Pros and Cons about Imperialism

Imperialism is a act of invading another country without permission, to get a land or natural resources. I think there were both positive effects and negative effects.

Pros:
+More technologies invented.
+Civilization
+More jobs, which might lead to earnings
+Country getting developed
+New language/religion

Cons:
-More fighting between countries
-Discrimination
-Slavery
-longer working time
-less food.

SQ3R Summary –The west Africa Today-

In most of the countries in West Africa, they don’t have good and reliable government. But Nigeria, the second largest city in Africa, has a democrat government, and also Cape Verde, group of volcanic island in Atlantic has a reliable democrat government. Except for that two countries, other struggles from poverty, because of the government. But each country in West Africa has some type of problem that bothers the growth. Nigeria suffers from high increasing population rate. This is the problem in Nigeria, because they don’t have enough food to feed all the people in the country.
As everyone knows, West African countries have some types of natural resources. Such as oil, coffee bean, and diamond. If they had natural resources, they could get some money, and become rich. But why isn’t the African Countries growing and developing? The civil wars that happened, (or maybe still happening) a few years ago, is the main cause why they are still struggling from poverty. Because of the civil wars that happened over many countries, government, and natural resources were destroyed or taken away. So many of the countries are trying to rebuild the government and also to get the natural resources again. In some countries, famine is the problem, and in some country, distributing food to all the people is the problem. But all and all the main problem is POVERTY

Africa News Story 3

This is the news story that happened between 2 African Nation, Chad and Sudan. The thing that happened between these two countries are... rebellion.(again) Nov.9.2008, about 2 weeks ago, and the two countries fell out over mutual accusations of support for rebels. The rebellion was caused by 2 ambassadors of 2 countries. They ended the campaigns that they were doing with each other, and both of the countries are refusing to reunite again.

I chose this news story as a recent News, because of the timeliness. It happened about 2 weeks ago, and it is very "recent."Also, I was surprised with this situation, because I didn't think that still there is a countries that arel fighting with each other. And not by negotiating. By "Violence." So I was shocked, but also surprised.

Feedback Nov, 10-14 - Imperialism Cartoon

In this cartoon, there are 2 stuff that stands out on our mind. Africa and footstep. I think this cartoon wants to issue about the colonization of Africa, which were done by many European countries. Since this footstep is big, and lies on middle, I think the author of this comic wants to say that colonizing was evil decision, and author hates it. And maybe, this author IS African, and feels sorry to the ancestors, and wants to tell the Europeans did something bad. To make this cartoon more persuasive, I think this author should write some words that symbolize Europe on the footstep.

West Africa History and Culture

Timbuktu was a cultural center, and it was significant for the Songhai City, because this city had the power, so they succeed in weakening the invasion from the other country.
The slave trade affect West Africa, because so much of people, (about million) were enslaved by 1800. These people were kidnapped first, get separated from family, and sail to America. But during this voyage to America, many people died from the diseases.
Animism, is a belief that honors bodies of water, animals, trees, and other natural objects have spirits. Animists also honor ancestors memories.
In West Africa, many people belonged to one of the ethnic group. Ethnic Groups mix with each other along the cities and countries. But, because of the way the European Countries drew political boundaries, country borders sometime separated the sam ethnic group.
I think West Africa disliked European Colonizer the most. Since West Africa was the closest country to North Africa, many people were enslaved and shipped to America. People who were left in West Africa might have been sad and depressed. So I think they disliked the Colonizer the most.

The Scramble for Africa

We were the SPAIN, and we started this game terrible. We rolled 3 dice but we dropped 2 and we only got 1 for the land. Well.... Strategy that I used to claim land; I negotiate other countries by giving our 3 lands for 1 square, which had so much of natural resources. If they said "no" we gave 4 lands for their 1 land. Factors that consider in claiming; since every country wanted different natural resources, we had some resources that we DON'T want but others wanted. In this situation, it was easy to convince the other people. So, we considered the natural resources that land had, the most. I think the winner of this game is France, because France took over the most of the land that has so much of natural resources, (which is the region around South Africa) and also the coastal areas, where trading goes on. The loser... I think this game's loser is Spain, which was us, because we didn't get the area that has natural resources, or coastal area. Also we didn't win the "attack," and the area that we got is the inner area of Africa. Because of this, when Spain, and the colony of Spain in Africa wanted to trade something, it will cost so much of money, because there is a need of trasportation fee, through the inner region to coastal region.

