In English we have been studying heroes and superheroes. As a task, we picked a hero that we know a bit about and wrote a bit about the hero's story and how most heroes follow a similar path, which is the one I have below. I did Tris from Divergent as I read the books when I was younger and have watched the movie a few times.
1. What did you learn about Judaism? I learnt about Rosh Hashannah, which is the Jewish new year.
2. What did you learn about the Holocaust? I learnt how horrible the holocaust truly was. I never knew what actually happened in it other than lots of Jewish people got killed, but it has made me realize all the awful things that went on.
3. Do you think you increased your own empathy, integrity, and compassion, and how? I definitely think it increased my empathy, Integrity, and compassion as now I have a completely new understanding of what people had to go through. And to never judge someone before you actually know what they're going through.
4. Which activities did you enjoy the most? I really enjoyed just listening to the book as I found it really interesting and I learnt so much.
5. What recommendations do you have for Mrs Torley to change anything if she is teaching this again next year? I think that she did it pretty well this year and made it quite interesting to learn about. She was super helpful whenever I got stuck on something and supported me through my learning.
In my English class, we have been reviewing some speech techniques and this is my video reflection on what I think a good speech is and some of the techniques that go into a good speech.
This is the essay I wrote the memoir my class has read:
The Holocaust, where over 10 million innocent lives were taken. The Holocaust started in 1941 and dragged out for many years. My English class has been reading a memoir called "Night" written by Elie Wiesel who was a Holocaust survivor. Some of the techniques Elie Wiesel used throughout the book are sibilance, repetition, metaphor, hyperbole, and first-person narration. Elie's writing which included these techniques shocked me, they made me feel horrible and disgusted at humanity. No person should have to go through that.
An incident from Elie's story that affected me was when children and infants were thrown into the fire while they were still alive. This happened on the first night Elie was at the concentration camps. A quote that was in Elie's writing when this incident had just happened was, "Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky." One of the techniques Elie used in this quote is sibilance which is the repeat of the S sound. Another technique Elie used in this quote is repetition, in the poem, he repeats the words "Never shall I forget '' seven times. Using this repetition technique made it get into your head and have a much bigger effect on you than it would've if it just said "Never shall I forget" only once. His writing made me feel terrible, being treated like you are worthless and your life means nothing, just being thrown into a fire without a second thought about you. Throwing the children into the fire and then carrying on with life as if nothing happened, I don't comprehend how people could do that.
The selection overwhelmed me with glumness. For the selection, they had to run a certain distance while the selectors were watching. Not being up to the health and look standards meant you would get your number written down and be sent to the crematorium to die, "Those whose numbers had been noted down were standing apart, abandoned by the whole world." This quote is said once the selection had just happened. This incident made me feel sick. Devastating, they'd just been chosen to die and couldn't do anything. Not a single person was fighting to keep them alive, it was like they were already dead once they'd been chosen. Metaphor and hyperbole are the techniques in this quote. "Abandoned by the whole world" metaphorically the whole world abandoned them in the sense they knew what was happening but did nothing to stop it. But literally, they were only being abandoned by the people that weren't selected.
The death marches deeply impacted me. It was almost at the end of the story and war when this incident happened. Everyone was tired and had zero energy left. People had been jogging for days. Being starved. Horrible, constantly moving and not being able to stop, being trampled or shot if you did stop. Being treated like you weren't human and your life didn't matter. The fact that people wanted to die to get out of that misery is awful and shows how bad it truly was. "We were stronger than cold and hunger, stronger than the guns and the desire to die, doomed and rootless, nothing but numbers, we were the only men on earth". This is the quote that really bothered me in that part of the story. It made me feel terrible. Disgusted at the people who could do that to another human being. A technique in this quote is first-person narration, using the first person plural pronoun "we" showed that they were all in this together and together they would survive.
Reading this memoir 'Night' made me realise how truly heart-breaking the Holocaust was. People should never go through that and we need to make sure that history never repeats itself. I have learnt how much a technique can affect your writing and that certain techniques can add so much emotion. When Elie used first-person narration it helped the readers understand that all the people walking were struggling together and they were not alone. Reading this book really emotionally impacted me. I feel now that I will never take anything for granted. And I'm extremely grateful for all the things I have in my life and how lucky I am to have been born into my family.
