A year in Humanities 2

OVERVIEW

This year of humanities 2 we learned many new things from segregation to Julius Caesar and many more. We learned how to evaluate articles and understand what we are reading. We also wrote and learned how to take out pieces of writing to back up our thesis. We learned many new writing techniques; like how to write a sentence including a quote from the reading. In my opinion this year i learned the most than any other years of taking humanities or English.

There were many things i liked about this class; i learned many new things and i finally understood the things i learned. The teacher was strict and pushed us a lot which was good because it pushed my ability as a writer. Towards the end of the class year this class became more interesting while we was reading the play "the piano lesson" by August Wilson; the group readings and discussions we had were very interesting and kept me interested in that book that we were reading.

The things i disliked about this class was that there were many classroom disturbances many kids did not like the teacher so they would start arguments with him and it would keep the class behind in our work; which ended up interfering with my education. I also didn't like the time period he would give us to learn a subject and then give us a test on that subject. Overall his class was very enjoyable and i learned many new things.

Introduce all your work:

Tragedy of Julius Caeser:Julius caeser was a subject that i understood and enjoyed learning. The story was about a roman king named Julius caeser; and how his loyal friend Brutus betrayed him and killed him because of the jealousy he had towards Julius caeser. After Brutus killed caeser he had a plan to trick the people in the town and make himself the king; but Mark Anthony was not going to let that happen. Mark Anthony was a true friend of Julius caeser and he convinced the town that Brutus killed Caeser out of pure jealousy and did not care about the people. The people of Rome was on Mark Anthony's said and they was preparing war on Brutus. Near the end of the book the ghost of Julius Caeser comes and visit's Brutus and haunts him. Mark Anthony and Brutus had a confrontation and Brutus kills himself.

The piece of work that i wrote on this book was to explain who was the tragic hero of the story. Well to me the tragic hero of the story was Brutus because Brutus went through all the trouble to kill Julius and try to become the king of Rome for what? nothing, in the end he just killed himself. I wrote my essay on this and since it was my first piece of writing this year it wasn't that good my work was all over the place i didn't know how to use the quotes that i choose correctly; but i got the whole concept of the story correct.

Poetry out loud:The work we had to do for poetry out loud was we had to find three poems that interested us; out of those three poems you had to choose one poem to mesmerism and read in front of the class.

What we learned was how understand the poem more by using line by line evaluation. I also learned the different poem types and different meaning of a poem.

The poem that i choose to read out loud in front of the class was "Tomorrow" by Dennis O' Driscoll. The length of the poem was long and i had to memorize it and read it out loud to the class. I read the poem very well and i got the highest score out of the whole class, so i think i did very good in that project.

Antebellum America:In the project on Antebellum America we read the biography on Frederick Douglass. We also read many excepts on the economy of cotton and the importance of slavery. Out of all the things we read we had to write a essay on the topic.

What i learned from this was that cotton was a big manufacturer in the united states. Many people needed cotton and here is the U.s; Slaves were used to help pick the cotton and grow the cotton. What i learned from reading the book Frederick Douglass i learned his whole life story, how he was a slave and how he escaped slavery.

In the essay i gathered all my data from both the article and the book Frederick Douglass and began writing my essay. I wrote on how slaves were very important for our country's economy i gave key facts from the text and quotes from the story. I thought i did a pretty good job on this essay; I understood the topic very well, and knew how to incorporate it into my writing.

Compare and Contrast:In the compare and contrast assignment we had to read the book "Frederick Douglass" and the article slave girl. Then we had to compare and contrast both of those people.

What i learned from doing this assignment was i learned the whole background of Fredrick Douglass; i know his life story and how he became a slave and how he became a powerful abolitionist. The article of slave girl i had trouble keeping my concentration on it because i had no interest in reading it i really did understand the story of the slave girl.

The compare and contrast writing i had to do was not my best work out of the year. I had trouble because i only understood one persons bio which was Frederick Douglass. The biography on slave girl i had no idea who she was all i knew was that she was a slave and she escaped it. So i did my best with the information i had on both of them. This to me could have been one of the easiest writing assignments we had all year but i did poorly because i was drifting off while reading; next time i will keep that in mind.

