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Marking History – The History of Deep Cove

Marking History – The History of Deep Cove

When you talk about history most people think, American history or world history. However, history is a process of interpretation and taking perspective but most importantly, understanding that history can be as small as a single-family. Welcome to my Marking History reflective blog post!

Driving Question:

How can we as historians uncover and share stories about our community?

Like our driving question implies, we as historians set to uncover and share stories from our Deep Cove community. In partnership with the Deep Cove Heritage Society, our grade 11/12 class worked together to revamp the Deep Cove historical walking tour. We created a pamphlet and a custom google map!

The Pamphlet

The Google Map

With the new quarterly school system in place, I’m taking two courses for 10 weeks and then switching to another two. This happens 4 times throughout the year. PLP has adapted well and is managing to keep things interesting. For these past five weeks, we’ve been working on a project called Marking History. I have to say, it’s been the perfect starter project to adjust to such a short work period. Doing a class project allows you to focus on your own work while still contributing to a bigger product. To complete this project we were split into two groups, the eagles (in charge of the google map creation) and the wolves (in charge of the pamphlet creation).

Contributions

As a member of the eagles group, (the cool kids who came to school Tuesday and Thursday) I along with other Eagles members was tasked with making our Google Map. Each person in the class, wolves and eagles had a stop on the walking tour they had to write about (21 stops in total). Our job as the google map curators was to take everyone’s write-ups and make that google map pop!

The Moore Family Home

Like I said at the beginning of this post, history can be as small as one family and that’s the information I tried to contribute to our walking tour! My stop (stop #2) on the walking tour tells you all about Deep Cove’s first permanent residents, the Moore family. As a historian, it was my job to take historical perspective and tell you just how important the Moore family was to the development of Deep Cove and its history today. My historical marker description includes two written narratives; one for the google map and one for the pamphlet. The google map also includes an auditorial walkthrough and a digital enhancement.

Written Narratives
Google Map Narrative – click to enlarge
Pamphlet Narrative
Auditorial Walkthrough

 Digital Enhancement

The Creation Process

We were limited to 150 words for the pamphlet and 300 words google map so writing the narratives wasn’t too time-consuming. We were also working with some great resources, Echoes Across The Inlet and Echoes Across Seymour which were filled with wonderful histories of the Deep Cove and Seymour area. There were so many moving pieces in this project that I had to do a lot of revisions. Revising word count and making sure my texts included more than one historical perspective were the two biggest ones.

My idea for the digital enhancement came to me pretty easily. Because the Moore family rowed a boat filled with all their belonging from Vancouver to Deep Cove, I thought it would be meaningful to make a timeline with the theme of rowing a boat between the two locations. I believe my design process showcased my ability to create a more engaging text which was a crucial takeaway from the overall learning.

My role for the google map creation was route planner. I was in charge of creating each pin and the route people would take during the tour. I quickly learned while creating the google map route that the program we were using wouldn’t allow me to make 21 stops on the route, which was the number of stops we needed. In the end, we decided to scratch the route idea and stick to markers on the map. My classmate Adlih later discovered that we could make custom icons for the stops which had been a previous problem we faced. This meant I could create the numbered icons you see on the map now. I spent a good amount of time creating individual PNGs for the stops, all different colours and numbers (obviously). My desktop was quite cluttered after that but I think it was well worth it and gave our google map a deserved aesthetic.

I think my biggest strength during this project was trying to look for ways to help the project where it was needed. We were on such a tight schedule that I didn’t want to do my part and call it quits. I was always asking Emily, our lead curator if there were ever ways I could help and I think it benefited the final product as well as my own learning during the project. My biggest weakness was not diving deeper into my story. The Moore family’s story isn’t very broad and I felt like I hit a roadblock early on. Next time I do a research project like this, I won’t just limit myself to telling the story at face value but instead, do some even deeper research into the impact it had on modern-day.

In conclusion…

This project taught me to step back and look at history from a non-biased lens and overcome my current concerns, beliefs, and values to understand people in the past. My digital enhancement, written narratives and auditorial walkthrough gave me the opportunity to sharpen my skills by creating engaging and meaningful texts. It was really refreshing to focus on something so close to home instead of learning about world histories that I generally feel disconnected from. I hope to revisit the Marking History project in the fourth quarter so that I can work on my shortcomings and become a stronger historian!

 

Weekly Reflection Oct 12th – 16th

Weekly Reflection Oct 12th – 16th

It’s good to be back at school after it closed in March due to the Covid-19 lockdown. Starting off the school year was new and exciting but with each new school year comes new tasks for PLP students to take on. For example, THE WEEKLY REFLECTIONS! That’s what you’re reading right now. Every Sunday night I’ll be sitting down to reflect on my accomplishments and failures this week and hopefully learn something from them!

