions. Later we had a trial to get to the source of this injustice. Using five real life criminals, the consumers, the system, ruling elite, workers, and the corporations. The consumers are us, the ones who purchase these articles of clothing. The system is this idea of money over people, which is a pretty skewed theory. The ruling elite are the countries presidents and dictators who allow these companies to abuse their citizens. The workers, well they’re the people who make our clothes. And the corporations are the Forever 21, Gap, etc, who use the citizens to their advantage. After this trial we concluded that the corporations were the guiltiest. This trial made me want to look further into immigration and it led me to this. A documentary that combined art with stories of immigration, they use a butterfly to symbolize immigration and instead of calling it immigration they call it migration. Butterflies migrate. They used their creativity to better the lives of other undocumented migrants, which is pretty cool. Before this trial I have never paid attention to the inferiority placed upon migrants.

Gandhi  

#36

(Above is a link to my Journal entry talking about my views of violence and nonviolence)

Mohandas K. Gandhi was introduced or should I reintroduced to Mr. Blocks History class this quarter. While studying this great man we explored the impacts violence and nonviolence can have on a society. Violence, in my eyes is the easy and vengeful way out of a horrid situation because you lose your humanity to save humanity. Whereas nonviolence allows one to display their humility all the while saving humanity. My class watched the story of Gandhi’s life and how his peaceful movement against British colonizers has helped save the independence of Indians and many others who have followed his ideology. Gandhi used his creative mind to save his country, also relieving himself and his followers of all of the hatred they once had inside of them. This unit helped us move into our colonization unit. In this unit we explored many different countries who were colonized by European Empires and are still being negatively affected today.During our many discussions Mr. Block brought up some truth, he said “ Well aren’t these colonized countries fairly rich?” The class said yes, but a fellow classmate of mine said “ Yeah, they are, but the indigenous people aren’t. They are suffering.” In this journal entry I got the chance to explore this idea #40.

Jarvis Jay Masters

Masters Section 1

Masters Section 2

Masters Section 3

Masters Section 4

(Above are links to Masters; autobiography)

Our Last unit was used to explore this American paradox of prisoners to wealth. “The United States has less than 5% of the worlds population ,but has almost a quarter of the worlds prisoners. What’s even more skewed than these statistics are the people who make them. A black man is more likely to be apprehended for a longer period of time or apprehended at all longer than a white man. Racism? I thought this issue had already been swept under the rug of injustice.

Then we explored one man’s journey on death row named Jarvis Jay Masters. He was a troubled kid in and out of prison system since he was a child. On June 8, 1985 Jarvis was sentenced to death, he was accused of sharpening a knife that was used to kill a prison guard. Masters did not kill the guard, he was accused of sharpening the knife that had killed the guard. Weird, huh? So Mr. Block had us read some part of Master’s autobiography, and answer a few thought questions here. Masters used his creativity to write this book which was cathartic for him. He allowed his situation to be a creative piece instead of being another accounted for statistic.

This unit  has also answered my question of where our 250 million dollars cut in our school budget  is going, a large portion or all of that money is going to prisons.

Creativity is cathartic. When one creatively relieves themselves of the things they bottle up inside they create something that they can not only display for themselves, but share to the world and can possibly help someone else. The reason why I say creativity is cathartic is because everyone does not believe that everything thing is art. But creativity is everything, the way we walk talk, walk, and write are creative because we are all original.

“Everything you can imagine is real.” ― Pablo Picasso. This sophomore year English and History has been a total rush. Like something out of a scene of Fast and Furious, it was a constant motion forward of learning and growth in myself. English was my chance to break my shyness and really give me the opportunity to express myself. History was my chance to learn more about current events in the world, along with old events that I could connect one to the other.

In English class, we did many things that gave me the opportunity to express myself. The best example for this would have to be when the class did the Iron Stream Poetry Wikis. It was exciting because I love music, and music is a form of poetry. Being able to express my feelings without being judged was such an amazing feeling. A great opportunity that rose from this was being able to hear other people’s poems and having other’s hear my own and criticize and help me make them better. That was a good way for me to enhance my poetry.

I’ve always been interested in the Army. I’m not sure why, but I find it as a touching subject, and somehow the stories always find their way to my heart. When I hear about troops dying in combat or being seriously injured, I always put forth my respect to them, because they are the truth behind my safety. When we had the opportunity in English to do a podcast about “Crossing Boundaries” I figured I should do mine on the U.S. The U.S. always finds itself in the middle of a conflict simply because we are nosey and try to hard to fix things. This is how our wars outbreak, by not minding to ourselves. I interviewed my brother on this subject in my podcast. It was intriguing what he had to say, and very interesting as well.

My favorite unit in History, which was a pretty recent one, was where we learned about Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi is more than just a man of peace to me. He was an inspiration to me, an idle. He is the reason I began to see the world in a different perspective. I use to be agressive and I constantly had a temper. My temper is caused by my anger issue that unfortunately is passed to me from my father. What this means for me, is little things will enhance my frustration and temper that usually don’t bother someone else. I began to learn and read about Gandhi and how his methods of nonviolence worked. This was where I began to change and take control of my anger and suppress it when I have too. Our History Journal, #39, asked “Which is a better method? Non Violence or violence?” My response was aimed towards the method of Nonviolence because I strongly agree with it, depending on the situation. “I personally push nonviolence to be more powerful, because no matter how provoked you get, the ability to control your anger and the physical want to hurt someone is strongest.”

Another unit in History when we learned about the Arab Springs and made videos about them. We got into a group and picked a country and did research on it. My group was given the country Bahrain. In the video we discussed the violence in Bahrain and how the people are trying to protest against the President of Bahrain for change.

One of my favorite English Journals was #41 when we were asked “When was the last time someone forgave you or you forgave someone? Is it possible to always forgive someone?” This was during the unit about the Holocaust. My response was personal and had meaning to myself. A part I said for the second question, if it’s possible to always forgive someone, I wrote: “Yes, it is always possible to forgive others...Just like those people who had a choice, you as well have a choice. It’s your own personal decision on if you should or shouldn’t forgive that person. Forgiveness is the step in moving forward, it helps put conflicts in the past to stay.” I believe forgiving someone is the step to peace.

Lastly, relating to my world peace can be made through us topic, I would like to discuss about the beginning of the year in English class when we read Lord of the Flies. The book was based on a group of british schoolboys who get trapped on an island after a plane crash. There is tension in the group, while they begin to create a colony. Even at one point, there is judgement, violence, and war for leadership. The boys learned to coop with one another, and peace was created at the end. Although there was peace, the path to peace was rocky and rough. I wrote my paper on this, the concept of leadership, for English.

In Mr.Block’s English and History class, I grew mentally in many ways. I learned a lot about the world and how there are lies thrown at the people of countries in the greed for power, or how sweatshops in China have nets at the top of the factories to reduce suicide, or even how poems can be as simple as 2 lines. I was able to expand my mind in these two classes. The expansion of my mind enhanced my sight and vision on the world. Personally I am more disappointed in the U.S. government even more now. I hope I can use what I learned in Mr. Block’s History and English class even further in my high school experience. It was an honor being able to learn all of the things I did.