Before we started this projects we did a lot of things . We started the second semester talking about the Renaissance, because did it in the other subjects too, we already knew, that the Renaissance was a re birth, things changed and people were experimenting with art literature and music.

We did a lot of little projects, for example we did different posters about Utopia or read stories about it, also we talked about courtly love, human possibilities, courtly love, chivalry, society versus the individual and the search for the perfect world, which was related to Utopia, also we saw different sonnets and analyzed them. We read about Don Quixote, which was a friendly and kind gentleman, who spend a lot of time reading old books, which are about knights and castles. He reads so much, that he gets crazy and wants to have adventures like the ones in the books. When he meets Sancho Panza, they both decide to go on adventures. Their adventures are crazy and they are fighting against giants ( Which are in reality  wind mills, and the giants only exist in Don Quixote’s imagination.

We did all this to get a lot of information to our end projects. Our end assessment was about putting all the information together and find a good way to connect everything we learned the past few month. I decided to write a letter to someone, who won the lottery. She/he didn’t win a vacation to Jamaica or France or the normal places, he won a … time travel to the Renaissance. I am the guide and travel through the time and explain them everything what happened and all the changes which happened in this time.

In this unit we discussed and learned about a lot of new topics. We worked in small groups and each of this groups had their own human right. Our teacher showed us a website called ‘wiki spaces’, where we have our own page to put in information and discuss our own rights . We were allowed to add colors, videos and pictures related to our topic. Also we could read the other pages, which was really interesting because then we could get different ideas on the design of the page and we could also add discussions on them. We can tell them our own opinions, with the information that was given.
I thought my English would be a problem, but it was easy to understand the other human rights with the videos and pictures. I struggled finding evidence for my theory. I was really sure about my opinion, but I needed to find arguments. I solved the problem talking with my dad about my topic.
I worked alone on my topic `if torture can ever be justified`. But it was interesting how the other groups came in the end to the same opinion, knowing the facts and talking about it with each other. I liked the time working on the websites and commenting under other people’s pages, because I think it´s really interesting what the others think. However I learned a lot about the human rights. They are really important and how Ainslee said in her blog `Everyone has a right to their rights’

Everyone in this world deserves some basic life needs. These are called Human Rights. The Human Rights not just supply us with our basic needs, but it also protects us from stuff which is not acceptable in society. One of these things is torture. This human right states no torture. Nobody has any right to hurt us or to torture us.

I think it is quite tragic that this still occurs in our world and it puzzles me to think why someone would hurt any other soul on purpose. Therefore, I chose this topic because I wanted to research more about the consequences. I also wanted to know the use of torture- how people use it for bad things and good things.

The negative way torture could be used is violence. To blackmail people to get what they want. But I think we should leave it to the government to enforce justice. The positive way to use torture is if you capture a terrorist who has information about other attacks and knows the secret hideouts. I think then the government has a right to torture them to find out information that could stop other bad events from occurring.

I will be using internet, newspaper articles and books to research more on this idea. Obviously, I agree with this idea and my research will be clearly supporting this human right.

In this unit we read a lot of text and sites on the internet about culture. We had the opportunity to built our own opinion, from a lot of other opinions. After researching and thinking, everyone had their own ideas and opinions on this topic. For the end of the unit we need to write an essay about culture and our ideas. I had a big idea, but I didn´t know how to explain it. The sources helped me a lot to find examples or evidence.

In the essay I wrote about problems in a culture. One of the problem is that we are all different and that it´s difficult to understand each other. With my little idea about problems in culture, I built my main idea. The biggest problem is when you are from two cultures and you fit in neither of them. They built an opinion with both cultures and nobody is like them. That brought me to the conclusion that in the future we will be all the same again, because when we are so mixed, everybody will have some part of everybody. All different cultures in one human body and brain.

In the end I think that we all should respect each other and that we never will solve this problem, because everything will change anyways.

I had quite a lot of problem writing my essay, because my was idea clear, but I didn´t know how to express myself with words. Also my English grammar is hopefully get better the next month, so I can explain or show more what I am trying to say. In the end I hope I can correct it and that I´m happy for the end draft, because I put in a lot of thought about culture.

Why I did a flyer for the Assessment Task in Languages Art?

