This is my Mexican Revolution journal that I worked on during this unit.
In my opinion, I believe that the Mexican Revolution was worth it and it was impactful to the people. This is because people got their own land that was distributed by the government through the ejido system. The struggles and battles fought as well as the campaigning from Emiliano Zapata were influential enough to cause a change in the government and bring land reform into the spotlight. The system implemented during the revolution is still in use today and makes up a large portion of Mexico’s current agricultural land.
Tag: humanities
The 57 Hours I Spent Tracking Central Ideas – LNF Final Assessment
About the Book
The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater is about an agender, quoiromantic teenager named Sasha whose life suddenly changes after their skirt gets lit on fire while they were riding on the 57 Bus. The book is split into 4 main parts: Sasha’s perspective, Richard’s (the criminal’s) perspective, the fire, and the aftermath. Throughout the story, we learn about Sasha’s life and how it differs from Richard’s even though they both live in the same city. We also learn about the flaws in the criminal justice system and how Sasha gets treated after the burn. Both people face challenges such as stereotyping, performing well academically, and encountering the justice system. While reading the book, I took notes on central ideas, themes, and character development.
I enjoyed reading this book as it was fun to read, unique, and allowed me to think about many major issues from multiple perspectives.
Tracking Themes & Central Ideas
Throughout my reading, I added to this notebook page where I listed possible themes, ideas, and issues that the author intended to express through their writing. After finishing the book, I ended up with two main central ideas:
Knowledge of genderqueer identity was not widespread.
Teenagers should be tried as juveniles regardless of the crime they commit.
The Central Ideas
While reading, I noticed that the author went into detail about Sasha’s personality, hobbies, and interests. The information was very intriguing and allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of what type of person Sasha is. I decided to create a notebook page dedicated to all of the information I could find about Sasha.
These interesting details about Sasha could further help me understand and prove the central idea of knowledge on genderqueer identity was not widespread.
I then gathered all the evidence I could find to prove and support this central idea. Here is the notebook page that includes evidence, context, and explanations.
The second main central idea I found was that teenagers should be tried as juveniles regardless of the crime they commit.
I noticed that the text showed Richard’s perspective and experiences, and gave light to how he felt during the entire incident and the aftermath. I also noticed that the author gave lots of context on how the juvenile justice system worked, and that led me to this central idea. According to the text, laws were implemented that charged some juveniles as adults if they committed certain crimes. This law was implemented because of a myth that there were children that were “born to be dangerous to society,” and that if they were not charged as adults, they would take advantage of juvenile protections and cause chaos in the world. This myth turned out to be untrue as the data collected did not suggest that this was true. In fact, crime rates were declining. Anyways, because of the many paragraphs about this issue I read in the book, I thought that it was a big idea that the author wanted to express as it was mentioned all throughout the story.
This page includes quotes from the book and ideas that I jotted down while reading. The overall idea that I wanted to capture in my notes was that although Richard committed a horrible crime, he should not be penalized so severely for it. Being charged as an adult would impact his future. A quote from the text says that the criminal justice system “keeps its victims moving in a circle until swallowed in the vortex of crime.” It’s basically saying that once someone is charged as an adult, they are likely to be criminals for the rest of their lives.
If you are interested in learning more about this topic, I recommend this article from the New York Times, written by the author herself. I’d also suggest reading the book so that you can gain your own understanding and perspective on the ideas expressed through the story.
Thank you for your time! 
This is a Creative Title – “The Hate U Give” Book Talk
In this video, I give a brief summary and go over the theme statement for the book “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas, and I provide evidence from the text to support my theme statement. I also talk about why I recommend this book and what makes the book special.
Theme Statement: The author believes that racism and stereotyping discriminates against minorities who eventually rise up for themselves and retaliate.
Am I a Humanist?
I agree with many of the ideas and values of humanism. Each person should have the potential to succeed in society regardless of bloodline and status. I also strongly agree with the thought that everyone should have access to education. The fact that many humanists tried to make knowledge more accessible is great. The people should be making decisions based off of their own opinion and interests rather than only thinking about religion. The government and religious churches should be separate from each other as they can often conflict with each other. Finally, using the arts and architecture to spread new ideas to the average person helps humans progress and can allow people to think of the world in a different way.
Found Poem – Fishing for Bass or Fishing for Love?
In humanities, we learned about two different types of conflicts in stories: external conflicts and internal conflicts. In The Bass the River and Sheila Mant, there is an internal conflict where the main character has to decide between pursuing his interests and goals or pleasing his crush. On his date, he takes his crush, Sheila Mant to watch a band via a canoe. On the way, he hooks up the largest bass he’s ever seen. His crush said that she does not like fishing, as she thinks “fishing’s dumb” and is “boring and all.” The main character has to decide between catching the fish or pleasing Sheila Mant. He ends up cutting the rope and letting the bass go. Afterward, he felt regret and sadness, as he said that “the memory of the lost bass haunted me all summer and haunts me still.” He also noted that he never made the same mistake again.
Managing Emotions With Percy
Have you ever lost your temper? Have you lost control of all your emotions before? It’s most likely that you have. If you have, don’t worry. Percy Jackson has the same problems that you have, such as shouting and pushing classmates. Managing emotions can help people like Percy do better academically, and to stay physically and mentally healthy. If you are realizing that you’ve been shouting a lot or raising your voice, maybe you have the same problem as Percy. In his book he states: “’Will you shut up???!?!?!?’ — it came out louder than I meant” (pg. 5) In this quote, Percy acknowledges that what he said came out “louder than he meant,” but he doesn’t do anything to change it. Like many people, he knows that he sometimes has problems controlling emotions, and staying mentally healthy, but he still loses control over them occasionally. According to the article, Why Do We Lose Control of Our Emotions, being a kid like Percy is tough as there are many factors when it comes to mental health. Things can happen at school, at home, and even after school. The author wrote that sometimes, it’s hard to “keep a lid on things”, and our emotions eventually “bubble up.” For a kid like Percy, this is exactly what’s happening. He is not doing well academically at school, and he often gets in fights with Nancy Bobofit. Percy also stated that his stepfather is careless and plays poker all day with his friends. These factors from school and home can cause Percy’s emotions to “bubble up.”
If you are experiencing many of these problems that Percy has, you might be wondering about what solutions there are. There are many ways to keep yourself calm and to manage your emotions. According to the article Recognizing and Managing Emotions, there are several ways that we can tell how others are feeling, but the main ways are “observing what they say, how they behave and paying attention to their body language.” This means we can tell if someone is feeling down or not. If you find that your friend is not doing well emotionally, you can try and comfort them. Helping others will give you a sense of pride and could help you out if you are not feeling great. The article also notes that 80% of communication is non-verbal, which means that you really must pay attention to what others are doing to try and help them out. Emotions are not “consciously controlled,” which means that sometimes you will lose control and there’s no way to stop it. There are ways to prevent yourself from losing control in the first place, such as taking deep breaths, talking to someone, and drinking some water. This can prevent you from losing control and “bubbling up” again. Although Percy has had problems managing emotions, he can use these strategies to try and help himself get better.
In conclusion, managing emotions is important and difficult. However, there are many ways you can prevent yourself from losing control, and to keep others around you joyful as well.