You never would think that in a English class you would get so many opportunities like we experience in Mr. Block's English and History class. English class was a fun experience. You would never think that you would be able to express yourself as much as we did in Mr. Blocks English class. We created trials, made poetry, did many journals that had us thinking about a lot of things that you wouldn't talk about or write about in your normal english class. I never got a chance to express my self like that before. Writing it down in a journal. Now everyday I write down my thoughts in my journal the thoughts a I have.

 One thing that stood out to me in english class was the different movies and clips we watched in class. In stead of just using the internet to find information, the videos and clips that we watched in class really gave me a feel about what we was learning. One clip was the torture clips. That stood out to me because you wouldn't think that some people would actually go ahead and hurt someone until the pain gets worst. Why they didn't stop? I never could answer that question until we watched the video in class and we discussed it. Now I know the answer to that question. 

English class opened people eyes. Make them think of things that they never would think about before. Something that I really enjoy class was when we did the interview of a family member about their lives. It was a long process but it was fun because we got a chance to actually look into someone else's lives and ask any questions we were thinking about. It was a good project because we could edit it, and make it into a certain type of interview. With different effects in it. 

It's this year has to end so soon. Some other things that I really enjoyed in this year of english was the thesis papers we did. It wasn't like a regular paper you had to write like a normal essay. We had to make an argument that people go go against. It was a learning experience for me because it made me build of my writing skills. It makes you think about all the things that you can connect your paper to such as outside sources. I loved challenging myself.

Have you ever written a play that could be screened to an audience in your class. Well I have. The most fun part that I think that was awesome was creating a monologue. I never made a play before. But creating a monologue was fun. It wasn't what I thought it was going to be. It wasn't like creating a actual play because you had to change somethings around and have once person in a scene. It was fun when Kate came because she really helped us out a lot. It was the bees thing that I ever done in a class before. I don't know if my monologue was good enough. I think that we all worked hard over the couple of months and made a good quality project. I am happy I got that opportunity to do something that creative.

​ 

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.

Throughout this year I have learned a lot of things in Mr. Block class. I was shy at first but I think I broke out of that eventually. I have to say Mr. Block gave us a lot of work but it really helped me out after awhile. At first I thought this class was going to be boring but then I realized okay I think I’m going to like this class. Mr. Block kept you talking in every class, if you didn’t say anything Mr. Block is going to make you say something. I had fun throughout the whole year, too bad its already ending so soon. I’m going to miss Mr. Block’s class. Some of the schoolwork I liked and some of the work I didn’t like. The poetry unit for instance, I loved it. I liked poetry but not as much. That unit made me like poetry even more. It made me want to write even more. The other assignment I liked for English was the Descriptive Essay. At first I didn’t know what to do, like how to be really descriptive because I never did anything like it. When I wrote that essay I didn’t know I could give so much details, and I liked it. I also liked the religion unit for history. I liked the religion wiki project that we had to do. I especially liked that project because I learned about so many different religions that I never even heard of. It taught me a lot of things. Since I’m a Christian I thought I could only know about my religions but then I learned that I can know about other religions too not just my own. I also liked the different trials we had to do. It felt like I was in a real courtroom for the most part. It made me think about going to law school. English and History class has been great this year and so sad it has to come to a end so soon. We all have been together through so much, Justin and his comments, Taylor and her outbursts, dancing in the heat together. I can say that I had fun this year. I remember I was so quiet during the beginning of the year, sometimes for some assignments I had to come out of my character but it wasn’t to bad. I am truly going to miss Iron Stream and the fun we had this year. Mr. Block is such a good person, he cared for each and every one of us and I just hope everybody appreciated it. Its so many nice things I can say about Mr. Block and his assignments but I’m just going to end it here.

This year was challenging yet very exciting and interesting. I’ve learned so much and have grown as a person in the process, from adjusting how to work with different people to learning how to be in a trial, I even became a poet. I never even knew what a monologue project was until I came here and had to write one myself. I learned how difficult it is to write an entire monologue it takes lots of time and effort it isn’t something you can just rush through. I learned how to make myself into another person and to see other people’s struggles and also their strengths. I’ve learned that I have other sides to me; I’m more than I appear.

 

My favorite project had to be the poetry unit. I liked this the most because it let me show my poetic side and I also got to expand my thinking way beyond what I normally would. I got to let people in and let them see my thoughts and my feelings and the way I view the world. And the feedback I got made me happy to know that people actually cared we’ve all grown into a little family who cares and respects one another.

 

Another unit I liked was the trial. Things got very intense but that was good because it showed that everyone was really engaged with what they were doing and the parts that everyone had to play. It shows a lot about human behavior and how when anyone is put in an intense situation they act on feelings and not actually think about what they really should do.