We completed a second Empathy Map looking at what Elie was like at the end of the war. Elie was a lot skinnier now, he was like a corpse of himself, he had lost all of his family. He will never forget all the things he went through and it will scar him forever. Elie was angry at God for letting that happen, and he could hear memories of the screams of the people being thrown into flames or going in the crematourioum.
This is my empathy map
Reading Elie account of what had happened to him during the holocaust made me feel terrible. I hated the thought of the fact that so many people went through that and most of them didn't come out alive, it makes me feel sick to the bone.
One of the hardest and most upsetting parts of the story was when the children and infants were being thrown into the fire pit alive. And when almost at the end of war all the people that were still alive in the camps had to go on the death run and if they stopped they got shot or did anything along the lines of taking a break they would get shot. It would have been freezing cold and extremely hard.
Some parts of Elie story that gave me hope was when there was that nice guy that would try to give them extra rations of food and give them extra care, but when that became wider knowledge he got taken away to get killed which made me lose my hope in that.
Elie's story has made me lose hope in some human beings and I just can't believe humans would do that to other humans. I was happy at the end when they got liberated though.
I have realised that it is important to check up on if others are ok and to be nice to everyone as you don't have any idea what they've been through.
This is my paragraph that I wrote about him at age 12 before the Holocaust started:
At the start of the book, Elie is living in Sighet Transylvania. He was 12 years old and had a pretty good/normal life. He was very observant and would go to the synagogue to pray and weep everyday. He was happy and lived a nice life. He had a Mum and a Dad. His father was a cultured man, rather unsentimental. He rarely showed his feeeling and was more involved with the welfare of others than his own family. Elie was the third child. He had two older sisters and one younger sister. His oldest sister was named Hilda, then Bea and the youngest was Tzipora.
This is Elie at age 12
For the past week we have been doing the summer learning journey. This is my first blog post for this week and after this one I would of reached 40 points which is the goal for the class. For this blog post I had to choose either Lebron James or Steven Adams to ask five questions too. Here are my five questions I would ask him in an interview. I hope you enjoy!
This week we have been doing the summer learning journey. This is my 4th post for today. This post was about someone that has had an impact on my life and netball has.
James Naismith invented netball. Netball is my favourite sport. James Naismith was an immagrint in the USA and was forced to invent an indoor game for young boys. They have had a big impact on my life because netball is an awesome sport and lots of young people play it. 
This week we have been doing the summer learning journey. This is my third post for today. This post I had to write about 10 foods I would bring on a boat and why. I hope you enjoy it!
1. My gonnie. My gonnie is a special blanket that I have. It got the name gonnie because my Mums brother called it that and that name has just carried on until now.
2. Time capsule. My bestfriend and I buried a time capsule when we were 10. We are now 13 and are going to dig it up when we are 15. Then we will put something else in it and bury it again.
3. My sisters letters. On my 13th birthday my sister gave me a bunch of letters she has written throughout her life and they are pretty special to me.
This week we have been doing a summer learning journey. I posted 4 posts yesterday and this is my first post yet today. For this post I had to write about a time when I was brave. I hope you enjoy it.
I would change my name to Annie because that is my grandma's name. I think it a really cool name and I might name one of my kids it.
Today we have been doing the summer learning journey. For this activity I chose the charity one so I picked the charity air rescue.
Air rescue is a really good charity. If people are in a life or death situation the rescue helicopter can quickly get there to save someone's life. This charity saves so many people's lives that are in really tough situations. This charity has to raise $6,000,000 a year. That's a lot of money to make a year so please donate now. I will put the link to the website below where you can donate a bit of money. Because you can make a difference today. Only a little bit of money can make a difference.
Today we have been doing the summer learning journey. This is my second blog post today. This one is a poem about how Neil Armstrong felt when he first set foot on the moon. I hope you enjoy it.
Today in class we are doing the summer learning journey. Each day we pick a few activities and post them on a blog. For my first blog post I am picking the three superpowers. I have to write why I chose them and what I am going to do with them. I hope you enjoy them.
