Humanities Portfolio 2012

​

Summary and Analysis of The Year

Sla has a very interesting style that was applied throughout Mr. Block’s class. This way of learning has brought out a lot of inspiration in people. It was always a different experience every day. Our poetry portfolio work has brought everyone into working with a more personal side of themselves. Our poems were very interesting. Everyone wanted to express themselves in different ways and I think we all did so in our poetry class. This class has inspired me to want to write more about anything that I find appealing to me. It has brought us all closer to ourselves.

Humanities Portfolio 

In Mr. Block’s English and History classes we learned a lot. Personally the way the work went wasn’t always appealing to me but some units were very interesting. Everything we did in class was always a process. Every unit when we wrote something we did a draft then a final version. This was beneficial to a lot of people because it gave them time to edit their work. I don’t usually edit most of my work because I try not to make mistakes the first time so I often wasted the time we had in class writing drafts and this sometimes didn’t work out for me. More interesting projects like the Poetry Portfolio sparked a lot of people’s imaginations and that made everyone want to do exemplary work. I think I speak for everyone when I say some units were disappointing. For example the Lord of The Flies unit was boring for the simple fact that I don’t think the book was any good. The project that followed was great though. Even though some things weren’t appealing to me I still learned a lot of things that I can carry over into my personal and school life.

This Final Portfolio is supposed to give 2-3 general understandings that we have learned over the year. I think the most important thing we learned over the year is that someone’s past experiences shape them into who they’ll become in the future. I think this was illustrated perfectly in a lot of work that we did. To use an example from my favorite project, the Poetry Portfolio Allen Ginsberg’s whole career was based off of his childhood. He often mentions drugs which to me is caused by the fact that his mother was a drug abuser. (Poetry Portfolio) “His greatest poem “Howl” referenced “angel-headed hipsters which to me is talking about drug abusers. Also he writes lines later “high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness” which is another reference to drugs.” He became a very popular poet because he had a strange technique, which was formed by his disturbing childhood. He often abused drugs during his lifetime and that would most likely be because people often do what they are used to. He was raised around drugs and started to do them himself.

Another example could be Things Fall Apart. This book illustrates my general understanding perfectly also. Okonkwo’s whole life was based off of his father’s failure to appeal to his fellow villagers. A lot of people looked down upon Okonkwo’s father because he was a failure who owed money to numerous people and never paid them. Okonkwo was raised around this and that made his goal as an adult to be the exact opposite of his father. He knew people’s opinion of his father and that made him strive for success his whole life. His father was also a weak man because he was scared of war and this made Okonkwo’s next goal to become a great warrior, which he was successful at. (Things Fall Apart Assessment) “I set off to find myself in my motherland and it did not go as I planned. I feel as though I am a weak man and I did not deserve this life that was given to me. My main goal in life was for my chi to be better than my fathers and I feel as though I did not reach that goal. Therefore I did not need to live my life.” This is a quote from the chapter we wrote ourselves. I think things would have really played out like this for the simple fact that this part illustrates his feelings. He tried so hard to be a better man than his father and when he disappointed his fellow villagers he became disappointed in himself and that would have caused him to kill himself.

Everyone has the ability to create something that inspires others, this is another general understanding I have learned in Mr. Block’s class. It is not illustrated as well through the work he had us do but I do have a few great examples. I think Lord of The Flies advertisement was a good example of this. We had to create an advertisement based off of the themes of the book. A lot of these themes are inspiring and to me I think that if some of them were published they would have the ability to inspire others. My advertisement was supposed to promote “Simon The Communicator”. This could inspire people to want to communicate more because everyone else on the island was oblivious to the things Simon knew because they lacked communication skills unlike him.

Another example is the Sweatshop Trial Analysis. "We need to provide for our families, were living day by day." This is a quote pulled from the sweatshop workers. I think this trial could inspire people to learn more about their clothing so they could save the people who have to live under these circumstances. They live on little to no money while some people waste money on nothing. Some people don’t know that they live like this so this could be a way to expose these companies and save the workers.

I think everyone could agree with my general understandings because I personally have been made by my experiences and I think I can inspire others. My father died last year and that put me through a slump at first but then given time to myself to sit and think I sort of had an epiphany. I knew that my father wouldn’t want me to be unsuccessful and that being so would be disappointing to him because he was a successful man himself. Therefore I decided to get my act together but because I was also raised around a lot of people who over think things I myself was caught over thinking. I came to understanding that I have seen so many people’s lives wasted away and I didn’t want to become another one of those people. This was a contradicting idea because I wanted to be successful which would mean I would have to do work but on the other hand I didn’t want to live my life in a box. Overall that experience has made me try to balance work and play more efficiently so I could become successful while making the most out of my life. 

Here are links to some of the other work i have done.

Lord of The flies Thesis Paper: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12uG8GKbJz9nZRYZ-tQtxtcYC4nB2bgmyuOeRmkvd0V8/edit

Copper Poetry Portfolio: http://copperpoetry2012.wikispaces.com/Devante+Taggart

Copper Descriptive Essay: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pQAmYM5eoes-on1AgiSXLesjj0JpbzoG7JhGorRJj_o/edit

Here is a wordle i have created out of my Humanities Portfolio: