​ 

Throughout the year, we've been focusing on a lot of different themes of English and History. There was the past, obviously, and there was the future. All the things that we have taken in have been extremely beneficial to our lives. We've learned lessons and taken in values from other people's mistakes or ideas.

 

In English, though the first part of the year was focused on descriptive stories, we have certainly learned how to decipher the true moral values that could help us later on in life, or at this point in our lives. "Days are not always what they seem." From a short simple paragraph grew a descriptive essay. Of which, I admit, was not my best work, but, looking back... it helped a lot in the end of the year. In our descriptive essays we were to link two different occurrences together by a bigger idea. In my essay, the bigger idea was that days are not always what they seem. I figured this would be a nice topic, because as Hannah Montana says, "everybody makes mistakes, everybody has those days, everybody knows what I'm talking about, everybody gets that way." I just feel that everyone can relate to having those days, good or bad. So, that’s the reason I wrote about them.

 

Another project in English, was the last quarter benchmark, which was a three page thesis paper. I feel that this one was the much more refined version of the second benchmark. The Lord of The Flies paper was a thesis paper, but the past quarter, there was a lot of improvement. The outside source was better, and much more on point in getting an exact example that related to the thesis. The thesis was “When you have people who surround you with love, and they do something that may be unkind to you in a way, is it considered 'out of love?”

 

In history the values were a little different. There were always something about the world involved in beliefs and ideas. In my op-ed, it was all about nuclear power. ""It looks like our world leaders 'have it under control' for right now. I wonder where this will take us in about 5 years?" There were many sides to take in this piece. The good, the bad, the smart, the stupid.  Like Mr. Block said, a good topic should be controversial. And, I think this one was a very controversial topic that could have been further debated.

 

A last example for history was the museum proposal. I feel like I poured my heart and soul into this benchmark. I did tons and tons of research, and it felt like I was sitting at my desk for hours. I feel like it was maybe one of my strongest benchmarks. “You could see how the Dutch really monopolized an innocent country that was rich in goods.” Like the op-ed, this one was benchmark was controversial as well. It supported colonialism rather than not supporting it like the other benchmarks were.

 

Overall, I loved my sophomore year. English and history were maybe 2 of my favorite subjects, even though they may not have been my strongest. They were the ones that I had the most fun in everyday, and it would be a complete loss if I missed out on these classes, so I'm glad that I've gotten to experience all of this, this whole year. I've really valued my time here.

Tyreé Wright

Iron Stream

6/11/11

 

Final Portfolio

 

 

 

Art, English, Plays, History, World, Dance, Poetry, Diversity, Religion, News, Change, Revolution, New, Beginning, Corruption, Government, Pain, Torture, Genocide, Survival, Understanding, Slavery, Trial, Judgment, Stereotypes, Hope. These words have created my 10^th grade education.  I have gone through anything but a normal English and History courses. Many of my friends out side my own school have told me stories of the many tests and papers they have had to write over the year. When I ask them what they remember about the projects they needed to do, or the papers they needed to write they cant remember. When I tell them about my projects and number of pages I have done this year they cry for me. I have had a most unorthodox year with Mr. Block.

I have written a play in History class about librarian Pirates. We started with a few monologues and through over ten pages of revisions and work we submitted them to Philadelphia Young Play Rights. Writing a full play for history class seems like an English assignment, this is not true. We had to research a topic on a present day event and create a story about it first as monologues, then as full plays. This is the first time I have ever been in a class that took such a drastic spin on tradition.

Monologue Project 

            We went far beyond the goal of understanding news and journalism to writing our own Op-Eds. We took interesting real world topics and made them into articles that draw the attention of people and make them think. These topics are things out of the obvious and serious under looked problems. We submitted this assignment to real newspapers. Through email we sent our papers and contacted them as students in hopes that they would be added to a section of the paper, going beyond the call of the everyday standards of an English Class.

Op-Ed

    

          Another thing we learned was how to create poetry. We went through all the stages from learning simple rhyme to writing five different poems. Not saying these poems simply had different words for each, which would be easy. The five poems I wrote were five different types of poems all together, they consisted of, Memory, Riff, and I was raised by, a Sonnet and an Ode. Each poem has its own unique them or story about my life. The Riff poem is about my martial arts training, my Ode is expressing my love for my favorite hat, and the Memory poem is about an event that happened in my life. Each poem is detailed and fallows its own individual them.

