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It's a book about a girl name Scott and her brother Jem living in an Alabama community with her widow father. Her father Atticus is a criminal defense attorney during the 1930s in a racist community. Scott and Jem befriend a kid name Dill and find a spooky house which is the home of the Radleys a black family. Boo Radley was a mysterious and and lonely man who eventually saves the kids and is accused of killing. Eventually the Radleys house got burned down while Atticus also had to defend Tom a Black guy accuse of raping a white woman. The children learn about what the predjustice life is like. The book tells what the meaning of To Kill a Mocking Bird.

English

Journal 35

I wish I could live in NYC.

I wish I could get a scholarship to Stone brook College in Long Island, NY.

I wish I could get all A’s and B’s this quarter.           

I wish I could get more college letters.           

I wish I could win the mega millions jackpot for my family.           

I wish I could be a nurse of some sort when I grow older.

I wish I could get done benchmarks.

I wish I wish I could have what I want in life.           

 

English

Journal 36

Things that would be unique to an immigrant would be normal things to us. Like freedom, American food, different religions. There are also things that we might not have done, for example, going to a new place or seeing new people. Anything could be exciting to an immigrant, because it’s all-new.

 

History

Journal 3

BLOCK THROWS ANOTHER EGG ON THE FLOOR!

I’ve been the janitor at SLA for 3 years now, and every year he throws an egg on the floor. Then has the nerve to complain I left some. Does he know how hard it is to clean egg yolk out of a tile crack? It’s extremely hard. I have to wipe it up, pre-soak, mop, and then bleach. These teachers don’t understand what they are doing, they are abusing janitors. He throws an egg on the floor at his leisure but does he see the stress it causes me? I have to take 30 minutes of my time to clean up his experiment.

 

In life, there are many ups and downs, twists and turns and just unfathomable challenges . We all go through these, there is no “easy way out”, we just have to push through it all. But it should not be said that with overcoming these obstacles in life, there is nothing earned. For me, or to be more accurate, for all of the students who have worked hard this past year, what we gained was more valuable than we had ever thought. The work we put forth, the hours of sleep lost, every word we had to type, all seemed so miniscule compared to what we were working towards. We gained knowledge, the skeleton key of life. Knowledge is the most important factor opening doors for yourself. Any door. Now, let you show my knowledge.

I have gone through so many hardships throughout this year. It made me realize that for a victory that counts, you must first put forth more effort than you thought possible. Victory that people obtain by living easy or using pawns is a false victory. For example we once did a role play about the French Revolution. I played the role of a noble so everything was handed to me and life was easier. I felt victorious in life while others suffered. You can read more about my and others roles here. The people at the bottom were put through so much and given so little power. The fact that they decided to rebel was a victory itself. The fact that they were successful was even more glorious. Sure it was short lived, but it was a victory they deserved and they fought for it. They won the moment they started to fight for what was right. A victory isn’t something that has to last long, you know. It is something much deeper that we may never fully understand. Actually, maybe it would be good if it stayed like that.

A victory of the same magnitude can be won through methods other than violence. I am sure that you have heard the expression, “the pen is mightier than the sword”. In some cases, this is true. Even the smallest piece of writing can win battles, violent or not. During our class Mr. Block pushed us to not only think that writing conquers all, but he helped us mold a mindset so that we knew that literature was power, power that we all needed. Desperately.

To show us the power in literature, no, to show the power in our own words, Mr.Block had us write poems. I unexpectedly enjoyed this project. It was probably my favorite out of all the projects given to me. At first I thought that it would be a waste of time, but instead it let me express myself in ways I had longed for. The poems made me feel as though my words had life, had meaning. That was a feeling that was so surreal to me. Something that I had long awaited. It felt great. At that one moment I felt the freedom that we have been denied time and time again. And at that moment, I too, felt victorious.

Here is another piece of writing I did throughout most of the year that I am proud of.

Playwright project 

 

I had an example of liquids stacked on top of one another, but SEPTA kind of mixed them together. The emulsifiers worked well. The cup had (in order): Honey, Dish Soap, Water, Oil.

I made a keynote too.

 

            Throughout the year our studies have reached far beyond my prior general understandings of human life. Not in a sense of survival requirements but how a person lives. What stood out to me this year was an acute awareness of how humans are separated. There is a general division between people. It is not a set of social classes but almost an understood segregation among human beings. This separation, to me, is symbolized as the Somebodies and the Nobodies.

            I didn’t know how society worked, much less how society works in other countries at the beginning of this year. It was different watching these movies and reading these books, but I saw that they all played around the topic of the Somebodies and the Nobodies, the oppressors and the oppressed. What could this mean? My class read the poem “The Nobodies,” by Edwardo Galeano. Our history teacher, Mr. Block, told us to analyze the poem in groups. I understood what this poem was about; there are poor people and rich people. I thought how rich people would be happier, they would be able to do more with their money, while the poor people could not, naturally. The nobodies “don’t have culture but folklore, who don’t create cart buy folklore, who don’t have religions but superstitions,” is what I learned from Galeano’s poem. The idea that there is a type of person that is understood by the world as lesser is both appalling and interesting, although, maybe there was another side.

            In the same history class everyone made a poem opposing Edwardo Galeano’s “The Nobodies,” we created “The Somebodies.” In my poem I tried to present the same idea as the original poem but with a different view. “Nobodies hope for resolve and justice, when Somebodies steal their happiness for a quick charge, Nobodies see a chance for happiness but can’t win the race to it on foot when the Somebodies hold them both in their palms. The Somebodies don’t work but overseer.” The point is we have two sides in this world, people with power, money, and lives. Than there are the lessers, actually the majority of this world, that are push aside everyday. This law affiliates with two other general understandings having to do with collaboration and leadership. I will explain how both played an important role in this year of Mr. Block’s class.

