I’ve found this particular template helpful in the crafting of my essay. It organizes the paragraphs and helps me think of what to write about. Sometimes I’ll forget to textual evidence or I won’t have a real structure to my writing. Another piece of the template that I find helpful is that after using the template more and more, you start to see how detailed each section is. For example, the analysis is where you do most of the thinking. That part should have more detail then your explanatory sentence. I think I have found the template more useful this time than compared to the Giver essay. I could feel it getting more confusing this time then last time and I think the outline helped me. I think that the format of each paragraph really helps me stay on track. I like how you start with big ideas and then narrow it down to the details and then at the conclusion you talk about the big main idea and the message that you were trying to get across. Here’s my first draft in the outline form.

Name: Meadow                                             Humanities

7th Grade                                                                         Comparative Essay

Outline for Crucible/McCarthy Comparative Essay

Theme: Sexism

Paragraph #1: Introductory Paragraph (GIT)

Grabber Statement (G): Females make up 49.6% of the population and yet they still face misogyny today. Every human being you know or have heard of came from a woman so why don’t we show women a little respect? Without females, No living animal would be alive. Do you really want to see a world where women are ashamed about the nature of their bodies and brains?

Introduction of Theme (I): Sexism has not ended and it won’t end if we don’t change our behaviour towards women. The salem witch trials, the baby boom in the 1950s, and our presidency today have demonstrated sexism in many shapes and sizes. We are constantly having to battle the objectification of women. There is no excuse for women to be treated unequally to men.      

Thesis Statement (T): Sexism and oppression of women has been around since the beginning of human evolution and still hasn’t stopped because women are constantly being marginalized by men.  

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Paragraph #2: Crucible Thematic Connection

Topic Sentence (T): Sexism and the objectification of women are evident in the Crucible by Arthur Miller because women get accused of being witches and can’t defend themselves. These oppressive forces disempower women.

Explanatory Sentence (E): When people start being blamed for witchcraft, names are being said left and right. Abigail is one of the main accusers that list people that have conferred, supposedly, with the devil. When Giles Corey’s wife is accused, he tries to defend her. Earlier in the book, Giles made a statement saying that his wife was reading books and then he wasn’t able to pray. Now he deeply regrets it.    

Evidence (E): “Giles: It is my third wife, sir. I never had no wife that be so taken with books, and I thought to find the cause of it, d’y’see, but it were no witch I blamed her for.” (The Crucible, page 91)

Analysis (A): This quote shows sexism because when a woman reads a single book, they are thought to be witches. They are seen as objects in the eyes of men and when that object thinks for itself, it is seen as wrong and distasteful. Women weren’t considered normal if they did anything that wasn’t what a loyal, Christian, “white” woman does. Sexism restrained the women from doing anything that wasn’t housework. Their minds were withheld from their true potential. Sexism is a constant issue brought up many times in this book. Very rarely was there ever a man accused of witchcraft in 1692 and when they were, it was only for vengeance. Giles made a mistake when he said his wife was reading books. In their sexist society, hysteria was spreading and any piece of information was held against themselves. Men wouldn’t stand up for females because when they did, they were classified to be working with the devil too.   

Concluding/ Transition (C): The Salem Witch Trials showed us the horrible things that can happen when women are oppressed.

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Paragraph #3: McCarthy/Red Scare Thematic Connection

Topic Sentence (T): Women in 1950’s America were not thought of as equals to men and were marginalized.  

Explanatory Sentence (E):The oppression and sexism against women in those times was so huge that it made headlines in newspapers.  

Evidence (E): “The suburban baby boom had a particularly confining effect on women. Advice books and magazine articles (“Don’t Be Afraid to Marry Young,” “Cooking To Me Is Poetry,” “Femininity Begins At Home”) urged women to leave the workforce and embrace their roles as wives and mothers. The idea that a woman’s most important job was to bear and rear children was hardly a new one, but it took on a new significance in the postwar era.” (History.com, Baby Boomers)

Analysis (A): In this age, women were treated like chattel. They were only accessories to their husbands. They wouldn’t have any freedom to do “male” jobs. They were a side thought. The only reason they were considered useful then was to have babies and cook food. They were seen to have no intellectual capabilities. This was sexism being shown in the 1950s. The message being told to the women at the time was: your husband is back now and you can go back back in the kitchen. Women weren’t allowed to be in the army. They weren’t allowed to get the same respect that the men got.          