Poetry 

     Many schools don’t take the time to teach the children about religion. We learned the facts and the struggles many people go through. The assignment was to research a religion and make a creative wiki about a point. Mine was the on the oppression of Muslim women. I went into the hardships they are forced to go through, and how they deal with it. I compared this religion to Christianity and went into how they both oppress their women. Throughout both English and History I have learned many different things about my world in such ways that I will never forget any of them. I hope that my projects can be used to help future generations to have a unique education like I have had.

Iron Religion

 

To some, English and History are acknowledged as being their "least favorite subjects”. But in my opinion, they are the finest. This is because they both teach you how to become a better person. Personally, I have found every year of English and History to be my favorite as I lived through it, and this year was no exception. I remember walking through the door the first day. My first impression was that the classes were going to be fun and challenging at the same time. As time moved on, this reality continued. I soon found myself looking forward to both of those classes daily.

One memorable experience for me was writing the descriptive essay. To read it, please click here. At first, I thought that it would be quite difficult to do. The reason is because I felt as though the descriptions for my mentioned experiences would not meet expectations. But, as the project rolled along, I learned of my mistakes. I discovered that the key is to simply continue writing everything that you remember about the experience, no matter how big or small. Another thing to remember is to use all five senses in the descriptions, if appropriate. This gives the reader an accurate image of the flashback within their mind.

Another memorable experience for me was doing the Podcast Benchmark. To listen to it, please click here. I remember wondering what was the point of this English project, as it has little to do with reading. I didn’t realize until the end of it’s true meaning. Doing a podcast is just like witnessing the events of a book. As my aunt told me of her experiences, I was able to see the facial expressions as she spoke, and could connect to her in a far more effective way. I had a feeling of understanding that the words on the pages of a book would have never given to me.

One more memorable experience for me was writing the Op Ed. To read it, please click here. At first, I wondered why writing a news article would be required for History class, as it has nothing to do with the world events of the past. However, I eventually learned that although it is about issues of the present, the present is a result of the past. As I was working on it, I found myself writing about the historic events that led to my more modern topic. After finishing it, I learned that the current conditions of the world are effects of the events of the past. I also realized how important our actions of the present must be, as it will affect the future.

My final thoughts about the English and History courses this year are that they were required to help make me a better student and citizen of America. I have learned that the world is far from perfect, and will unfortunately never be. However, compromise will make the conditions of it better for everyone. For example, I remember doing the Language Autobiography. To read it, please click here. Although two populations of humans sound different, a common understanding of English can be had. Anyway, another final thought that I have is that even though an individual’s contribution to the world may seem small, when gathered together, a larger population has the power to change the way we all see the world currently, and beyond.

Throughout the year, I felt that I learned and changed a lot from this class. From the day I set foot into the room I wanted to know what there was to learn in History, and not so much of English. In all honesty, I felt as though the first half the semesters in the class was rather slow and I wasn't very captivated. But however things took a turn towards the end of the year right now. And now I admire both of these subjects to the same extent. 

A first project that I liked was the Religions benchmark. Despite of the outcome, the grade and how much time I put on it to get that, I'm still proud of it. Because in the beginning I thought that I knew a lot about it but I learned that I didn't know too much and instead learned more than I thought. More astonishing was that it ties in with another project that I would later do towards the end of the year. 

Another thing that I did in the year and stood out among others was the Cortés Trial. It was the class's first ever trial, to determine who was at fault during the rulings of Conquistadors in present day Mexico. We were separated into groups and would later verbally battle it out to make a decision on who's the culprit. The trial was something that I've never done in the middle of a classroom, in easier terms I'd say it was a heated discussion that challenged our public speaking skills and the questioning + answering skills. I was nervous at times but when the time for my prosecuting parter (Vinny) and I to go up against the opponents, while all eyes were on us, there was nothing to do but to question what needs to be questioned and find the answer to what needs to be answered in order to prove a point and determine the one at fault. 

This next memorable work that I liked is also a trial. Instead this one was on Sweatshops, and it may sound weird, but this was a controversial topic that I never expected would've turned out the way it did. I was prosecutor yet again, this time to determine who is at fault for putting sweatshop workers in danger. This trial had the class realize how much others around the world have to go through in order to create the daily things we use. From the past trial about Cortés, being a prosecutor wasn't so hard for me anymore, I just went up and do what needed to be done "get a satisfying answer". This trial was more intense than the Cortés one, rather that it was a heated discussion, it was more like a discussion packing heat. At some point it got quite a bit personal between two groups that later turned into a flame war. At the end of the day, people might "ehh, who cares it's just a fake trial", but to us (at least I do) it matters because at some point of the trial we all got caught up in a moment. 

