Archive for category Writing
Equiano’s Passage to America
Then the soldiers dragged me to a hold, the stench of the hold while we were on the coast was so intolerably loathsome, that it was dangerous to remain there for any time, and some of us had been permitted to stay on the deck for the fresh air; but now that the whole ship’s cargo were confined together, it became absolutely packed with slaves captured from each of their own places. The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the hundreds of slaves in the ship, which was so crowded that each and every one of us barely have the space to turn around, almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspiration, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died. The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable. Some of the slaves I see would pee them selves because there are no bathroom, the human waste made the air even more unpleasant
While laying down on my space I was thinking of home, where they would treat me nicely and I have an open space where I can lay down in. When I almost fell asleep, suddenly one of the sailors poured a bucket full of sea water on me so that I would wake up. I was shocked on the harsh method of waking people up. Then they forced me to sit up, after I sat up they start shoving food in my mouth so that I could eat and stay alive. When I was chewing the food they would make me hurry and swallow the food so that they can shove more in. When I tried to refuse to eat they would strike me so that I would follow orders and eat. Groaning was coming from almost everywhere because they were also being force fed by the sailors. The captured slaves might have think that they’d rather die than eat and keep on being tortured everyday by the sailors.
After a few minutes of force feeding they left the cargo to get back up to the deck for fresh air. Some of the slaves were chocking on their food because they have to much food inside their mouths due to force feeding. While I’m busy chewing on my food in my mouth, my neighbour were choking on his food and almost vomiting. Just when I thought it was over, a few minutes later they forced us to go to the deck. After all of us has arrived to the deck, they made us dance so that we can have some physical activity and also to keep us in shape. Some of us refused to dance and so the sailors took their whips and whipped them so that they will do so even if they’re tired. After almost an hour we head back to the cargo and laid down on the floor, when all of us settled in we were all exhausted from the harsh activities. The next day we woke up from a terrible smell of dead corpses, and so the sailors picked them up and tossed them out of the boat and into the ocean. Day by day more people die because of diseases and hygiene issues, after so much suffering we survived and landed on America.
Work Cited
Discovery Education. “Understanding Slavery.” Discovery Education. N.p., n.d.
Web. 19 Jan. 2012. <http://school.discoveryeducation.com/
schooladventures/slavery/equiano_passage.html>.
Spartacus Educational. “Olaudah Equiano.” Spartacus Educational. N.p., n.d. Web.
19 Jan. 2012. <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Sequiano.htm>.
Wikipedia. “Olaudah Equiano.” Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2012.
Reaction Writing to Olaudah Equiano’s life
Posted by William in Appino, Grade 8, Middle School, Writing on January 16, 2012
After years Equiano bought his freedom and he was finally a freeman, even though he bought his freedom a couple of slave traders still captured him as a slave. Equiano was tied to the mast for the whole night until finally they let him down and set him free. After he was set free Equiano planned to go to England, which he accomplished. In England Equiano wrote an autobiography called ; The life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. His autobiography then became an international best seller.
Slavery, the tormentor of centuries.
Posted by William in Appino, Grade 8, Middle School, Writing on January 11, 2012
When I read the pages about slavery in America back in 16 and 17 centuries I was surprised that they were still using methods of death penalty that weren’t efficient such as hanging or burning at stakes. I learned more unusual things from the article more than the book, because there were more details and a time line in the article. I think that slavery is like hell on earth for the Africans, because everyday they were forced to hard labor without any pay and little food for the day. Most slaves would die because of the harsh condition of their everyday labor and punishments from their master for making simple mistakes. When I saw the diagram of the slave ship I was shocked because there were many people stuffed in rows in the slave ship. I wonder how they feel after months of voyage in the same ship without any stops.
1. What surprised you about this article and this topic from your Colonial Life Exchange Activity? Why – Explain your reasons.
What surprised me was how they would massacre a whole village for a small amount of people and also the amount of people in one ship just scared me because imagine staying there for months. Also another thing that surprised me was the laws and rules the slave masters used in the house hold and most of them included pain or force.
No slavery
Copper Sun Book Respaunz!