           I said before how the lesser people are pushed aside and abide to the rules forced upon them by the rich. This isn’t always true. Collaborating means working together and creating a highly skilled body of not as skilled souls. It’s easier to accomplish what you want when you work together. I learned that when we studied the French Revolution. At this time the royal family had oppressed thousands of poverty stricken peasants for generations. They began to group together after a hefty bread tax was added to the legion of unfair laws and penalties of the land. I understood that these people needed a little bit more help to achieve equality. The peasant protests grew larger, there was more violence and they started to accomplish a little more with each person added.

           Collaboration works the same in the classroom on a small scale too. There are the students (peasants) and the awful tyrant ruler (teacher.) Not to say any teacher is an awful tyrant ruler, but the ruler of the classroom designs the assignments, and gives out homework to be completed under penalty, like the taxes of the peasants. It seems students can slave over their homework or split the work between other students to make the job easier.

           This is exactly what the peasants did. To make the job at hand easier they combined their skills, slowly took control of the king’s resources including a large prison/gun deposit, and stormed the castle. If the teacher really was a crazy evil titan this action might have to be carried out, but most of the time they provide and teach. Through the course of this year if there was anything I’ve learned it would be: Collaboration does not change the quality of the learning but creates an easier way to solve problems.

           I really enjoyed Mr. Block’s class. The year has been filled with a plethora of ideas that my class and I have absorbed and can now use. One thing for sure is nothing we learn is one sided in Mr. Block’s class. There is always a larger of second meaning. By realizing these new meanings, we understand better and can pass the knowledge down.

            One idea in particular stood out to me. I understood that there are followers. They are people who understand, listen, and learn. Than there are the leaders. These are the people who create dangerously and live by the rules of one of my class’s most familiar writers, Edwidge Danticat.

            One way that leaders inspire is to “Create dangerously, for people who read dangerously. ... Writing, knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them.” (Danticat, Create Dangerously page #10) That is a leader’s role. They inspire, and intern people follow. In English class this year I learned how to lead.

            My favorite example of leading is within the Leah Stein Dance Company project. A group of highly skilled modern dancers attempted to teach my class these eccentric movements that nobody wanted to be a part of. We were assigned 4 group mates to practice our very own piece. This piece would incorporate some basic knowledge of these dance moves like leaning, bouncing, natural sounds, and fast/slow movement. This was the most ridiculous project I’ve ever done. I still wanted a good grade however, so I convinced my group mates to give it a try, much to their chagrin.

            We found a fantastic spot to practice and perform. I urged them to keep trying even if they wanted to stop. I wanted my group to realize that it’s not about how strange this project was or how important the grade is but to create something that goes against the norms that makes you proud to have been a part of. That is exactly what my group and I did. We created dangerously. I felt as if I had lead many of the smaller actions of my group members, but in actuality they had led themselves. With the help of the Leah Stein Dance Company we created something powerful that hopefully inspires others to do the same. If there anything I have learned from this class it would be: Leaders inspire, create, and set an example. After this year I felt I have been bred to lead and will use this knowledge over and over again.

           

 Somebodies Poem

 Poetry Wiki Space

Leah Stein Dance Company

French Revolution Reflection

Jeffrey Schwartz Play

 

 

english history 10^th grade block

 

 

            

​ 

“Hello class, My name is Mr. Block and this year I will be your teacher for English and world history” it all started with what I thought was just a simple introduction to what would be my 10th grade English class that turned out to be a long journey of lessons and learning’s. I never expected to learn so many things about myself in others through this journey I called my 10th grade English adventure.  The lessons and learning’s that I gained were all developed from the activities and observations that I participated in. This year I took a lot more time observing other than I expected to.

When you take the time out to observe you create hope to open up doors to new ideas. This was one of the things that I realized by sitting back and observing. In my 10^th grade English class we engaged in an Art In the Open Activity, which is a festival that takes place throughout the city of Philadelphia. During this festival many people perform art throughout the city.  During this art my teacher said “Today were going to starting our Art in the open project and soon you will be creating art in the open piece of your own.” The day that my English teacher introduced this project to us we took a journey to an Armory near our school. While we were at the armory we were instructed to pick a spot and observe everything about this spot and I did as I was told. I observed my surroundings which went from the noise that the hard metal hummer made when I tapped on it to the way that I could use my body as a way to tell the story that this hummer could not tell it self. “I told the story of the trouble some ride that this hummer had taken through the middle of the hotel Rwandan battle. Bodies thrown on the back like potatoes sack. People dying and the driver driving the hummer carelessly because he had seen endless deaths that he could not do anything about.”

Later on we did and activity similar where I had observed another and based the story I wanted to tell a story with my body basing my story off of the story they were telling with their body. This is a snapshot of me (in the orange sweater) and my classmates observing one another to open our minds up so that we could eventually create our Art In the Open pieces.  After we had presented our entire art in the open project I was instructed to do a reflection on what I had learned and observed when I did this reflection I realized that It made me open up to a side off me that I knew was there but I never let anyone else know about. “ I learned throughout this process that is very viable to me is how much I miss dancing this made me think about how I should not forget about doing what I love when I have spare time.”  No only have I learned something me loving to dance I realized how much my self and others enjoyed writing poetry.            

We were given a poetry unit where we were instructed to write a nice amount of poetry and post them on a poetry wiki inspired by the inspiration of my observations I wrote in my I was inspired by poem. “I was inspired by dance emotional dancing. Producing my emotions through the stroke fingers. Dance was something your never take from me.” These lines were produced out of passion that later on told me that I was a good at poetry and I could open up a way to a new type of art.