Mr. Block had write an Op-Ed one day, and this took place during the 3rd-4th quarter. Everyone in the class was pretty puzzled that day because almost none of us had a clue what Op-Ed was. Except that it sounded like two abbreviated words turned into 5 characters. Block later explained that we were to write a report like paper based on a controversial topic along with our own opinions using facts. I'd call it a Factual & Opinionated piece. I don't know about others, but to me, it couldn't get any better. It wasn't my first time writing these so I felt at ease.There was one problem, during that moment in time many things were happening around the world, from natural disasters to made made destructions. Over the course of two days I decided to pick the Libya Vs. NATO topic. So for a period of time I caught up even more with the current event through both the internet and television news. I however felt that it was too controversial so I had doubts at first, however I didn't really care and kept on writing it. When the deadline arrived, I finished it a day head, and Block said that we were to send emails to newspapers and see if some of ours to qualified to be published on them. I wanted mines to be published to a local Philadelphia Newspaper, I got one reply back that they received it but never got one back on whether or not it was published, but I don't really care because after all I'm satisfied with it. 

One of the last projects of the year was a History benchmark, that we were all to do on colonization. All of us were to pick a country, and make a proposal for a museum and have eight artifacts to be displayed. I picked Israel yet again, and somehow it turned in to Israel & Palestine (*note that the images are indeed not displayed on the document, but if you google the names they will show up as expected*). I had much difficulties with this benchmark in the beginning because it was so confusing how it tied in to Palestine the neighboring country and eventually mind-boggling when I found out how much it tied in with many of the works I did in class before it. Such as the Op-Ed because it was controversial, the Religions benchmark I mentioned earlier, and the Cortés trial because I was determined to find out who was at fault to put Israel & Palestine to the position they are in present day. Now it may seem irrelevant to colonization but it started out as colonization, then to religious crisis and to an ongoing conflict that hasn't been to put to a halt. After the eight artifacts proposal was done I thought that it was officially over, but I was wrong. After this we were all appointed to make a presentation out of either powerpoint of keynote to display the topic and country itself. Unlike others who went specifically to the point of how their museum was to be laid out, I took a stab at a different angle. I did my presentation to the conflict from the beginning of colonization to a bigger conflict and eventually today. Within it were insights on some of the artifacts to be displayed, without the audience even knowing. 

An extra memorable work that I liked a lot was the second to last project I done recently. The Art in the Open Festival. I really don't know how to call it, but The Art in the Open was where separate performances the whole class contributed in. Mr.Block appointed us to create an art dance that took place in the street and with the assistance from a professional group of Street Artist/Dancers, the class performed it along the river banks on the day of the festival. To put it in easier terms again, this type of art and dance involved the interaction with the environment around us. It's definitely my favorite because we went from knowing nothing of what street art is to performing it to live audiences. Block allowed us two weeks to practice the performance at a certain site along the river banks, and in honest words I was very satisfied with the product that the group made on performance day despite the fact of 100+ degree heat. Only thing that was kind of disappointing was my fail on a jump during the first performance, but there was a second performance so it meant that there's always space to improve. The failed jump, resulted in some scrapes but those scrapes are actually the reflection on the effort put in to create that act. 

The last piece of work that I like a whole lot, is the one that I'm currently working on. The one,that whoever you are, is reading. It displays all the work that I'm proud of and that the public gets to see them. And it's the Final Portfolio.

​Throughout English and World History, it has been gradual process of learning and working. Throughout these courses, we have all been asked to form opinions and beliefs about the various world issues of yesterday and today.

Over this year in English and History I learned a lot about the nature of people. I learned that it is easy for people to stray off of human nature for various reasons. While writing my Op-ed I talked about how violent video games are blamed for many school shootings, when it really has to do with home problems or mental disabilities. This showed me how people are aware of things being able to change people, but might not have the best judgment to know what is changing them. For my first quarter English benchmark I talked about how the kids become more savage when exposed to less technology. Throughout Lord of the Flies the kids start to revert back to having animal like behavior while on the Island. This showed me how people are willing to go back to savage behavior very quickly, instead of work together and act civilized, or can make sure that they do not become savages. The way to not become savages would be to make the island like their life and not change anything, but this is very hard to do; that is why it is so easy for people to revert back to being savages.

