This week was the start of a newfound responsibility. We had to adjust from being read aloud to, to taking our job of reading on our own. This helps us to realize that there are times when we are alone on things and need to be able to take responsibility and finish the task given. Some will be able to exceed, while others will fail, and that's how we learn to change our behaviors. Another important topic that is being discussed is the story of Huck Finn and how he is being influenced by others. Huck shows a lot of responsibility, which definitely ties in with us learning to be responsible. The story demonstrates many tales of failure and triumph, just like we do in our everyday lives. Maybe we aren't running away from our hometown, but we all face struggles that we need to cope with. Even if it's something as small as a bad day, the stories of Huck Finn's successes are great examples that we can take with us forever.
The main subject of this week was the idea of coping with alienation and isolation. We came up with a big question and mine was 'how does someone accept being segregated and secluded?' We took these big questions and incorporated them into the story Huckleberry Finn. We looked at text clues and thought about how Huck's life went along perfectly with the theme. Huck's life was based around his drunk and abusive father, and then being stuck into a foster family he wanted nothing to do with. He felt severely out of place in both places and thought that his only escape would be through his friend Tom Sawyer, but it wasn't. All of these isolated feelings left him no choice but to fake his death and run away. This fits into my question because he was not yet able to accept his seclusion and tried to run from it.
Well I spent this entire week sick at home, so I have no idea what we did, but I assume we learned stuff. On Monday, the only day I was here, we spent the class period coming up with questions we want to answer about Coping with Alienation and Isolation. It's pretty hard to catch up on the days that I've missed, especially when there is a substitute on the day I came back. This week we finished reading The Crucible and looked at other examples of text to show that the power of the individual is present everywhere. We began coming up with an initial statement and refined thesis and used our text examples to answer these. This has been a really great way to work with others and share our ideas on the subject at hand. Even with a snow day on monday, the amount of work we have done is impressive. With the marking period almost at an end, trying to finish everything we need to is a little hard, but I think I will be able to. Next marking period will be a great new start.
This week definitely started out rough, the first week back always is, less sleep, sudden changes, and a whole new schedule. But even with these changes we continued The Crucible. We spent a lot of time in classroom discussions where we talked about how things related to each other. We listened to music, watched the act, and did many things to help solidify our ideas. I learned that when someone has a higher authority, sometimes it can be very hard to step down and admit their faults. This was shown a lot between Parris and Danforth. They both started to realize that the girls could be lying and that they killed many innocent people. They were too scared to admit their wrong doings because they knew that they would lose their jobs, authority, and most important, their wealth. At this point it doesn't really matter if they have to continue, as long as the truth is kept hidden.
This week we continued reading The Crucible. We discussed how the power of the individual applies to this scenario with Abigail gaining power as her lies and the witch trials continue. We also looked at some music connections to help us better understand the text. It's kind of crazy to think about how big and how common the witch trials are becoming in this story. As more people are accused, more lies are made, and Abigail gains power. John tells her that she needs to confess to what she has done but refuses. One of her main goals is to eliminate Elizabeth Proctor so she can take her spot in John's heart. Even with John's threats, it is still in Abigail's intentions to get Elizabeth killed. It is not yet known what Abigail would do with all of this power, but it would not be used for good.
This week we started learning about the Salem witch trials and about how paranoid everyone was during that time. Religion played a big role in how we perceived "witches" and how we were to handle them. Witches were said to be workers for the devil, and were most often women, because we believed that women were most persuaded by the promises that Satan makes to them. It's pretty crazy to think that this actually happened. This ties into the unit "The Power of the Individual" because back then we didn't really know how to think for ourselves and were very influenced by what religion told us to believe and what other people said. It's also interesting to see how different everything was back then compared to now. Sexist beliefs were all normal back then, but we've now overcome that. I like how we are learning about these trials in class because it's a lot more interactive unlike other classes where you just read and are expected to understand the text. We actually take the time to fully understand every aspect of this time period and I think that makes all the difference.
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