Africa News 2

This story happened in Ghana ,the western part of Africa, about a 10days ago. (Oct, 30, 2008) Israeli man call Dror Weinstein was kidnapped by Ghanaian groups. They, the kiddnappers had demanded 500,000 US dollars for release of the Israeli man. Newsreporter says that kidnapping in Ghana is very rare, but it is unclear who the kidnappers are and why they chose a Israeli man to kidnapp.
I think this news is newsworthy because of timeliness, and oddity. It is very timely, because this news happened 10 days ago, and oddity, because the kidnapp is a very unusual situation.

West Africa Physical Geography

There are so many interesting characteristics in West Africa. Main physical features of West Africa are composed of plains and rivers. The main river in West Africa is the river called Niger river. The inland delta on the Niger river are divided into a network of channels, swamps, and lakes. Many cities are located on coastal plain, because there are so much of natural resources, such as cacao, in Ghana.
Geographers say that West Africa's climates are zonal, which means organized land. The geographers says that, because climate regions stretch from east to west in bands. In West Africa, there are 2 regions called Sahel, and Savanna. There are similarities in these areas, the rain has an important role in helping the farmers, because the land are dried. But it is also different, because Sahel is a strip of land, and savanna has tall grasses and tree. There are 1 big problem that West Africa faces. It is desertification, which means "spread of desert." Because of this, I think people wouldn't have enough water, and diseases will spread.
The most valuable resources in West Africa is agricultural products, oil, and minerals. And most of the crops grow in Ghana and Nigeria.

Can we trust the book To Be A Slave?

I think we can trust the book To Be A Slave, written by Julius Lester. First of all, he is a famous author from 50 years ago, and he received many honors, such as Newbery Honor. I think people who does receive this kind of big honor won't write something that isn't true. And mostly, this book DID recieve a Newbery Honor. Secondly, he was a writer, and he must had a good resources to write this book. And I assume that those resources that Lester used is a true information, and trustworthy. Finally, he was a Jewish person, and have known a real event or something big about a slave trade, because there was Hebrew slavery trade in Egypt during the time he was alive. He might have seen a slave trade, when he was small. Plus, facts about the slave trade is also written in Hebrew Bible. From these reasons, I think Julius Lester's information is real and trustworthy.

Africa News

This news story that I've found, is a story about Chad rebellion, written by BBC's Stephan Hancock, 4, February, 2008. This rebellion happened in N'Djamena, the capital city of Chad in Africa. The rebellion were caused by the largest group in Africa call UFDD, (United Force for Democracy, and Development.) which was led by Mahamat Nouri. This man was working in government, was Chad's ambassador Saudi Arabia when he defected to the rebellion two years ago. They were rebelling to control the large parts of the city. They wanted to take over the city and take control, because the president of Chad, Deby's rules have been violent. After the rebellion, every one had know that 2 other groups (RFC, and UFDD-Fondamentale.) were in this rebellion and also, the country next to Chad, Sudan was backing up the Chadian rebels.

I thought this news story is newsworthy, because of timeliness, and Oddity. This rebellion happened in this year (2008), so it is pretty much "now," and also surprises the readers. I also thought that this is a unique, and unusual situation, because I never heard this kind of news in Japan. I didn't even think that there is some fighting going on around the world, and people are dieing. So for me, it was surprising, because it was unusual situation for me, and also it is the news that happened recently.

Source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7225023.stm

5 themes of geography.

This image contains all of the 5 themes of geography. First of all, movement. It contains movement, because people are moving from India to some other country, (since it's a airport) and worker in the airport are working. This image also contains region, a cultural region, because the name of an airport is written in Hindi, and English. From this, you might tell that this airport is in India, because it is written in Hindi. But, there is a evidence that tells us that this airport is in India. If you looked at this picture carefully, at the center, you know that airline company's names are Jet Airways, Indian Airline, and many other Indian airline company. So you know that location of this airport is in India. And of course, this building was built by a human. (Human environmental Interaction.) Lastly, the place. In this picture, it has a special characteristics that makes this picture unique, and special. The name of this airport. Airport that has the name Indira Gandhi is only in India.

violence leads to more violence!?

I think violence will lead to more violence. For example, in the book Julius Caesar, in Act3 scene 1, and 3, conspirators were killing Caesar, (which is violence) which led to more violence, such as Antony and Octavius’ revenge against Brutus, and Cassius. Also Cinna, the poet was torn into pieces by the citizens, even though he was innocent. From these reasons and evidences, I think violence will lead to much more violence.

