Yo yo yo, it’s Jason back again with another wonderful humanities post. That’s right, they just keep comin’. This one’s gonna be about the days of waves crashing against ships, invading lands, and takin’ stuff. No, unfortunately, it’s not the pirates. No no no, it’s not the Vikings either. What’s that, the Age of Exploration? You bet it is!

Also, unfortunately, or fortunately if you don’t like bad memes, I won’t be putting any memes into this post because all of the Age Of Exploration memes I found were nasty Columbus Day memes and I just don’t really want to get into that drama, so let’s carry on.

Alrighty then. Let’s start with talkin a bit about the final goal. Our final project this unit was a big ol’ comic book about an explorer from a certain country that we picked… wait, First, we were put into new groups yet again. Our NEW group consisted of Paisley, Izzy, Celeb, Luciano, and yours truly. Ok, now that that’s out of the way, I can move on. So, we picked countries by using a big ol’ digital wheel, and we picked Spain, mostly based on the fact that their names were the most interesting. We then picked our explorers and I picked a certain Mr. Juan Ponce de León. Fun Fact: Juan Picne de León was one of the first people to start searching for the legendary Fountain of Youth. Bet you didn’t know that.

As I mentioned before, we had to create comics from the point of view of a crew member on a certain explorer’s voyage. We had to also make a presentation while acting as that crew member and attempt to persuade the King and Queen to allow us to embark on our own voyages. Pretty “radical” if I do say so myself.

Comic Research

As we learned about explorers and trading and all that stuff, we also had a side project on comics, which to me, was an absolute godsend. Unfortunately, we had to make a very extensive chart on said comics. Meh. You win some, you lose some I guess. We had 4 main groups of comics we had to cover. Tintin, Superhero, Anti-Hero, And New Age. Upside: I got full bragging rights to my non PLP friends as I got to read comics in class while they were stuck doing textbook work. Downside: As I was reading comics and listening to music, my parents did not believe that that was considered as homework. They thought that I was just reading comics because I felt like it and that I was using Humanities as an excuse.

Motivation

The first thing we looked at after the unit overview was why the explorers even bothered to explore. We looked at what a Beringia was (land bridge) and some of the main reasons nations, such as Europe, explored. The 3 main reasons we looked at were because they wanted to insert themselves into the trade routes, because they wanted new metals to use as currency, or to spread the teachings of their religions. (Mostly Christianity.)

Challenges and Technology

The next things we looked at were what challenges they faced and the technology they used. We looked at the types of ships and equipment used on the voyages, and we also looked at how life in the Renaissance impacted their explorations. For more on the Renaissance, check out my post on that:

Changes This Everything!

Other stuff

After that, we looked at a variety of things, as the creative title suggests. We checked out who Jacques Cartier was and his expeditions to “discover” Canada. We also looked at the Middle passages and slavery. For that, we looked at 5 different documents about slavery and the middle passages from 5 different points of view. We then made a chart of the differences between the documents. After these studies, came the final project. Yep. The presentation.

The Climax

Oh, yes. The presentation. Now, as always, I procrastinated as much as I possibly could before the presentation. So, in the last few nights leading up to the presentation, I really had to rush to get it all together. In those nights, I had enough energy drinks to make myself vomit, and I listened to enough Iron Maiden to make my ears bleed. Finally, I finished the last slide of my keynote, I created the last block of my comic, and I wrote the last line of my script. Then came the presentation.

I think the quote that best describes the presentation comes from the immortal Homer Simpson.

I panicked. Yep. I absolutely choked. It was not good. I sped up my talking a lot and I made little to no eye contact to the crowd. Definitely not my best. Anyways, I managed to get it done with a decent mark and it was finally over. If I were to somehow redo it, I would not have procrastinated as much. I think that, as always, laziness was my downfall. Also, here’s a copy of my comic. You can check that out right here.

THE AMAZING, ASTOUNDING, ANTHONY DE CAPO-1felpwh

Well, I guess that’s it. If you’ve made it this far, give yourself a big pat on the back. I probably couldn’t have made it through my own post. I apologize if it’s kinda boring. I won’t take any offence if you think it is. Anyways…. bye.

Hello there. Welcome back to another entertaining educational PLP post. Today I’ll be talking about the Renaissance. Yep that one. The era after the Feudal Ages that pretty much challenged everything we ever knew up to that point.

So the Renaissance was pretty much a hotbed of great things like the printing press, public education, new religions, new art forms, scientific discoveries, and challenging everything we ever knew up to that point. I kid you not. So we stayed in the same groups as our Feudalism groups. Ours consisted of Ben, Gabby, and Lucy. We did not yet know about our final project (or I’m just bad at noticing things) and we started by just learning some basic information.