            During the fourth quarter we learned about freedom and prisons. We had several assignments talking about torture. During these lessons we discussed how almost anyone could become a torturer. We watched and reflected on a video called The Milgram Obedience Experiments where “scientists” would bring in someone from the street, and ask them to question another person in a different room. Every time the person in the other room got a question wrong the person brought in from the street would press a button that they were told gave an electric charge to the other person. The person who was answering questions was not actually getting shocked, but was just acting and pretending to be in pain. The questioner was told to turn up the intensity of the shock until it got to a certain point, and keep it at that level. There were several circumstances, and the results varied from where the answerer was, where the person telling the questioner to do their job was, and if there was any other people in the room. In the end most people would go somewhat far, even though they could hear or see the other person that they thought they were torturing.

            One of the units in History dealt with sweatshops, and child labor. We talked about why it happens, what the benefits are, what the downsides are, and how it can affect consumers or other people. We had a group activity where everyone was split up into several teams for a Transnational Capital Auction. These teams were the Ruling Elite for countries. The object of the game was to try to please the Multinational Companies, so they would give work to our citizens, but to make sure that our citizens were not going to rebel against the government. We had to decide our standpoint on key issues like ability to form unions, child labor, laws on keeping a clean environment, and several others. There were five rounds to change the bids, and depending on what you did, the Multinational Companies would want to go to your country. The team that ended up winning didn’t put everything good for the Multinational Companies, because that would mean their citizens would be very unhappy with the government. The teams that did good put things somewhat in the middle of good and bad in the choices, even though they all seemed to be very bad from our standpoint in the United States.

While learning about freedom had a section on prisons, and penitentiaries. I got to read about prisons, and prisoners that I had no idea about before. Much of this was very interesting, and cool. We got to read facts about prisons and prisoners and write our responses. The thing that I thought was the most interesting because I had never thought about it before was about the family of the prisoners. The person who goes to jail might be the only family member with a job, and has to support their whole family, but when they are sent to prison the government does nothing to help that family. This could be a very big problem to the family, and would make them change their whole lifestyle. The government might say that it would be the fault of the family member for doing a crime that put them in jail, but I don't think that the whole family should be punished for the actions of this one person. 
            The main things that I learned about this year almost all centered around human behavior. Human behavior contributed to all of these topics very much, like how a torturer can be made, when people are civilized or savages, and how people view certain things. Human behavior is something very unique, that would not be what you expect until seeing real life examples of what can be some of strange parts of human behavior.

 

​ Knowledge is interchangeable.   That is the main, perhaps the most valuable thing, I learned in History and English class this sophomore year.  In the beginning of the year English and History class were separated.  Towards the middle it seemed as though they interlocked and fit into each other.  But it all started with the descriptive essay from English.

 

We were asked to write Descriptive Essay about something that happened in our life. I chose to write about the summer earlier that year. “Out in the 90-degree weather and a storm we were up on the roof trying to prevent the resistant leaks”.  As I realize now this first assignment in English was really the backing of the whole year. I had to learn to be more descriptive and creative at the same time. It was a bit challenging at first because I did not write like this before. As time went on and the projects called for more and more I started writing better and better.

 

Oddly enough the project that I surpassed my standard for writing was the Monologue Project for History.  For this project we had to pick a human rights struggle. I had to do a lot of research to understand and convey the topic clearly.  I had chosen drug trafficking because of the different reasons to do it and how some people don’t really have a choice. “I know she needs the money but its drug money!”(Scene-1). The daughter had kidney disease and the family needed fast money to pay for her medical bills.  This project forced me to be very original, descriptive and creative.   Though, we had a little help from Kate from Young Playwrights. She helped most of the class and I our plays.   Even still it really pushed my ability and raised the bar for realistic fiction writing that will come in the future.

 

            The Sweatshop trial that we as a class did in middle of the year was probably the most enjoyable activity for history.  The class split up into groups to take positions on the real world problem sweatshops. Each group was questioned on the amount of control that they had on the situation and why it was still going on. “U.S. Consumers - If you wanted these “sweat shops” to end, you would have to stop buying into these companies”. As well as, each group had to present opening and closing statements on their position.  Finally, as a class we voted to see which group we thought had the most guilt. My group was the Poor Country Ruling Elite.  We had to research a ton of statistics, information and articles to fathom our position and perspective on the issue.  This assignment taught me about perspective because we had to really see from a group of people’s point of view on a hard issue.