Which should I protect? Rome or Caesar?

If I were Brutus, and had to decide peace of Rome or Caesar, I would kill Caesar and protect the peace of Rome. Because the people like Cassius, and Casca aren't satisfied with Caesar's way of governing Rome, Rome wouldn't be peaceful anyway, because they might going to start a war. As it says in FYI Act One "Lean and Hungry Cassius," Cassius hates Caesar, and soon they might start a war in Rome, which wouldn't make Rome a peaceful place. So as a best friend of Caesar, Brutus have to kill him to make Rome a peaceful.
Also in FYI Act One, Caesar have a sickness. He isn't healthy, so somebody should become a new leader of Rome, because if Caesar kept leading Rome, he might not able to give best decision when some emergency happens.
From these reasons, I think Brutus should kill Caesar, and make Rome a peaceful place.

WHO is the leader????

To be a good leader, I think he/she needs 2 things. One is leadership (of course) . Leadership is important because leader have to lead people. Leaders have to be responsible for all the people who follows you, because if they cause some problems, leaders have to solve them. Second is trust/kindness. If leader were kind to all the people who follows you, and trust them, they will automatically follows you, and also admire you. So if the leaders were trusted, they will trust you too!!
In middle school, I think there isn't such a student who are really a leader. There isn't a big group that does something, and everyone treats every other people equally and nice.
But in humanities class during socratic seminar, some people in class, takes leaderships to make the conversation continue. They gives us new questions, or feedbacks to make the conversation more fun, and continueous. Those people are Aysha, Nikaya, Michaela, Scott, and Garrett. They always start with their opinion, or thoughts in socratic seminar, which helps us very much...

Imperialism Divides Africa

During the time when imperialism was happening, many countries took over another countries for motivations. Motivations represents 3G, and it stands for Gold, Glory, and Gods. One of the invasion that was happening were European countries' domination of Africa. In Africa, there was so much of natural resources and raw materials that every other countries wanted. For example, there was a plenty of gold, which every other European countries wanted. There were racism going on when European people took over African land, because Europeans thought they were smarter, wealthier, and cleaner than Africans. Also Christian missionaries in European Countries supported imperialism, and spent money for that. But mostly, European countries, especially Britain had a lot of technology that was developed during Industrial Revolution, which caused advantage to them.
These were the reasons why Europeans got the interest to Africa, and how they started to take over African lands. As a result of this, many people started to live in Africa. (Thats why French are used in Africa

End of Quarter 1 Feddback

Quarter 1, I set some few goals. One is "speak up." This quarter I think I didn't accomplish this goal. Actually my socratic seminar grades went down compared to the first socratic seminar grade, and end of the quarter grade. When I look at the total grade for speaking, it says "C" which is the worst of all. And I think speaking is the weakest part of my English, and I need to work on for the next quarter. But it is impossible to start speaking up like everyone on the class. So I will try to speak up more from my ESL class, and start speaking in humanities slowly. It might take to the end of the 3rd quarter to accomplish this goal. But at least I will try.
Second goal was to read. I think I did pretty well on this. I read about 10 minutes every night, and I think i improved a little. To improve more, I will try to read 20 minutes every night, and continue remembering vocabulary.

Political Cartoon Analysis of Capitalism

This big man in the middle, he has a tag that says "Capitalism." The small thin man, who is grabbed by the big man, has a tag that says "labor." From him, some moneys are falling to the bag that says "Profits from Child Labor." I think this cartoon is talking about how capitalism made the labors work so hard that made them very thin, and small. They have very small amount of money to live, eat, and maybe nourishing their child/children. But the big man, which I think it's manager, is making the labors work so hard, and taking their small amount of money. And I think this author wanted to tell that workers worked very hard during this period, even though, management gave just a small amount of money. Also how capitalism worked, because you need to work, to get money. From the words under the cartoon, made me feel this way. I think author could use bigger letter, because the letter in this cartoon are hard to read, and some people may not understand this wonderful cartoon, if it wasn't readable.

