Blog #12

What are you excited about?
What I am excited about is to see what I can make with the things that my kid likes to read about.

What are you nervous about?
I am nervous about the book I am going to make since I don't know if it is going to be good or not.

What are your hopes for this project?
My hopes for this project is to make a great book for my kid.

What are your fears for this project?
My fear is that my book would be bad and I fail the project.

What do you think your story will be about?
My story will be about a kid who travels to Saturn.

Blog #11

1. What are you most proud to show during your Student Led Conference?
What I am really proud of that I would show during my slc is my narrative from the Our People’s History project.

2. What would you like to change, following your SLC?
What I would like to change following my slc is my grades, since I need a bit of a boost

3. What goals do you have for the remainder of the semester?
The goals that I have for the remainder of the semester are to expand my thinking in humanities and to push myself to try new techniques in English.

4. What are your ideas for internship... and how will you work with a parent or guardian on securing a great internship?
My ideas for internship are to do something in music or in business.

Blog #10

1. What is history?
A reconciliation of the past, that serves a purpose in shaping our future.
2. What is ideology?
It is basically a set ideas that help build up someone’s goals or achievements.
3. Can history be neutral? Why or why not?
History is usually neutral because it is mostly just stating what happened in the past. However, depending on how a person sees it can be either bias or unbiased. Like in the iPhone article, he is stating that Apple is using more workers in foreign countries than in the US., but we can tell that he is very biased about the fact that Chinese workers are skillfully better than the American workers in making their products.
4. Zinn discusses what he considers the typical way Americans study or understand history. How has your experience (either in school, or simply in your life) been similar?
Well, I think that what is trying to say is that in most schools, they will only teach you what they want you to know. So most Americans don’t know that much history or are ignorant of their history because they don’t have all of the details, because they were never taught all of these things. Me personally, I didn’t really follow history that much until I got into High Tech High. I really didn’t really think that all I learned was just basic stuff.
5. When you consider Zinn's discussion of the typical American study or understanding of history, how has your experience (in school or in life) been different?
Well for me I always loved history, so I never really just stayed with the basics, because I just wanted to learn more. I wanted to learn more on history but at the public schools that I used to go to they would never tell us more than what they wanted us to know.
6. What did you read that stood out to you positively? Why?
I liked this one quote from the iPhone article about the amount of people working in the Foxconn City, because the way he words it puts in you in the article. “The facility has 230,000 employees, many working six days a week, often spending up to 12 hours a day at the plant. Over a quarter of Foxconn’s work force lives in company barracks and many workers earn less than $17 a day. When one Apple executive arrived during a shift change, his car was stuck in a river of employees streaming past. ‘The scale is unimaginable,’ he said.”
7. What did you read that you disliked? Why?
I disliked the article on the History teaching in America, because the article was really long, even though it was very informative.
8. How were some of your biases or preconceived notions confirmed by what you read?
9. How were some of your biases or preconceived notions challenged by what you read?
10. What unique perspective, element of creativity, or new questions do you bring to our study of history?

Blog #9

What was most significant to you about the Our People's History Project?
The most significant thing to me about the Our People’s History Project was to learn more about my family’s history and how it affects where I am at today and how I got here.
What do you feel that you learned from the project?
I felt that I learned more writing techniques from this project. I think that I could’ve just wrote the story in my own way and just without listening to the techniques that Randy was teaching us, but I thought it would have been better if I just use what he taught us.
What are you most proud of in the narrative nonfiction story that you wrote?
I am proud of the narrative that I wrote, I think it is one of the best stories I wrote at the school.
What surprised you about the project—what happened along the way that you did not expect?
What surprised me about the project was how much time we had to do this project. Even though we had a month to do the project I thought it was going to be one of those super long projects that take up half of the semester.
What lessons are you taking as you go forward with your Humanities (and overall) education?
As I go forward with humanities, I will try to expand my writing more and to learn more techniques on how to make my writing better and to expand my knowledge in history.

Blog #8

what i need to do to make my story an enjoying story to read is to add more imagery and to add more detail to the setting and the character. i will also make sure that i use all the things i learned in class.

Blog #7

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

"Until a morning in mid-November of 1959, few Americans - in fact, few Kansans - had ever hold of Holcomb. Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on highways, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there."
This quote is inspiring because of the way it tells how not many people knew Holcomb. It inspires me to not give too much in a story but to try to give a bit for the reader to understand the setting.

Black Duck by Janet Taylor Lisle

"It's odd how a shocking sight can shake your mind so you don't at first register as a whole, just the small, almost comical details. Like the hand complete with fancy gold wristwatch, wedding band and neatly clipped fingernails we saw bobbling on the water's surface as we came towards the pool. Above it swathed in a shawl of brown seaweed, rubbery-looking shoulder peak out, white as a girl's. Above that, a bloated face the color of slate; two sightless eyes, open. And there in his neck, what was that? I saw a small dark-rimmed hole."
Even though i read this book in seventh grade i always go back to it to get ideas on how to make my writing better. It inspires me to use more figurative language in my writing and in my stories.

Blog #6

one of the example articles that i read was from Lynn Le. the way she writes her article, which i think most people should do, is to introduce the person you are talking about. i think this is good because that way you don't get lost in what she is talking talking about. 

Blog #5

The idea that i got from other students is that you can't number it you have to make it make it look like a real interview by making the answers longer and to not number it. i also saw that in most interviews, mainly on this one of Shakira, that you don't always have to number or organize your interview if people know about who you are interviewing. one challenge that i faced was to translate the interview and make it sound good. i made the interview in Spanish since my interviewee didn't know any English and i a hard time trying to translate it and make sense at the same time. so fixing the interview hasn't been so bad, i still need to work a few things though. one thing i am proud of is the amount of work and time i put into this interview to make it good.

Blog #4

The book I am reading is Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer.

What stands out the most about this book, from what I read, is how it just starts off with his adventure on Mount Everest instead of just saying what he did before he went on mount Everest and why he decided to climb the mountain.
my goals for reading the book are to remember what i read and to get to understand the book better than i do now.

Blog #1

What are you most excited about for this school year?

I am excited about expanding my knowledge in this class and to learn more in all of my classes.

What are you most excited about in Humanities?

I am excited about learning about more on U.S. history.

What about in the Our People's History project?
I want to learn a little bit more about my family's history and I think this project will let know more about where I'm from and where did my family came from.

Blog #3

What I am really looking forward to in writing is to learn new techniques and to be able to be a more formal writer rather than a creative writer.

I like these books, especially from Stephen King, since they are dark but they are good well thought out and well-made books.  I also like reading poems and lyrics to songs, at least to some that have some meaning to it.