Inequality among the Natives and The Americans
Some rights reserved by cm195902
A few days ago I watched a video in my Humanities class about how Native Americans are being treated unequally by their government. When I watched the video I learned that the government was like a fox back then, tricky and unbelievably sly. You might be thinking “why?” well here is why the government was like a fox. The government first made a deal that they will give them the black hills and their treasure back, but the government lied to them. The Soo tribe was furious about this deception of giving back what rightfully belonged to them. So the Soo tribe decided to have a war against the Americans, but because of their lack of technology they lost the war. Coming with their lost at the war, valuable lives was lost and their treasures robbed. In my opinion I think that this is wrong and the government should give them back the black hills, their treasures, and their freedom. Because of the governments lie innocent lives are lost because of that. I learned that lying and war is never the answer to resolve a problem between different worlds.
The Navajo Tribe
Posted by William in Middle School, Writing on November 24, 2011
Summary
What did you do? Summarize the process of researching to presenting your region.
The first thing I did as an individual is that I was assigned a topic which was warfare, political structure, and religion. Then after I was assigned a topic I researched it in various websites. After my research was complete me and my group started on the presentation on prezi first, but because prezi failed on saving our work we switched to google presentation which was more reliable. When we finished the google presentation we started to write our scripts, but I didn’t write my script because I prefer improvising and eye contact instead of reading of paper while presenting because it was inconvenient. Finally we finished rehearsing and 2 days later after waiting group after group we presented our work and research in front of the class.
Analyze your learning:
What did you do well?
I think I did well on presenting and adding info at the presentation without making it look boring and lame. I also think that I did well on eye contact with the audience because some of the presenters didn’t give the audience any eye contact at all also I think I did well on my voice because I spoke loudly so that every one can hear me.
What did your group do well?
My group did well on their information on their research and also giving eye contact and speaking in a loud and clear voice so that every on in the room can hear.
What did you find challenging?
What I found challenging was to not bore the audience to sleep because some of them were looking tired when we star off on our presentation. I also think that making the audience understand was a challenge because some times I get very nervous on presentations like this because there are many eyes expecting a good presentation.
What could you improve? Identify 2-3 areas..
I could improve on my research by adding more detail and additional background on my topics, because its like there were still missing holes when I present. The second thing that I could improve on is adding more HD pictures so It doesn’t look pixelated when the picture is shown at the projector. Third thing I could improve is on amusing the audience a little more because there were still audience with this face on even though I tried to amuse them as much as I can -_-
Learn
What did you learn about the Native Americans? What did you learn about researching and presenting? (This needs to be a minimum of a paragraph in length).
I learned that they have many territories before the Europeans arrived to their land and started to concur them one by one. I also learned that most of the Native Americans are peaceful people and that they don’t like to cause troubles. Also that as long as you approach them peacefully and without provoking them everything will go smoothly without anyone getting hurt or starting a war between the Natives and the Europeans. What I learned about presenting is that it’s hard to amuse people when they are tired. I also learned that even though people are in eight grade some of them still don’t have a loud voice for presenting.
Space Bound (A.O.W)
What Asteroid Mining Might Look Like
This weeks article of the week was amazing but also disappointing, because if we succeed in asteroid mining millions of people will be jobless. It also means that astronauts are now iron minors because people who flies to space must know how to survive and well trained and they have to be two thirds of Stephen Hawking. This could effect the world in a positive way and negative way because if we succeed at asteroid mining many people will be jobless, but earth will have more chance to reproduce more iron for the time being while the astronauts are busy mining. But as always, live isn’t that easy because everything you do have risks in it even though its a small risk it is still a risk. On the one hand its great you have taken all the dirty industries from the earth, but you have put millions of people out of their only jobs. This would be dangerous because most miners in earth are lowly educated so it is hard for them to find another job because of their low intelligence. This idea might also make a huge iron mining country to crisis because there are so many people that are jobless and aren’t receiving food.
Now we move on to terraforming, the idea of terraforming is basically about making another inhabitable planet to be habitable. At first I thought this whole idea was crazy and misleading, but after I think about it seems to be an idea that might create a second earth. Maybe people will finally be able to move to another planet without having to wear protective suits and oxygen tanks, they can breath naturally from the new earth. If you think this is the best idea that could happen and have no effects of people in earth, well you’re maybe wrong. Because maybe there are life forms on the planets that are against terraforming and that the lifeforms likes their environment the way it is. Then again, even though it is a great idea there are always risks that comes with the new idea on terraforming.
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