Hello everyone and welcome back to another blog post! For the last few weeks in Humanities, we have been working on a new project!! It has been a long and tedious process but it’s been super fun. I’m going to be doing this post in 2 parts. One is going to be on the project, and the second is going to be on the new organization system that we learned – the Zettelkasten.  Throughout this post, I will be taking you through the journey of this project as well as my improvements to my PKM. I’ll be sharing the ups and downs and also I will be writing about what I learned. I hope you enjoy!

Part 1 –

Driving Question – How has fear been used as a political, defensive, and cultural tool to shape our society? 

Inquiry Question – How does the fear of “the other” continue to be manipulated through politics to sway public opinion?

Answer – Fear has been strategically used politically, defensively, and culturally to shape societal perceptions and influence public opinion. Politically, leaders often capitalize on fear to take power or advance their agendas, whether through exaggerating threats like terrorism to justify surveillance, or exploiting economic anxieties to push invasive policies. Defensively, fear is instrumental in justifying military actions and adding to national security, often through embellished external threats to justify increased defence. Culturally, fear has been used through narratives that depict “the other” as dangerous or inferior, creating prejudice and discrimination. 

To start this project off, we did a lot of reading. First we read the John Hersey book Hiroshima then Fallout by Todd Strasser. My biggest learning opportunity from my last Humanities project which you can read about here was that I cannot effectively read physical books in an academic setting. So I took this learning with me when reading these two books and made sure to read them digitally so that I could get all the understanding that I could out of them. Thankfully, the rigours notes that I took paid off. When we did a quiz on Hiroshima in class – which rarely happens – I got 15/16! This was honestly better than I was expecting but I think the note taking that I did really helped and paid off. The book overall was super impactful and I really enjoyed reading it. I ended up using part of it in my final product – a podcast – and it was a great piece of evidence to back up my claim. 

The second book that we read was fallout. I actually really enjoyed this book. It was relatively fast paced and I loved the short chapters. It made it very motivating to read. Compared to Hiroshima, it was simplistic but I almost liked that better. The writing was easy to understand but definitely a lower level then we’ve been assigned in the past. I feel like this book when hand in hand with the War Game movie that we watched in class. Both were written and produced under the pretences of ‘what if the Russians had actually dropped a bomb’. I found it super interesting the different angles that were taken to this question from both the film and the book. This deepened my understanding because it allowed me to see how different mediums can explore the same theme in different ways. The combination of reading both books and watching the movie really helped me fully understand the topic we were studying.

You can read my notes on these books here.

After watching and reading, we had a pretty good understanding of the Cold War overall. Now, it was time to dive deeper. This is when we picked our topics for our individual projects. To do this, we wrote an inquiry question off our the driving questions so that we could have a more niche focus for our projects. My question went through many rounds of revisions from my teachers, peers, parents, and sister. But it ended up being “How does the fear of “the other” continue to be manipulated through politics to sway public opinion?”. As being in PLP has taught me many times, revision is the key to success and this just put the nail in the coffin. I feel like if I hadn’t have spent as much time on my inquiry question as I did, I probably would have had a much harder time figuring out my project because of how our project was laid out – this is because there was no layout. I’ll get to that in a minuet though. Below, you can see my starting chart ⬇️ 

After everything that we had read and watched about, one thing that stuck out to me and I always found super interesting was propaganda and how governments used fear to gather support from citizens by using the fear of the unknown. So that’s what I based most of my project around. I did a deep dive into this topic and did a bunch of research – like a lot. From reading articles, to watching YouTube videos, to listening to podcasts, I went down a rabbit hole one night and am very glad that I did. It was super interesting and it also helped me put into use my still developing PKM skills. Below, you can see all of the research I did ⬇️ 

After reading and watching, it was time to start working on our project. I decided to create a podcast, because in Gr 10 I did a podcast project. However, this wasn’t my strongest skill and I thought that this would be a good way to improve it. Creating the podcast was a challenging but rewarding experience. It was tedious, annoying at some points, and to be honest, a lot of work. I had to script out 2 episodes, record my voice, and edit the final product. I also had to create a intro song which Alicia helped me with. I’m super proud of my final product because I feel like I was able to express my ideas and thoughts in a creative and engaging way. 

After finalizing my podcast episodes, I presented them to my classmates and teachers. The feedback I received was mostly positive, which was a huge relief. It was great to see that all of my hard work had paid off and that my message was coming across effectively.

Throughout this project, I learned a lot about the power of fear in politics and how it can be used to manipulate public opinion. What I found super interesting was when I did my episode 2 where I did a deep dive on my topic with some of my class mates. It was super interesting to see what everyone else had taken away from the lectures and different medias we had been shown. This deepened my understanding of topics related to mine because I was able to bounce ideas off of other people. I also learned a lot about the process of creating a podcast and the importance of organization and revision. Something that I got feedback on in past projects was to ask for more feedback which would help push my grade to an extending level. This is something that I really tried to do in this project and think that I succeeded in. I feel like this reflected in my work because it was more cohesive and connected to the project because of the feedback that I was asking for and receiving. You can check out my final product here.

Part 2 –

Now, the Zettelkasten system. This was a whole new way of organizing my thoughts and research that I had never tried before. At first, I was a bit skeptical. How could this note taking system really help me in my projects? I was a bit overwhelmed by the idea of implementing a new organization system into my workflow. But as I began to use it, I saw the benefits. Breaking down my ideas into smaller, interconnected notes helped me to see the bigger picture more clearly. It also helped me make connections between different sources and concepts that I may not have seen otherwise. The Zettelkasten system truly helped me put together my research process and make my project more coherent. 

I struggled a bit with fully grasping and understanding how to write and use permanent notes. But in the end, when writing my podcast it all came together. I still need to work on these Zettelkastening skills but I’ve definitely become better at it. Hopefully I will keep developing and using this organization method effectively because I think it could be a super powerful tool in the future like in university. You can see a quick sneak peak at mine below ⬇️ 

In conclusion, this project was a challenging but rewarding experience. Through reading, researching, creating a podcast, and using the Zettelkasten system, I was able to deepen my understanding of the power of fear in politics and how it can be used to manipulate public opinion. I also learned valuable skills such as effective note-taking, organization, and revision. Overall, this project has not only expanded my knowledge on the topic, but also improved my critical thinking and creativity. I am proud of the work I have done and look forward to applying these skills in future projects.