For our second unit of Rhetoric, we focused on the question,"How can we use rhetoric to change the status quo?" For some of us, this idea of "what is the status quo?" was confusing, but for the rest it's an idea that is constantly on our minds. To think more about the question, and how it fits its true form, we decided to speak with Ugo Okere, a twenty-two year old candidate running for Chicago Alderman of the 40th Ward. We learned more about him and how he used rhetoric throughout his campaign. We also brought in Troy Laraviere who plays an important figure not only in rhetoric, but in Chicago's education system. He also ran for mayor of Chicago last year. Laraviere is the current president of Chicago Principals and Administrators Association. He is known across the Chicagoland for curating an Op ed speaking on behalf of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, and why it's just as important to get the principals who are running the schools opinion as the Chicago Teachers Association. Reading Laraviere's Op ed led us to focus our action project on creating our very own an a timely topic. I chose to write about the current situation in Chile and how respected news channels that the majority of society follow can be false, while social media can sometimes be telling us the true story. Read my op ed down below!
Conclusion
Overall, I thought this Op ed was good way to wrap up unit two of Rhetoric. Being able to use rhetorical devices on a timely topic allowed me to see just how rhetoric is used on a day to day basis. I was also able to find myself and think about my overall view on this situation in Chile, but also see the way that social media can make an impact when it comes to political situations going on around the globe. This op ed really allowed me to reflect on the fact that news channels will play it safe when it comes to writing about political issues, and how it's a choice to maintain the status quo rather than changing it.
In my first STEAM course of the junior year, Design & Engineering, we discussed what tools are. We learned about the meaning of tools, different simple machines, and how they may be beneficial in our everyday lives. We started the term by going out to our school garden and picking up trash using only our hands, and also planted some plants. We calculated the amounts of plants that we planted in however many minutes we were out there just to get a rough estimate. The following week we did the exact same tasks, but this time we used gardening tools like hand cultivators, shovels, etc. We also calculated the amount of time we were out there planting and how many plants we planted. This activity showed us just how easy it is to use tools and how quick they can get the job done. We discussed different simple machines that we see in our everyday lives including levers, wedges, screws, and inclined planes. We also learned about the Pythagorean Theorem, Soh-Cah-Toa (trigonometry), ratios, and vectors. We also thought about how empathy can be a part of the design process when trying to sell your item. We thought about how not all tools and objects that we buy can be made for everyone. There are people in this world who are disabled and aren't able to use these items like everyone else would. This information would help us with our action projects that were coming up. We had the chance to visit Home Depot near our school and participated in a workshop led by an employee who taught us about different tools used for gardening, and we were given partners to work with for our AP's. While at Home Depot, my partner and I had to choose a gardening tool that we would be able to redesign for an elderly person. Prior to the choice of our tool, we were also asked to interview with a gardener. I interviewed my grandmother and throughout the process I noticed that she was finding it quite difficult to use the gardening tools due to her knee problems. My partner and I decided to take this problem into our own hands and redesign a transfer shovel that we had seen during our FE to Home Depot. Learn more about our redesign down below!
Defense:
We have created an ergonomic “d-handle” transfer shovel that makes transferring soil and gravel easier without having to use so much force on your back or knees. The shovel takes out soil and gravel and makes transferring easier and speeds up the gardening process. Our shovel is contoured to your body and has an extension that can extend up to 70 inches. You can pull the handle bar in order to extend. Get a better grip by putting your handle on the “d-handle” that has been contoured to fit your hand comfortably and hold onto the lower grip just under the extension to take out that soil. We know that two of the most common problems that elderly people face day to day is dealing with back pain and knee pain. We want to make gardening still an enjoyable activity rather than a task. We have made sure to think about key elements that go into gardening without taking the fun away, but including safer elements to our design. We would say that our tool works like a lever. We usually see in shovels that in the input force is at the top which is where your hands are pushing the shovel into the soil. In our case, the fulcrum is in the middle (extra grip stabilizer) allowing there to be a balance once you take the soil out which is exerting force out of the ground. There’s an up and down motion and the fulcrum in the middle which makes it a 1st class lever.
What are the parts?
Extendable Length Optimizer: Works like a telescope just pull out each handlebar that extends 14 inches for each handlebar. In general, the ergonomic “d-handle” transfer shovel can extend up to 70 inches (5’10)
Bendable Handshape Grip: Fits your hand perfectly and comfortably.
Body: Contoured (wavy) body in order to make your job easier and work with your body shape rather than having a stiff & hard handle bar which puts more pressure on your back.
