11th Grade Humanities
The teacher of our class this year is the wonderful Ashley Carruth! Joining us this year from Mountain Middle School, she will be covering US history while exploring the concepts of morality and justice. What is justice? Why do people have a tendency to act morally? Why do some act immorally? How has justice been carried out through our history? These are all very important questions which I look forward to exploring as this year progresses!
Environmental Ethic and Sense of Place
Our final project in both Chemistry and Humanities focused on energy, its production, the environment, and your sense of place. This is why it was spread across the two classes. In Humanities, though, the primary aspect of this project that we're looking at is the environment and our sense of place. For this project, we each were required personal sense of place essays or stories that incorporated our sense of place and the environment, and then create visual pieces based off of those pieces.
I chose the more creative of our options, writing a short story that essentially turned out to be a fictionalized version of my life spanning from middle school to high school. This was unintended at first, but once I had noticed the connection, I attempted to expand upon it. Once I made the connection between my life and the story, its characters became far more meaningful and real to me. If you would like to read this story, please click here.
Overall, I have really enjoyed this project though the visual piece gave me trouble at first. You can see part of it in the picture above. This has been a very informative project though and I'm very glad we took the time to study it!
I chose the more creative of our options, writing a short story that essentially turned out to be a fictionalized version of my life spanning from middle school to high school. This was unintended at first, but once I had noticed the connection, I attempted to expand upon it. Once I made the connection between my life and the story, its characters became far more meaningful and real to me. If you would like to read this story, please click here.
Overall, I have really enjoyed this project though the visual piece gave me trouble at first. You can see part of it in the picture above. This has been a very informative project though and I'm very glad we took the time to study it!
Project Reflection
In order to complete this project, a lot of studying was required both in Chemistry and in Humanities. The goal was to get students to really think about the world around them and where their sense of place is in that world. Furthermore, we needed to study the relationship between humanity's ever-growing need for energy with the alarming issues which can arise from that need. In order to prepare, we learned a lot in class about America's energy consumption and various energy production methods. We spoke with leading figures about natural gas and did individual research overall on coal mining and nuclear energy production as well. We learned about the impact our actions and our thirst for energy had upon the environment and we completed journals in order to open up and decide just where we felt most at home.
It wasn't hard for me to figure out what my sense of place was once I'd spent time working on the journal assignments. However, I had a harder time conveying that sense of place. Or, those senses of place. There are three places where I feel truly at home. First, is the area where I have lived all my life: Durango, Colorado. I have a connection to the land and spaces around here, forged by memories. Second, is the city that I have only visited once: Our very own Atlantis in Venice, Italy. When I was young, I read Cornelia Funke's book, The Thief Lord, and I've wanted to visit Venice ever since. I had the opportunity to do that last summer and, although I'd never been there before, I felt a very real connection to Venice. I hope I am lucky enough to be able to return often. My final "home" is not a place so much as a culture. I have a sort of spiritual connection to Japan, rather than a physical one, because I've never been to Japan before.
However, I ended up choosing to write about something quite different: A short story about a girl who had no sense of place, but rather a sense of displacement. At first, this story was supposed to be a work of fiction, but as I finished the first draft and had spoken with Ashley about that draft, I realized that I had subconsciously drawn on a piece from my not-so-distant past. This became a great point of personal growth for me, as I look back at the girl I once was contrasted against the girl I am today. I was once very similar to Kayleigh, the heroine in my story, but as I ventured into Animas, I slowly became a person who is far more confident and connected to the world. Because of this, it is easy for me to say that this has been one of the most valuable projects I have ever completed.
I am very happy with the outcomes of both components in this project, and I am especially pleased with how my visual piece turned out. I created my piece by using a large encyclopedia on nature, painting all around the outside edges of the pages with Mod Podge to glue them together in two halves. Then, I took an x-acto knife to the pages of the book. This can be seen above. I feel that I did well in integrating the perspective of my writing into the essay, because I showed both Kayleigh's sense of place and her alienation at the same time, drawing in the oil rigs from her world and creating a piece that portrayed her voice loud and clear. This is why I'm happy with my visual piece.
