In Humanities we have just finished all our note cards. First we got to pick a craft or study that we wanted to look into. I picked witchcraft. Then we were told to write ten note cards about the topic. The one I show was actually my last note card and I picked it because I felt I had progressed the most from the beginning. I went quit outside the box for this one and I was a little nervous about turning it in. As I soon found out there was actually a lot to say about art and witchcraft. I started developing a strategy to effectively write a good note card. First I would brain storm ideas for about half an hour. I have not been known to be a big brain stormer, so I was surprised how helpful it was. Then I would research the topic and write as much as I could on it. Then I would spend twenty minutes editing the notecard, are turn it in. I felt that this note card showed the best of this strategy, and since I was very interested in the topic it was easier to write.

Notecards

Witchcraft and How it Inspired Art

#10

Source:

“Witches in Art.” Many Interesting Facts , 30 Aug. 2013, manyinterestingfacts.wordpress.com/2013/08/30/witches-in-art/.

Quote:

“Witches inspired many artists and I will present some of their works.

“In 1953, the year the play debuted, Miller wrote, ” The Crucible  it is  taken from history. No character is in the play who did not take a similar role in Salem, 1692.”

“The Crucible is a political allegory for American mccarthyism. Arthur Miller wrote it because he wanted to make a point about society at the time and he compared it to another similar time. Mccarthyism was witch hunt for Communists.”

 

“ The Scarlet Letter is set in 17th-century Puritan Boston, Massachusetts, during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester Prynne who conceives a daughter through an affair and struggles to create a new life of  repentance and dignity .”

“As we can see on next painting by Francisco Goya (1746-1828), witches often perform their rituals in groups called covens…This painting shows their worship of the Devil who joined them in the form of a goat.

 

 

Paraphrase:

-Many novelists and artists based their work off of witchcraft in the colonial age.

-A book called The Crucible is a play written by Arthur Miller about witches in the colonial era. Miller wrote the play in a time called the Mccarthy Era where they were they searched everywhere for communists, trying to put them in jail. Arthur thought that this was similar to the witch hunts in Salem, so he wrote about them

-A book called The Scarlet Letter was written by a man named Nathaniel Hawthorne. The book was published in 1850, but set in 1642 and about a Puritan family. Puritans were the main people that were against witches, and while the book is about a woman accused for adultery, it says a lot about witchcraft.

-In one of the pictures they show a group of women surrounding a giant goat, and worshiping the animal. Goats were supposed to be the animals of the Devil, so it made sense that the witches, who were the allies to the Devil would worship the goat.

 

 

My Ideas:

(Painting by Francisco Goya)

Most artists are inspired by one thing or another. It just so happened that the witch hunts in the 17th century inspired a lot of artists. One of the many writers that based his work off of witchcraft was Arthur Miller. He wrote the famous play, The Crucible. Miller lived in a time called the Mccarthy Era. It was a time when the entire country was on a hunt for Communists. If you were called in and interrogated for being a communist you would be poisoned from the rest of the world, and everybody would hate you. The man that ran this entire hunt was named Mccarthy. He called in a lot of Hollywood artists to be interrogated, and in doing so, ruined all their careers. Miller thought that the hunt was very similar to the Salem Witch Trials. The Mccarthy Era was like a modern day witch hunt. They were both trying to find a bad group of people that didn’t exist. The next big writer was a man named Nathaniel Hawthorne. He wrote a book called The Scarlet Letter about a Puritan family in the 1640s. Even though the book is about a woman convicted for adultery, which means having relations with a man other than your husband, the book says a lot about witchcraft. Witches were primarily convicted by Puritan people, like Samuel Parris, and almost all of the witches convicted were not Puritan. A painting was made by a man named Francisco Goya (1746-1828). The painting is a depiction of 10 witches surrounding a giant goat giving the women instructions. Goya wanted to show that The Devil would take form as a goat and give the witches instructions on what evil deed to do next. I notice that all these pieces of art were created by men. In fact, many other artists that depicted witches were also men, like De Bry. While I don’t think that any of these men had the intention to offend women, this is just more proof that men have more rights than women. Aside from Francisco Goya, the three artists I mentioned were modern men writing about an awful time. While they are supporting women, it still shows that women don’t even get to write about a time where they were being killed. While i’m sure many women attempted to write books and paint art about witchcraft, they did not become become known or famous. Our society has a long way to go before we are actually a world without sexism and implicit bias. Witchcraft was a very important event and affected many artists, it’s just that the majority of them were men.

