This grade 10 year has gone by so fast. We have done so many interesting and fun projects that have taught me so much especially in Humanities. The blog posts that I’ve written for Humanities so far this year have included:
WWI soldier podcast
Namesake video
Sins of the City
Treasure Island
Seycove Disruption
Disruption Essay and Podcast
All The Light We Cannot See
WWII
BC Tech Summit
And this one right here
This final end of the year unit is called LOTF (Lord of the Flies) and throughout this unit we learned about politics and power, along with reading the famous novel Lord of The Flies.
We then finished off with a class debate. The driving question that we based our learning around for this unit was “How do we organize ourselves?” We also considered a couple concepts throughout this unit which included:
• Power and Authority
• Humanity and Inhumanity
• Violence and Destruction
• Human nature
• Civilization and Savagery
• Innocence and Evil
• Individualism and Community
The unit started off by creating groups for this unit as these would be in teams for the debate. The way the groups were created was instead of our teacher just making the groups, the class was tasked with everyone working together and creating the groups. I unfortunately wasn’t there the day they created the groups as I was at a volleyball tournament so I didn’t really have a say in the group. However when I came back I was placed in a group. Although I wasn’t sure if my group would work really well together, we ended up working really well as a team in our debate. My teammates for this group were Reid, Willa, Calum and Robbie.
A points system was made for all the groups which at the end of the unit would have a prize for whoever’s group had the most points. I really like winning so I was super into this idea although some of my other group members weren’t as competitive. The point system kept track of whether people gave in their homework or not, didn’t go on their phones and bonus points for cleaning up after class. Each team could get points for all these things as well as lose them if someone in your group didn’t hand in their homework. To better understand how the point system worked, here is the sheet that most of the points were based off of:
As the unit is called LOTF, it is kind of a given that we read Lord of The Flies. This is a classic book read in most high school classes and I think it tied into our unit really well! William Golding is the author of the book and a novelist, playwright, poet as well as the winner of a Nobel prize in fictional literature. The book was set during the Second World War, and starts out when a plane is shot down carrying British school boys. Throughout the novel the boys have to survive on their own without adults on an island. Many of the boys turn to savage and throughout the book readers can see the fight of human nature within all the boys. Some of the main characters include Ralph, Jack, Piggy, Simon, Roger and Samneric.
Piggy
During the time we read the novel, we also filled out a character chart which helped us better understand the characters in the book as well as symbols and what they represented. For example, Ralph is a leader and his goal is to maintain the fire to eventually be saved. We also filled out a sheet specifically for the symbols in the book, for example the conch shell found on the beach represents order and civilization. There were many symbols and scenarios throughout the entire story which can be related to political powers in our modern society.
As we read the book over the span of three weeks, each week we had a team quiz to test us on our knowledge of the book. This team quiz also counted for points in our points system, if your team got ten out of ten then they would get 100 points. My team was close every time but never got ten out of ten which was unfortunate. However, I definitely think the quizzes helped make sure everyone knew what was going on in the book.
Another important part of this unit was learning about politics and power which relates to Lord of The Flies and the debate. We started off by learning the different types of government including democracy which is Canada’s form of government. The different types of government include monarchy, dictatorship, democracy, oligarchy, theocracy, and anarchy. I knew about democracy, monarchy and dictatorship but learning about the other types of government was good as I didn’t know a lot of details about them. Within Lord of The Flies there are definitely forms of government that are symbolized during the story. Ralph represents democracy as he was voted in by the boys and has a vision that the boys can function together as a sort of society. Jack in some form represents dictatorship as he is controlling, and the leader of the hunting boys.
On top of learning about the different types of government, we also focused in on Canada’s government and politics. One assignment we did to better understand the levels of government in Canada, specifically BC, was to create an image showing the hierarchy of the government. This is the image I created:
Another important part of politics in Canada we learned about was the Constitution. The constitution is a body of fundamental laws that organizes how Canada is governed and functions. Our constitution includes the rule of law, freedom, democracy, and minority rights. We also looked into the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
One of the current events we looked into was the Kinder Morgan Pipeline. We read three different articles, formed our own opinion backed up with research about the Pipeline which we then shared in class the next day. After reading all three of the articles, I still am sticking with my original thought that I don’t think the pipeline should go into place. First of all, the Pipeline would put our generation at risk by increasing the production of high carbon fuel and greenhouse gases. This is adding to climate change and if there was a spill it would permanently damage the coastal ecosystem and wildlife.
