Humanities Final Portfolio 2013

“Let’s come together” “everyone come into the circle”. It’s something that Mr. Block has been telling us all year. He must have a thing for circles. But really in the class you can see that we all became closer with each other since the beginning of the year. I think the general understanding of this year is that coming together as a community can help/make a change over time. In a number of assignments from both courses the theme of coming together to make a change has come up. In the very beginning one of the early english journals (journal 6 to be exact) Mr. Block asked us why do we think humans treat other humans so badly? That journal intrigued me because I’ve wondered the same thing. I said that “I think humans treat each other so badly because of opinions. Some people tend to treat others badly when they don’t agree with their opinion.” I also wanted to hear what everyone else thought. Even the people who treat other people badly I wanted to know what they thought. In class Mr. Block usually tells us to read our journals aloud and we discuss the topic for a little bit. Next was history journal #7 “Reel bad Arabs”. In that journal we talked about the different stereotypes of Arabian people that were portrayed in movies. I wish we could rid the world of stereotypes. They don’t do any good for anyone and only hurt people who are affected by racial stereotypes. Every race is affected and each race has a negative stereotype. The last journal I’ll talk about is history journal #20. In journal 20 we talked about segregation and oppression, what causes change and ways to make change successful. Uniting together was one of the options. Afterwards we talked roles, rules, and responsibilities. I have chores and other responsibilities to do. They’re important because if my mom and I don’t work together then the house will be completely out of order. Next in the middle of the year we read Lord of The Flies. In my LOTF doc I said that “In my opinion Jack is a sociopath and becomes jealous of the power that Ralph possesses. It shows that he is so desperate for power that he starts his own tribe in order to become leader of the boys and turn the boys against Ralph.” Jack starting his own tribe was a bad idea. if they would’ve just gotten over their differences then they could’ve have made a little society and been alright between the kids. Coming together would’ve been a good change. Also in the beginning of the year we talked about the Keystone Pipeline being built. A big part of the story was the people coming together and protesting against the pipeline being built. I think the people protesting against the pipeline are going to influence the result. In my work I quoted some articles that explained who and how the people against the pipeline were protesting.  “In September thousands of people converged on the White House in the largest act of civil disobedience in the history of the U.S. climate movement. The protesters sat-in peacefully and over 1,200 were arrested in protest of the Keystone XL project.” and “More than 2,000 people showed up at the Nebraska State Department hearing to say they don't want crude oil running through the delicate Sandhills or the Ogallala aquifer—which supplies water to most of the Midwest.” Then in history we talked about modern day sweatshops. In my response to modern day sweatshops I said that “The most effective way to change what’s going on in the sweatshops is to revolt and protest against the Poor country elites and the Multinational Corporations.” and “With the protests maybe the world could get involved and once everyone becomes aware of sweatshops the Elites and Corporations will be forced to change their horrible ways.” All we have to do is come together and boycott the multinational corporations. Finally one of the longest projects of the year we created a play. My play was about the life of a chinese factory worker and the struggles they face everyday. The only way the made their factory better to work in is by sneaking a letter into one of the products explaining how badly they were treated everyday with poor working conditions. The woman who found the letter brought it to officials This year has taught me a lot. But the most important thing that I will take away from this year is coming together as a community can help/make a change over time.