The Big Crazy Switch

This week has been jam-packed. The class finally wrapped up our Marking History project. After 5 weeks of hard work, we were ready to send off our pamphlet and custom google map to The Deep Cove Heritage Society. Adlih and I worked together on some last-minute problem solving for the google map. She had discovered that there was a way to make custom markers on the google map so I began making custom numbers for each stop. My desktop was quite messy after creating them all.

I’m working on a final reflection post for the Marking History project but for the sake of this weekly reflection, I wanted to write down a few of my thoughts. The project felt like a real success to me. I love working with the whole class on something big because you really get to see everyone’s efforts shine. Since we are a grade 11/12 class it was also a really good way to get to know each other. I’m proud of the work I did on my own as well. In five weeks I wrote two write-ups, recorded an audio version of my tour write-up and designed the route and number tags you see on the map.

If there is anything this quarter system has taught me, it’s that I can adapt well to tight deadlines.

This week we reached the end of our 5 weeks in the hybrid school model and on Thursday we switched to full time in the afternoon. Now we are starting a new project with Ms. Willemse. We started this new project talking about the women’s suffrage movement and discussing how far is too far when it comes to jokes in the media. It was a captivating way of introducing the project and needless to say I am very excited to see where this goes.

Since the new switch to full time in class afternoons I’ve been a bit stressed out. I’ve received a lot of homework with the start of this new project on top of a big project I’m starting in another class. I’m confident I’ll get it all done and I’m trying my best to stay focused on one thing at a time but it can be pretty hard when you’re being pulled in so many different directions. My biggest strength right now though is sticking to one task at a time and taking breaks so as to not overwork myself. I’m excited to start the new week because that usually helps me feel better when I’m stressed out. I’m also really looking forward to exploring our new Social Studies/English project!

The Weirdest Year of My Life – tPOL 2020

The Weirdest Year of My Life – tPOL 2020

This year has by far been the weirdest year of my life. Spring break decided not to end this year and because of that, we’ve all had to adjust to a remote way of learning. I started this year off with high hopes. In October we travelled to Albuquerque. Three or so weeks later I ran away to sunny Cambodia with the circus and in January I was off to freezing cold Montreal for yet another circus-related event. Fast forward to the end of spring break and I’m spending all my time inside with little social interaction due to COVID-19. Not exactly the year I thought I was going to have. All in all, this year has been a time of unforgettable experiences.

Reflecting back on the year, there is one thing that stands out to me most and that is the amount of collaborative work I’ve done this year. In December the whole class worked together to create our version of the cantina from star wars; with a little beat poetry flair. To give you guys a bit of an inside scoop, my friends and I were just talking about how proud we were of that room a couple days ago.

To kick off the new year, the most daunting project was announced to us. In just two months the whole class would be working together to create a film that took the story of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and put a 50s twist on it.

When I was given the role of screenwriter I was overwhelmed with excitement and anxiety. I had always wanted to see something I write, become a reality and this was the chance. However, at the same time, there was a lot riding on the quality of the script. Working with the other key creatives and having logan as my script editor made the whole process a breeze. I was really proud of myself for taking on such an integral position. In the beginning, it was out of my comfort zone but I soon became comfortable when sharing my script drafts with the rest of the class. I worked really hard on solidifying the story and being open to feedback was defiantly one of my strengths during the process. I have so many drafts saved to my desktop that its kind of insane.

The best part about working in a team where you control one specific thing is seeing your talents shine. My ideas didn’t get lost like they could in a small group project, instead, I got to be my own boss. Besides all-mighty producer Alivia who was my boss.

I think the teachers were a little skeptical about attempting this project with another grade level, especially since they were going away during our filming time. In the end, it was nothing to worry about. I think our class did an exceptional job and we absolutely would have finished the project if schools hadn’t been shut down. I’m so proud of the work I did on this Macbeth film and I believe that my efforts could be seen in the final product. I would not hesitate to share this project with the world. In fact, I was talking about it to someone I know who was interested in seeing it when it was done!

I have to say that I’ve really been enjoying the We Shall Overcome unit. It’s unfortunate to say that the topic of the civil rights movement is not yet history. However, I am thankful to have teachers who push us to educate ourselves on events of the past so that we can become better people in the future.