After learning about politics within Canada as well as reading Lord of the Flies we started preparing for our first ever PLP 10 class debate. This debate would help us work on our public speaking skills as well as team work as we did the debates with our groups we were put in at the start of the unit. For evidence we drew upon what we’ve learned throughout this past year in Humanities. To decide on the topics we would be debating, we wrote down our three top topics from concepts within our unit. My group decided that we would put down civilization and savagery, human nature and individualism and community. We ended up getting civilization and savagery which I was happy about because we could easily relate our points back to what we’ve learned this year. We then were given our statement which was “Be it resolves that humans must be savage to survive”. We didn’t get to decide whether we were fighting for or against this statement so we flipped a coin to decide, my team got against which we were happy about.
To get an idea of how a debate is structured, we were assigned with listening to an Intelligence Squared podcast. I decided to listen to a podcast debating about if negotiations can denuclearization North Korea. I found this debate very interesting and both sides were well spoken. After listening to the debate I better understood how debates were formatted and how our debate would be going forward.
Welcome to IQ2US Debates | IQ2US Debates
A nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, Intelligence Squared U.S. is a debate series working to restore civility, reasoned analysis, and constructive public discourse to today’s media landscape.
After listening to this debate, we practiced our speaking skills with a couple little games to become quicker at thinking on our feet. One of the games included Pass the Buck which included one teammate getting a subject and having to talk about it for 30 seconds then another person has to continue talking about the subject following up and so forth.
To practice formulating an argument and fighting for one side we wrote two concept paragraphs. The first one was just about something within the concepts we looked at throughout this unit and the other was using a Be it resolved statement. My first paragraph was about Concentration camps and how they took away basic human rights and my second was about my debate statement that there is no need for savagery to survive. I think in both paragraphs I formulated a strong opinion and argument. Here are my paragraphs:
Along with practicing our argument and speaking skills, we also watched a video on the 7 secrets of the greatest speakers. This video gave some really good tips about body language, voice tone, etc that definitely helped me in my debate. The statement that definitely stayed with me was to make what you are saying compelling to the listener and keep them engaged.
Following practicing for this debate the day finally came for my team’s debate and we were ready. The one thing we wanted to make sure within our debate was that it sounded natural and not scripted. To do this we had very few notes and instead just knew the information we were talking about and spoke more naturally. Throughout the debate I think my team pulled upon good information from stuff we learned during this school year to support our argument. I was really nervous to do the rebuttal part of the debate as I didn’t really know what to say however when it came to my turn to speak I think it went really well. I talked about the UN being an alternative to war and WWII deaths and if there wasn’t savagery millions of people would not have died. Lord of the Flies had a lot of good information to draw upon especially for the concept of civilization or savagery. This was one of our main points during our argument that without savagery no one would have died on the island. My team ended up winning our debate so I was really happy.
This is what our debates looked like
The debate was definitely a great learning experience and has taught me to be more confident with my public speaking. As there were two other debates, one the day before ours and one the day after, our class definitely learned from each group’s mistakes. All three of the debates went well although what we did learn was we need more time to do the rebuttal and have a formal debate. So throughout these three debates we added in more time to rebut the other team’s statements and debate for your own point. As the debates were recorded once they were all finished, a couple people in the class edited the debates.
this is my team’s debate:
Throughout this unit I have learned a lot about the politics in Canada as well as how to become more confident in public speaking. This year has been filled with loads of fun and educational projects and this is definitely one of my favourite ones. Throughout this unit I have improved my communication and team work skills exponentially. With this year coming to a close I’ll take my learning to the next level next year by taking the skills I’ve learned and applying them in the future.