Elva

"I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious" - Albert Einstein

Author: Elva

Stranger than Fiction

设计作者:Elva_yin

During the unit ‘Stranger than Fiction’ I read the book ‘Just Mercy’ written by Bryan Stevenson. This is a book that strongly emphasizes the idea of fighting for justice. In the book, Bryan Stevenson presented himself as an internship lawyer, specifically as one of those lawyers who helped people who were wrongfully put on death row. In this book, the author created many small stories, with one big plot of Walter McMillan which is a true story that happened in real life. This implies that this is an issue that is seen as very common in real life showing how people struggle just only for justice, suggesting the importance of taking it seriously.

On the second and third pages are the central idea and theme presented in this book. There are two t-charts on this page showing the two central ideas found in this book with evidence on the left column and thoughts on the right side. This is one of them, “The criminal justice system was broken during the 1980s.”, this central idea leads to the theme statement, which is also related to the “should” statement I created, “people should not get judged quickly by their race, gender, or looks.” The central idea and theme statement didn’t change much from the beginning and end, but the author did reveal it slowly, story by story.

The fourth and fifth pages are ‘big ideas’ and ‘texts are complex’,  these two pages explain what the author wants us to understand the multiple meanings of a section. For example, in the chapter named, ‘Mockingbird Player’, the author’s purpose is to show the similarity between characters in the book Mockingbird, and Walter Mcmillan, implying that racism is commonly seen in real life. For the ‘big ideas’, was the first page of the unit. I listed out things that might be a social issue with many pieces of evidence supporting it, and after finishing the book, those social issues suspected are true.

On the last three pages, I collected evidence throughout the book and synthesized it.  On page seven, I showed the author’s perspective and what the author wants us to get out of this book, which is what I developed at the bottom of the page. On page eight, I used a cause and effect mind map to show my thinking of how I developed the social issue, starting with ‘injustice’ and connecting it with other big ideas with examples in the story. On page nine are some additional notes I took while reading the book.

 

 

Am I a renaissance humanist?

After all this explanation, my answer to the question is yes. I would love to be a humanist. This idea of individualism and education outside of the church is amazing. However, I can’t entirely agree with humanists gathering ideas from ancient Rome/Greece and putting them into practice, where I find this a bit of copying the past. Humanism also plays a role in my life; for example, we learn the subject of humanities in school. Also, the school and my parents always said to compare myself with the past self, relating to the idea of individualism in Renaissance humanism. Overall, I am 80% renaissance humanist.

Found Poem

Hernando Téllez’s short story “Lather and Nothing Else” presents a internal conflict within the protagonist, the barber. The barber is a revolutionary but his client, a captain in the opposing military force, is at his mercy, causing the barber struggles with the decision to kill him or let him go free. With this project, I used two applications to design and create my poem – canva, and Microsoft word.

In the poem, I introduced the key characters – “He” as the captain and “I” as the barber. The opening lines sets up the stage for the building tension, as how I described is “He killed, he mutilated” to explain the captain’s violent acts.

I also putted many contradicting phrases, such as when he has the opportunity to act as an “executioner” and to take the revenge, but still his identity is still a “barber”, in the poem it says “Painless he wouldn’t suffer” and “You’re an executioner and I’m only a barber,” this clearly captures the barber’s internal conflict.

The central image of the hand holding barber tools with blood stains behind it is a powerful visual metaphor, and leads to the question of will the barber use these tools to kill, or will he use it to finish his job.

Welcome to Your New Blog!

When you blog you create posts and posts are categorised according to your subject. Some categories have already been set up for you. If you need more categories you can add them as needed. It’s important that your posts have the following:

  • An engaging title – this should not include the name of the subject since this is referenced in the category.
  • Body – this is where you share your learning. This can include text, images, embedded videos from Dragons’ Tube or elsewhere. You should always consider how your post looks to your audience. Is it engaging? Do they want to keep reading?
  • Category – select one that has been set for you or add a new category. Posts can have more than one category e.g. Humanities and Myself as a Learner

Click on the images below to learn more about blogging:

 

 

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