For those that don’t know, the final project for the unit is a group symposium. A moderator is required to lead the discussion and I was chosen by my group for the role! As the moderator, I’m not only leading the conversation but I’ve also been in charge of moderating our work sessions. I think my ability to wrangle a group of people really comes in handy here. I’ve always been good at getting people together and keeping them on task even when they are are people who are known to clash.

If there is one thing I’ve learned from this project, it’s that I’m not always the best at remembering what tasks need to get done. One thing I admire about Emily is her ability to organize tasks that need to get done. It’s helped our team stay on track and I plan to work on that skill in the future. I believe it is a skill I can easily adopt by simply keeping notes of everything that’s going on in a project.

In some way, the COVID pandemic has made me realize how valuable going to physical school is. At first, it was exciting, not having to go to school. All of a sudden the tables had been turned. However, I soon realized how bleak schoolwork can get when you’re all alone in your bedroom. Without that classroom atmosphere and good friends around to lift your spirits, it’s easy to lose motivation.

In the beginning, homework was manageable. It was a slow start with classes and some teachers were ready to go before others. As the weeks progressed I stopped exercising and I wasn’t able to see my friends. Before long I found myself unable to do the homework I was supposed to be doing. If there is one thing I found frustrating about PLP work, it’s that everything felt like business as usual and at times I felt like things were too self-guided. In a time like this, I craved a sense of routine, something to stick to. Normally I would have thought of the Think and Create posts as a creative challenge but instead, they felt like an impossible task. How was I supposed to think up something completely unique to myself when I was already trying to understand and control the brain that was causing me such grief?

PLP work felt the same but I could tell the teachers had changed. They aware of how difficult things were for me and super accommodating. I hold myself to a pretty high standard so it wasn’t easy to admit that I wouldn’t be completing the last few assignments. In the end, I was probably more disappointed in myself than the teachers might have been.

The most valuable thing I learned this year is how lucky I am to be able to go to school and have supportive teachers and friends around. I learned a lot about myself and how I react to remote learning and I value school a lot more because of it. Next year is going to be like stepping into the unknown. I know it won’t be easy and there will be times when I fall but knowing what I know about myself now has prepared me for whatever lies ahead.

Art on Ignorance

Art on Ignorance

The civil rights movement and the events that happened prior have been something I felt I didn’t know enough about. Naturally, I was intrigued when my social studies teachers introduced it as our next unit. In case you are unaware, I am what most would call white. My skin is pale like my mother’s and father’s. However, the term white has more meaning than just the colour of one’s skin.

White people are privileged because of years of racial injustice. For over four hundred years since the beginning of slavery in America, white people have held themselves above African American people. The New York Times started an outstanding project called The 1619 Project to shed light on the true history of African American people in America. The articles I read from the project got me thinking about the world I live in today and how we got here. America’s economic growth can be traced back to the hard work of thousands of enslaved people. I started looking at the things around me and saw the history within the food I ate, the clothes I wore and the music I listened to. I believe I’ve been ignorant about this topic for too long so to show my understanding I created an art piece about ignorance.

The drawing I created highlights three things. America’s sugar industry, Cotton industry and American music. I read some really great articles on these subjects and that is how the idea for this drawing came to me. All the things you see in the image are things I and billions of other people enjoy every day. But what about the history behind it all.

America’s Sugar Industry

Sugar Cane was introduced to America in 1491. At the time sugar in Europe was a luxury. No one ever predicted sugar would become the mass-produced product it is today. In 2019 Florida manufactured 17.06 tons of sugar. In this article from the 1619 project;

Americans consume as much as 77.1 pounds of sugar and related sweeteners per person per year, according to United States Department of Agriculture data. That’s nearly twice the limit the department recommends, based on a 2,000-calorie diet.

– 1619 project article by Khalil Gibran Muhammad, New York Times

The production of America’s “White Gold” was a treacherous process. It is safe to say that its success as a regularly produced good is because of the enormous amount of enslaved labourers who had no say in doing the backbreaking and dangerous work. Sugar cane stalks had to be harvested and refined the day of harvest otherwise it would spoil. Adults and children worked in factory line assemblies near boilers, open furnaces and grinding rollers. The factories ran night and day to achieve the highest efficiency at the cost of its workers.

In my art piece, the woman lays in her bed enjoying an abundance of sweets that are so easy to obtain today. I hope that people, including myself, will recall the sacrifices made for the success of sugar today.