Overall, I really did enjoy this project in both classes. It was very interesting and let me explore a topic which I know knew a little about at the beginning. Unfortunately, the classes did begin to feel very isolated, like separate projects that just happen to have similar focuses. However, the studying that was undertaken before these projects was very beneficial and I enjoyed having two different focuses on our impact upon the environment. This was a worthwhile project simply because of how much I learned about myself and my society's relation to the world. I am interested in looking at this subject far more in the future.
It wasn't hard for me to figure out what my sense of place was once I'd spent time working on the journal assignments. However, I had a harder time conveying that sense of place. Or, those senses of place. There are three places where I feel truly at home. First, is the area where I have lived all my life: Durango, Colorado. I have a connection to the land and spaces around here, forged by memories. Second, is the city that I have only visited once: Our very own Atlantis in Venice, Italy. When I was young, I read Cornelia Funke's book, The Thief Lord, and I've wanted to visit Venice ever since. I had the opportunity to do that last summer and, although I'd never been there before, I felt a very real connection to Venice. I hope I am lucky enough to be able to return often. My final "home" is not a place so much as a culture. I have a sort of spiritual connection to Japan, rather than a physical one, because I've never been to Japan before.
However, I ended up choosing to write about something quite different: A short story about a girl who had no sense of place, but rather a sense of displacement. At first, this story was supposed to be a work of fiction, but as I finished the first draft and had spoken with Ashley about that draft, I realized that I had subconsciously drawn on a piece from my not-so-distant past. This became a great point of personal growth for me, as I look back at the girl I once was contrasted against the girl I am today. I was once very similar to Kayleigh, the heroine in my story, but as I ventured into Animas, I slowly became a person who is far more confident and connected to the world. Because of this, it is easy for me to say that this has been one of the most valuable projects I have ever completed.
I am very happy with the outcomes of both components in this project, and I am especially pleased with how my visual piece turned out. I created my piece by using a large encyclopedia on nature, painting all around the outside edges of the pages with Mod Podge to glue them together in two halves. Then, I took an x-acto knife to the pages of the book. This can be seen above. I feel that I did well in integrating the perspective of my writing into the essay, because I showed both Kayleigh's sense of place and her alienation at the same time, drawing in the oil rigs from her world and creating a piece that portrayed her voice loud and clear. This is why I'm happy with my visual piece.
Overall, I really did enjoy this project in both classes. It was very interesting and let me explore a topic which I know knew a little about at the beginning. Unfortunately, the classes did begin to feel very isolated, like separate projects that just happen to have similar focuses. However, the studying that was undertaken before these projects was very beneficial and I enjoyed having two different focuses on our impact upon the environment. This was a worthwhile project simply because of how much I learned about myself and my society's relation to the world. I am interested in looking at this subject far more in the future.
Korematsu v. the United States
For the past several weeks in class we have been looking at the Japanese Internment camps. These were camps that the Japanese were sent to after the attack on Pearl Harbor. This followed the passing of Executive Order 9066 by President Roosevelt and then Civilian Exclusion orders which declared certain areas on the west coast military zones and then forced those citizens of Japanese ancestry out of those zones. The main focus of our project was to re-enact the trial of Korematsu v the Unites States. Each student was given different roles: lawyer or witness for the defence, lawyer or witness for the prosecution, or judge/jury. The position that I was given for this trial was judge along with three other students in my class: Hunter, Brittney, and Addie. This project was interesting to me for a number of reasons, the first and foremost of which is the fact that I'd never studied the Japanese internment camps with any depth before if I'd studied them at all. In preparation for the trial we read multiple articles from the times as well as excerpts from two opposing readings: A People's History of the United States, and A Patriot's History of the United States. We also read a debriefing of the trial as well as statements from judges on both sides of the argument. Then, we had our own trial.