 

My final all time favorite unit was the prison unit. I never knew the crazy statistics that they had for prisons. I also never knew they had a book program for them. Because the media never showed the fact they wanted to read they would only show the fights, or the way the guards would beat on the prisoners. Never how they wanted to read or how they would make this beautiful art work! I was amazed to find out all this and now my views on prisons have changed so very much.

 

Finally, this will always be my favorite year because Mr. Block has become my favorite teacher. He's pushed us to our limits and broke us out of our shells and let us know it was ok to be ourselves there are people who have it worst than we do so appreciate everyday and our education. Before being in this class I never voiced my opinion because I didn’t want them getting shot down. But Mr. Block showed us it’s ok to voice them and it’s ok if they get shot down because even if they do you can still say that you tried instead of being quiet and not heard at all. I really love these classes both and will miss them dearly! Coming into this class I hated the thought of having back-to-back classes but they weren’t as bad as I thought they were actually my favorite classes and I can say that I learned the most from each class. 

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

 

Sammy. Zeisloft

Education is a funny thing; everyone interprets things differently, so no one set of guidelines can guarantee a class room of students the same values that they may or may not take from that class nor can it ensure that their I.Q levels will all be the same. What it can do though, is provide an opportunity for each individual to take that lesson and learn at least something from it when they step out the door of the classroom.

This year, I learned a lot of new things, not only about religion or monologues or descriptive writing skills, but I learned a lot about myself and the people around me. From the moment I stepped in the doors of SLA freshman year, I had a “leave me alone unless you’re like me” kind of personality going. Granted, I’d be nice to everyone, but I generally only stuck to the people who I could relate to, mostly by music. I always tried to be open-minded but at the same time, I always kept my distance. This year, I had a really diverse stream, which allowed me to be immersed in a lot of different kinds of people.

 At first it was a little scary and disappointing, because I could no longer cling to the familiarity of my freshman year crew. But I got something so much better, something so much more from it. I learned to appreciate people, more so than I ever had. I learned to appreciate them for how we could humanly relate, having the same problems or the same sense of humor or the love for making others smile. I became really good friends with a girl that I probably would’ve stared down last year. And I accepted her, and I love her, and I appreciate her, for everything that she is, does and learns.

With the lesson of diversity strong in mind this year, I think that the most powerful project we did was the one on religion. I liked being able to compare religions and learn about the different beliefs of each one. I started the unit really ignorant to the different kinds of worship and faith that went into every religion, but when the project was over, I had a new sense of appreciation for each one.  When we started the unit I had originally thought of religion in a one tone way. “Religion. There are many different meanings of the word, many different origins and beliefs that go into it. But when stripped down to it’s bare meaning, religion is more like a preference to guide lines of redemptions. But after looking and studying each one, I learned that there’s a lot more that goes into each belief than just some crap that they read from a book.

Another thing that was really interesting, diverse and educational were the trials. I liked how everyone really got into their roles to defend their group even if they didn’t believe they were guilty in the end. I think that the trials were one of the most important projects as well because they teach you lot of different things. For example, you learn a lot of researching techniques, social lessons and historical facts as well. I think in the end you also learned how people’s opinions have changed over time and how we can ponder and reflect and learn from previous mistakes made in the past so we can learn to avoid them in the future, and that’s what history does, it teaches you, not only about the past, but how you can learn to better your future.

 

Past work over the year

Religion wiki site

 

The collaborative Google doc used in the sweatshop trials

 

Monologues Doc

This year in English and History class I learned a lot not only about the world around me but also about myself. Mr. Block has shown me a lot about what has happen and is still happening in the world. The class was always very good at connecting the past to the present and has given me the chance to make my own connections through the projects I have completed. I have grown to love the new ways of expressing myself that I have learned in this class from things like the art in the open or the young playwrights monologue project.

            The play writing experience had to have been the most mentally touching project I have done since I have entered High school. In the months spent doing the project I became extremely emotionally attached to the topic and cared deeply for the characters that I was molding. Doing this project made me think differently in both History and English, I started to feel comfortable experimenting with different voices and characters that I would have never play with before. My characters ranged from an emotionally traumatized young girl to a pride army leader and even a dead character. The ability to work out and change these characters felt great but I also was able to learn a lot about Colombia. I learn about families losing their homes and children going off to fight for the rebel army I also learned about drug trade which is why the rebel army fighting the government.

            The poetry unit was also a big project that meant a lot to me. I have always had an interest in poetry and found the chance to view different kinds of poems to be unique. I liked being able to listen again to what I wrote and feel my own words like I feel other poetry. I took a lot out of this unit including a poem that I love called “I Was Raised By sounds” which I really love. Another project that I learned a lot from was the group Podcast. I know that this project made me closer to my grandma then I have ever been before. I had known of her child hood abuse for years but I did not know all the deep struggles she felt within the interview. I learned the most after the recording stopped but that was the thing that got up talking and made our relationship grow.

