GS Portfolio

Welcome back to my blog. This post is for the third Action Project of the Humanities class, The Art of Rhetoric. In this unit, we have been looking into the thirteen colonies and their origin. We have also studied the Seven Years War and its significance to how the colonies reacted afterward. We also looked at OSPAAL propaganda art which was anti-imperialist propaganda. OSPAAL stands for the Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. For Field Experiences this unit, we went to Marquette Park in Chicago to look at the Martin Luther King Jr. Living Memorial. This small memorial stands in Marquette Park to represent and provide remembrance from when Martin Luther King Jr. marched through the neighborhood to protest the segregation of housing. For this Action Project, we have been tasked with creating an art piece that addresses a certain issue. The issue I have chosen to work on is affordable housing in the West Loop and I am showing this in a mural th...

Welcome back to my blog. This post is for the second Action Project of the STEAM class Design and Engineering. In this unit, we have been studying bicycles. We started off with a lab test on wheels and how different wheels work. Then, we looked at pulleys and wheels as simple machines. We learned how to graph circles and ellipses and later moved on to study weight, mass, speed, velocity, and acceleration. We also learned about functions, energy, and gears. The Field Experiences this term were with Earth Rider Cycling, Divvy, and Dyson. At Earth Rider, we talked about electric bikes with the owner of the shop and had the chance to ride electric bikes. A guest came in from the Chicago Department of Transportation with Divvy and talked to the class about how the bike share system can remodel city transportation. Meeting with Dyson helped us learn how to prototype and pitch our ideas. These have all led up to the Action Project of designing a bike of our own. This bike has to meet the need...

Welcome back to my blog, This post is for the Action Project in our Spanish class. In Spanish, we have been covering verbs, adjectives, comparisons, superlatives, and more. Throughout the course, we have been using our textbook to learn these topics and apply them in different real-life situations. For this Action Project, we are creating a travel pamphlet to a Spanish-speaking country of our choice. I chose Puerto Rico because I have traveled there in the past and had a great time. This travel pamphlet has an English and Spanish version which includes, where to stay, local food, tourist destinations, and activities. I hope you enjoy reading and are maybe convinced to travel to Puerto Rico. I hope you enjoyed reading over the travel pamphlet. I think Puerto Rico was a good choice for me because I have traveled there before. Del Morro castle was one of the first places my family and I visited many years ago. We also went on a bioluminescent bay and Camuy Cave excursions which were a lot...

Welcome back to my blog. This post is for the second Action Project of the Humanities class, The Art of Rhetoric. In this second unit, we have continued looking at the rhetoric used in history. This includes analyzing the Doctrine of Discovery written by Pope Alexander VI, Bartolomé De Las Casas versus Columbus on Spanish cruelty in the colonies, and King Ferdinand's letter to the Taino-Arawak people. But one extremely important topic in this unit was the origins of slavery in the United States and the history behind that. This was introduced by reading Howard Zinn's, A People's History of the United States which talked about how slavery came around to the American colonies. We also had the chance to talk to Ugo Okere, a Democratic Socialist who ran for Chicago Alderman at the age of 22 in 2019, and 25th Ward Chicago Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez about challenging and accepting the status quo. For this Action Project, we have been asked to write an Op-Ed about a topic of our ...

Welcome back to my blog. This post is for the workshop class, The War on X. The War on X is a new elective class at GCE this Fall term that focuses on current events that their own small battles and large levels of importance. Some topics that were up for discussion were the War on Afghanistan, the War on Immigration, and Critical Race Theory. For this first unit the majority of the class decided to talk about the War on Immigration. More specifically we focused on the United States-Mexico border and the situation there. We looked into the history of a border and eventually wall being at the border in the first place and moved on to examine more recent events from the presidency of Donald Trump. We also looked at the entry process for immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees to enter the United States. In this small Action Project we were asked to choose one of the three groups trying to enter the US and look at their entrance process further. I chose to study refugees more because the...

Welcome back to my blog. This post is for the first Action Project of the STEAM class Design and Engineering. In this class we observed garden tools and learned how they are only fit for a specific audience. We examined a few tools and investigated how they could be remodeled to consider empathy and serve all customers. Empathy is putting yourself in another person’s situation and sharing feelings with them. We planted some flowers outside the school building to see how different tools have a certain purpose and later had a Field Experience at Home Depot to help us choose a tool that would be the core of this Action Project. I also interviewed a gardener who does hydroponics and he talked to me about the tools he uses and how they could be made better. This AP was asking us to redesign a tool so an elderly person would have an easier time using it. An elderly person is a unique audience because there are not many products designed for the elderly and it may make gardening a little easi...

Welcome back to my blog! This post is for the class Rhetoric in GCE's Humanities course. In this class we have been studying rhetoric and how it is used in politics and speeches. To analyze these speeches rhetorically we learned about the rhetorical situation which includes a speaker, audience, purpose, context, genre, and occasion. We have also observed the appeals a speaker should make to their audience such as logos meaning logic, pathos meaning emotions, and ethos meaning credibility. Lastly, we studied rhetorical devices which are literary devices that can be used to persuade or convince the audience. Using all of these tools we watched and analyzed many debates such as the Nixon versus Kennedy 1960 Presidential debate, the James Baldwin versus William Buckley debate, and compared the 2016 campaign advertisements for Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush. For our Field Experience this unit, we were visited by Julia Kline from ILVote, where she talked about her organization and their wo...