To read about Korematsu and to read my pre-trial summary, which includes a bio on Korematsu and the definitions of various legal documents that are relevant to the case and a pre-trial reflection, click here.
Korematsu v. the United States Project Reflection
Lacey Meek
The assignment for this project was simple. Reenact the trial Korematsu v. the United States as lawyers, judges, and witnesses and then come to a ruling on that trial. To study this, we started by reading and completing a seminar on the book Snow Falling on Cedars, which is a story about a Japanese-American man on trial for the possible murder of a fisherman, Carl Heine. You can read about it here.
Next we read and annotated many different papers after being assigned our parts in the trial. I was assigned to be a judge along with my fellow juniors Hunter, Brittney, and Addie. We spent time looking at Executive Order 9066 and Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34 which were the two documents we were ruling on in this trial. We needed to determine whether each order was constitutional based on the rules of strict scrutiny, which has three requirements: there must be justified by compelling governmental interest, it must be narrowly tailored, and must be the least restrictive means possible. If these documents don't meet the requirements of strict scrutiny, then they are unconstitutional.
In this project, we worked as a team to get through the readings, discussing them and their meanings and helping each other to better understand the process an the requirements of being a judge. This was a valuable experience to me because we needed to collaborate strongly in order to prepare adequately for this project and it was really nice to have others to bounce my ideas off of and to compare my work to to make sure I was doing it correctly. Really we worked together quite well, this was a strong group. If one of us had a question then the others would work hard in order to make sure that that one understood. We blocked out the time until our trial and then used it efficiently in order to gather the most possible information we could before the trial commenced. I wouldn't have wanted to take this portion of the trial on without the other because they were that much help and that much fun to work with.
For this trial we had to write pre-trial case summaries in which we needed to explain Korematsu's life before he was arrested when he was arrested, and why he was arrested. We needed to explain which resources (such as habeus corpus) were going to need to be understood in this trial and define each of them. I went to a number of different sources to find information for this paper including information from the Fred T. Korematsu Institute in order to understand Korematsu better. These sources allowed me to understand Korematsu better and to understand his plight. He was an American citizen. He'd been fired from two jobs which both suggested that this was on racial causes because he'd been fired in mass with the other Japanese workers. He had an Italian-American girlfriend who he wanted to stay with. These were all strong influencing factors in his decision to defy the exclusion orders and I hadn't known much of this before writing the case summary. Writing the summary definitely gave me better information on the case and allowed me to understand the trial and those involved better, therefore helping me to judge the trial with adequate information given.
This project was very interesting and I really enjoyed it because it gave me a way to look into the past, at something that I'd never really looked at before, and to look at that time in a manner that allowed me to interact actively with the materials presented. I would, however, suggest to anyone who did this again, to really look at objections because they were some of the trickiest components of the trial, and held us up often throughout the trial because we judges didn't know how to rule on them half the time. I also would not have minded more time to work on the readings and research beforehand so that I could have taken more time to look at each article rather than just rush through them, trying to get to the next one so that I'd be prepared for the trial. This wasn't really a bad period of time, but if it could have been longer, that would have been nice. Overall though this project was really fun and I had a great time with it! It was really fun to work in these trials and it's honestly made being a lawyer something that I'd consider as a career which is something that I'd never have even considered before.
To read about Korematsu and to read my pre-trial summary, which includes a bio on Korematsu and the definitions of various legal documents that are relevant to the case and a pre-trial reflection, click here.
Korematsu v. the United States Project Reflection
Lacey Meek
The assignment for this project was simple. Reenact the trial Korematsu v. the United States as lawyers, judges, and witnesses and then come to a ruling on that trial. To study this, we started by reading and completing a seminar on the book Snow Falling on Cedars, which is a story about a Japanese-American man on trial for the possible murder of a fisherman, Carl Heine. You can read about it here.