  I learned things about my self by setting back and observing others and myself. Once I was proud of what I had produced it was time to publicize it. Now that I was confident that I could step outside of my boundaries I was sure that if I was going to make my work public it had to be close to perfect. If your work was going to be public then you had to make it your best and this is what I learned through observing others and myself. Making our work accessible to the public always makes you work at your best. Throughout this process of the year we were asked to post our work on wiki’s, blogs and forums. On piece of work that I made public was my poetry wiki and many of my poems were my best work. “I will raise you confidently. Teach you how to hold you head high.”  This was a line from my poetry wiki I created a poem about my future child it was called My baby angle by putting many emotions into one poem about something that I never experienced but yet it was my best work. No matter If we were writing about something we knew or didn’t to, to an author or a family member we always made sure that it was our best work if it would be public. “I am honored to be reading your book especially at this time in my life. Your book really caught my attention when I began reading it, not only because of the beauty of your writing but also because I recently found out that my grandfather is Haitian.” Something a had written in a letter to an author giving her my best work not only because I could compare to her but because she deserved to see it just like everyone else who would see it when it became public. Making work public not only made us work harder but seeing a final product that we could be proud of made us feel better.

 

Through the hard work and the lessons and learning’s the best part of this year was being able to be proud of your finish product. That’s what made this year an adventure being able to work as hard as you could on something even though you hated the assignment given to you. We were always able to be proud of our work in the end because of the support of our 10^th grade teacher who provided us with adventures and projects we might never get the opportunity experience ever again. That’s what mad 10thent grade year so special, the ability to experience things and be confident about your work.

 

​

Over the course of this year, I have learned many different things. This class help me understand that you have to go through a struggle before you can make it anywhere in life. Also it helped me see from over point of views when I was a tunnel vision type of person. Now I see the world differently. My actions are different and everything I do is important to me. Imagine is everything in life and if I don't make mine look good then I won’t even get a chance to be discover as a person of importance and if I don’t open my eyes to other people points of views then I will never understand where do other people come from with there ideas or why they see things the way they do. Assignments as in the Galileo work where we had to research and learn about how he went through his struggle to get out his theory of the sun being the center of the universe. Galileo had to go through the catholic church tell him that he was wrong, give up his views, and that if he didn’t give up his view or if he told someone he would be killed. Here is a quote I write during the assignment "If I knew my family wasn’t going to be harmed, I may have done many things different. I would have made sure everyone had my book and I would have gave speeches about it."I wrote this because I had a chance to tell how I felt about the way Galileo approached the problem and that I would have made a larger problem just to get my discovery noticed, even if they was to kill me because as you can see I said that if my family wasn’t going to be Harm, Then why not risk my life. That assignment meant allot to me. At first I didn’t know why but I have come to realize that I am the type of person that when I'm right about something or I know something is wrong I stand up for what I believe in completely if it means allot to me! 

Also the French revolutions role play assignment reflect everything I'm speaking about. "In response's to the declaration of the rights of man." This is one of my Quotes that I wrote because I had to act as if I was the king and talk to everyone in his role. This force me to see from his point of view and make decisions that wasn’t real but felt pretty much real. “system are you the ones that make everything okay for people to have child labor? Then why do you make people believe that they have to make the most money?”  This was my sweatshop trial assignment, where we had to take a role in the world and approach the problem with sweatshops and all this was done a class trial. Like as if we was in court. I decided to show you this quote for many different reasons. One was because of the way of learning in S.L.A. is totally different then any other school. Other schools may look at this event, have the teacher talk about it but then a test and then goodbye assignment. S.L.A. has us looking at the event, work on some assignments but then have us take in roles of the world that part take in this conflict. Then go to trial with it and argue it our self. Learning this way helps out in so many different ways. Simply because of the fact that you can walk away from a assignment and forget about it, you can’t walk away from a trial and forget that you was just defending or arguing about sweatshops. It sticks in your head. 

Overall in English and History class they help me change my views about the world together as one, As if the class was combined as one. Now I believe that you have to see from other points of view before you can argue anything or defend for your self and you will always have to go through a struggle to reach your goals. 

​            Walking in the classroom of 307 in the beginning of my sophomore year was no mistake. Well, of course not, it was on my roster. But, the experiences that happened inside those walls will forever change my writing and perspective. 

 The only perceptions of Mr. Block's class I could acquire were those of his past students. But, that wouldn't compare to actually participating in his class. 

            With expectations held high the first day, I knew this was going to be a rigorous course with many action packed activities. 

            Since my last portfolio, my major turning points were taking in better consideration of outside opinions and analyzing literature and situations more deeply. While I had acquired those skills, I had a lot to bring to my new History and English classes. 

            The first assignment was to write a page, just a page, about anything that came to mind. One had a whole night to express whatever they felt. Go home and write A page tonight. And let that page come out of you--- Then, it will be true. I’m asked to write a page tonight. (From L. Hughes.) This was the task. I particularly favored this as a  beginning assignment because this was the first impression the teacher would have of me. Looking back, I realized my favorite part of this assignment: Originality is just a word until you embrace it. When I had reminisced about this activity, I beamed in excitement knowing I had done a lot of exemplary work throughout the year and it'd be great mission to convey my best works.

            Besides the other mini projects, I'd like to shine some light on my benchmarks that were assigned throughout the year. Specifically the podcast and play projects. The purpose of the podcast project was to interview someone outside of the school and convey, through audio, how this person had crossed boundaries in their life. The depiction of "boundaries" could be defined in any way one thought necessary. The boundaries could be social, domestic, academically related etc. At first, I wasn't accustom to the process of this project. I had experience on interviewing people from my participation in the school's newspaper, SLAMedia, and written articles, but to make an influential podcast was very challenging. I had to be strategic in the way I portrayed my subject and still have the podcast orally pleasing. Here, the podcast is linked and for everyone to enjoy. In addition to my podcast, I'd like to acknowledge the play I wrote. The purpose of this project was to explore the questions, What are universal right? and In what different ways do people struggle for dignity, hope, and happiness in their lives? In the beginning of this project, I didn't know what to write. I had trouble thinking of a central idea my play would revolve around. But, in the end, I spent months writing, revising, and getting feedback to make my play exceptional. I decided to focus on materialism in today's youth. I have a snippet of the play, Just Do It, available to those interested. My intentions were to use realistic dialogue and convey a topic of conformity among modern youth. I believe my efforts, in the project, have bore fruit that will one day affect teens across the world. 