Personally i think that a flyer is the perfect oppurtunaty to read quickly a text with a lot of information.You understand it fast and have examples with pictures.

My idea was to do a short text, with quick understanding.

I wanted to do an essay,or a story but I think that the readers would  get bored really fast. I divided the flyer in the first page in three topics, so the reader can see what they will read ,or only a topic they are interested in. The first topic was culture.It was difficult to explain,because its a big topic,but i tried to explain it with an example of an iceberg.I had the idea that its like in the titanic.You can see only the spike of the berg,what related to culture means language, clothes, and believes .But like in the titanic different cultures will crash under the water,because it gives a lot of ice what you can’t see.Related to culture it means that they will crash with opinions ,rules and behaviors.

The second topic was about my book.I did a summary of the book and spoke how its related to this culture.

The last topic was about my opinion about independent learning. In my opinion it gives a lot advantages but also disadvantages.

All in all i think it was the best decision I ever made,because I had fun making it and I learned a lot in the end.

Last weekend grade 9 and 10 went to a place near Tibet, called Hei Shui. This trip was related to language arts because we were able to learn many things about their culture. We took the bus on a Sunday morning and drived for 2 and a half ours to get to our first stop. Which was an earthquake museum.

In Tibet we were able to learn about their families, food, education, and many other things. We ate Tibetan food for breakfast, lunch and also dinner. We were able to learn about Tibetan people’s life and how they live. In villages, really small ones. Every house there had a White stone above it, on the top of the roof. That meant that the house was protected. It’s really important too because with the stone they can make fire which is a very Strong element.

Tibetan people work really hard every single day, the help everyone that need, even with difficulties. We went to the glacier, saw the view and stayed there for 1 hour. It was reallly beautiful. We danced with them and had a lot of fun. Thet are an inspiration because of how close they are to their culture. How they value things and how they thing it’s importante to their every day lives.

In our class this week, we discussed what it means to be an independent learner.

To me, independent learning means working on your own. To do this, you need to manage your time well and have a lot of self-discipline. It is difficult because I have never had control of my own learning before. The disadvantage is that you cannot view other people’s opinions and get ideas from others. Another disadvantage is that you cannot ask around and understand what is going on such as in situations like reading texts. However, it is not all bad; this will help getting independent and standing on your own feet because you will need this skill in the future.

In my old school, I was used to get help from teachers or acquaintances and when I wasn’t sure of something I was able to ask around. Maybe, I am looking at this in a different perspective and maybe when I actually start to imply this method of learning, I will realize that this does not mean that I have figure out everything myself. I can use sources such as this blog to see what everyone else thinks about a specific idea. I think this skill will help in future years of my studies because if I start to learn to stand on my own feet from this age, I won’t rely on my parents or teachers or friends to be the only source of information.

This seems a bit intimidating to me because I have not ever used this method of learning before. I think I can learn a lot by this method, not only about the book but whether I need anyone to lean on or to go to for help.

In English langauge arts this semester, we are investigating “Culture”.  We each had to choose a book and book I decided I wanted to study was The Serpent’s Child by Laurence Yep. I picked this book because the legend of the Serpent is quite fascinating. Since I started reading, a couple of questions came into my mind about the book which I will try answering in the posts I will continuously post.

The first question that came to mind was how the book is influenced by the writer’s background.  Laurence Yep was born in San Francisco, California. Most of the texts he has written have been based on his culture and childhood and the challenges he faced while moving to America. In the book, the protagonist feels like an alien and when Laurence Yep moved to America he felt like a stranger and an outsider as well. The book discusses how the villages have fights with each other and it also discusses gender inequality. At that time it was normal for women to have less human rights than men. In the book, the girl was treated the same way Yep was throughout his move to America. The girl and her brother were called ‘the serpent’s children’ which was meant as an insult. However, they looked at this ‘insult’ with a different perspective- they looked at it as a compliment. An example of gender equality is when they tie all the female’s feet so their feet don’t grow so they don’t handle any of the domestic work or at that time known as ‘men’s work.’ I think that being called the Serpent’s child is not a bad thing and people need to look at things from different viewpoints and change their thoughts and ideas about females and how they should be treated.

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