 

Right at the beginning of the year we started reading a book called The Giver. We then annotated and wrote an essay. I will admit I wanted to scream with happiness when I got the grade(It was a four) But I also was astonished at what worked and what didn’t. I remember the final revision I did on the essay I hardly wanted to look at it anymore. I don’t know if that was a good thing or a bad. I had worked on it so much and had re read it so often that I didn’t have anything else to put in. I think that is what it feels like to do your absolute best, or close to it, and it felt good. What I took away from this essay was that going over something all the time actually does work. While I don’t think it is good to overthink a piece of work, I really think that Suzanne guided our essay so that we did a good job, while not thinking about every little detail.

 

 

 

Name: Liam Mackenzie                                             Humanities

7th Grade                                                                         The Giver

                                         Rebel With a Cause

Suppression, hypocrisy, and ignorance are traits that people in power use to make their ideal world. In Lois Lowry’s, The Giver, people in power do this more than ever. Everybody must act the same and it is thought of as rude to stand out. Knowledge is restricted and the citizens’ emotions are washed away by rules. The only way to take back life is to fight for it, and one boy might have the courage to do it. Jonas, a 12 year old boy, lives in a world where sameness is always better. Jonas has gone along with this for his whole life, but when he becomes The Receiver of Memory, he gains the knowledge of the past and what life was like with color and beauty. He doesn’t want to go back to his monotone community, and the only way of staying in this new magical world, is to fight back and rebel. The idea of a perfect world is impossible. The Elders, who control Jonas’s community, want perfection or the closest thing to it. They decided that to make their utopia possible, they have to drown out emotions with rules. Jonas starts to break some of these rules and finds out that the more rules he breaks the closer he gets to the truth.

In Jonas’s community, rebellion is The Elders biggest fear. They have set hundreds of rules blinding people from any secrets they have. Jonas wants to uncover those secrets and quench his curiosity, but to do so he has to start rebelling. The first step to this is to wonder. “Jonas, listening, thought suddenly about the bridge and how, standing there, he had wondered what lay Elsewhere. Was there someone there, waiting, who would receive the tiny released twin? Would it grow up Elsewhere, not knowing,”(Lowry, p. 97). Most things in the community are regulated, including thoughts. Even when Jonas is thinking about what lays elsewhere he is breaking the rules. Rebellion is thought of as a negative, but in Jonas’s case when he rebels, even the slightest bit, he gets one step closer to changing his community. This quote shows Jonas’s resistance to being part of the community. As a Receiver, Jonas’s mind is being opened up to entirely new concepts on a daily basis. For example, on the first day of training, he remembers and feels the pain of a sunburn. It surprises him, but the pain excites him. A month later he is given the memory of a war zone. He sees the suffering, and he feels it himself. Fitting in and being the same is out of the question for Jonas. His isolation as the Receiver automatically makes him stand out. Jonas is embracing his differences, and accepting them. Now Jonas strives to discover his peculiarities and wants to open himself up to new emotions. Lowry has showed us many examples of rebellion and how it brings life and feeling into people. When Rosemary releases all her memories, the people discover the beauty of the world and also feel the fear.

The definition of a utopia is “an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect.” The most important word in that sentence is “everything.” “Everything” is the deciding factor between a utopia and just a normal place. Jonas can change the community and be the missing puzzle piece to make it a normal place.

If Jonas was to see beyond and leave the community, he would not only quench his constant curiosity for the world, but also, like Rosemary, release the memories and show the community what true emotion is. In Jonas’s case, rebellion might not just be a good thing, it might change the fate of his community and his life forever. The only real way for Jonas to thrive and learn, is to rebel against the community. Jonas has wished to see what lies beyond, has started to become independant, and dreamed about one day leaving the community to release all the memories. Jonas needs to start taking action in his community by challenging sameness and rebelling.