America’s Cotton Industry

Cotton in the 19th century was America’s largest and most valuable export. Its success, like “white gold”, came from enslaved labour. All-day, African American men, women and children picked cotton by hand and tossed it into sacks that hung from their necks. At the end of the day, those sacks were weighed, and if they were too light, the workers were beaten. So much cruelty was shown towards the enslaved, all to make a profit. The influence of cotton plantations is still recognizable today. Cotton is everywhere. It’s in the clothes we were and the bed sheets we sleep soundly in. The women in my drawing is laying in her bed with the cotton bed sheets wrinkled around her. In her bliss, she doesn’t know about the history behind those sheets she lays so comfortably in.

“American” Music

America is known for this musical sound that it has. Rock and Roll, Jazz and Pop music has been chewed up and spat out by some of the most famous American singers and songwriters. The 1619 project has a great podcast and article on the topic and that is why it became one of the focuses of my art. The sounds that have become known as American music have a much deeper and darker root then I think most people realize.

Click here for a great article on the Rolling Stones and how rock and roll become white.

My dad loved sharing the music of his time (growing up in the 50s) with me. We spin records in our living room and he shares all the stories he knows about each album and artist with me. One thing he told me about was about the stolen music that white artists would take from African American blues singers. Though stealing was not always the intended purpose.

In 1830 an actor named Rice was touring with a theatre company in Cincinnati. While there he ran into an old black man singing while grooming a horse. Rice took the tune and tried to make something of it, but something wasn’t working. So the night of one of his shows, he painted some melted cork onto his face and preformed that stolen tune. That night the blackface minstrel shows would go on to become America’s entertainment and define how white Americans interpreted African Americans.

Since then music has evolved into this melting pot of genres, but all of them, whether the artists knew it or not was influenced by African American singers. The enslaved found ways to be free through music and art. None of which was composed but instead built from exhaustion, hope and feelings. As Wesly Morris from the new york times’ 1619 project said in his article;

I had to laugh — not because as a category Yacht Rock is absurd, but because what I tasted in that absurdity was black.

So what’s my goal?

My goal with this art project was to teach myself and others to look at the things around you differently. To see the things in your home and all around you and to truly know the history. The art I chose to create wasn’t just some random idea I had. It derived from how I felt before starting this project. I didn’t know a lot about the civil rights movement before this and I still have a ways to go. But I am approaching this unit with the willingness to learn as much as I can.

They are always watching – TWIL III

They are always watching – TWIL III

1945, the war is over. Your husband is home, you’re starting a family, moving into a beautiful home in the suburbs. It’s a dream! Yet under it, there is a fear, a paranoia.  Communism is skyrocketing, and the West is doing all it can to contain the spread. How can you contain something without knowing what needs to be contained? That’s where spies come in! Que espionage music! …Where is my music? What, espionage didn’t start during the cold war? There were spies during the Elizabethan era? Let’s explore some more about spies during the Elizabethan era and how it connects to the Cold War.

Queen Elizabeth the first was the protestant queen of England and Ireland in the 16th century. Plagued by threats from her homeland and Spain, Elizabeth and her council hired a sophisticated group of spies to keep her safe. Because of her religion, many Christians were plotting to replace her with Mary Queen of Scots.

Sir Francis Walsingham ran an extensive spy network for Elizabeth. His spies were instrumental in deciphering letters written to and from Mary Queen of Scots which was later used as evidence in her trial. There are many stories of spies during Queen Elizabeth’s reign and she was well known for her spy network.

Shakespeare includes some hints of espionage in Macbeth. At the end of act three scene four, he says to Lady Macbeth, “there’s not a one of them in his house. I keep a servant fee’d”. Macbeth keeps spies in his subjects’ houses to ease his present paranoia.

Though spies have been around for a very long time, their importance grew again during the cold war. There was no fighting during the Cold War, hence the term “cold”. Instead, major superpowers were racing to become the most powerful. There was a space race and a nuclear arms race happening and during all of this, America wanted to know what was going on in Russia and vice versa.

The rise of spies on the west started with a man named Igor Gouzenko. Igor Gouzenko worked at the Russian Embassy in Ottawa. When he defected from Russia and became Canadian, he started telling Canada top-secret Russian information. He had stolen many Russian files and smuggled them back to Canada. Two other well-known spies were Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. They were Americans, convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. They were accused of giving the Soviets information about radar, sonar and jet propulsion engines along with nuclear weapon designs. The couple was executed and for many years it was debated whether their sentence was fair.

I’ve taken what I have learned from this lecture and my external research and I wrote a short fictional story to reflect on my learning.

For years spies have been around. Even before the Elizabethans. Knowledge is power and can determine where you stand on a political platform. Learning about the Cold War has taught me that governments can rise to power without directly fighting and that times have not changed so much since Shakespeare was around.