            The next thing I come away with is more like multiple things it’s the people in the class. I learned from all the forum posts that we share with each other in both classes. I learned the especially from descriptive scenes. I heard so many stories about peoples past and made me feel more connected to them. This was important to me because I was new to the school and didn’t really know everyone well at all. I can think back to the scene that I wrote about my friend Jackie and how much it meant to me back when it happened compared to what it felt like writing about it years later. English and History were great this year. As much as I complained I really have grown to love this class and even Mr. Block. Even though I say his class is boring I have to say I’m really going to miss it. I owe a lot of what I know now to him. This year was great and I hope next year can be this awesome.

Exhibit proposal:

 

Goal: to make people feel the effect of colonization on the world and cultures. Also, to make people feel against the idea of colonization (audio speaking available for descriptions)

 

Intro:

In the museum I want you to get a look at how colonization effects how a culture is. You will see the changes in the area, the changes in leadership, and the changes of houses. There will be interactive sections of the tours to keep you all involved and I hope you enjoy it. There will be a brief survey at the end asking what you thought of the museum and areas for us to improve, we would appreciate and look into any ideas you suggest.

 

Artifact one:

 

I will set up a treadmill and offer people to walk up them and walk a quarter of a mile. Then I will explain to them that this could be only a small amount of work that some of the children have to do to get some water.

 

“In Niger the people need to walk to get water and most of the time it is the children. Now, back then with the people not be colonized, there were less people, meaning less use of water. However, now with Niger being colonized there are a lot more people and thus more resources are needed. It makes it harder for the country to survive.”

 

 

 

Artifact two:

 Have this house set up next to this house 

 

Artifact three:

Make photos larger and show how things have changed due to colonization. I will have the people walk into a dark room and show them the first map and then show peaceful tribes in a natural wild life setting, and then I will switch to the newer map, showing how people have made everything more “civilized.”

 

“Over the years you can see from the pictures that the areas have drastically changed and become more distinct regions. These are the effects of colonization. Over the years you can see that the regions have become more define and less tribal. Africa is no longer Africa, it is regions and country’s that make up Africa.”

 

Artifact four:

 

Artifact five:

 

I will take 61% or because we will have groups of 10 then I will just take 6 people out and I will give them 1 dollar. I will then explain to them that this is the only money you get in one day.

“This represents the 61 percent of the country that lives in poverty with only 1 dollar a day. The houses are made up of dirt and wood, and they eat cooked cereal and milk. Before colonization, there were no systems like this were people were suffering and living in such bad conditions. Those that live in the slums are forced to build their own houses out of plastic metal and what ever other material they can find.”

 

 

 

Artifact six:

 

This artifact expresses the power that the French had over these people. It shows that the people didn’t get what they may have wanted due to the.  Hamani Diori was he first elected president of Niger and had a lot of French influence.

Artifact seven:

 

In the artifact I will create a video, demonstrating the French coming into Niger and affecting the amount of people there causing there to be less resources.

“In 1946 the French constitution conferred French citizenship on the inhabitants of the territories, provided for decentralization of power and limited participation in political life for local advisory assemblies. On December 4, 1958, after the fifth French republic was established, Niger became an independent state within the French Community. In 1960 the full independence was given and at that point the French were free to come and go, live, participate, and do as they please. “

 

 

Artifact eight:

“The Nok people where people that lived back in the ancient times of Niger. They were not the wealthiest of people however they maintained a normal life style and farmed as normal people, now there are people that are dying from starvation. Connection there? Blame colonization and greed.”

 

 

 

Conclusion:

In conclusion colonization has changed a culture, tribes, and a country. It has “revolutionized” and changed things so that they were not primitive and in result have made a country turn to poverty and starvation. I hope you have seen how colonization has

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

unknown, unknown. "The people of nok ." kids page . N.p., n.d. Web. 18 May 2011. <http://www.kidspast.com/world-history/0097-nok.php>.

 

unknown, unknown. "HISTORY OF NIGERIA."History of nigeria . N.p., n.d. Web. 18 May 2011. <http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ad41>.

 

unknown, unknown. "Niger's military coup is condemned by France and Africa." BBC. N.p., February 19th 2010. Web. 18 May 2011. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8523573.stm>.

 

 

unknown, unknown. "Niger Information." Niger. N.p., October 15th 1998. Web. 18 May 2011. <http://www.uiowa.edu/~africart/toc/countries/Niger.html>.

 

unknown, unknown. "Nigeria ." actionaid . N.p., unknown . Web. 18 May 2011. <http://www.actionaid.org.uk/683/nigeria.html>.

 

 

Dr. Ali B. Ali-Dinar, Ph.D., unknown. "French in West Africa." UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER. N.p., unknown . Web. 18 May 2011.

<http://www.africa.upenn.edu/K-12/French_16178.html>.

 

 

unknown, unknown. "NIGER." Discover France . N.p., unknown . Web. 18 May 2011. <http://www.discoverfrance.net/Colonies/Niger.shtml>.