            Overall, throughout the year, personally I've gained more confidence, expertise, and creativity. Concerning confidence, I realized, confidence in your work doesn't come easy. While be challenged this whole year, it was difficult feeling concrete in my writings in the beginning of the year. An example project was my Lord of the Flies vs. Micheal Jackson. I decided to compare the boys' lives in Lord of the Flies to the life of Micheal Jackson. An initial hardship was having support among my classmates to do the topic because it was too profound. But, I had a determination to find a way to convey my point. Another would be the Art in the Open project. Students had to find a location close to the school and create a dance piece. (The description of the project has more detail in the provided link.) In this task, I definitely had to step outside of my comfort zone to create an exceptional performance. My group mates and I had wonderful times choosing the location and collectively creating a dance. The difficulties comprised of choosing a fit location, initially finding motivation to pursue and create a performance, and allowing the environment and accidents while practicing create production to shape our dance. On presentation day, the achievement was substantial and an audience pleaser.

            I've also learned to express one's self wisely and discreetly can move massive audiences. I think accomplished acquiring idea through these examples: As mentioned above, the "Write a page a night" assignment was the beginning of showing strategic placement of concepts and ideas. Although the class wasn't told to write with a strategic mindset, I think it's value in introducing a class of rigor and creativity was priceless and began a classroom setting of prudence. In addition to that, I'd like to recognize my letter to author Edwidge Danticat. In this letter, I tried to avoid being generic, but realistic. I had read her book Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work prior to me writing her a letter and I was flabbergasted and impressed at her work. I not only wanted to convey the idea of her brilliant work, but how her foot print on society has affected me as a person. It was great to read her response to the class.

            Lastly, I became empowered in the concept that if a change of thought in norms, in one person, can move others to pursue a great cause. In the process of writing my play, Just Do It, I wanted to be brave and show my views on this pressing topic. I have problems with societal norms that could be changed if only people were educated about what they could/can control in their communities. That's what I wanted to convey through this piece. In addition to my play, I wanted to show my Somebodies poem. This stood out to me because it had a key connection to my play. I wanted to convey that those who are stuck into society's norms are controlled by those who refuse to be. And those who refuse to be, make society what they want and mold people into thinking they can't change society, but just live in it. My intentions for this is to educate those of my community and show people if they want change, it's possible, as long as we work together as an organized group.

           All in all, in this past year I have been pushed to many limits and my mind has been stretched, but only to benefit me as a writer and thinker. 

Other works of mine: 

Poetry Unit Wiki
Language Auto Biography 

  

 

The first time I stepped into my sophomore English, was like nothing before. From the Beginning to the end; all that we had worked on wasn’t as simple as ninth grade English class, but it also wasn’t that perplex because everyone understood the class/homework that our teacher gave us.

 

What I would say is that thou it may seem hard and difficult that in reality it’s not hard or difficult, but fun and easy. Like the time we had to write a poem response (“The white man’s Burden”.) I had to rewrite the whole poem in my own way. I also had to rename it; the name that I had given it was Take up a woman's burden.

"The White Man's Burden" response:

Take up a woman's burden by Maria Latorre

 

Take up the White Man’s burden.

With there self seen world

That no a woman can take away

Show no woman love

and spit on there face

because they an't smart

so better then a white man's burden

Take up a woman's burden.

(go to the link to read the whole version)

It took me a long time and it seemed really hard at first, but when I had started it; it was a whole different story. It was really fun to rewrite something in my own way that I view the world. Then there was the time that I written other Poems. Mr. Block (My English teacher) Named it Poetry Unit. I had two- four weeks to write poems that come from me and not from someone else. My favorite part of this project was when I got to write my utmost favorite poem called Shadows. This poem shows the real me; the way I am the shadow that still live.

There it stand's watching
the shadow
that fallows with out knowing
it watches as they are run around
with pain in it
poor
little shadow
that can never be as happy
but they feel something too
we step over them
and we spit on their faces
the poor little shadow.

(go to the link to read the whole version)

I got to express my feelings to all who reads it, but the fun does not end there. We got to work with a group of people for four weeks. Art in the Open (AIO) was what we had worked on for four weeks. It was The Leah Stein Dance Company that helped us create fun and intriguing art piece that many people liked. This three projects were well very fun to do and very easy. At first it seem very hard and difficult but that was because at first I didn’t know what we had to do, but as soon as I was told it became the most simplest thing that I could do.

Then there were those long moments of time that one had gotten so stressed out  that they stop caring, but what did make people happy and lose their stress was when they had finished a big project and it came out to your type of perfection. Just like the play I had to write this year. I finished it the day it was due. Everything was perfect for me something that might only happen once. My play was about a girl that last her mother and father at a young ago and she then had to take care of her siblings. The time period made it worst on her because this play take place in Italy in the late 1960’s. The name I gave it was Sono la rosa nella mia storia It means I am the rose in my story.

For those of you interested in the secrets of the world involving physics you will absolutely love this book, "Black Bodies and Quantum Cats" written by Jennifer Ouellette! Inside this book there are many analyses of everyday movies and events that we see everyday but do not take the consideration to examine deeper meanings within them. When you read this book there is no choice other than to keep flipping the pages and continue reading. I highly recommend this book to not only physic's lovers but also to those who want to learn things "outside the box". Furthermore, this very book will change the way you view life as it goes into detail from large concepts to minuscule details of the world around us.

In the beginning of this school year we started exploring different things in english and history class. We started off with little things that led into bigger ideas. As day by day passed we completed many assignments giving us ideas of many things, which will all come together into this portfolio. All this led to giving me a better understanding of the world revolving around us. Leaving it all to two general understandings, creativity and challenges during this whole school year.

