Drinking The Kool-Aid

Just over four weeks ago, PLP 11 dove in to the topic of tribalism, and it’s implications on our world today. Guided by our driving question: “What is the role of tribalism in society?”, we quickly set to work learning and forming our opinions on the topic.

To compliment and extend our learning of tribalism, this unit was driven by the reading of William Golding’s Lord Of The Flies. Being one of the most important, influential, and impactful novels ever written, things were sure to get interesting. Talking to many of my classmates revealed that almost right away, everyone enjoyed the novel and thought that it was to be a very enjoyable read. For some unfortunate reason, I myself have struggled with the motivation and drive to read throughout my high school years, something I’ve mentioned in previous project reflections.

It’s really a bummer because I truthfully want to be as deeply knowledgeable on the book as others, but reading the book quickly just for the sake of it doesn’t help me much. However, because of this, I did make sure to read extensive chapter summaries and analysis’ online. This is why I was able to understand the book and to connect the dots in terms of the many connections to tribalism. Overall though, even though I didn’t read as thoroughly as I wish, I definitely enjoyed the book and it’s plot, as well as Golding’s beautiful writing style. Going forward I’m going to try my best to acquire an audiobook version of novels we read in class, to try and relight an interest in literature.

As the unit progressed and we got deeper in to LOTF, we were assigned with weekly journal entries. These were written works of about 250-500 words (though I often found myself surpassing that), prompted by a question of inquiry relating to the real word and tribalism. This is where I became more motivated and really tried to put my best foot forward. I found myself excited to share my opinions on the topics at hand, and was very confident in the work I needed up producing. Of the four entries, I would say my favourites were 3 and 4, which indicates that I feel like I improved over time, something Ms. Willemse mentioned she was looking for.

The final project for this unit was a group presentation that highlighted one real tribe in our society, either historical or present, and connected it to LOTF as well as our driving question of course. After a day of researching, my group – consisting of Maggie, Jamie, and I – were captivated by the story of Jim Jones and The People’s Temple, and decided on it as our focus.

Throughout the course of making our presentation I found myself taking on a lot of the groups roles, some times out of my own interest, and other times because I had no choice but to make sure the job got done on time. I didn’t mind this too much, as it has been a while since I took the lead on a project, and it felt good to know that a contributed a large amount and had the final outcome of the presentation in my hands. This whole topic of tribalism can really be attributed to any group of people, and this project was just as much about learning what tribes we as individuals are part of as learning about tribalism itself. I found it a very interesting topic to delve in to.

In the end, I’m very happy with the way our presentation on The People’s Temple went, and I wish to do more projects like this, as to continue to work on my presenting and speaking skills.   

Over the course of this unit I learned many things across many different sides and perspectives. I always enjoy units that feature topics that deal with psychological factors like human nature, as I enjoy the conversations they produce. All in all, I felt like I progressed as this unit went on, and I’m confident in the work I produced. On to the next unit!