Those Above Us… Control Us?

Those Above Us… Control Us?

If I told you, everything I wrote about on this blog was the flawless truth, the hard facts given to you straight. You probably wouldn’t believe me. If I started writing things like “you could fly with these 5 simply brain exercises” you’d think I was full of it. Why is that? Well, it’s because, I am not a reliable, high power who has a great influence on you. I’m just some kid with a blog. That’s what I want to focus on for this post. How do beings with great power influence others?

We just completed another lecture in class, this time focused on social change in the 1950s. A subtopic of the lecture that piqued my interest was the rise of television. As Television rose in popularity, the ability to access information quicker and easier did as well. The world was on TV and families were eating it up. Unfortunately, when the wrong people got control of this power to broadcast their ideas and worldviews, the public started absorbing the wrong information.

America was flourishing after WWII. The economy was booming, people were buying homes, spending money, going to school. It was the dream and if the dream is paying off for you as a country, you’d want everyone to follow would you not. So why not start showcasing this perfect world. But the world wasn’t perfect, early television shows all had the same message. It showed you the same white American family, a husband and a wife was 1 and a half kids who were mischievous but not rebellious. With the constant showing of this “ideal” life, that is what people started to believe. Because someone higher, with a lot of power, has been sharing that world view.

I wrote this poem as my artifact for what I learned. I used themes from Macbeth and from the 1950s.

The Elizabethans thrived in a world governed by the chain of higher command. All over the place, powerful people were telling less powerful people what to do. In Macbeth, the witched are not respected, yet Shakespeare writes them as these powerful beings of the underworld. When the Witches tell Macbeth his future of being the king. His vaulting ambition gets the best of him and he stops at nothing to get what he wants. Some people might argue that it was Macbeth’s own doing and that he could have chosen to ignore the Witches. I don’t believe that is the case. Once the Witched put the idea into Macbeth’s head, he became unstoppable. Macbeth blames it on his ambition but if that idea had not been brought up to him, I don’t think he would have even thought of it.

It’s true our society listens to those above us. At times that can be a bad thing. If those people above us are trying to feed us false, doctored or racist information and we don’t see that, then we are only making the problem worse. Shakespeare’s Macbeth aligns very well with this concept of higher power and you can see a lot of similarities between the two. The consequences of Macbeth’s actions are just starting to reveal themselves and we are just getting into the exciting part of the 1950s. I’ll be here again next Monday with more that I learned!

no references

mPOL… 6 and counting

mPOL… 6 and counting

My 7th mPOL, wow I’ve come a long way. I was looking back at my old blog posts for inspiration and that was a bad idea. I’ve come really far in reflecting on my learning since Grade 8. I know what you might be thinking. “If it’s been that long, it must be so easy to write these posts”… no, it’s not. It’s still equally as difficult. But I do it for you guys… whoever you are.

I wanna start by talking about something I am proud of because I feel like all the mPOL prompts are about things you felt didn’t go as well. I don’t just want to critique my learning but I also want to celebrate it.

This year we did a poetry unit where we studied the 1950s Beat Generation and got to experiment with some of our own poetry. I had so much fun with this project and I felt challenged to write longer poems using different poetic devices. As you may have gathered by now, I am a very artistic person and this unit was an amazing time to put my own personal flair into a project. Although it was an individual project I got to collaborate with my classmates and I learned so much from their writing styles. I was able to improve my own literary and writing skills by observing other people’s processes.

Now, all though I’ve had a good year academically, not all the work I’ve done this year has reached my standards. Because I was away for a lot of the Lord of the Flies unit I wasn’t able to produce something to the best of my abilities. I wish I had a better understanding of the literary side of the book because that is the part I find the most interesting. Over the years I’ve gotten a lot better at gauging my level of work in any situation. I understood that I was away and that I wouldn’t have as much time to complete the project but that was no reason to get down about it. I just did the best I could and looking at it, it didn’t go terribly.

This year we have learned a lot of new and very interesting things. The Manhattan Project project had so much content that I found really captivating and I found myself constantly wanting to know more and to do my own research. That was one of the first units we’ve done where I have retained more than 60% of the information. It makes me feel really smart whenever the Atomic Age ever comes up.

Although the Manhattan Project project was one of my favourite units content-wise, it had its downfalls. After unsuccessfully reading The Age of Radiance for our Manhattan Project project, I made it my new goal to finish Lord of the Flies. The book was small so it made my goal very attractive. I tried to read a little bit every day and I read a lot of the book on my long flights to Cambodia. I managed to finish the book in time for our test which helped my confidence going into it. To allocate my time better I kept the book around me all the time. I also put reminders into Things and tried to read before going to bed.