Creativity played a big role in this school year. I learned that creativity allows a person to show many expressions of different perspectives. Towards the end of the year we had a special guest come to our classroom, her name was Leah Stein. She showed us how dancing can express and give a bigger meaning of many different things by watching dances and videos of her own. When we first started this project with Leah Stein we were taken to a building to have an idea on what our project was going to be based on. Afterwards we had to choose a site with our group to represent what her and her dance company do on a daily basis.“When we chose this site we started wondering around to see how we can make the whole space useful.” I found this project very difficult, but I was happy when it was over and done with. 

Another project that we did during the year that had to do with creativity was our podcast. In our podcast we had to interview someone on what his or her personal boundaries were. In my podcast I interviewed my older cousin and when I asked her what a crossing boundary was to her she responded bullying as a major crossing boundary. “One big crossing boundary can be bullying, bullying can be identified as a person who uses strength or power to intimidate those who are weaker.” This assignment showed us how people have their own perspectives on crossing boundaries and how it show others a perspective they might not see crossing boundaries as. 

Challenges showed me that if you put so much effort into it you will have the best feeling of accomplishment. Overcoming challenges makes someone feel accomplished. Throughout the whole year challenges came towards my way and I found many ways to have them accomplished for my goal towards the end of the year. During the beginning of history class we had an assignment on global education. This assignment gave me a broader idea on how lack of education remains a global problem. “I think lack of education remains such a global problem because of economy effects.” In my opinion this meant that due to many things occurring with the economy many children tend to lack education as if it meant nothing to them.

Another project that I created that represented challenges was the Young Playwrights play. It was presented to use by a woman named Kate, she gave this assignment to write a play on an global issues. Kate was a big help throughout this whole project, she always helped out with any feedback needed and gave ideas on improvement. “You must not worry about education. What you need to worry about is finishing that breakfast for your brother and I.” My play was called “The Life of an Indian Girl”, this play basically was a bout a young indian girl named Chandi. Chandi is just like any other indian girl living India who doesn’t have the opportunity of an education. She brags to her father about having an education but he refuses and tells her she must be like any other indian girl and be raised to be a house wife. WHile writing this play it showed me how we take things given to us for granted that other people wish they had the opportunity of. Also showed me how people take challenges to achieve what they’ve always wanted.

​Introduction:

Over the 2011-2012-sophomore year at Science Leadership Academy, I have learned a lot of new things as well as encountered a lot of challenges in both English and my World History class. Coming into this class, I thought that the work was going to be easy with simple spelling test every other Friday or reading random books and having a test on them after the unit was over. However, I got the complete opposite of what I thought this class would be like. Before getting start on the work, I had an expectation of the classes being easy and not a struggle. As the year progressed, I found the work to be more of a challenge for me. The concepts of the work made my mind stretch and had me look at things from a different perspective. On the other hand, a lot of the work wasn’t easy at times. There was a lot that needed to be done and having good time management. Overall, I think this school year in English and World History has definitely helped me a lot with my writing and understanding things with comprehension. This blog will show you two general understandings of what I learned and how much effort it took to get to where I am now.

“Creativity comes from the heart of the person of how they feel.”

I thought of this quote because I do believe that whenever someone creates something, it comes from the heart and what they believe should be created. The piece that they create is theirs and they have ownership to it. One of the projects that we worked on was our poetry wiki. This was a project where we had to pick a poet and study them. Then we had to write poems that were similar to the flow of the poet that we studied. It was interesting because it made me think more and stretch my mind to further explore the art and creativity of poetry. The poems that I wrote came from my own experiences and how I felt at the time. I think that this project was fun and I enjoyed myself throughout the process of this project. In the later part of the year, we studied the world and cultures of Haiti. We read short stories that an author named Edwidge Danticat, who was from Haiti and her family that still lives there. In addition to reading her stories, we had to write about her stories and then write a letter to her explaining how much her stories meant to us and how they were interesting. In my letter I said, “I liked how you talked about your family and what the culture is like in Haiti.” Both of these projects required a lot of creativity and I think both of my projects were very well done.

“Challenges lead to trying new things.”

I think this quote meant a lot to me especially in the 2011-2012 year because there were a lot of challenges that I had to face in my English/World History class. The work wasn’t as easy as I thought it was going to be. To an extent, I think it was good that I had a challenge because it allowed me to stretch my critical thinking more than usual. One of the projects that was really a challenge was the Art and the Open project. That’s when we had to create a dance that symbolized freedom and we had people come in from the Leah Stein Dance Company and they talked to us about the type of dance that we had to do. It was major challenge because the type of dance that we were taught was not the type of dance that I am used to. During this project, we were also put into groups to put in our ideas together to come up with a dance. It was totally out of my element because I wasn’t expecting to do anything like that. At the end of the project, we had to write a reflection on what we liked and didn't like about the project. I said that it was challenging because working with other people to create a dance was hard because not everyone knew how to dance and the location of our presentation was difficult to use because we were on public property and didn't want too mess it up. Another assignment that we had to do was write a letter of advice to one of the characters in a book called Passing. That was a challenge, because I had to use what I knew about the character and give her advice on what I thought she should have done. In order to do that, I had to read the book, as well as, reading it with comprehension. Along with the letter, we had to create a podcast and interview someone outside of school and talk to them about how they view different things and how they would react to certain things. To me, this was a fun and enjoyable project. I had working with my group and interviewing my cousin and here what she had to say and her view on certain things.

 

 

This past school year has opened my eyes and showed me that the solutions to the world wide problems can be the solution to our personal problems. 

“Many people use their voice to express how they feel about certain actions that are happening. Language is one of the greatest ways to express yourself.” Language allows you to share with others how you as a person explain and express your opinion. When one has something to say, sometimes it can save millions. 

