Monthly Archives: June 2018

TPOL: Next Stop Grade 9

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Worldview:

With the theme of learning in Grade 8 being Worldview, several of our projects have been about studying our own and other culture’s worldview. It has helped me realize that depending on the group your in, you have to adapt to the environment and try to use everybody’s strengths. Mostly at the end of the year I would try to apply this in group projects. One of the projects in my drama class, where we had to make an advertisement, I applied this knowledge if different people have different strengths. I was the only PLP kid in this group and had the best skills and resources to edit our video so I was mainly assigned to this job. One of my group mates who was quite confident, we tried to put in the most scenes of our video and have him record several lines. Another group member, who left us not even halfway through project but had several ideas when we were brainstorming lead us in that aspect of the project.

Storytelling:

To go along with our focus on still images, we focused a big part of our time on storytelling. Perhaps for me the main project reflecting this was our Middle Ages Unit where we had to create a story about a hero. I find that I don’t like writing stories down on a paper like a book. The use of still images so as to make a quilt or making a tableau, has helped me in interesting me in the projects.

Still Images:

Since our fist project of the year we’ve used still images, we created poster ads for local businesses. I learned how different colours make people feel different emotions and associate them with certain industries.

While working on our worldview/religion unit I learned how to put two or more images together for a different meaning. This process is called juxtaposition on which our class had a contest to make something up.

I learned how powerful still images can be for storytelling or advertising. I think I would be ready to take the next step in Grade 9 where we would focus on videos and moviemaking.

Presentations:

We’ve been working on our presentation skills throughout the year from D.I. and Our explorer presentation to Colonizing in a Tempest and the Exhibitions. I believe that most of my presentations have turned out successful although I had a few scrambles like my explorer presentation were I panicked. I have learned that I sometimes find it easier to wing a presentation but a few times like my explorer one a script or even a small notecard with bullet points makes a big difference.

Well that’s the end of it.

See you next post folks.

This Changes Everything: La Rennaissance

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This Changes Everything: La Rennaissance

The Rennaissance:

Hello again. This post is a bit late, so sorry about that but let’s get on with it. For this Unit we worked and learned about the Renaissance.

We pretty much studied three things that made the Renaissance really important in human history.

Changing ideas:

The first main part of the unit was focused on how the Renaissance changed ideas, ideals, and principles.

We studied how thinkers were starting to view how far humanity could go if it put its brainpower to it. They were becoming humanists. Humanists were spokesmen for humanism. Humanism is giving humanity top priority before gods or supernatural powers. It centred life around humanity. Ancient Greek philosophers had many of the same ideals. The Renaissane philosophers started studying and praising the Ancient Greek and taking many of their ideas. Many humanists or rebel priests started preaching that the Catholic church was wronging everybody. Back in the day pretty much the whole of Western Europe was Catholic. This where Protestant churches started emerging. The people were getting tired of the Catholic Church especially with more people preaching against them.

The artists were changing. The most famous paintings and statues came from the Renaissance. During this time it became a proffesion with a demand coming from rich families like the Medici or royal families. The elite were taking interest in art, it made them look more educated and rich. Some like the Medici started art schools. Many artist, like Leonardo da Vinci, were to only artist, they were also engineers architects, painters, sculptors, scientists and mathematicians. Some mixed all their talents into on job. Some Kings even would have the artist as their protégé. King Henry of France invited da Vinci to live with him for the rest of his life. Art was also changing. Art from the medieval times was pretty much mostly about religion. It was really two dimensional and didn’t ave much detail. The Renaissance changed that. Art was now about anything and not only the Church and the King. The details of paintings and sculptures was also changing. Paintings were more 3D and the detail was much improved.

Scientists and mathematicians the way we look at life, even if it went against the Church’s teachings. Galileo invented the telescope so we were suddenly able to look at lot further into the sky and we realized many things like some scientists/mathematicians/astronomers were starting to realize that the Sun was actually the centre of the Solar system and not the Earth. The Earth revolved around the sun not the other way around. Many astronomers like Copernicus who mentioned this turning point in astronomy were deeply criticized but the Church who had the people manipulated. Some astronomers were being apprehended and executed. These realization had people starting to doubt the Church.

Spreading ideas:

The printing press is definitely a candidate to most important inventions of humanity along with wheels, spears, cars, boats, and planes. It started spreading across Europe just like the knowledge it brought with it. Before the press people had to hand write books and the only people who were literate were super rich or they were monks. The printing press allowed books to be mass produced. With one press several books could be made every day but it took weeks or even months to hand write books. The value of books went down and now nearly everyone could buy books and not only the rich or just the Church. People everywhere were becoming literate. Knowledge was spreading and schools were becoming more available.

With people who could now read the Church was having a harder time convincing them of thing that weren’t true. With thinkers proving that many of the Church’s teachings were all made up. People could start counting their money and learn more about financial status. The Church that had been taking advantage of people’s illiteracy and some times pretty much stealing their money and possessions couldn’t do that easily any more.

Impact of ideas:

Many ideals and principles have been passed down from the Renaissance into our daily lives of the Western world. We focus more nowadays on ourselves and the people around us than a God or higher power. We believe that we can do many things and we have gone, quite far as to inventing car, planes, being able to explore space, building super tall skyscrapers and making computers. With new jobs emerging in the Renaissance, there are no thousands of jobs you can do. While before the Renaissance there was just a few options. Priest, servant or farmer, and if you got lucky you’d be born into a wealthy family.