I am a slow reader and I get lost easily so I always have to go back and reread things. I found that doing external research or using spark notes helped my comprehension and reduced the amount I had to reread. Since then my reading habits have gotten a lot better. I’ve been able to finish books both for school and for personal enjoyment. I completed Atomic Habits and I read The Outsiders on my own time!

Having now read Atomic Habits, a book about forming new habits and sticking to them. I have even more knowledge to help keep up with my reading. It’s kind of a win-win situation because now that I am reading more. I’m also learning new words, new sentence structures and new writing styles.

Recently we read one of our classmate’s blog posts and left a comment about it. I read Logan’s blog post and I was very impressed by his vocabulary. His posts were very captivating to read because of it. I would like to try and include some more alluring vocabulary into my future writing to challenge myself and learn new words.

This year has been really focused on literary skills. I’ve done a lot of reading and a lot of writing. It’s been challenging but at the same time, very enjoyable. I love working on my literary skills because I always feel like I can improve them. During the manhattan project we read a non-fiction book, and all though I didn’t finish it, I was opened up to a new genre that I have come to enjoy. In the Lord of the Flies unit, we did a lot of analysis and writing. I want to continue to develop my analysis skills because I think its a skill that can be applied to a lot of aspects of literature in order to gain a deeper understanding of a piece of media. Our current Project, Hide Your Fires is another great opportunity to practice my analysis skills because Shakespeare’s Macbeth is full of metaphors, themes and paradoxes for you to pick apart. I look forward to flexing my newly developed skills in this project and any future ones.

It’s been a good year. I’ve managed to maintain a really good work ethic and I don’t feel like one part of my life is taking over more than another. My school work has been challenging but not to the point where I feel like I can’t handle it. I’ve been reading more which makes me feel really good and I think it will help with my school work in the future and I’m genuinely proud of all the work I’ve done this year. Since grade 8 I have felt like I’ve been working on the big things everyone tries to master. The time management, the work ethic, the comprehension. I think I’m starting to reach a place where those skills are starting to settle and I can focus on the little things like spicing up my vocabulary and managing my school work when I up and leave to Cambodia. I’m excited to work on the little things for the remainder of the year and I cant wait to see how those tiny changed affect the bigger picture.

The Week I learned

The Week I learned

This week I learned that Macbeth is a very sexual play… the end

I’m kidding, my teacher would be pretty upset with me if that was all I learned this week. In this unit, we are studying Macbeth and the 1950s. With act 1 of Macbeth finished and a lecture on the Cold War out of the way, we already have so much to dive into. Our big idea for this project is Appearance vs Reality. How does appearance deceive or reveal reality? There are so many aspects of Macbeth that mention appearance vs reality and the war is all about deceiving your enemies.

I want to start this project off with a good understanding of what Appearance vs Reality is because it is our main focus of the project. In this post, I will be looking further into that.

Act 1 of Macbeth is built upon appearing as something you are not. Macbeth’s ambition draws him towards being king but one thing lies in his way. The current king. However, he is still a loyal servant and trustee of the king and he finds himself in quite the dilemma. Lady Macbeth thinks the answer is clear. She wants Macbeth to be king and is prepared to kill Duncan herself. She even goes as far as to rid herself of her womanly qualities so she may be killed with the ability to kill like a man. At this point, Lady Macbeth has told Macbeth to leave the killed to her. All he has to do it “look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under’t” (Lady Macbeth Scene 5, Act 1).

I created this image which represents my thoughts on appearance vs reality in this section of the play.

Macbeth has found it quite hard to hide his dark desires to kill the king. In scene 4 of act 1, Macbeth calls upon some supernatural help saying “Stars hide your fire, let not light see my dark and black desires”. In the image I made I represented his dilemma with all the things running through his head. The influence of the witched can be seen in the back and at the forefront, his wife who is controlling him in many ways.

How does this connect to the 1950s? Well, politics is politics. Whether it happened in 1040 with Macbeth or in 1947 in the beginnings of the Cold War. Like I mentioned before, during the war, especially a cold one, knowledge is power. So you need to keep those thoughts to yourself. It’s all about appearing as though you are something you aren’t. That you are on someone’s side when in reality you have plans of your own.

