Throughout the year, we've been focusing on a lot of different themes of English and History. There was the past, obviously, and there was the future. All the things that we have taken in have been extremely beneficial to our lives. We've learned lessons and taken in values from other people's mistakes or ideas.

In English, though the first part of the year was focused on descriptive stories, we have certainly learned how to decipher the true moral values that could help us later on in life, or at this point in our lives. "Days are not always what they seem." From a short simple paragraph grew a descriptive essay. Of which, I admit, was not my best work, but, looking back... it helped a lot in the end of the year. In our descriptive essays we were to link two different occurrences together by a bigger idea. In my essay, the bigger idea was that days are not always what they seem. I figured this would be a nice topic, because as Hannah Montana says, "everybody makes mistakes, everybody has those days, everybody knows what I'm talking about, everybody gets that way." I just feel that everyone can relate to having those days, good or bad. So, that’s the reason I wrote about them.

Another project in English, was the last quarter benchmark, which was a three page thesis paper. I feel that this one was the much more refined version of the second benchmark. The Lord of The Flies paper was a thesis paper, but the past quarter, there was a lot of improvement. The outside source was better, and much more on point in getting an exact example that related to the thesis. The thesis was “When you have people who surround you with love, and they do something that may be unkind to you in a way, is it considered 'out of love?”

In history the values were a little different. There were always something about the world involved in beliefs and ideas. In my op-ed, it was all about nuclear power. ""It looks like our world leaders 'have it under control' for right now. I wonder where this will take us in about 5 years?" There were many sides to take in this piece. The good, the bad, the smart, the stupid.  Like Mr. Block said, a good topic should be controversial. And, I think this one was a very controversial topic that could have been further debated.

A last example for history was the museum proposal. I feel like I poured my heart and soul into this benchmark. I did tons and tons of research, and it felt like I was sitting at my desk for hours. I feel like it was maybe one of my strongest benchmarks. “You could see how the Dutch really monopolized an innocent country that was rich in goods.” Like the op-ed, this one was benchmark was controversial as well. It supported colonialism rather than not supporting it like the other benchmarks were.

Overall, I loved my sophomore year. English and history were maybe 2 of my favorite subjects, even though they may not have been my strongest. They were the ones that I had the most fun in everyday, and it would be a complete loss if I missed out on these classes, so I'm glad that I've gotten to experience all of this, this whole year. I've really valued my time here.

Tyreé Wright

Iron Stream

6/11/11

Final Portfolio

Art, English, Plays, History, World, Dance, Poetry, Diversity, Religion, News, Change, Revolution, New, Beginning, Corruption, Government, Pain, Torture, Genocide, Survival, Understanding, Slavery, Trial, Judgment, Stereotypes, Hope. These words have created my 10^th grade education.  I have gone through anything but a normal English and History courses. Many of my friends out side my own school have told me stories of the many tests and papers they have had to write over the year. When I ask them what they remember about the projects they needed to do, or the papers they needed to write they cant remember. When I tell them about my projects and number of pages I have done this year they cry for me. I have had a most unorthodox year with Mr. Block.

I have written a play in History class about librarian Pirates. We started with a few monologues and through over ten pages of revisions and work we submitted them to Philadelphia Young Play Rights. Writing a full play for history class seems like an English assignment, this is not true. We had to research a topic on a present day event and create a story about it first as monologues, then as full plays. This is the first time I have ever been in a class that took such a drastic spin on tradition.

Monologue Project 

            We went far beyond the goal of understanding news and journalism to writing our own Op-Eds. We took interesting real world topics and made them into articles that draw the attention of people and make them think. These topics are things out of the obvious and serious under looked problems. We submitted this assignment to real newspapers. Through email we sent our papers and contacted them as students in hopes that they would be added to a section of the paper, going beyond the call of the everyday standards of an English Class.

Op-Ed

          Another thing we learned was how to create poetry. We went through all the stages from learning simple rhyme to writing five different poems. Not saying these poems simply had different words for each, which would be easy. The five poems I wrote were five different types of poems all together, they consisted of, Memory, Riff, and I was raised by, a Sonnet and an Ode. Each poem has its own unique them or story about my life. The Riff poem is about my martial arts training, my Ode is expressing my love for my favorite hat, and the Memory poem is about an event that happened in my life. Each poem is detailed and fallows its own individual them.

Poetry 

     Many schools don’t take the time to teach the children about religion. We learned the facts and the struggles many people go through. The assignment was to research a religion and make a creative wiki about a point. Mine was the on the oppression of Muslim women. I went into the hardships they are forced to go through, and how they deal with it. I compared this religion to Christianity and went into how they both oppress their women. Throughout both English and History I have learned many different things about my world in such ways that I will never forget any of them. I hope that my projects can be used to help future generations to have a unique education like I have had.

Iron Religion

We started with descriptive essays for English, which were rather difficult for me. Due to my lack of the ability to use words to really describe my environment, my grade didn’t really shine as well as I wanted it to. I think it was really because of my lack to want to try something that I didn’t really want to do. It was outside of my comfort zone and I didn’t really want to attempt it because of that. I guess in a way you can say I was more, close-minded then. I wasn’t open to new things.

Later on in the year for history we had to do a trial. This trial was very exciting for me considering I find the whole law system to be a very interesting and amazing thing to be a part of. We studied Cortés and his expedition. The trial was to see who was the guiltiest. This assignment made us find research and then apply what we learned to make the other groups guilty. I, as the prosecutor really enjoyed my job. I got to target the other groups and make them sound guilty. I was able to apply my knowledge from watching law and order in to my classroom assignment!

Later in the year for English, we had to create poetry. This was another English assignment that I wasn’t exactly too comfortable with. I just find it hard to express my feelings or things that have happened in my life through words. I got through it and I was a little bit more enthusiastic about the whole thing where as before I when I had to do something outside my comfort zone I would have not been enthusiastic at all.

For history at the end of the year, we had to create an exhibit. The exhibit project required us to create an exhibit that demonstrated the effects of colonization. It was a really fun project because we were able to be creative with it. It allowed us to make our own creation. It required us to be more time conservative of ourselves since we had to find the research and then create the whole project.

In the beginning of the year, I specifically remember saying, “oh I don’t want to do that stupid dance!” Now this dance was the art in the open dance that we were required to do at the end of the year. I can tell that my opinion changed because I loved doing it. I went from, “ew, I don’t want to do this,” to, “that was fun!” It was a great experience and I will always remember it. 

In the end of the year I think I can take away the ability to say, “I can be more enthusiastic about things I don’t like.” Also, I think I have gained the ability to manage my time. It really has made me more independent. This is why when I say I have gone through a lot with Mr. Block, I really have. His classes have made me into a better and more of my own individual.