Triptych:

Our main project for this unit was an individual one. We had to make a tritych.

Below is my first draft of my tritptych. The feedback that was given to me for this draft was that I had good ideas but it would be better if they could be more connected and intertwined.

 

Below is my final draft of my triptych.

The panel on the left (Changing ideas) represents doctors sytarted to dig into bodies and discovering things about bodies. I used a dead deer because a dead person didn’t seem right to put into my triptych, it could’ve been quite disturbing for some people. The middle panel (Impact of ideas) represents the initial Roman Catholic Church dividing into many different churches including all the Protestant churches that arose in the Renaissance. The right panel (Spreading ideas) is a woman reading a book with a stack of more books around her. The printing press behind her allowed to make books a lot cheaper and lot faster than handwriting all of them. The number of existing books skyrocketed in the Renaissance when the press was invented. The spread of knowledge led to a more educated public.

There were several interesting things this unit but it wasn’t my favourite for sure. While studying the impact of ideas part of the unit I really saw the connections between this time period and today’s Western culture. This period really has given many principles to today’s society.

Well that just about wraps it up folks. Until next one.

Discoveries, that had already been discovered

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Hello again. Lately we’ve been pounded with blog post assignments. This past unit in Humanities we’ve been learning about the Age of Exploration, so about all the European explorers coming to America.

The real discoverers?

Now when we think of the American explorers, we think of European explorers like Christopher Columbus or John Cabot. But the truth is that First Nations have been living in America (the continent) for tens of thousands of years in a very similar way throughout time.

We went through several guided notes including one about Beringia, a theory of how the First Nations got to America s at such an early time, before boats were invented. I personally think that First Nations were the first ones in America (continent) but since the European colonizers managed to kill most of the First Nations, they got to decide how they would want history written down.

The comic books:

Since part of our main project was to create a comic book, we had to study some comic books. We studied four types: Tintin, New Age, Superheroes, and Anti-hero. In the groups we had, we would read one type each week and at the end of the week we had a group discussion. At the same time we also filled out a comic comparison chart noting down things we saw under different columns.

My personal favourite was Tintin, it’s bright and vibrant colours are more appealing to me. Also it’s panels are more organized and similar. The other comics had lots of action but they were really dark in humour and in colour. 

Tintin has always been one of my favourite comics except for Astérix and Obélix.

The Big Project:

Our main project of the Unit was to make a comic book and a presentation about an explorer form the time and a fictional character we created that was supposed to accompany the famous explorer to his quest and come back.

My explorer:

My group got Spain for explorers we could pick. I decided on Hernán Cortés. We then had to do some research on our explorer.

He was one of the most famous conquistadors ever, he conquered Mexico. He did it in 2 years. From 1519-1521. He was able to wipe out the whole Aztec civilization in 2 years. When he first arrived with his men, the Aztecs wouldn’t let him into their capital. Eventually they mistook him for a returning god and started giving him luxurious gifts and letting him stay at the palace. He would also give their leader Moctezuma gifts but he got paranoid and captured Moctezuma and put him in house arrest.

He had other problems like they guy who initially asked him to go on the conquest, had decided for him not to go and he still did. This guy’s name was Velazquez, the Governor of New Spain. Velasquez was angry about the betrayal and decided to send troops to apprehend Cortes. Cortes was forced to go the coast to defend himself. He left his second-in-command in the Aztec capital with some troops. Many Aztecs had already died of diseases Cortes and his men had brought. But one day, an Aztec festival was taking place and the Spanish men ambushed the unarmed Aztecs and massacred them, few escaped and the ones that did had a high chance of dying of a disease. In the chaos Moctezuma was killed and the Empire fell into the hands of the Spanish.

The Comic:

I decided to name my fictional character Carlos Torres. He was Cortés’ servant in my story. The point of the comic was to pretend like we were that fictional character and on our return of the expedition make a comic book of what happened requested by the royal family.

My comic starts off with Cortés having nightmares of his expedition. My characcter comes in to Cortés’ room when he hears him screaming and then it goes into a flashback of what happened in Mexico. Then at the end, it goes back to Cortés’ room and my character tries to calm him down.

The Presentation:

After the comic book request of the royal family, my character is looking for financial backing for an expedition of his own. What better time to do it then when at the royal court in front of the King and Queen of Spain. The presentation had to include a few reasons on why the royal family should sponsor the trip, the success and fame it could bring to them, things my character would do differently than my explorer Cortés, where my character was planning to explore, and what finally what he needed for the expedition.

Below is a video of my presentation.

https://youtu.be/Fhb0kdPJD1A

If you saw the video, you can tell that I was extremely nervous (you’re probably laughing at me). I’m not too sure why because I’m usually good with that type of thing but I kind of broke down.

I learned about Mexico’s history and Hernán Cortés. Throughout the unit we learned about possible ways the First Nations got to North America and about different types of boats different places used. In the middle of the unit we learned about the Middle Passage otherwise known as the slave trade. After that we learned why European countries wanted to expand their territories and their needs.

Anyways that just about wraps it up. See you in the next post.