In class we had to write a language auto biography that deeply explained solutions that were used for issues in the world. For instance Edwidge Danticat wrote a short story. The story explained how not having a father/guardian that understand and could relate to how you felt is similar to how a government doesn’t listen to their citizens. Understanding someone who is somewhat in charge of you is one of the toughest things to overcome. If they say one way, and you say another, and no one comes to peace. It’s one way or another. 

In the last few of our past english units/projects, we learned as a class how to express ourselves from different views. Such as dance, art, writing, movies, and music. In order to express yourself, you need to have a voice that needs to be heard, to get a point across. As a class we had to find a way to express freedom without using our physical voice, but by using dance as another voice. Or how we use language in our daily lives, in and out of school to have a certain effect on us. For an example speaking english in public and school, and speaking spanish at home, is like living the best of both worlds. You get a mix of both cultures as well.  

Expression was a key struggle this year. Given an assignment and being allowed to approach it from every which way was very challenging. Some of the other classmates approached it as if their a teacher, peer, the public, outsider, instead of writing as a the student. When you have different approaches so much can be discovered and noticed. Even solutions to problems that could be solved world wide. 

Coming together as a whole, sophomore year has taught me to use my voice, to express how we should feel as a person, and not as students at Science Leadership Academy. How we can use our voice without talking to impact our school, community, city, world? 

Examples of work: 


Language Auto Biography

Journal 

Tenth grade was one of the best, yet most difficult years of my life. It had a lot of great moments where I achieved a lot, and other moments where I really struggled. When I look back on this year, especially in Mr. Block's class, I find myself gaining more knowledge each time. I learned so much this year. Not just about wars or how to write a paper correctly, but about myself too. I learned that it really takes hard work to go far, and it takes you as an individual to make something out of that work. If I could describe this year in two broad ideas, it would be "Challenges are always there, waiting for you to overcome them" and "When you're struggling, you become a stronger person."

            The first one I will talk about is  "Challenges are always there, waiting for you to overcome them". The first day of school, I walked into Mr. Blocks english class frightened and not knowing what to expect. He was very friendly, and excited for the year to come. He gave us a poem, and we analyzed it. Then he told us to go home, and write an "English B" poem about ourselves. The assignment was very broad, but the next day we had to present what we had to the class. I was so worried that I did the assignment wrong. But when the presentations were over, I realized that there is no wrong. The assignment was made so you can interpret it however your mind works, and take the assignment and run with it. 

            Another example of this general understanding would be writing my play for the Philly Young Playwrights. We had several months to write a play. Mr. Block also had a playwright Kate come in and do exercises, help us elaborate on our ideas, and help us anyway she could. In the beginning, I had a hard time coming up with an idea for my play. Kate and Mr. Block really worked with me and helped me find something I really related to. I found a topic that combined multiple parts of my life and I created a crazy plot. Kate and I emailed each other constantly revising pieces, and giving constructive criticism on how I can make it even better. I submitted the play proud of the final product, and excited to see what they thought of it. I really don't think my play would be as good quality as it is now if I didn't challenge myself and revise my work.

            The second general understanding of this year would be "When you're struggling, you become a stronger person." I struggled a lot this year, however I don't see it as a bad thing. Struggling is learning in my opinion. Throughout this year we had a poetry unit. I never thought that I was a great poet, or that I was even capable of writing the different poems we wrote. I struggled a bit, and "marked up" my poems a lot, but in the end they were awesome. 

            Another time I struggled was when we were working with Leah Stein and dancing in Art in the Open. I missed most of the workshops because of softball games, so I was confused about the concept from the beginning. Each day when we went out to think of new ideas, I just didn't know what to do. I contributed some ideas but they didn't make much sense. I was too overwhelmed that we had to perform and it took the fun out of the experience. Leah and her dancers then helped us and by the performances, I completely loved them. I was confident, and I had fun. I became a stronger and more outgoing person because of Art in the Open, and I thank Leah Stein, her crew and Mr. Block for that.

            This year in Mr. Blocks class really made me take a step back and enjoy every assignment, project, and work that was given to us. Yes I struggled and there were many challenges, but it made me work to the best of my potential and I thank Mr. Block for his creative work tactics and positive attitude throughout this year. I learned so much from this class and now I can apply what I learned into everyday life. 

Throughout this year I was given many different challenges within my work. Coming into tenth grade I was a little nervous and didn’t know what to expect. One thing that I was really nervous about is if I was going to be able to turn everything in on time and make sure it was A+ worthy. But once I got the hang of things, I realized early on that I was going to need to put a lot of hard work into everything I put my name on, but in the end it would pay off.

Nothing worth having comes easy you need to put in hard work. This is what I told myself every time I was frustrated with work. Every time I was fed up with an assignment I would just remind myself how great it would feel to receive that A on my report card, paper, or project. There were times when I was extremely overwhelmed with work but it was all a learning experience because it made me realize early on that college isn’t going to be easy either. Another thing that is clearer to me now is that creativity will never end and nether will the ways of expressing your self. These are a couple things that I learned from everyday experience. This is not something that can be taught. Every project that we did in this year had different ways of expressing ourselves. We had projects from papers, to drawing things, to making videos, to re-writing the end of books. These are just a few projects. There was also projects were we had so many different choices and if we didn’t like any of those we could make our own.

           

One thing that my class and I did not to long ago was teamed up with Leah Stein and her dance company. At first I wasn’t sure what to expect and thought it was a little weird at first but once I got into it, it was really fun! My group and I faced a couple struggles in the process of making up our dance. For example we got kicked out of our space and had to move into another one that set us back a little bit. There were times when someone in my group was absent or late which kind also set back the process but this gave us motivation to work harder. We incorporated things that were going on in everyday life, and everyone gave us ideas that were helpful. Even though we were nervous that something might go wrong, I just told my group “Always smile don’t worry about the little things!” In the end I have to say our dance was really amazing! It was a lot of fun! (Link for picture of my group at the bottom!)