Image from http://mrcoyle.edublogs.org/

Going Back To My Goal ~Am I doing OK?~

In the begging of the year, I set some goals about humanities. One was “Speak up in Socratic Seminar,” and another one was “Be able to read the book faster.” I think I accomplished ¼ of this. First of all, I don’t think I am not still speaking up so much. When I need to answer, I do, but I don’t speak up from myself. So I will try to speak up more, next half quarter. To the second goal, I think I accomplished half of them. Every night, I am reading about 20 minutes of book, so I think, I’m definitely getting faster at reading. So I’m happy with that, but I still have some place that I don’t understand. To understand I think I need to learn more vocabulary. So next half quarter, I will participate in remembering more vocabulary. So…from today, I will study, and remember 5 new vocabulary words every day. I think that will help me improve..

Stock Market Game ~Fearful Gamble, 50％ chance~

Tip that worked, that made me success, in the stock market game, was “Buy Low…Sell High.” In this game I actually missed at getting money first, but I succeeded at last part of the game. But what did I do to success? Well, Mr. Coyle’s tip helped me. In the first year, I didn’t know that 10 dollars for 1 stock is expensive or cheap. So in the first year, (1871) I didn’t buy anything. Then in the next year, some got to 20 dollars and some got to 7 dollars. I thought “Oooh. 10dollars to 20 dollars is a big jump. This company is growing…” so I bought 4of 20 dollars stocks with my whole money. But in the next year, suddenly 20 went down to 17, and 7 got up to 10. Then I noticed. Expensive stocks doesn’t mean it is growing (it might do…) and it will success for ever. I should’ve bought a 7 dollar stock, rather than 20 dollars stock. So I just listen to Mr. Coyle’s tip, and do as it said. I bought some low price stocks that look like it’s going to success in business. (By looking at the news.) Then what do you think it happened to my total money at the last year. It had changed from －80 dollars to ＋200 dollars. Mr. Coyle’s tip made me success, but I think I was very lucky too. I learned how buying stocks can make people happy, but also very sad. I will never buy stocks when I grow up. It is scary!!!

Feed Back August 25-29

Image that shows my feeling and
thinking to Industrial Revolution.Pros and Cons of Industrial Revolution:

Pros: 1. Many things were invented (mule, steam engine …)

2. Many works got easier to do from inventions. (textile production, trades…)

3. Economic systems were built. (Free Market, Invisible hand…)

4. Countries got wealthier from trading the products.

5. Labors had fewer jobs in some factories.

Cons: 1. Some people (Luddites) refused these new technology, and caused some problems.

2. People began to use the machines, which is good, but also dangerous.

3. More pollution.

4. Labors got more works to do in some factories.

By looking at this, I think Industrial Revolution was good, because many things were invented, and without these invention, I think we can’t live now days. But I wish we can reduce the pollutions.

Factory game2 -reflection-

In today’s activity, we did some mass production of paper toy. Making a 100s of paper toy, -which was Nikaya’s pig-, in the class. The rule of this game was to make as many pigs as you can in 45 minute. We had to make the pig as similar as the original pig, to get some points.
The hard place of this game was to teamwork in group. Because there were about 20 people in the class, it was hard to work as a group. Some people didn’t cooperate to class, and some people screamed out something and confused us to what to do. So it was very hard to work, using the time efficiently. That’s 1 difference I think of, when I compared to yesterday’s game. Because when I do the production by my self, I didn’t had a fight, or confused, or annoyed to something (someone). Similarities of these 2 activities were that we had to use our hand for these both activities. We had to glue, cut, and color, in these both activities.

Factory Game Reflection 1 ~paper craft!!~

Today, I created a toy, which was a doll, (maybe an alien) with a paper, which was cut in many different shapes. First, I made some eyes with a black crayon, and put 2 small circled pieces on each eye. Then I put the eyes on the top of the biggest circle, (top left and top right). This made the face funny looking. After that, I made the mouth with 3 ovals, -middle one’s the biggest- and put a nose between, the mouths and eyes. Secondly, I made the body with the second biggest circle. Then I put hands and legs around the body, using circles and ovals, and ribbon. Ribbon? What do you think I used ribbon for? I used the ribbon for the leg, to make it funny. It’s like captain hook, not having a leg, and putting something else as a leg.
I enjoyed very much doing this activity. And as I said in the entry before, I love activities. So I enjoyed it very much on this activity, especially making the toy funny looking.

