Category Archives: G8 Humanities

Blaze: American Revolution Journal of an American Soldier

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The main character of this journal is William Harris, who was a fisher that dwells in Boston, and later decided to join the continental army to fight for independence and justice.

 

Hello, my name is Xiatian. This is the revolutionary journal of an American soldier for the American revolutions. There have been political, economic, and societal changes to America before and after the revolution, the most obvious of all is the fact that the colonies gained independence from the jurisdiction of Great Britain and became acknowledged as the United States of America, the monarchy of Great Britain altered to Democracy as more people is able to participate politically, the separation between church and state, etc. However, there are certain things that continued to be what they were; slavery continued until the civil war.

 

The Birth of America in Plain English

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This is the American Revolution in Plain English, where the creators of this video–Xiatian and Sarah will be informing you about the American Revolution, one of the most iconic and intriguing revolutions in mankind. Inaugurating new significant political ideologies and the notion of advocating freedom from the jurisdiction of injustice. The most vital things I have learned about the revolution are how it affected the world and how it instigated new political ideologies.

“Salt: A World History”-A Phenomenal Masterpiece

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Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky features a comprehensive and lavishly detailed explication of the utilization and significance of salt in humanity, thus, how the desire for salt promoted social, technological, and economic advancements from ancient empires to the modern western superpowers. This book has analyzed history and economics by centralizing the topic around the usage of salt for categorized by different countries. The primary theme of this book is that desire promotes refinement and here are the pieces of evidence:

Page 27 “From the piping at Sichuan brine works, Chinese throughout the country learned to build irrigation and plumbing systems. Large bamboo water mains were installed in Hangzhou in 1089.” In this example, the method used by the Chinese to build the brine wells motivated the development of the complex bamboo irrigation system in Hangzhou. This shows the technological advancements of the complex irrigation system motivated by the desire for salt. Page 85. “The Venetian government never owned salt but simply took a profit from regulating its trade. Between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, a period when Venice was a leading port for grain and spices.” “As a result, Venice became a salt supplier to more and more countries” In the second example, the Venetian government, because of the desire for salt, regulated salt prices so merchants are willing to import salt from other countries to Venice. Venice, as a result, gained economic power. Page 194. “But with the discovery of rock salt, the growing salt industry gained economic importance to persuade the government to construct canals” “The salt industry, coal industry and the port of Liverpool fed off to each other and together grew prosperous.” In the last example, Cheshire began industrialization because of desire for salt; they have drastically increased salt production by establishing salt industries along with coal industries for fuel, and along with the port for trade, Cheshire, as a result, became prosperous economically, From this evidence, we can see that the immense desire for salt motivated technological and economic advancements for different countries. Salt: A World History is a phenomenal book and you should totally read it. Firstly, it illustrates and explains history by centralizing the topic around salt, which will improve our knowledge about this significant topic in economics and history. Secondly, this also introduces some recipes of food from different cultures which is a very creative aspect of this book, and these two vital components made this book truly a masterpiece. I would rate this book a 5/5. One thing I learned from this unit is the significance and importance of reading because I felt like I have assimilated so much knowledge about the connection between history and salt.

 

Salt: A World History Book Review

Boxer Rebellion CER and Thinglink Xiatian

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“Do the Boxers Deserve a Bad Rap?”

 

            The Boxers, an organization formed enraged villages living in Shandong Province, do not deserve a bad reputation. First of all, during in 1830s, the British sold Opium, a highly addictive and powerful drug, to China trying to obtain tea. Because of the vast amount of opium that is imported into China, 12 million Chinese were smoking opium which had drastically weakened China’s economy, society, and individuals, causing China to lose against the British in the Opium wars which are two wars started by the British because of a trade conflict. Since the Opium wars—which the British have started—caused a downfall in China’s economic and social power, it is obvious as to why the Boxers has such hatred towards foreigners. Secondly, during the time that a vast number of Chinese is living under poverty and famine, more powerful countries such as Britain, Japan and Russia forced China to sign unequal treaties. For instance, the Treaty of Tientsin, a treaty where China is forced to legalize opium in their country. Later, Britain forced China to sign the Treaty of Nanking, where China is forced to pay for the indemnity of the Opium wars and giving piece of its land to Britain known as Hong Kong. Due to these unequal treaties, the China lost lots of wealth to the foreign imperial powers (Britain, France, Japan etc.) Thirdly, when imperial powers started to “colonize” in China, American exporters and businesspeople started to sell American agricultural and industrial products, which is believed to be undermining Chinese culture. Imperial powers like France built Saint Michael’s church in the French Legation Quarters in Beijing, capital of China, and converted many Chinese into Christians. Droughts also started in the Province of Shandong, causing provision to be destroyed, villagers in Shandong believed the cause of the drought is because traditional Chinese gods angry because the spread of another religion, Christianity, inside of China. Because foreign countries are westernizing China and gradually converting more Chinese into Christians, which made the Boxers think that they are destroying Chinese culture. Therefore, the Boxers do not deserve bad reputation.