 

Everything that you do that is new to you will cause you to make mistakes. But that’s what you learn from. I made a lot of them this past year but “I was raised by learning from mistakes.” That was from a poem that we did this year. It was all things that we were raised by. (Link at bottom!) One thing that I loved was no ones were the same. Also with a poem of our choice we had to make a piece of artwork. I made mines about this poem! (Link at bottom!) Another mistake people make a lot is thinking they can trust a lot of people. “You can’t trust everyone that you think" that’s something that I learned from reading Passing by Nella Larsen. Which we also had a project on and some people made drawings, videos, or typed papers.  I made a drawing of the main character to show her two different sides. (Link at the bottom!) For this book I also made a video of a new ending, a ending that was how I think the book should have ended. (Link at the bottom!)

 

 

Passing drawing!

Passing video!

I was raised by poem! 

I was raised by.. picture!

Art in the open picture! 

 

For our 10^th grade year in Mr. Block’s classes, Mr. Block has introduced us to many world issues with the work we were doing. Most of the issues, I didn’t know of. It was like watching World News in my classes. We would research what happened and write about it. In English and History classes, we would read a book and relate the issues from the book to the world. It’s the end of the school year, and now we have to create a final portfolio to reflect on what we had learned throughout the school year.

One of the greatest general understandings I learned in class is Creativity. Creativity is the ability to express your work in many different ways. One of my favorite quotes from class is, “One of the many ways a sculptor of ancient Egypt was described was as “one who keeps things alive.” (My response) People who write about the “mythic element of the story” keep the “art” alive in Haiti. The “art” keeps the moral of the story alive. People, who know about the “mythic element”, write about it as “art”. People will then discover the art, and inspiration will come. (Edwidge Danticat Chapter 1: Create Dangerously) I learned that the quality and understanding of the topic itself would help you create your piece of writing. One of my projects that I did with a partner was the “Passing Final Project”, where we read the book Passing and made an interview between the characters in the story. We made sure that the viewers were getting our message with the people we were using in our video. I wanted to make people see the element of the story of our interview. My creativity was very bland when I first came into Mr. Block’s class. As the year went by and is coming to an end, I can say that I feel my creativity has grown so much with the work I did in class.

Second to Creativity is Understanding and Hard Work itself. With all the work we did in class, there had to be a deep understanding of the topic. Understanding helped me with everything in class. It increased my creativity, because it helped me see things in different point of views. A quote I found from my Burden: Response Poem “They go and try to get rid of that burden/Working under any conditions/But all they can do is relief the burden”. When I wrote this, I tried to look at all the world issues brought up in class in different perspectives. At first, I thought that you could completely get rid of the world issues with that one solution. As I began to understand more about the world issues, I looked at the solutions to be insignificant to get rid of the issues. I found out that the solutions would only relief the problems the world is having. As much as it sounds bad, I see it in a new way. Instead of a solution, it’s actually just a relief to the burden. I feel that they find the biggest relief possible for the world’s issues. To relief the problems, it requires hard work. In my letter assignment I wrote “Self-control makes me work hard in school, working hard in school gains me trust from my parents, trust from my parents leads to my freedom.” I use to think that I only did work to do the things that I wanted. I now realize that that is not true. I learned that I did work to learn and discover new things. I work hard to give myself a good image that I am a hard worker and that I want to learn.

To sum it all up is my general understanding of Experience. In my descriptive essay, I wrote, “When we grow up, we leave our family and work everyday like adults. We don’t get to see much of our family after that. I try to cherish all the time I can spend with my family”. Back when I wrote the descriptive essay, I was thinking of the past summer with my whole family being together. Now it’s the end of the year and I’m thinking about what I learned and how a great experience it was learning in these classes. In May 2012, we had the Leah Stein Dance Company come teach us what “Art in The Open” was. “My first impression of the project wasn’t very good. I was very lost when I first met the Leah Stein Dance Company. I thought it was very weird to do dancing that involved your environment. It was something new that I was introduced too.” (Art In The Open: Final Response) It was a great experience doing Art In The Open. I found it to be very different from the usual dancing, but I need to understand what it was to express what I needed to do which was to dance. I can say this year was a good experience, an experience where I learned a lot that I will not forget.

Creativity, Understanding, Hard Work, and Experience is what I learned most throughout the year. Experiences are what this year created. All these general understandings link up together to create the experience I had learning. 

Helen Kilmartin

One of the first classes I walked into, on September 6, 2011 were Mr. Block’s History and English classes. When everybody walked in the room and got settled down, Mr. Block threw an egg on the floor. We were all astounded on how our new teacher introduced us. He welcomed us with splattered eggshells and egg all over. Over the crazy days that we’ve spent learning in class, I’ve realized two things. One of the things I’ve realized is that working hard pays off. Over the months I have done many projects, and I must say that I’m proud of all of them. I love all of my projects, but the ones I have worked harder on are the ones I like the most. I like my lit lens project that Danielle, Brent, and I worked on together. We made a puppet show about the book “Their eyes are watching God”. That was a great project, and we all worked so hard on it together.

The other thing I realized when in Mr. Block’s class was that going through struggles is the only way you can become successful. I have been through so many struggles over the past few years. My first big struggle was probably coming to high school. At first I was really scared to be in a room with a bunch of strangers, but then I realized that it isn’t so bad to meet new people. I realized that either way I will have to met new people and be socially interactive. So I went for it and now, in my second year of high school, I have so many friends. I went through a week of being scared for nothing! Another example for how I went through struggles to be successful was when we had to write in our journals. I never really liked writing and when I walked into class everyday, for English and history, we had to write a journal entry.