Nearing the end of World War Two, President FDR (USA), Winston Churchill (United Kingdom) and Joseph Stalin (Soviet Union) gathered together at the Yalta Conference to discuss the division of Germany. Although they appeared to be working together the Soviet Union and the USA were not friends. They had a common want to end the war but after the war was over. Russia had plans of its own. In Macbeth, Macbeth must hind his thoughts of killing the king behind the wall of a kind and welcoming host. Russia must work with people they are not truly allies with in order to get own with their own business.

At the Potsdam Conference in 1945 President Truman, the new president of the united states was informed that they had officially detonated the first atomic bomb. This technology was the superweapon that would win them the war and potentially any other conflict from then on. Truman was able to use this as leverage against japan calling it a “powerful new weapon”. Because Truman didn’t trust his soviet partner he left the weapon unspecified. But having had a spy amongst the research team, Stalin already knew what it was the US possessed.

The 1950s and Macbeth have a lot of similarities in terms of our main idea of appearance vs reality. When we started this project I wasn’t too sure how we were going to be able to make connections between the two but after writing this post I can see many. I’m excited to continue comparing the two throughout this project. That’s what I learned this week!

The Beat Goes On

The Beat Goes On

You thought the Beat Generation was over after the 60s? Well, guess again because the PLP is bringing it back with a new project!

The Beat Goes On…

For five weeks we brought out the pen and paper and put our angsty thoughts on paper. I was pleasantly surprised to see the hidden poetic talent my classmates and I had. I’ve always enjoyed writing poetry but I had never explored it the way we did this unit. It had always been “write a fun little haiku or something that rhymes” but after studying some of America’s most famous beat poets and their experiences in life that shaped their writing, I learned it was so much more than that. Poetry is influenced by one’s identity and experiences and you can learn so much about someone’s life, the highs and lows, from their writing. That brings me to our driving question for this unit.

How can we use poetry to reflect our perspectives on people, places, issues and beliefs?

Now poetry wasn’t the only focus of this project. The end goal was to present a select few of our poems at the winter exhibition whose theme this year was Star Wars (inspired by the latest star wars film; The Rise Of Skywalker). My grade 11 cohort was tasked with building the cantina from Episode IV A New Hope. Now with two goals ahead of us, write a collection of poems and build the cantina for the night of the exhibition, it was time to get to work.

The Poetry

Our biggest inspiration for this project was, of course, the Beat generation. One of our curricular competencies for this project was “historical perspective”. The Beat Generation is the perfect era to explain and infer different perspectives. It was an era of experimental expression, challenging the social norms and breaking free of society’s expectations. Many famous poets such and Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg wrote very blunt poems expressing their feelings of society. Much of the Beat Poets’ work expressed the use of substances and experimentation with sexuality, idea’s that were plainly unspoken of in the 1940s. The beat generation is the perfect era to study historical perspectives because we can clearly see the people, places, issues and events that influenced these writers’ poetry. One of the Milestones of this project was an assignment called, Bio of a Beat. I chose one beat poet to study and had to make a piece of media to display my research. I also had to analyze one of their poems. This is my bio of a beat infographic I made about Gary Snyder.

Click here to view the whole PDF

I took what I learned from these poets’ texts and writing style and implemented similar ideas into my own writing. I loved Gary Snyder’s use of imagery and for many of my poems I tried out that style. This helped me out a lot with our second curricular competency “create”. Throughout my writing journey, I learned about so many different literary devices that aided me in my writing. Some of the most common ones you may have heard of are listed below. You will find any of these and some more in a lot of my poems.

Literary Devices

I found it difficult to write about myself. Even though every poet we researched eloquently spun their opinions and feelings into beautiful pieces of text, I found it difficult for me to do the same thing when I was the subject of the poems. But with enough practice and feedback on my poems, I was able to write a few more personal ones. For most of my poetry, I used my skills as a storyteller to create characters designed to reflect my experiences and beliefs. I’ve got to say, I am so proud of how my collection of poems turned out and I am very excited to share it with you.

Click on the image to view my poetry collection.

The Exhibition

Our class was split into different departments in order to manage each task better. I was in the Food and Beverage department along with my friends Maggie and Alivia. Together we researched different foods and drinks that showed up in various star wars media and decided how we could make them. In partnership with the decoration department, we helped out with the building of the bar on the night of the exhibition. I also contributed some miscellaneous bottles for the shelves and lights for the lighting gang. Our room may not have looked like an exact replica of the Cantina but it looked pretty cool none the less.

So we built the Cantina, and we wrote some poetry. But how do those things go together? Well, to be honest, I’m not sure I know. All I know is that the goal was to have a place to perform our poetry. To add to the feel of the room we all had to adopt a persona for when we performed. So instead of being, “Jesse the grade 11 student” I was “Jesse the young bartender who woke up on Tatooine with no memories”.