What the heck is a Renaissance?

we started off by recapping what had happened leading up to the Renaissance. Not very interesting stuff. Then we started with receiving a side project of sorts. A page of answers to questions that we were asked throughout the unit. We then learned about why Italy flourished during the Renaissance and also what patronage is. Patronage is basically when rich people see potential in artists and other workers and sponsor them.

Changing Ideas

We then learned about some important figures during the Renaissance in three different fields. The Artists, Scientists And Mathematicians, And the Thinkers. We learned about some important figures like Michelangelo, Copernicus and Da Vinci who revolutionized their fields of interest. We also picked someone from each field to study as part of our unknown final project. I selected Marsilio Ficino, Johannes Kepler, And Michelangelo. I researched them and then made a radical Venn Diagram Of The three.

Spreading Ideas

There wasn’t really much of a main topic for this section. Just things or people that spread ideas, like the printing press, which made education more widespread and allowed for more people to enrich themselves in knowledge, and Martin Luther. No, not Martin Luther King, just Martin Luther. He was the guy who began challenging religion and the whole indulgence idea. Pretty much, the church wanted money, so they sold indulgences, which let people sin or do something naughty without punishment. He thought that whole thing was pretty gosh darn sketchy, so he did what any normal person would do. He started his own religion. It was pretty much just a branch of Christianity, but with some differences. And that’s how Protestantism was born.

The Impact Of Ideas

The final section before the main project was the impact that those ideas had on the Renaissance. This section included Politics and this guy called Machiavelli. This guy pretty much just said that all men are greedy, conniving liars and that leaders should only be concerned with maintaining land. Again, I kid you not. Also, we learned about the English Civil war, which included Charles I, a king who dismissed Parliament for money to fight Spain. He also believed in something called the divine right of kings, which said that all kings have the power of god behind them. Oliver Cromwell was another important fellow who opposed Charles I And took over the throne after Charles died. Unfortunately, the public didn’t like him very much either. After he died, they then chose Charles I’s son as the new king. Fun fact, after Cromwell died, they dug up his corpse and dragged it through the street, because that’s what all normal people do in their spare time.

The Final Project

The final project was later revealed to be a triptych. That’s pretty much a three paneled interconnecting work of art that has one common theme. Here’s an example:

So, we had to combine all of what we had learned into this triptych. The left side was Changing Ideas, the right was the Spread Of Ideas, And the Middle was the impact of ideas. And, once again, it was centred around the western worldview and how the Renaissance impacted it. Are you sensing a common theme with these projects? Because I sure am.

So, after many minute-I mean hours… of hard labor and a lot of procrastination, I created this abomination:

I know y’all are gonna roast me for this, but I know that my animation styles are whack. My reasoning behind this is that it’s hard to find really good images on Creative Commons of people that fit your theme.

Anyways, that marks the end of this post. In hindsight, I wish I had searched harder on Flickr to find better images for my triptych. I also really regret procrastinating so much and having to stay up until 2:00 finishing my homework. Those energy drinks sure ain’t gonna help me anytime soon. Well, I’m done. That’s it. Goodbye.

Guess what, it’s me again. Also, I’m not sure if this is the first time I’ve used this intro. All of my posts all really meld together after a while. Anyways, this post is going to be about the feudal ages. That’s right, not the dark ages, not the Renaissance, the feudal ages. Excited yet?

The Fall Of Rome

So, we started by looking at Rome, and more importantly, how it fell. We looked at some possible theories, and also at 3 different groups. The Franks (French), Anglo-Saxons (English), and the Vikings. We also created some very… interesting freeze frames depicting these groups. For your safety, I will shield your eyes from these, but beware. I’m just sayin’.

After the fall of Rome, we were put into different groups. My new group consisted of Gabby, Lucy, and Ben.

We were also introduced to our main question, “How did the crusades Impact our worldview?”. That’s right. More Worldview! Everybody’s favourite topic!

The Book Of The Lion

So, after all the introduction stuff, we got started. First, started reading a book called the Book Of The Lion. It was pretty intresting, and it was probably the most interesting book we’ve read so far. A lot of gore, a lot of crime, and many things that would not be allowed in school, but we read it anyways. (Don’t tell anybody). For example, in the first few chapters, a serf runs away from his master and someone gets his hand ‘chopped off. Pretty disturbing material.

After our introduction to the book, we started exploring myths as well. We started by looking at some well known myths and heroes. We started by looking at some famous historical myths, e.g. Hercules. We also did a case analysis of everyone’s favourite miscreant, Robin Hood. Unfortunately, I was sick the day we did this so I can’t really explain any further.