Abolition: In this work what we did was learn about what is an abolitionist and who are some of the people that are abolitionist. We learned about many people like Harriet Tubman, William Lloyd garrison, Sojourner truth and many more. Once we learned about each and one of these people and what there motives were we had to write a paper on the overall topic.

What i learned was an Abolitionist is a person that tries to abolish something; in this case the abolitionist were trying to abolish slavery. Many people were trying to abolish slavery in different ways Theodore Weld used the media from his paper to inform the people from the north that there was slavery in the south and that slaves were treated with disrespect and like trash. Harriet Tubman is famous for helping slaves escape their slave holders by using the underground railroad. There were many ways people tried to abolish slavery and that was like their jobs to them.

The piece of writing that i wrote on abolitionist is about the many abolitionist that tried to help African Americans from the torture that was slavery. I believed that i wrote a good paper i gave examples i explained what each person did that made them an abolitionist; but in the end i got a C on the paper. Now that i look back on it i could see that my paper was not well organized it was not well written or described very well. The sentences were had weak vocabulary and did not have a good sentence structure.

Civil War:In this project our teacher gave each on of us a important war from the civil war time period. I got the war of Vicksburg; What we had to do with that war was find important facts. Find out the reason why this war was fought; and anything else important about the war. I basically had to teach someone about my war.

What i learned from doing this was that the battle of Vicksburg was important to win, Because if they captured Vicksburg then the union can divide the confederacy and put an end to the civil war. Ulysses S. grant was the union's chief in this war, they came up with a plan called the "anaconda plan" and it was to put ships around the Mississippi river with union ships.

When i wrote the paper on Vicksburg there was four phases we had to do; the first phase was to explain our war. I did very good on that phase because i truly understood what my war was about. I did lots of research and got all my facts. The next two phases was to explain the battle scenes and a time line. I understood this project very well and i believed i did a good job on it.

Glory: Glory was my second favorite thing learning in this class; it was a movie based on the war between the 54th regiment and the southerns. What we had to do for this movie was write a review on it. A 400-500 word review giving our opinion on the movie and what it was about.

What i learned from watching this movie was that blacks were not being allowed to fight in the war for their rights. I also learned that blacks soldiers were being treated differently than the white soldiers. There pay checks were different and their gear was different, but that changed with col. Shaw got out of his way to get the men what they need to fight in the war.

When i wrote this review i was very excited because i understood the movie very well and i also had a positive feedback towards this movie. I was very confident that i was going to get a good grade on this review because i organized my work and had properly structured sentences. I ended up getting a good grade on the review; got the grade i deserved.

Reconstruction:The work we did on reconstruction was we read A LOT of excerpts and articles on the subject. We also read a book that had to do with reconstruction the book was called "their eyes were watching god" by Zora Neale Hurston. We also had to write a whole overview on the subject give it your own opinion and back it up with all the work that we learned.

What i learned from reconstruction was that after the period of slavery was over there were plans to redistribute the land to every African american family. One plan was to give them 40 acres and a mule; the plan didn't last after Andrew Johnson revoked General T Sherman's orders. He reversed the land back to the white man former owners. In the book their eyes were watching god i learned that in other black community's there was also reconstruction between themselves.

In the essay we had to write about the subject i had a problem coming up with a thesis and how to back it up. I tried my best on the essay i wrote about both the article on 40 acres and a mule and the book their eyes were watching god. I added quotes from each one but to me it seemed rushed and confused i hardly backed up my opinion i mostly just summarized the book and the article.

EWG-influences:In this assignment we had to read the book "their eyes were watching god" by Zora Neale Hurston. This assignment was to see how Janie the main character was influenced by her grandmother.

What i learned from doing this assignment was that Janie and her grandmother loved each other very much; and Janie's grandmother had to make a very difficult decision and that was to make Janie marry a man she didn't love or even know.

When i wrote this short essay i knew exactly what i was going to write about my essay was about 1 paragraph long. It was the easiest essay i wrote i had no trouble writing it.

EWG-Eatonville: The assignment of Eatonville was to answer a series of question according to the book "their eyes were watching god" by Zora Neale Hurston.