The night of the exhibition went very smoothly and everyone performed so well. I think this has to be one of my favourite exhibitions so far. It was so collaborative and I felt like my contribution was greatly valued. There was also a sense of individual accomplishment in performing my poetry. I was proud to step up in front of that audience and read something I wrote out loud. My public speaking skills improved a lot after learning how to handle the mic and project my voice. Creating my poetry wasn’t just about the writing, it was also about the speaking and the skills I learned felt very well represented. My poetry really evolved over the course of this project. I started out writing short poems that weren’t really about much, to writing the one you saw above that is about something I truly believe is an issue in our world.

As always, thanks for checking in, I am still in school.

The Darkness of Man’s Heart – Tribalism and LOTF

The Darkness of Man’s Heart – Tribalism and LOTF

And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.

That is a quote from the end of William Golding’s, Lord of the Flies and what I think is a perfect summary of all that I learn from it. The book explores man’s inherent evil and the loss of innocence to savagery and it is an ideal piece of literature to answer the question; what is the role of tribalism in society?

The latest project in Social Studies and English 11 has been centred around Lord of the Flies and tribalism in society. We worked hard for 4 weeks to answer our driving question.

What is the role of tribalism in society?

Obviously, a milestone in this project was actually reading Lord of the Flies. When I get assigned book projects in school I get very nervous and a bit pre-stressed because I know I am slow at reading and that I will need a lot of time to finish a book. Lord of the Flies is a short book but it’s a tricky read, and my goal was to finish the book on time! So I set aside lots of time to read and in the end, I achieved my goal of finishing it on time. I am very proud of myself for that. I really enjoyed the book and have become much more confident in my reading ability that I have more motivation to read on my own time. I have also noticed an improvement in my writing style after reading the older English style book. Here is an example of an analysis response I did for this project.

Another key stepping stone to this project was to respond personally, critically, creatively, and reflectively to the book while making connections between ourselves and the world. We had to write many response paragraphs on different topics, much like the one I included above. Unfortunately, I went away right in the middle of this project so I don’t have much work to show off. Out of the work I did complete with the knowledge I had at the time I’d say the responses could use some improvements. I did find it easy to make connections between Lord of the Flies and real-world examples but I felt like I could have improved on the “Writing Process” competency of grade 11.

The Writing Process 

Transform ideas and information, using appropriate features, forms, and genres, through the writing process to plan, create, assess, and refine original, engaging, and meaningful literary and informational texts for a variety of purposes, audiences, and messages while using an increasing repertoire of conventions (Canadian spelling, grammar, and punctuation) and appropriate citations for clarity, effectiveness, and impact.

As expected, my first couple of journal prompts were not as strong as they could have been. I went away just as the teachers really guided us through this competency, so I missed out on that. If allowed to do revisions I would want to change some structure and content aspects of the responses. However I don’t believe putting that effort into those revisions is necessary at this moment and instead, I want to take what I’ve learned and put it into the next project.

With all these stepping stones you must be wondering what the end product of this unit is. Well after gathering evidence from the book and from each response paragraph, we were ready to answer the driving question. For this, I presented a 3-5 minute keynote answering the driving question. We had to use examples from Lord of the Flies and one other tribe. I chose to use the Khmer Rouge as my case study and I talked about what makes a political party a tribe. The feedback I got on my project told me it was a strong presentation. I demonstrated the ability to read a book and connect the text to real-world events which is one of the competencies we focused on this unit. Here are some of the comparisons I made between the book and the event.

Some comparisons in my presentation

After visiting Cambodia and seeing the effects of the Khmer Rouge I really wanted to incorporate my knowledge into the final project. I mean, I was away through half the unit so I felt obliged to show that I had learned something while I was gone. I took the knowledge I had from the trip and expanded it with external research. After reading the book I noticed many of the connections right away. I was really proud of the amount of information I had gathered on the subject. When I had to present the project to the teachers, Mr. Hughes stayed in the room. I had known from before that he had done Asian Studies and was a fan of Cambodia so I was a bit nervous. But I didn’t get torn apart at the end so I will take that as a compliment towards my research! As I final reflection of the whole unit, I am very proud of the presentation I completed.

This project was quite the learning curve for me in a new way. Because I was away for a good chunk of it, I had to make up assignments out of school while still catching up on the other classes I missed. I’d say the work I put out under the pressures of jet lag and missed classes was pretty impressive quality and I am very proud of myself.

As always thanks for checking in, I am still in school!

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