The lord of the flies is such an influential book that has been studied by students, philosophers and more. For years Lord of the flies has been a book that people look up to and in school grade ten students have read it. So it was then time for the Grade ten PLP cohort to begin the Lord of the Flies journey.

Starting the book I had heard about the book from my mum however did not actually know what it was about. However before I could find out as a class we first had another assignment we had to complete before we started the book. We were told that we were going to being doing the final project in groups however our teach Mrs.Maxwell was not going to be creating them. Rather it would be us as a class creating them and what a daunting task that was. We were left as a class in our PLP classroom without a teacher to determine our groups. What an experience that was. At first we had decided that we were first going to creat “group leaders”. This meant that we would have a base for the group however those selected people would not specifically be in charge. Once we put six names down and had six groups we then had to decide who would be making up those groups. There was one person writing down all the names and groups on the board while the rest of us discussed who would be paired with who. We had planned to first be organized instead of simply yelling at each other, we also were told before we were sent to do this assignment that everyone had to be happy with what group they were in. By the end of this assignment everyone was in a group and we were happy with how they turned out however the process of getting there was not the correct way. We ended up yelling at each other and even at one point a classmate stood on a chair and yelled to get peoples attention. Looking back we should have handled it in a different way however if you have read Lord of the Flies you know that these two are weirdly connected. After that activity we had to do a reflection and this is what I wrote: 

—————————————————————————————————————————

Lord of the Flies Group Dynamics Reflection Sheet

Directions: Think about the group assignment you and your classmates just completed. Answer each question as completely and accurately as possible to describe the class group activity. The purpose of this is only to help provide me with a sense of how the group dynamic unfolded in class.

Do you think the class was successful in completing the assignment? Why or why not? What happened? How did things get done or not? How did people act?

During this assignment I feel that as a class it took us time to figure out how to create the groups as well as who would be in groups. However by theme I do think we successfully completed the task and the groups are even.

What was the biggest challenge in completing the assignment? Why?

The biggest challenge doing this task was sorting people into groups. This was difficult because if someone didn’t agree we would then have to change it and then at the same time everyone was yelling and talking at the same time.

Do you think the class acted typical of human behavior? In other words, is this how people act when confronted with a group dynamic such as this? Explain your answer.

I feel that as a class we acted as a large group would in an unfamiliar situation. That was shown in communication between everyone as well as how there was an urgency feel to get things done.

How did the class break into groups, either formal or informal? Describe some of the ways people naturally organized themselves? (You don’t have to necessarily give names, but can describe the types of groups formed, their actions, etc…)

The class organized groups in a way where leaders emerged for each group and then we went and paired everyone up with the leaders. While we were deciding where everyone was going personalities came out in that some people were leaders, others were flexible and some simply had a say in what was going on.

—————————————————————————————————————————

After that activity it was then time to start reading the book as well as start the other aspects of this unit. We were told that the groups we had created were going to be our teams for a debate we would have at the end of the unit. I was on a team with Kate, Alex and Simon. Back to the idea of debating we were going to have a debate the end of the unit based around a Lord of the Flies idea and these debates would be against another team or rather “island”. So we started looking into debates! 

The first aspect we looked at was the actual structure of a debate. In class we talked about it but we also listened to a podcast called Intelligence Squared that was a debate. I found it helpful to hear this debate as it was a great example to thrive towards. Also for the debate we would record it so that it eventually becomes a podcast, so it was good to hear what it could sound like. He next activity we did was called pass the buck. This was when one person was taken into the hall and given a topic that they then had to talk or do a speech about. Then when our teacher stayed pass the buck that person then handed the “buck” to whoever they wanted to in there group. This taught us that no matter if you don’t really believe in what you are talking about you still have to be involved. This also taught us to be on our feet and be ready to talk. The same day we did that activity we also did an activity that was basically simply telling a story. We went around in a group and each person said one word and then next person contributed. This taught us that we have to stay on topic while we are debating otherwise it wont make sense. We also did that same activity except with the whole class, which was an interesting story. 

It was then time to start actually looking at how to publicly speak and debate. We did this by watching a ted talk about the seven secrets to public speaking. Here are my notes I took while watching the video: 

————————————————————————————————————————-

Richard Greene

• teddy Rosevelt, shared tipping words that influenced the way we live today 
• Franklin Roosevelt a few years later then had a speech that was a huge topping point for the world 
• If your afraid of public speaking your along with half of the world 
• Speeches can make the world a better place, and to break through creating a tipping point 

Seven Secrets:

Understanding that words can be the best but they only impact 7% of a human, words, voice tone and body language, 38% impact voice tone, 55% body language, 7% words

1. Word choice 
2. Tone, variation 
3. Body language, looking into someone’s eyes or not connecting 
4. The lasers, compelling message. What is the one thing you want to leave people with 
5. Communication. 41% of the world is scared of public speaking because we don’t know the true definition. Is nothing more then have a conversation from your heart, don’t be an actor. Never give another speech but rather have a conversation. Share and people will love you and feel you 
6. Four languages of human communication visual, auditory, auditory digital, kinaesthetic. Speak all four and you will be amazing because then everyone can connect to you. Stories, analytics, the connecting thing that is the most important thing
7. Authentic passion. What is just so interesting that it compels you to have a conversation 

