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Showing posts with the label Winter term 2020

Naturalizing Language

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Over the past couple of weeks, in my humanities course, A Nation's Argument, we have been studying the events that led up to the ratification of the Bill of Rights. For us to gain a better understanding of the rights American citizens have under the U.S. Constitution, we looked at the first 15 amendments. We especially investigated the 13th amendment specifically, Article one which states, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." This amendment ties into what the discussions we had in class concerning the events that took place in the 1850s. As we moved forward into this unit, we also watched Ava DuVernay's documentary, 13th, to get an improved perception of the reality of the 13th amendment. Finally, we continued thinking about the rights American citizens have that are guaranteed under the U.S. Const...

Can you see what I hear?

Welcome to my second action project for my STEAM course, Light Sound and Time! In this unit, we investigated in the sound part of Light Sound and Time. First, we learned about the parts of the human ear and how we hear. Then we went over to the Chicago Hearing Society, where we talked to four hard of hearing people about their experiences being hard of hearing or deaf. Finally, we learned more about the Doppler effect, frequency vs. wavelength, and much more. To wrap up this unit, we were assigned to go out on our own to a music/guitar shop to learn more about guitars. This was a useful step that gave us a better idea of how guitars work so that we can eventually create our own. We did just that! For this action project, we were tasked to create a diddley bow. Below is my project! The process of building my diddley bow was a frustrating one, but in the end, everything turned out well. My classmates were having trouble tying the guitar string, so I kindly offered my ex...

Thought Without Fear

In my junior humanities course,  A Nation's Argument , we studied what makes up an argument. Throughout our investigation of this topic, we learned that in order for something to be considered an argument there must be two positions with an end goal of clarification. A part of learning about what makes up an argument, we learned about deductive and inductive reasoning. We also analyzed the United States' Declaration of Independence of 1776 to get a better idea of what an effective argument looks like. As we analyzed the United State's Declaration of Independence, we found that other countries had similar reasons for declaring independence. For Field Experiences, we went to Chicago City Hall where we watched aldermen pass ordinances. We also went and talked to Alderman Walter Burnett of the 27th ward about his 25-years as Alderman, and how he has been able to keep a solid argument for so long. To wrap up our first unit of this course,  Thesis: the 1770s , we were tasked to c...