What i learned was how to answer question using short answers and also using quotes from the book. I also learned more thing i never knew about the book and how to look for answers in the book.

An example of a question that was being asked was "What are the important things necessary to have a successful town? Describe the concrete things necessary? What is symbolic about the streetlamp?" to answer those type of question i would need to go back to the book re-read and find some keys facts that help back up my answer i gave. Now why was the streetlamp symbolic? well your just going to have to read the book and find out.

EWG-Teacake:This was a timed writing assignment on one of the characters of their eyes were watching god his name was Tea cake. There was two out of three questions that had to be answered in either 3 paragraphs.

What i did and learned from doing it was i had to gather all my information on this character i started to write down on everything i knew about him and what type of guy he was. In the second question there was a twist i had to compare and contrast Tea cake with a different man his name was Jody Starks. I learned how to go back to the book to get important information on both of those men and see how alike and different they both were.

What i did was i gathered all my information that i already wrote down and i just started to develop paragraphs. I especially payed attention to not get off track from what the question was asking us.

Lawrence: In the assignment about Jacob Lawrence we were asked to go to his website and see his artwork that reflected on the period of The great migration. After we did that we had to pick three of our favorite pieces of artwork and give a description on it.

What i learned from this was how paintings can tell a whole different point of view on things. I learned paintings speak louder than words and can explain more than any article can say.

What i did for the writing portion of the project i picked my favorite piece of art and i wondered to myself why do i like this painting?, did it catch my attention?, what does it show? i asked myself that for each of the picture. When i found the picture i liked the most i gave a brief description on it and i also evaluated it the lines the colors the shapes in the pictures, and that is what helped me do good on this project.

The piano lesson:The piano lesson was another book that enjoyed reading in class as a group; This book was a play written by August Wilson during the 1930's. The piano lesson writing assignment was to answer two of three questions.

What i learned from reading this book was that during the Great migration period many people moved from the South to the North. The whole reason for the book of the piano lesson i think was to show that you cant let the past take over you all the sorrow you have about the past you have to let it go and live your life. Berenice one of the characters did not want to play on the piano after her mother died; she didn't want to play on the piano because she didn't have the courage to play on the piano and she was very sentimental about the fact that she only played the piano for her mother.

One of the questions that picked was Rewrite the ending of the play. While i was doing this i had to be creative and think how i wanted this ending to actually end so then i wrote the ending. The second question we had to read an article and argue against or with her opinion. What i did was i evaluated the piece of writing and i asked myself do i really agree with what the writer is saying? if i did or did not i would either back up my opinion why or why not i did.

Kim Mclarin:The work we had to do was we had to read the article Kim Mclarin wrote which is titled "The great migration and me". Then we had to write a short essay giving out opinion on the subject.

What i learned was that Kim Mclarin believed that if black didn't migrate to the North their life in the South would have been better they would have had better jobs and a better education.

While i was writing this essay my opinion was different from hers i believed that if the black stayed in the South they would have been faced with segregation and been treated like shit. I tried to stick with my opinion but towards the end of my essay i started to agree with her a little bit because i did agree with some of the things that she said but i was very confused i didn't know if i should just stick with my opinion or agree with some of the things that she said. So i had a little trouble there.

Great Migration:We have been studying the Great migration almost all of the 4th term in humanities 2. It wasn't an easy subject to understand because there were many views on either if it was a right or wrong decision and it was confusing to me. The final essay on the great migration was to develop a thesis on the great migration and back up your thesis with lots of examples and quotes from all the articles and books we read on that subject.

What i learned from the Great migration was that there were many opinions and point of views everyone has their explanations for moving and not moving to the north. The great migration was caused by the Jim crow laws; and how everything in the south was segregated and not equal. Also because of the violence in the north many blacks would get lynched and killed just for being a different color than the white.

While i began this essay i thought about my thesis and was making sure i had a way to back my thesis up. Towards the middle of my essay i notice that my thesis does not make NO sense at all. Being as lazy as i am i just kept going with my paper trying to connect the examples i gave with my thesis. Mind you i did this essay last minute which was a dumb move on my part; so the essay was rushed and not the best work i could have done.