The Hero’s Journey

So, after the whole myths thing, we looked at the hero’s journey. Pretty much a story outline that most stories, tv shows, movies, etc, follow. Anything from Star Wars and Lord of the Rings to The Avengers And even the Magic School Bus can somehow relate to this set, with some varying aspects. Here’s a helpful video to help you learn more about what the Hero’s Journey is.

Also, here’s a helpful Crash Course about The Hero’s Journey And the Monomyth.

Finally, here’s a video showcasing some examples of the Hero’s Journey in classic, well known movies.

Feudalism

Meanwhile, as we were learning about myths and the hero’s journey, we learned about feudalism. Feudalism is pretty much the political system in use during the Middle Ages until the Renaissance. Now, Feudalism is some complicated stuff, so I’ll give you a short littl- wait a second, why explain it to you when I can just embed a YouTube video! I’m probably not lying when I say that most of you out there reading these posts, yeah you, you great 6 or maybe 7 people, would rather watch a YouTube video of someone much more entertaining than I am explain these topics, right? Cue the Crash Course!

The Crusades

Now, onto the Crusades. The Crusades were no laughing matter, you see. They were filled with death, and blood, and gore, and all other sorts of bad stuff. So I’ll give you a brief explanation before I put in another Crash Course. Pretty much, in the feudal ages, Jerusalem, the holy land, was in control by the Muslims, and the English/Christians wanted the land. So, pretty much, like what many historical wars have been fought over, they went ahead and tried to take it. Now, that was all going fine and dandy until this guy, Saladin, came along and just absolutely dominated the English. I forget the rest, so here’s yet another Crash Course.

So now, we were reaching the end. That’s right, it’s time to try to explain THE FINAL PROJECT.

The Final Project

Ok, So, our final project as a group consisted of 2 main parts. The story, and the quilt. We had to first write a story about 2 main protagonists (Heroes). A Christian And a Muslim. The goal here was to create 2 stories from 2 different points of view. The Christians were obsessed with killing and gore and victory, while the Muslims were kinda just there like “Who the heck are you people and what have we ever done to you.”

Our first draft was really weird. With like this time travel angle and this ancient relic and some weird futuristic rebels-it was strange. So, we simplified it. Our Christian hero, Joseph, is a young crusader, who falls off of a walk during combat. Our Muslim hero, Muhammad, sees Joseph and tries to save him. After Joseph wakes up, he sees his “enemy”, Muhammad, and lashes out and attacks Muhammad. Apparently, Joseph has a knack for injuring himself as he ends up hurting himself even further. Joseph learns that Muhammad isn’t an enemy and they try to team up and stop the war. When they question the elder, the elder informs them that the crusades cannot be stopped. The two heroes then leave Jerusalem in search of a better life.

Now we had to use symbolism and our young minds to turn these stories into quilts. To get us inspired, we went to an art gallery in North Vancouver called the Gordon Smith Gallery. There, we saw an exhibit about the First Nations people and a lot of symbolistic, abstract, modern art. P.S, if you didn’t know, I really dislike modern art. I think it looks OK, but it’s too confusing for me. You can’t really figure out the true meaning of an abstract painting unless there’s a plate beside it listing the meaning, or if you guess.

Also, we had donair there. If you didn’t know, donair is a piece of pita bread containing some sort of meat or falafel, vegetables, and some sort of sauce/spread. It was pretty gosh darn good. Also, donair meat is usually a long cylinder of seasoned meat that’s put into a broiler and cooked. The meat is then sliced off into strips and put into the donair. If you are questioning why I wrote an entire section about food and/or think I’m crazy for having done so, you obviously do not know me very well.

Now, back onto the quilts. For our quilts, they had to be double sided, meaning they should be symmetrical if you wanted to stitch it together. To be honest, I still don’t really understand our art to this day, but I’ll do my best to try to explain it. If my ramblings are too confusing for you to understand, go check out my group mates Gabby, Lucy, or Ben. They can probably provide you with better explainations than I ever could. Here we go. Wait, before I start, the 1st column is Story 1, And the 2nd column is Block 2. The rows are the block numbers.

(P.S. Try to imagine me saying these in a snooty, rich art collector voice while you read. Trust me.)

Story 1: Block 1

Here we see a magnificent display of colours dancing on the page as the white triangle surrounded by red is Joseph’s perception of Muhammad. The anger shines through in this work as we can tell the artist is very captivated by this story. The triangle with a piece missing is obviously Joseph, as he has indubitably injured himself.

Story 2: Block 1

Here we see yet another instalment of the crusade series, this one almost better than the last. Here we see Muhammad’s perspective captured in this absolutely divine masterpiece. The green represents the peace that Muhammad is trying to share, while Joseph is shutting him out.