Next we read and annotated many different papers after being assigned our parts in the trial. I was assigned to be a judge along with my fellow juniors Hunter, Brittney, and Addie. We spent time looking at Executive Order 9066 and Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34 which were the two documents we were ruling on in this trial. We needed to determine whether each order was constitutional based on the rules of strict scrutiny, which has three requirements: there must be justified by compelling governmental interest, it must be narrowly tailored, and must be the least restrictive means possible. If these documents don't meet the requirements of strict scrutiny, then they are unconstitutional.
In this project, we worked as a team to get through the readings, discussing them and their meanings and helping each other to better understand the process an the requirements of being a judge. This was a valuable experience to me because we needed to collaborate strongly in order to prepare adequately for this project and it was really nice to have others to bounce my ideas off of and to compare my work to to make sure I was doing it correctly. Really we worked together quite well, this was a strong group. If one of us had a question then the others would work hard in order to make sure that that one understood. We blocked out the time until our trial and then used it efficiently in order to gather the most possible information we could before the trial commenced. I wouldn't have wanted to take this portion of the trial on without the other because they were that much help and that much fun to work with.
For this trial we had to write pre-trial case summaries in which we needed to explain Korematsu's life before he was arrested when he was arrested, and why he was arrested. We needed to explain which resources (such as habeus corpus) were going to need to be understood in this trial and define each of them. I went to a number of different sources to find information for this paper including information from the Fred T. Korematsu Institute in order to understand Korematsu better. These sources allowed me to understand Korematsu better and to understand his plight. He was an American citizen. He'd been fired from two jobs which both suggested that this was on racial causes because he'd been fired in mass with the other Japanese workers. He had an Italian-American girlfriend who he wanted to stay with. These were all strong influencing factors in his decision to defy the exclusion orders and I hadn't known much of this before writing the case summary. Writing the summary definitely gave me better information on the case and allowed me to understand the trial and those involved better, therefore helping me to judge the trial with adequate information given.
This project was very interesting and I really enjoyed it because it gave me a way to look into the past, at something that I'd never really looked at before, and to look at that time in a manner that allowed me to interact actively with the materials presented. I would, however, suggest to anyone who did this again, to really look at objections because they were some of the trickiest components of the trial, and held us up often throughout the trial because we judges didn't know how to rule on them half the time. I also would not have minded more time to work on the readings and research beforehand so that I could have taken more time to look at each article rather than just rush through them, trying to get to the next one so that I'd be prepared for the trial. This wasn't really a bad period of time, but if it could have been longer, that would have been nice. Overall though this project was really fun and I had a great time with it! It was really fun to work in these trials and it's honestly made being a lawyer something that I'd consider as a career which is something that I'd never have even considered before.
The Morality and Politics of Justice
Project Reflection:
The purpose of this project was to teach us how to view today's heated political issues not through a lens of our political affiliation but a lens of what is the most morally just way for us to handle these issues. As a class we looked at moral dilemmas such as Kohlberg's Heinz Dilemma, and learned how to code responses to these dilemmas on a scale of 1-6, 1 being pre-conventional moral reasoning and 6 being post-conventional moral reasoning. After learning this we each chose a political issue and conducted anonymous interviews. We then took their answers and coded them before writing essays about that person's moral reasoning stage. This gave us the chance to look at these dilemmas more objectively by seeing what other people had to say on the matters. Next, we wrote op-ed articles about a different political issue which would ultimately be the issue that we presented in our coffee-house exhibition. The issue that I chose was education inequalities and what should be done to correct these inequalities. I worked mostly off a chapter from the novel Savage Inequalities, by Jonathan Kozol in addition to conducting research on how schools were currently being funded. Then I created a solution that would take a step in the direction of correcting these inequalities. Finally, we created posters that represented these issues and our opinions on them to those who attended the exhibition.