 

Boxer Rebellion Introduction

 

“A Sound of Thunder” Summative Assessment

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“A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury

Biography of Ray Bradbury

By killing a single mouse that lives a million years ago, the death of that mice might cause hundreds upon thousands of species to die from starvation, completely annihilating ecosystems and inflicting chaos to rise upon every species and ecosystems there is to exist and eventually breaking the ultimate food chain of Earth. Just like in the story “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury, the theme of the story is taking what may seem like a small and insignificant action, might cause a drastic change in the future, so obviously the theme is always be careful and mindful about every action you take and everything you say. Furthermore, the concept and main idea of the story “A Sound of Thunder” is related to time traveling, the protagonist of the story is Eckels is time traveling with the Safari Guide back a million of years ago on a quest to hunt down species that has no contribution to the future of humans and society, or in other words, expendable. Coincidently, they met the Tyrannosaurus Rex. However, while the Safari guide were trying to kill the Tyrannosaurus Rex, which is trying to attack them, Eckels accidentally went out of the path and stepped on the dirt on earth that existed millions of years ago. Consequently, when they got back to the current year, their society has drastically changed. From the concept and idea of the story, we can tell that the main topic of this story is mindfulness and carefulness for every action you take.

In the story “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury, the author believes that we must all be careful and mindful for every single action we take. For instance, in real life, saying something to really nice to your friend versus saying something unpleasant or impolite to your friend might cause a really drastic and different outcome. When Travis is explaining him how killing a mice can inflict significant damage to the future of humans, he says, “But you, friend, have stepped on one single mouse. So the cave man starves. And the cave men, please note, is not just any expendable man, no! He is our entire future nation.” (Bradbury 226). This quote supports the theme of the statement because it explicates to the readers how just by stepping on a single mouse, taking such an insignificant action, can create a domino effect causing a great drastic change in the future such as, mentioned in the quote; cave man starving causing millions upon billions of humans to be annihilated from the current world. The word “expendable”, by definition, means insignificant, and therefore can be destroyed. Furthermore, the quote says “‘And the cave men, please note, is not just any expendable men.” From the word expendable, we can infer that the author is trying to explicate that the death cave men are not insignificant and in fact, can create a much vaster impact to the future, which is wiping out the entire human species. This quote shows how just by taking a small action, could greatly change the future. As the story continues along its way to the very end, Eckels realized the mistake that he had made when stepping on the dirt that existed millions of years ago and also killing a butterfly, he said to himself, “can’t we take it back, can’t we make it alive again? Can’t we start over? Can’t we-” (Bradbury 236). From this quote we can suggest that Eckels is very guilty and somewhat regretted what he have done. From the sentence, “can’t’ we start over?” we can tell that Eckels is desperately regretting what he has done. This quote shows that we must all me mindful and careful about every step and action we take and everything we do, or else we will regret what we have done.

 

Self vs Self

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“Thank You, M’am” by Langston Hughes

This is my Found Poem for Humanities, I did my found poem on “Thank you, m’am” by Langston Hughes. This poem expresses the main conflict of the story by using words found in the story, it talks about how Roger, who is the main character of the story is struggling to behave himself.

Biography of Langston Hughes

We can tell that Roger, who is the main character of the book is struggling to behave from the quote “It was about eleven o’clock at night, and she was walking alone, when a boy ran up behind her and tried to snatch her purse.” It shows that the boy is trying to steal the women’s purse and is up to no good at all, we can also tell from the quote  “Good-night! Behave yourself, boy! she said, looking out into the street.”, we can tell the main conflict of the story is obviously internal conflict because the boy is fighting with his is own behaviors of stealing and doing bad things in society, in other words, we can say that the protagonist is Roger and the antagonist of the story is Roger’s internal behaviors, the women shaped and disciplined him through kindness and compassion from the quote “Then we’ll eat,” said the woman, I believe you’re hungry — or been hungry — to try to snatch my pocketbook.” This quotes shows that the women is offering Roger kindness and compassion to make him behave and not steal, which is what this whole story is trying to solve, which is to change Roger’s inner personality. From these quotes and evidences we cant tell that the main conflict of this story is internal conflict, which is trying to change Roger’s behaviors.

Behavior (my poem)

Roger was a boy,

he snatches people’s pocketbooks

The women took care,

he did not want to be mistrusted

The boy was to behave.

My poem sums up what I had written above, saying what Roger did like snatching the women’s pocketbooks, and stating that Roger is trying to battling against his own behaviors, in my poem I said “the boy was to behave” which is the main idea I am trying to express in my poem which is roger struggling to behave himself until the women taught him to, I couldn’t find any good words I could use to express the feeling, for example, fighting, battling, feelings, behavior, so the best sentence I could form is “The boy was to behave”.

The graphic design is that I used the color black to resemble the feeling of battle and struggle and I made the white part of of the story the Found Poem which resembles Roger being controlled by his own internal evil of stealing.  It might look a little bit bland or a bit too dark, but through these qualities, Im trying to show the internal conflict of the story through the color that I use, I used the darkest color for my graphic design.