Concluding/ Transition (C): This sexism and oppression shown in the 1950’s is still alive today.

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Paragraph #4: Modern Day Witch Hunt Thematic Connection

Topic Sentence (T): Sexism has left the attention of most people and has oppressed females even more.   

Explanatory Sentence (E): It is 2017 and the leader of our country is a sexist, bigoted, racist shell of a man.  

Evidence (E): “ A son of a presidential candidate, and others, questioned the legitimacy of sexual harassment in the workplace. A powerful executive dismissed gender inequality in his male-dominated industry. Conversations around the upcoming Olympic Games have revealed a fundamental difference in the way we talk about men and women athletes.

Wait … it IS 2016, isn’t it?

Thanks to social media and a growing understanding of women’s issues, there is less tolerance in our society these days for sexism and regressive comments. When someone steps out of line, they are more likely to get called out — on Twitter, if not in person.” (CNN.com, What’s with all the sexism?)

Analysis (A): Sexism is still very much alive and sadly it has left the attention of others. People don’t see how much sexism is in our daily life because it is so driven into our brains. Donald Trump is one of the most sexist people in the world and now he is also one of the most powerful. We as a nation have worked so hard to get where we are and he will now bring us back in time to where women were oppressed. Saying, “Grab them by the P***y” and calling Hillary Clinton a “Nasty woman” and saying “Ranking women is all good fun.” isn’t okay from our president or anyone. He has openly judged women on their appearance. There are so many women that have been shown such disrespect from our president, of all people. People like Paris Hilton, Carly Fiorina, Rosie O’Donnell, Megyn Kelly, Arianna Huffington, his own daughter and many more have been impacted and objectified by Donald Trump. Donald Trump also made an executive order that blocked reproductive rights. This shouldn’t be happening in this day and age. No matter your gender, sex, or what you look like, you should be able to feel free and happy. Harassment and assault towards anyone needs to stop. People should be treated equally by now.  

Concluding/ Transition (C): If it’s your body, it should be your choice.  

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Paragraph #5: Concluding Paragraph (ROC)

Reflection on Thesis (R): Sexism is pervasive force against women. People might say that it helped shape our country, but is a shameful side to nation’s past. Think about how many smart and intelligent women have been oppressed into silence by leaders and peers of this society.

Overview of Main Points (O): The Salem Witch Trials, The Red Scare, and present day have shown that our society can’t climb out of the ditch where people are pouring sexist ideas and trying to wash out logic from our feminist brains. Women have been repeatedly marginalized. Women were murdered because of power hungry people that silenced them into oblivion. They were objectified when their husbands came back from the war. And now our leader is oppressing an entire gender.   

Concluding Idea (C): Why hasn’t this ended yet? We’re not changing our misogynistic ways. We’re not making equal pay for both genders, or giving reproductive rights to women. Women can’t control how they were born and the least America can do is to judge us for who we are. We should feel safe and not have to worry about getting sexaully assaulted everytime we walk outside. It won’t stop until we all work together to stop sexism.

Name: Meadow September 9, 2016

Humanities Making Thirteen Colonies

Directions: Finish reading chapter 1 in Making Thirteen Colonies. Answer the following questions below, responding in complete sentences and using textual evidence and analysis. This assignment is due Monday, September 12th. Proofread your work carefully.

1.What is the main idea of this chapter?

The main idea in this chapter is that new ideas are pushing away religion to make space for science in the new world. It is all about change and how change will keep coming. Galileo took up Copernicus’s work and started to think of the world differently. “Everyone knew that the planets and stars and sun all revolved around the earth. If that idea was wrong then the pope and all of Europe’s rulers were wrong.” Page 16 by Hakim. All that Galileo had to do now was to prove it, prove that almost everyone in the world wrong. And you have to be convincing to change the idea that is so deeply engraved in everyone’s mind. This was just the beginning to a whole new world. After that, people started inventing things, having more questions and ideas. The world started to change for the better. Religion, however, took a different path. Everyone became so interested in science and education, so much so that the prior religious ideas no longer made sense. Science was taking over the world, and it started with two very important people.   