Over the course of a year I have questioned so many things because of these classes. In one of my journals I wrote “Religion = myth”. Before I never would have questioned religion. I wasn’t saying that all religion was a myth, but I had opened my eyes to multiple possibilities. I also questioned other people’s personal beliefs. For instance, another statement I wrote in my journal is "Why do we ask people if they are gay, but we don’t ask people if they are straight?” I always believed in one side of the story, but then I realized that isn’t true. I have always believed that working hard pays off, but something this class has made me have different opinion on were struggles. We go through history classes year through year and learn about struggles, but this year we went in depth on both sides. So another thing I have learned is that going through struggles is the only way you can become successful. I have learned a lot from these classes, but those are two things that I will always remember.

Links to work I have done:

I am really interested in prisoners and phsycological so here is my prison research response. 
https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1OdeHC99oSsdi1Z9s9uMjH4Q_ZZAFRrG9HtT6aYVu3O8/edit

This is the link to the last project we had. I did my project on crime and jail systems. 
https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1sAB7ancDz-FwSZe-rCPmh9tUg7ZFU2knh6XOBz4444o/edit

This is an image of the lit lens project that I mentioned earlier. 
file://localhost/Users/helenkilmartin/Desktop/untitled%20folder/IMAG0072.jpg

This is a link to (one of my favorite projects) my poetry portfolio.
http://ironpoetry2012.wikispaces.com/Helen+Kilmartin

This is a link to my descriptive essay, it is the first project I did for Mr. Block.
https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1uLuF_dcwvCcP73Tw7heMjIVRIEs-fK2F1T68qimFnew/edit?hl=en_US

Below you will see my wordle that was made from my first draft of this!

This year, my English and History teacher, Mr. Block, has brought up many world issues that changed my views on the world. Also, he has taught many subjects which I didn’t know about fully or correctly. It’s the end of the year and our last project is to create a final portfolio that shows at least two general understandings about some of the things he taught us and we found out ourselves also then incorporate quotes from our work to support it. My two general understandings are that social inequality will always accompany humanity, and that there’s always another side to a story.

Social inequality has many subcategories to it other than just race, there’s also wealth, power, and etc. In English, we explored a website that gave me a completely new understanding about race. Your race shows opportunities you have, it gives first impressions about your personality to certain people, and it divides people into their own group. Although, you can’t classify someone’s race by skin color, fingerprints, or blood type because race isn’t biological.  In my history journal talking about race, I followed the quote from Mr. Block which was, “race is a social construction” (English journal #26), and then I figured out what he meant when I read on about race on the website. Race has just begun not so long ago because in ancient times, people weren’t divided into groups of race; there were groups of people’s wealth and class. Racism started when slavery became very popular in the US and all the slaves were all African. Many people would discriminate and stereotype people based on their race. This kind of inequality won’t end because just like I posted in a forum discussion about race in our English class, “There are many racists in the world and they raise their children that way, too.” From the same forum, I created another post from which I took from saying, “I read on and figured out that the only cure for racism is FULL equality. There would have to be sacrifices for some groups to even things out. Then I thought...Not everybody is going to sacrifice things in their hard-earned life for other people." (Race: The power of illusion moodle forum)

Another kind of inequality is the division of three classes of wealth during the French Revolution; the commoners, clergy, and nobility. The commoners were the poorest and had the biggest population, whereas the clergy and nobility were the richest and were very little in population. In history journal #27, I wrote a poem in which I created an analogy that compared the current US’s wealth class and the wealth class of France during the French Revolution. “Clergy and Nobility are to the 1%, as the commoners are to the 99%” (History Journal #27). In this unit, not only have I learned about the French revolution, but also that social inequality still remains as if revolutions never happened. There’s still a huge gap of the amount of rich and poor people. Also, I learned that skin color doesn’t make a difference. You can have white skin, but be African-American just like Clare in the book we read during this unit also called Passing. Clare had a racist husband who never knew that she was black, and loved her until he found out. It’s not the skin color you should judge, but their personality if you actually get to know the person.

My other general understanding is that there’s always another side to a story no matter how good or bad the main character can be. Throughout the year, we took part in 2 mock trials. One trial was about the age of exploration with Cortes, his men, King Charles V, the Aztecs, and the system of empire. Everyone was charged with something, and we were be split up into groups for each person and defend ourselves with the sources we had and found ourselves online. With everyone having a fault and more than one person to put the blame on, it was easier to be proven less guilty. I was in the Cortes group and immediately I knew all the blame was going to be put on my group. So my main goal was to put the blame on others. My job was to create the opening statement, and in the process I really felt like a lawyer defending my client. I wrote it as if Cortes isn’t at fault of anything because he was forced into his decisions, basically sugarcoating everything against him and what his actions were. I got so deep into it that I started believing this other side of the story and no long saw him as the bad person. For example, here’s one of the ways I blamed another person and made Cortes look good; “When Cortes was accused of killing 400 Indians, he only did it under self-defense. The Tlaxcalans are to blame for, too because they decided to help Cortes and also fight him, while Cortes only fought back in self-defense.” (Opening statement from Cortes Trial)

The other mock trial was about sweatshops. Just like the Cortes trial, the multinational corporations, poor country ruling elite, poor country workers, US consumers, and the system of profit were all charged with something against them. Again, I was put into the group that everybody was going to attack, and I took the same position in writing the opening statement. “We didn’t force them to work at our factories, they had options in life on how they could make a living and they chose to work in a factory.” (Opening statement from sweatshop trial) This was one of the ways we defended ourselves in the opening statement to prevent from the other groups blaming us for this.

This whole year has been not only a direct learning experience, where Mr. Block has taught us about all the different issues, but he gave a lot of room for letting us learn on our own. The learning “experience” has definitely let me experience and learn these new things in a more and effective way. For example, as I would research for a project online, I constantly ran across new information that I found really interesting and shared it with the class afterwards. Beside all the weeks and months of non-stop work, it was worth it. I feel more confident about my knowledge, and I'm not afraid to actually speak up with giving the correct history of things. Also, this class molded me into a different person understanding the world issues and acting to be the small change.