The habit of heart and mind that I used most in this project was definitely perseverance. I couldn't find anything on school funding until the night before our project was due. However, I kept looking and eventually did find a very helpful article. I also didn't have very clear perspectives or arguments in the first draft of my article and took the time to hammer out each paragraph multiple times in order to make my argument much more clear and refine the overall article. Finally, I attempted to use GIMP to create my poster but it absolutely wasn't working. Therefore, I persevered and drew my poster by hand, using pencil, ruler, and art markers in order to make my project as refined as I could. Instead of giving up I kept pushing forward until I had every element of this project ready and refined for exhibition. The most challenging part of this project to me was definitely the short amount of time that we were given to create our project but I put my all into the project and am satisfied with the results of my efforts.
Looking back on the rubrics provided for us, I would have to say that my Op-ed article is strongest in the evidence category. I used a lot of evidence from my sources and used citations as well as integrated the evidence into my article very nicely. However, I wish I could have had more time to make this poster more refined and I could have done that if I had more time to write the article and refine it. My poster is strongest in the refinement section of its rubric. I used light pencil and a ruler to make my lines straight as well as a reference in order to make it more accurate to a real scale. Once I had the outline in pencil, I wrote over it using various black, red, and blue art pens and then filled the scale in with two shades of gold. I put a lot of time and refinement into the poster and that is why it is now strongest in that category. My quote could have definitely been integrated into the project more than it was though in a way that was more aesthetically pleasing. Overall I feel like I have earned an A at 97% on this project because I worked hard to refine my ideas and the various pieces. At the exact same time though I feel like I could have definitely refined the article even more than it was but given the time we had, the effort I put into each piece would earn me this grade.
If I had another week to work on this project I would have attempted to find an actual scale rather than just draw one. This would have been more interactive and may make my point more clear. I would keep all of the elements the same, simply write things on the scale instead of on a poster of the scale. I would also spend a lot more time creating draft after draft of my article and having more people critique my project. This would make it even stronger and allow me to improve upon the proofreading errors that both my computer and I make when I'm rushing to get something written.
The habit of heart and mind that I used most in this project was definitely perseverance. I couldn't find anything on school funding until the night before our project was due. However, I kept looking and eventually did find a very helpful article. I also didn't have very clear perspectives or arguments in the first draft of my article and took the time to hammer out each paragraph multiple times in order to make my argument much more clear and refine the overall article. Finally, I attempted to use GIMP to create my poster but it absolutely wasn't working. Therefore, I persevered and drew my poster by hand, using pencil, ruler, and art markers in order to make my project as refined as I could. Instead of giving up I kept pushing forward until I had every element of this project ready and refined for exhibition. The most challenging part of this project to me was definitely the short amount of time that we were given to create our project but I put my all into the project and am satisfied with the results of my efforts.
Looking back on the rubrics provided for us, I would have to say that my Op-ed article is strongest in the evidence category. I used a lot of evidence from my sources and used citations as well as integrated the evidence into my article very nicely. However, I wish I could have had more time to make this poster more refined and I could have done that if I had more time to write the article and refine it. My poster is strongest in the refinement section of its rubric. I used light pencil and a ruler to make my lines straight as well as a reference in order to make it more accurate to a real scale. Once I had the outline in pencil, I wrote over it using various black, red, and blue art pens and then filled the scale in with two shades of gold. I put a lot of time and refinement into the poster and that is why it is now strongest in that category. My quote could have definitely been integrated into the project more than it was though in a way that was more aesthetically pleasing. Overall I feel like I have earned an A at 97% on this project because I worked hard to refine my ideas and the various pieces. At the exact same time though I feel like I could have definitely refined the article even more than it was but given the time we had, the effort I put into each piece would earn me this grade.
If I had another week to work on this project I would have attempted to find an actual scale rather than just draw one. This would have been more interactive and may make my point more clear. I would keep all of the elements the same, simply write things on the scale instead of on a poster of the scale. I would also spend a lot more time creating draft after draft of my article and having more people critique my project. This would make it even stronger and allow me to improve upon the proofreading errors that both my computer and I make when I'm rushing to get something written.