Story 1: Block 2

This is the long awaited third instalment in the crusade series. It is incredibly well done as it shows the two figures’ dueling personalities with the fiery Joseph and the peaceful Muhammad. The colours dance across the page as the sun has risen. Once again, the artists’ usage of the colour red to symbolize anger is simply brilliant.

Story 2: Block 2

This one is incredibly similar to the last, although not as well executed. The 2 figures are still quite clearly represented as the artist still seems to be in control of this masterpiece.

Story 1 And 2: Block 3

Here we see our two magnificent characters walking into the picturesque sunset as they flee the site of the war. These are indubitably the best out of the bunch as they show that the characters have become one divine, cohesive unit. Bravo.

Ok. Now here’s some pictures of our quilt.

Ok. Whew. That was quite a post eh? Thanks for sitting through this. Really. Well, I guess that’s it.

Ntl nxt tm, yrs trly,                                                                                                                                                                Jsn Gn

Rmvng ll th vwls frm th nd f ths pst

(Hats off to you if you can crack the code)

Hello loyal readers of which there are none because I’m not popular and no one wants to hear about the boring life of a 13 year old nobody-wait, I’m getting distracted. Anyways, in this post, I’ll be talking a bit about poetry. That’s right, that one subject you learn in elementary school but forget everything that you learned the next year. So, we did a quick poetry unit in the middle of our quilt unit, you can go check that post out after this post. So, first, we started with the basics. We made a list and wrote all of the terms that we learned in it. You can check mine out right here.

Poetry Terms List-22d9rnb

Ok, so we were introduced to our final project first, which is an entire book filled with poetry that we write. And guess what, it’s about WORLDVIEW! We all made 11 poems and created our own books revolving around worldview poems. Here’s a run through of all of the poems I wrote:

#1 – Similes

This Poem was pretty simple because it was the first poem we write. Pretty much, all we did was use similes to contrast with our worldview. For example, “As complicated as a maze” or “As simple as a recipe” or something not as cheesy.

#2 – Extended Metaphor

This Poem was almost as easy as the simile one. An extended metaphor is pretty much a long simile. You compare some part of your worldview (or the entire thing) to something you think best suits it. For me, I picked a water slide.

#3 – Haikus

Haikus are not hard. They’re pretty simple to write. Wait, I just wrote one! Ok, so for Haikus, we were tasked with creating more poetry about more aspects about your worldview. I picked playing the Oboe, Basketball, and homework. If you’ve read my about me page, then you’ll know why I picked these topics. If not, then what are you doing with your life? I’m just kidding, although you really should go read it if you want to understand the references that I make. Anyway, a haiku is pretty much a poem that follows the syllable pattern 5-7-5.

#4 – Found Poem

A found poem is a little difficult to write. It’s a poem made of passages that you take out of a piece of literature. First, you have to have the right literature. You should have a theme in mind before choosing your literature. Then, you have to selectively take out some passages that you think fit your theme. I was originally going to do mine on “Californiacation” by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, but because that has rhyming already, it was not allowed. So pretty much, I grabbed a random book and picked out some passages. That book turned out to be 1984 by George Orwell.

#5 – Imagery Poem

Imagery is when you try to incorporate descriptors in your literature that trigger the senses. Touch, taste, hear, sight, and smell. For example, “I walked along the dusty road, the rocks crackling under my shoes.” is an example of imagery. Our poem was, as you can probably guess, about appealing to the senses. Mine was about myself, walking down a dirty, dangerous alleyway. You can read the explanation in my book for further information.

#6 – Sound Poem

A Sound Poem is just a bunch of random noises that are somehow connected. I kid you not. Long story short, mine was just basketball noises because that’s probably the noisiest part of my worldview.

#7 – Experience Poem

An experience poem is, as the name suggests, a poem about an experience that you’ve had. The goal is to have a theme to the poem and to create effect. Mine was about a huge part of my life, Piano. Even though I’ve gone through way too many recitals, I decided to write about my first ever recital.

#8 – Personification

If you’ve studied poetry before in the slightest way, you’ll probably know what Personification is. It’s giving human-like qualities to a non human object or thing. In this case, our worldview. So pretty much, we imagined our worldviews as people. Pretty weird if you ask me.

#9 – Self Portrait

The point of this poem is to use all of the skills you’ve learned so far. We made a big, 25 line poem about ourselves and various aspects. We used a questioning sheet to brainstorm ideas and made those answers into poetry.

Alright, so that leads us to our final product. A big ol’ poetry book. And with that, I will leave you.