Jonas has started to rebel and care less about what other people think. He has grown and become more of an independent person and now he doesn’t rely on what other people think of him, but only himself. This thought of carelessness pleases him, but he soon comes to his senses and realises that it was not realistic to think that way. “Jonas suggested, ‘you and I don’t need to care about the rest of them.’ The Giver looked at him with a questioning smile. Jonas hung his head. Of course they needed to care. It was the meaning of everything,”(Lowry, p. 128). This one sentence shows the immense amount of growth Jonas has made since becoming the Receiver. At the beginning of the book Jonas spends about two pages trying to find the words to explain the way he feels. Later he starts to become more careless, and by page 128, Jonas is telling the Receiver that he doesn’t even need to care about the other citizens. While this might seem like a bad example of rebellion, it not only shows that perfection is not a necessity, but that when Jonas sees the world and feels the new emotions he starts looking at the big picture. Lowry is showing that once you put things into perspective you don’t get caught up in little details, like the correct word to describe how you feel. Jonas is starting to realise what really matters, and that The Elders are blinding everybody from the truth by focusing them in on all the little details. As a result, they never get to the big picture. The community will never realise that The Elders are bad people if they keep thinking so much about every little detail. Jonas can rebel and change the community’s way of thinking. Jonas no longer fits into the fabric of the community and so his only option is to rebel and start taking on the new experiences.

For the first time Jonas has the power to challenge the Elders. He can threaten to release the memories of the past to the citizens and get The Elders to change the community. Now he can create his own kind of world with difference, and pain, and happiness, which is closer to perfection than his community now. Jonas has to prove that nothing bad happens when something goes wrong. He doesn’t need to strive for perfection ether, sometimes breaking the rules is not always the worst thing, and feeling different is okay. Jonas has already become more of an independent person and now is starting to envision a world without sameness. He can make that possible and change everything in his community because of his peculiarities. Jonas has wished to see what lies beyond, has started to become independant, and dreamed about one day leaving the community to release all the memories. Now he needs to take action and do it. Would you want to live in a world without change, or knowledge, or rebellion? The only reason things feel good to us is because we know what it’s like to feel bad. Without the experience of pain everything is just a blank slate. People don’t have any motives and Jonas can change that. Now that he has the memories he doesn’t fit into the community anymore and has to change it, if not for everybody else’s sake, then for himself.

Liam         September 12, 2016

Slit A        Math profile

 

When I was very young I wasn’t surrounded by as much math as I was visual art and music. Up until about 1st grade I didn’t think much about math and I only used it for things like simple counting and basic addition. Once I entered 1st grade we started learning new math concepts and working on math as a given assignment. We had a group of packets that the teacher gave us. It was our job to finish them and once we were done, she would give us a new packet. I can be competitive, but in this case I wasn’t very motivated. I knew that it would never end. I would race to finish a packet, and then race to finish another, and then another, and it would never end. It annoyed me that I felt obliged to participate in this competition because my friends were doing it. I never actually wanted to race. This went on for many years and my main experience with math was a fast, hectic, packet assignment. 4th and 5fth grade were good, but I never felt like I fully understood math. Then I came into LREI and it all just seemed to click. It was a new kind of math. it was enjoyable and I was succeeding, instead of always being slightly behind. I felt- and still feel- really excited about math.

 

I like problem solving, having no idea what’s going on, and then working it out. When it comes together and all the work you were just doing and didn’t understand makes sense.

 

It’s frustrating when it takes you months to fully understand something, or you never do. Sometimes a new math concept makes sense fast and sometimes it takes a while. I think the most agonizing part is wondering if you’ll ever understand it, and just dragging along with the class half understanding the subject. I have been fortunate enough to persevere a little more, since I have come to LREI. I have always understood the math eventually, but I still think that for everything we learn, it takes time to process and think for a while.

In the past I did not consider myself a good math student. I went through stages at my old school, and at some points it was tough. At the beginning of 6th grade I thought it was all the same, until one take home test boosted my confidence and made me work harder. I think that at the moment I am a good math student, but I know that that can always change if somehow I lose confidence in myself. I have now learned that if I think that I am a good math student, it will not only affect my confidence, but also my motivation and my general state of mind.
Usually when i’m stuck, asking for other kids help works to a degree, but it’s hard for them and me to act like a teacher. I would take a lot of notes and study everything that I have jotted down. Sometimes, if we are just learning a subject and we have homework over the weekend, I will email the teacher or go to Khan academy for advice.

The Winter Solstice

The strong beating sun

Floods the sky, burnt sienna  

The shade of dusk

 

flush pink rose petals

Turn darker than heavy dark coal

The night has been here

 

Night

Deep dark

Stars are wishes

The night holds them

Tight

 

Don’t be as shy

Use more emotion
This is just a few of my favorite haikus and this is actually what I will read during the poetry breakfast. I was inspired by how much I hate it getting dark in the winter. The elements of poetry in this poem is the haiku format. 5 syllables, 7 syllables, and 5 syllables.  I think a lot of this makes sense, but I don’t know if people will understand what the roses turning black.