2   Identify/Define the following names/terms:

(no textual evidence needed for these)

1.    Galileo Galilei:

Galileo was an Italian scientist that discovered an idea that was soon to change the world. He believed that the sun just might be the center of the universe, instead of the earth which was currently indoctrinated in many of the European’s minds. He got this idea after a comet soared across the sky in 1607. Nicholas Copernicus, another astronomer just like Galileo, had his own doubts about the solar system well before Galileo was even alive. Before Copernicus died in 1543, he had the hypothesis that planets and stars all revolved around the sun. During his life, this idea went unrecognized for many years. It went against everything that Europeans knew. No one believed him; his idea never caught on. Several years later after Galileo was born, he was contemplating his research. If that is all true, it challenged the Pope and all of the most powerful European leader’s beliefs.  “Of course, that disturbing idea got Galileo into a lot of trouble.” Page 16 by Hakim. Later in life Galileo was put under house arrest by the Pope. But before then, Galileo did a little bit of tinkering. “In 1609, just two years after the comet appeared, Galileo built one of the world’s first telescopes.” Page 16 by Hakim. This telescope was different than any other. This one was stronger and more powerful, powerful enough to see into space. Galileo changed the way people thought of science and space.

1.    Nicholas Copernicus:

Copernicus was a Polish astronomer who had the idea that the earth orbited around the sun not vice versa. Copernicus was all alone with his idea; no one stood by him or believed him at all. Copernicus did a lot of research and spent his entire life’s focus on showing his idea to Europe. Copernicus ran out of time before he saw his life’s work truly appreciated. Time went by and still no one knew the truth about the world. Later Galileo look into it and study his idea and decided that he could be correct. Galileo made it his life’s work. Sadly Copernicus was dead long before Galileo found out the truth about the world. Copernicus’s idea lived on. Galileo shared it with the world and it would have made Copernicus very happy.   

3.    How did Copernicus, and later Galileo, challenge religion and tradition in the sixteenth century?

Copernicus and Galileo both saw the world differently from others. For most of Copernicus’s life he tried to prove it, but he died before his idea got famous. But Galileo took up his studies and found the idea very interesting. The famous idea that we now all know to be partially true is, “… the sun, not the earth, was the center of the universe.” Page 16 by Hakim.(we now know that the sun is the center of our solar system not the universe. The center of our universe is a black hole.) This idea went against all the important leaders of Europe and most importantly the Pope. The Pope saw this as a threat to religion and locked him away. “Galileo was disgraced by the Catholic Church and put under house arrest for saying that the earth moves around the sun.” Page 16 by Hakim. Luckily the idea was already spreading. “…by the end of the 17th century, most of the new scientific beliefs about the earth and skies were commonly accepted.” Page 16 by Hakim. Some people died trying to prove this theory and now it is common knowledge. So thank you Nicholas Copernicus and Galileo Galilei for your intelligence and perseverance to make this world better.       

Native american Medicine People Power

Source:

Liptak, Karen. North American Indian Medicine People . Watts.

Pages:

12 and 10

Quote:

‘Medicine people are often respected and even feared by their members. They are respected because they assist the ill to become well with their “good medicine.”  They are feared because they can also use their power to cause illness. This is called “bad medicine.”

Medicine people aren’t limited to healing sick and injured people. In most tribes, they are also called upon to predict the future and to help tribal members have good luck in hunting and planting. Medicine people are also asked to influence the weather. 

Paraphrase:

The Natives called their doctors or apothecarists “Medicine people”.

The Natives thought that the “Medicine people” had some sort of magical powers that was called “good medicine”.

The Natives thought that even though they had the power to do good, they also had the power to do bad. This was called “bad medicine”.

The Natives respected the “Medicine people” but also feared them. They had to be they nice and kind to them.

Medicine people heal and help the people in need medically, but they do more than that.

They are also looked to for advice to predict the future and help the tribe members with gathering food and hunting down animals. 

The medicine people are called upon to change the weather too. ]

The medicine people are very important to every tribe because they have a lot of wisdom.

