EXTRA EXTRA: TOP STORY OF THE WEEK!! MUST READ MUST READ!!

Yellow journalism was pretty much what was used to sell more newspapers. The more catchy the picture and/or the headline was, the more newspapers that would be sold. They used exaggeration and sensationalism to make them more interesting.

As we see this picture here is a headline from September 11. As we can read right there in the front there is the word APOCALYPSE in big, capitalized, bold letters. Was it really necessary to put this picture? this headline? Isn't it a little exaggerated? Apocalypse is what many people believe to be the end of the world but, as we clearly now know, it wasn't. This was just a technique used so that people would clearly see this headline and picture and ant to know more about it so they buy the paper.

Sources: http://saintnicksbytes.blogspot.com/2010/08/yellow-journalism-makes-me-ill.html

http://boingboing.net/2009/01/13/uk-newspaper-headlin.html

CLOSE THE SOA!

 The School of the Americas has in fact been a very controversial topic for the past couple of years. I believe that the US should not be able to this organization which trains people to follow the practice of coup d'etat. This organization has had graduates that have done horrible things to innocent civilians. As i read through the website of the SOA watch, an independent organization that seeks to close the SOA, i stumbled upon many cases of terrible acts done by graduates of this school. My heart sunk deeper when i saw that one of the countries in which they have done a lot of damage is my native country, Colombia. These people have been responsible for the lives of so many Colombians that were innocent and probably lived a happy life. It is inhumane to teach people to abuse the human rights of other countries, specially Latin American countries where most of the graduates are actually from. So i ask myself, should this be allowed? definitely not! The SOA should be closed so that human rights can be practiced and the lives of many innocent people aren't at stake anymore.

Sources : http://www.soaw.org/

Blogging !

             

This quarter my favorite class has been US history honors with my wonderful teacher Mr.Meechin. One oft he most fun aspects of the class so far has been our weekly assignments that were done through blogging. I really like this way of homework doing and i definitely agree with it. I believe that this system of homework doing and learning is very beneficiary in many ways both for the students and the instructor.

Students are the ones who enjoy this the most. For most of the students in our class this is a new method of doing homework and to many people, like me, it is very enjoyable and reasonable. Through blogging i believe that my learning has increased a whole lot. It makes me want to do my work every week while i am trying something new at the same time, in this case that would be blogging. Blogging gives students a chance to express how they feel about the topic assigned and create a voice for themselves in this international audience. Something that i find fascinating is that we are writing these topic blogs and they are out there for the whole world to see, and we really cant imagine who might read them!

Our topics are always fun and they are fairly easy. I like them because there isn't really a right or wrong answer, it is just your opinion expressed to everyone out there. I think that it is nothing challenging since we aren't writing an essay so there really isn't any reason for it to get boring but instead get more interesting as you progress and start getting a hang of it. Another thing is we are teenagers living in 2010 so off course we are all so technologically advanced so for this type of assignment to be given to us results as something fun and rather interesting. Blogging has also become one of the most used methods of Internet communication for greater audiences out there and for us students to be able to start a blog of our own and really make it personal and have it out there is a great achievement and development that can lead to many new things!

Now for instructors such as mine who assign such homework it has advantages too. First of all they already mark the difference by assigning things that they now aren't going to be boring for their students and therefor will be more interested and actually do their work and learn from it. Also i believe it must be really fun to be able to read all these different ideas and responses that come from the students. Its definitely not boring for them because once again there is no wrong or right answer so it must be interesting to see how people think differently and respond to different ideas in such a mixed manner.

So i absolutely 100 percent agree with the use of the blogging assessment system in our class. It is something new that i had  never seen before and i definitely like it, a lot! It makes me want to do my work and really enjoy it. Writing my opinions and putting them out there for my instructor and really the whole world to me gives me a feeling of happiness inside because it is something new and way out of the ordinary. I am for sure looking forward to the rest of the year and the many more blogging assessments we are going to get with the many different topics we still have to come!

Does it make a difference?

Was my learning different when blogging, as compared to writing just in pen and paper? Yes! it definitely was. It made me want to do my posts every week and look forward to doing so. This is definitely something new and the topics related to what we talked about every week. So i was learning and at the same time having fun doing my homework. I think that blogging making it funner absolutely made more things stay in my head and made me think more. Whereas when i am assigned other assignments in other classes it was like a repetitive thing and that got really boring and not as interesting to make me learn!

my favorite :)

I have really enjoyed all my blogs this quarter. But my definite favorite has been the Oregon trail one! I had lots of fun when preparing to write this blog. We had to play the actual game which was very fun since i had never played it before. Playing the game was very interesting and i actually learned from it. I think that having such fun assignments makes students want to participate and o all their work!

The American Dream

   Immigrants coming into Ellis Island must have a had been feeling a roller coaster of emotions! First of all i can imagine they had a really bad mix up of feelings. Sad because they were leaving their homes but happy because they were coming to a new world where they had opportunities. They must have felt weird and scared as well because of all the test they were being submitted to and because they really had no idea what was waiting for them. My family being first generation Americans themselves i know from stories that they felt very optimistic themselves about the new live that was waiting for them here. So i can definitely imagine and relate to the different feelings and experiences that these immigrants coming to the United States through Ellis island.

Music soothes the soul!

   A song such as "The song of the shirt" by Thomas Hood is definitely not a song that i would choose as my main choice. As i was reading the lyrics of the song i pictured everything in my head as it was being told, and woah is that not a pretty picture. Life for the textile factory workers during this time must have been something close to "hell". The song practically talks about what work was like. From what is said i infer that it must have been pretty heavy work and that they were abused to the edge. They had no other choice but to work this hard and practically be overly abused. They must have lived very hard and harsh lives which maybe ended because of their exhaustion. And to think that there is still many places overseas that still have this same treatment and working for conditions for workers. Would you like to be in that position? i know i wouldn't!