 

The most interesting piece of work this year was the Night Artwork for English class.  After we finished the book Night, which is about life in a concentration camp, we were asked to make some sort of art to go with another issue of the book. There were no limits so I created a video of key things in the book. I tried to be creative as I could in designing the video, what items to put where and what type of music should be playing.  An important thing I learned was how to incorporate skills such as perspective and creativity into one project.  This also showed me a new medium in which to express the many forms of English.    

Overall this year has been very enjoyable and memorable. I learned many new things and polished others that we rough. I hopefully will remember the experiences or the hard earned skills. English and History class in sophomore year was a wonderful opportunity. 

Throughout Lord of the Flies the kids become more savage. The boys start out as somewhat civilized, but as they realize that they might not get saved, they get more savage. In several instances in our world, there have been people or groups who are against technology. The example about groups not having or wanting technology relates to the boys because they go back to their animal instincts.. The real life example hurt people for a not very good reason, and they either didn’t have or want technology. The diminishing amount of technology affects people in ways so that they revert back to their instinct of savagery.

During the book Piggy’s glasses go from good condition to being broken. While the glasses are diminishing, the savage instinct of the boys becomes more prevalent. A quote from the book from where the glasses are half broken is “You didn't ought to have let that fire out... one side's broken." page 71. During this section the kids are in the middle of being animals humans. This quote shows that they are starting to abandon one form of technology that they have, fire. They left the technology to go hunting; and because of this the ship that passes by didn’t see them. If they had kept their technology, then they would not be fighting about not getting rescued from the ship. The fire would have also kept them from killing the pig, so that they would be less savage. Only savages would leave something as important as the fire, to go kill a pig for food that they wouldn’t need if they were rescued.

Many of the older boys were hunters, or wanted to be with jack to kill a pig. Luddites were people in the early 1800’s who were against some new technology. The new technology would do their job faster, but they claimed that it wasn’t as authentic, or good. The luddites destroyed many of the machines, and killed some people in the riots. The luddites are similar to the boys in Lord of the Flies, because they ignore or demolish technology, and in the process they hurt things. This new technology made them destroy technology, which showed how they went back to their animal instincts, and didn’t think about anything else. The luddites were against new technology, while the hunters were against watching the fire. Both of them had their priorities wrong, the luddites could have found new jobs, or solved the problem without violence. The boys had their priorities wrong because they chose hunting, and fun over being saved.

There is a lot of symbolism in Lord of the Flies. One big part is Piggy’s glasses. They symbolize technology, which also shows civilization and how put together they boys are. In the beginning of the book, when the boys are civilized the glasses are fine. When the glasses are half broken the boys are splitting apart, and most of them are going back to their animal like instincts. Close to the end of the book the glasses become fully broken because of the Savagery. A quote close to when the glasses are broken is “”How can we make a fire?” Jack squatted back and frowned at the pig. “We’ll raid them and take fire.”” Page 136. This shows that Jack has turned savage; he wants to steal from other kids on the island without asking first. His animal instincts have taken over, where he thinks that violence is necessary and doesn’t even consider talking to them. Another type of technology that they have on the island is fire. At the beginning they use the fire because they realize that it is an important part of them getting saved. The first time that they let the fire go out was when they first started to become savage. They decided to kill a pig instead of get saved by a ship. The technology was not present, so the boys reverted back to their animal instincts. After the boys split into two groups the fire is almost not present, which shows that they are barley separated from animals. At the end of the book there are two significant fires. The first one is the cooking fire, which would not serve their purposes, this shows that they are using a different type of technology and have disregarded the signal fire. The other fire is when they light the forest on fire to try to kill Ralph, this fire shows how much of savages they are; that they would destroy the jungle in order to find and hurt one person that wouldn’t join them.

There is much symbolism around the technology in Lord of the Flies, along with much emphasis on how anyone can become savage.. Technology is one thing that separates us from animals, so when it goes away we go back to our animal instincts. The boys lost almost all of their technology throughout the book, which made their savage instincts easier to see. This happens in our world, where people loose their technology, or the technology changes and they revert back to being animal like.