Descriptive Writing -The Roller Coaster Holler-

“Weeen, Doom. Weeen, Doom.” It began ascending. This roller coaster moves up, with sound of “Weeen,” and falls down a little, in sound of “Doom.” It takes so much time to go up to the top, which scared me a lot.
“Weeen, Doom. Weeen, Doom.” I hear a creaking sound of engine. Oh no…What should I do??? I’m so scared that I wanna die. I felt my head is falling down, but the cushion is holding my head. Oh my… I drank my spit and put my feet close to together to reduce scariness. My spit tasted like water in a pool, and my feet was quivering very hard. It didn’t help me at all.
“Weeen, Doom. Weeen, Doom.” This coaster smelled like a gas. Is this coaster OK? I began worrying. Please don’t kill me… I was very afraid that I might gonna lose my consciousness. I looked down. People in the amusement park, slowly got smaller and smaller. I looked forward. We were in a very high place that we can see the cities like 100km away.
“Weeen, Doom. Weeeeeeeen… Doooooom…..” then engine made a terrible creak. And I noticed that first cart is already falling. Then 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th…
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....!!!!!”
I fall. In a very high speed. I can feel my head is falling toward, and noisy wind, playing with my hair. The wind tasted salty. But I was panicked, so I just grabbed the safety bar very tightly. How long is this taking? I wonder. It was just 5 second, but I felt like 1 hour had passed. It was the longest time I’ve ever felt. I grabbed the safety bar tighter. Please don’t kill me….
When I realized, I was getting out of the coaster.

Mother Necessity

What is the phrase “Necessity is the mother of invention” means?
I have 3 ideas what this phrase means.

First of all, I think necessity is the mother of invention because, mother
is the person who gives birth to the inventors. Every inventors are born from their
mother, and if mother didn’t born a baby, the invention haven’t occurred.

Secondly, mother is the person who does the nourish. Mother works very
hard to make the child grew healthy, and well educate. For example, Edison, who invented
light bulbs and electricity, his mother nourished Edison with very deep love. She didn’t let him go to school, because there was bad influence, (Bad words, fightings) so she spent most of the time Edison teaching. She worked hard on Edison’s education and that made Edison a great person.

Finally, mother keeps the house. They cook, wash the cloths, make bed, clean the room…..
they do many things. And at the old time there was many hard time doing does, such as washing.Because there wasn’t washing machines, so they washed it with their hand. But now there is a washing machine so everyone can wash the cloths easily. But who invent the washing machine? Most of the inventors, invented things from watching mother having a hard time. So mother’s hard time caused the many inventions.

How do I learn? -Feed Back Aug,11-15

I think I learn things by doing something, or making something (Kinesthetic). I think I’m Kinesthetic because, most of the time, I learn by having some experience. For example, last year in science I learned about Newton’s laws. But not just remembering, I got those in my head by doing some labs, and experiencing how that law works. So for me doing= learning

I think Mr. Coyle can help my learning in class, by doing some activities in class. (Because I’m Kinesthetic…) Like the activity that we did in the first week. Guessing the inference from the person’s 5 items that represents him (her). And I think it helps my learning a lot by doing those activities.

Feedback - Quarter 1 Goals

Two highlights from the first week of school.
Well, one is "Socratic Seminar"and another is the book Outsiders.
First of all, I was surprised to the idea of Socratic Seminar,
because I hadn't done a big discussion like that before.
At the first discussion, and also today's discussion (Aug,13)
I wasn't able to speak like everyone else does.
I was very quiet, shy and had no opinions.
So my first goals for 1st quarter is to "speak up in Socratic Seminar and
be able to join in the conversation."
Secondly, the book Outsiders. I had a very hard time
reading that book, because I hadn't read that kind of book when
I was in ESL last year. I was also surprised to the book, because there was
many idioms and slangs that I didn't know.
So the second goals for the 1st quarter is to improve my reading level.
I want to understand the book easily and mostly
I want to be able to read a book FASTER!!

My first impression to humanities.
My first impression was "nervous"
I was very nervous to study with everyone else
who speaks English fluently.
But now I'm OK.
Actually I'm very happy now.
Because I can learn many things from them.

MY GANG!!!

My Gang... People who supports me.
I think that kind of people are my parents.
They helps me with many things.
They helps me to concentrate in studies.
They also takes me to place where I can play.
Such as tennis.
And it is very fun to do both learning and sports!!

Also my friend(s) in Japan, who is my "goal"
(In many way. He's smart...)
He supports me from Japan and
I support him from India...

So I think parents and my friend is the "gang" for me.