Lou Gehrig 

• baseball player 
• He had so much gratitude 

Winston Churchill 

• the world would have been different without his conviction 
• “Put flesh and blood in”

John F Kennedy

• he proved his speech 
• His authentic passion to put a man on the moon
• He commits himself at that point even though he doesn’t know how to do it yet 
• He goes into so much detail and it shows he really cares 
• “You are not alone” Berlin 

Martin Luther King

• have of his speech he ablibd 
• His last speech before he died the next was one of the biggest tipping points in history 
• Connecting to people 
• Supporting people 

Barbra Jordan

• he words shook the world and categorized against Robert Nixon 

Barack Obama

• his speech changed America 

Albert Einstein

————————————————————————————————————————

While we were learning all of this though there was yet another component that was mixed in. In the groups or teams that we had formed in the first activity we were then having a competition or point tracking system based on our class participation. This meant if we were late we would lose a certain amount of points however if you did something like pick up garbage or push in a chair you could gain points. Another way you could also earn points would be to get a 100% on the Lord of the Fly team quizzes we had every week. These quizzes were a way to see if we were understanding the book. My team the “Py Rose” got nine out of ten on every quiz we did, which was both good and frustrating. 

Another aspect to the unit that we also learned about was government. Since in Lord of the Flies they do try and form a government we then had to learn about what our government was. In the book Ralph is democratically voted in and we have a similar system of election. However recently in British Columbia there has been talk of a change in the way we elect the people in office. Here are some pictures explaining them as they can get very complicated and I’m not very good at explaining it. 

Along with learning about the electoral system we also learned other aspects of the government. For example Who everyone is in the Canadian government, here is the information i gathered on this topic:

—————————————————————————————————————————

Name: Sovereign, Gov. Gen, PM, Lieutenant G, BC Premier

Federal: Where is the House of Commons? Who sits there? Name 3 ministers.

Provincial: Where is the Legislative Assembly? Who sits there? Name 3 MLA’s.

Sovereign: Queen Elizabeth II

Gov. Gen: Julie Payette

Prime Minister: Justin Trudeau 

Lieutenant General: Janet Austen

BC Premier:John Horgan 

Where is the House of Commons? Who sits there? Name 3 ministers.

The House of Commons is located on parliament hill in Ottawa. The parties of Canada sit in the House of Commons as well as the ministers of Canada. Carolyn Bennett, Navdeep Bains and Scott Brison. 

Where is the Legislative Assembly? Who sits there? Name 3 MLA’s.

The Legislative Assembly is located in Victoria. The parties sit in the BC parliament building as well MLA’s making up 87 seats. Darryl Plecas, Selina Robinson and Anne Kang.

—————————————————————————————————————————

While we were learning about the government we then took a quiz to see what party we would be fit under. I found out that on the scale I am 44 so more left wing meaning more conservative. I was surprised and not surprised at the same time as I don’t know a whole lot about the government. Here is that quiz: 

Another aspect to the unit since this is humanities was also writing. We were assigned to write two concept paragraphs during this unit. This would help us to truly understand what the concepts of Lord of the Flies were as well as practice writing. The first paragraph (Humanity and Imhumanity) I did I feel was not my strongest however I feel that for my second (relying on a leader) it got better, here are those paragraphs:

We then got our topics for the debate that we were going to have. Our team was assigned that in order to survive you must be savage and we were the pro side. I was happy with the topic we got as well as being pro we just had to get researching it. From the beginning we knew that drawing upon Lord of the Flies would be a huge advantage as that was a huge aspect of the book.so we got right to researching! 

Here is a picture of the research we did: 

At this point we had also finished reading the book which I found was very interesting and I had never thought of this in the perspective that the book put things in. As we finished the book we also had to worksheets to show what we learned, here are my worksheets: 

It was then time for the actual debate in the morning I was nervous however felt that we were ready and prepared to debate. Then the debate happened and though we may have not won, I was still proud of how as a team we communicated and were able to push back against the other team. I was in charge of the closing statement and overall was really happy with how I ended the pros as I felt it was a strong conclusion.

Here is a picture of the notes that our teacher took while listening to our debate and eventually led her to the vote that she decided to cast:

As I mentioned before we also forming this into a podcast and so here is that podcast: 

Overall I learned so much through this unit in many ways. I found it so interesting learning about Lord of the Flies and how that relates to humanity and is a reflection of human nature and fear as well simply how humans act. I also learned a lot about debating and how public speaking is such an important tool to have. And though the “Py Roses” may not have won the Lord of the Flies competition (we actually lost) I was happy with how we worked as a team supporting each other and all working hard. So as this blog post comes to an end I truly have learned so much and know that it will help me in my future!