My Ideas:

This connects to the Giver because the receiver and giver contain all the wisdom and are seen with great power. The medicine people in the Native tribes are seen as wizard-y magical beings. I wonder if the medicine people are elected the same way as Jonas in the Giver too. I wonder if it is like an apprenticeship and you have to learn the skills of the medicine people and live up to the job. We know that a single human cannot change the weather or predict the future, but to the Natives they believed that the medicine people could. I wonder if my prediction in an early notecard is correct. The notecard said that the natives would have a closer idea to the truth of the human body, but it would be more spiritual. So far my prediction about Natives being more spiritual is correct, but I have to find out about their medical ideas. I wonder how this theory started about the medicine people having these powers. Did something happen where the weather changed after the apothecarist had a argument, so the tribe saw it as the fury of the bad medicine. Back then in the colonial times, they had no science to prove otherwise. If a storm came after a fight, to them, that meant one of them upset the spirits or was a spirit him/herself. There is nothing else like this in any other culture. The English had nothing like this and neither did the africans. I wonder if the spiritual side of things made the Natives stronger or weaker during fights because they might have felt like the spirits their on their side or that the English also had evil spirits.  

History:

Created: 10/14/2016 11:00 AM

Name: Meadow                                             Humanities

7th Grade                                                                         The Giver

Missing Knowledge

You might not realize this, but you take for granted all the beauty that you see in your daily life. Imagine a world where all of the beauty has been sucked away and no memory of it remains, this is The Giver by Lois Lowry. When Jonas, a twelve year old boy, get assigned his job for the rest of his life, he is quite surprised when he gets the position as the receiver of memory. He is overwhelmed with his new knowledge about the lost world. He must find a way to show the rest of the community the memories they’re missing out on. This society is a dystopia because everyone is ignorant, except Jonas who is isolated and different because of his knowledge. Everyone is locked away from the world. They’re living a lie.

Jonas’s community is kept ignorant to block out the painful thoughts but ignorance blocks out the beauty too. The Elders don’t want the community to be hurt by the truth, so they stop everyone from knowing anything, including the most wonderful memories. For example, the Elders do not allow the community to feel sunshine just because it can burn them. Jonas, however, experiences the memory of sunshine because he is the next Receiver. “…as he lay basking in the wonderful warmth…His skin began to sting,” (Giver, page 75). The fact that sunshine can come with pain meant, to the Elders, that you shouldn’t experience it at all. This shows that some of the best things in this world are being locked away from the community. The Elders try to keep their citizens safe, but safeness for them only means ignorance. The community should have a choice about their life and what they can feel and see. Safety means that you should have choice and knowledge of the world around you. Jonas’s community should know the world’s past. They should be able to know what they are missing out on. As soon as Jonas gets his first bit of knowledge he wants to share it with everyone. He wants them to see the beauty they are missing.

When Jonas receives his first bit knowledge about the past, his world changes. This knowledge changes Jonas. He gets feelings that tear him apart. The community will never experience all these wonderful things. On page 84 In The Giver, Jonas realises something big. “…he knew it was ordinary no longer, and would never be again.” Having this new sense of knowledge meant he was different. The Elders don’t allow difference, yet the job the Jonas gets selected for forces him to stand out. He knows that no one can have emotions like he has. No one one can understand him. He is all alone and surrounded by a sea of ignorance. The situation that Jonas is in can be looked at in multiple ways. He is the most knowledgeable person in the community. He has great honor and people look to him for advice. But he is alone and isolated. No one knows what he knows. He is different. Jonas shouldn’t be the only one that knows about the past and the only one who has the wisdom to change the world. This knowledge should be shared with the community.  

This society is not a utopia because Jonas’s community is locked away from the beauty and history of the world. The community is ignorant and doesn’t understand that they are being controlled by the Elders. In Jonas’s community, ignorance and knowledge is almost like your ranking in the society. If you have knowledge you are honored, but to Jonas it is a burden. It is unfair that Jonas must suffer the knowledge and pain of these memories. In our society and world, you are not kept from the horrors of the truth. If someone dies there is nothing protecting you from the sadness that comes with it. The difference between our society and Jonas’s is that we have each other for support. If your grandma passes away you all have people and relatives supporting you through these hard times. A utopia means that everyone has a choice in their life and are free from the lies that hold us back. Sadly Jonas doesn’t get that freedom.