Extra Grip: Helps you stabilize yourself while transferring gravel or soil.
Latch/ Button: Allows you to detach the blade from the body making it easier to clean.
Blade: Aluminium based making the tool lighter overall, and we added some sharper edges at the end but not too sharp to be dangerous for anyone who uses this transfer shovel!
Here are FOUR reasons why our tool is better than the competition:
Ergonomic body: Fitting your body shape and making it easier to work with because the extra grip is at the right spot of the shovel providing maximum comfort on your back, less force is made on your back, and you won’t have to bend down as low which protects your knees from any pain.
Handle grips: Providing more comfort throughout the tool and using two hands in different areas gives not only better grip but more balance causing you not to fall.
Extendable Length Optimizer: Are you tired of having to put force on your back while gardening? Well, we have made our tool extendable up to 70 inches (5’10) which is the average height making it easier and not cause you to slouch down as much. Do not worry, the extension shafts in our shovel does not affect the overall weight of the shaft because although we use wood, the wood that is used for the shaft is thinner making the weight distribution feel lighter.
Blade: The blade can move in a 360 motion making it easier to scoop out and dump soil or gravel to your pile. Along with the 360 motion blade, it's detachable! This makes the cleaning process 10 times faster!
Purpose:
Throughout this unit, the idea of empathy kept coming up on our minds. What makes a design a design? I personally feel that a design should be well thought of before engineered. When designing a product, you should be thinking about different people in this world who all go through different situations rather than what you have experienced yourself. What makes a true design is when you think about the people that can use the design, and that's how your design can become successful. While I was watching my grandmother struggle with some of the tools that she used, I realized that many designers don't really think about their audience to whom they are designing the product for. Sure they get the idea, but do they actually test out the item before it reaches the market?
The process:
When I was talking to my partner about redesigning a tool, I made sure to discuss the issues that I had seen my grandmother go through to base our future redesign on those issues. Our issues were back and knee problems that correlate with one another when using a shovel. It's sort of like a cause and effect situation. If you bend down when taking soil out, you hurt your back. When you're bending down, you apply more force on your knees causing knee pain and damage. It's a problem that needs to get solved. While at Home Depot, we were looking at the shovels that we think can cause the worst back and knee pain. We chose not only the shortest transfer shovel, but the most uncomfortable to hold. The "Anvil D-Handle Transfer Shovel" was our competition. We worked with the shovel throughout the workshop led at Home Depot and realized that this may be one of the toughest shovels an elderly person can use. When we go back, we thought about different ways to improve the design without losing the idea of the D-handle. The D-handle was efficient when thinking about the grip in which you place your hand through. We created a rough sketch of our design the first day of designing and presented our ideas to the class. We received feedback from our classmates the second round of the design process for what we can change or what they liked about our redesign. We created a storyboard on how potential customers can use our design efficiently and effectively. Lastly, we recorded our volume and surface area of one part of our design, we included vectors of where our input and output forces can be found throughout the design, and found a relevant quote that inspired our design process. If you want to see this information, click on the slideshow down below!
Our Slideshow Presentation:
In conclusion, this AP was quite interesting to complete. This AP made me realize how important it is to think about everyone when designing a product. There are people in this world who are disabled and who aren't able to do day to day tasks. We should make products that are designed for everyone rather than products that only work for certain people. Also, you get more of an audience when you an include everyone making your design better than the competition. The next time I design a product, I will always think about empathy and pleasing my potential audience!
For this humanities course, Rhetoric, we focused on studying the art of rhetoric. Some of us had no idea what rhetoric was and how it was used, only to find out that we use rhetoric everyday. We started off by learning about Aristotle’s ethos, pathos, and logos. Using credibility, emotion, and statistics to prove an argument. This term, we were able to visit Leo Burnette, which works with different brands in advertising and marketing.We learned about the art of rhetoric that is used within different brands to convince a customer to choose their brand. This was an interesting experience and also got me thinking about our AP. For this AP, we were given a democratic candidate who is currently running for presidency in 2020. We were asked to curate a question that could come up throughout the candidate's presidential campaign trail, and create a two minute speech in which the candidate will respond to. I got Senator Elizabeth Warren and her topic will be foreign affairs, specifically Iran Nuclear Deal. Read and watch my response to learn more!
Video:
Q. Senator Elizabeth Warren, as a Persian myself, I am tired of seeing my country and America not being able to make amends for the past four decades (especially now). In previous interviews you have stated that Iran is a “significant threat”. I am hoping that in the future, Iran and the U.S. could make amends. If elected president in 2020, what would you do in order to gain back a relationship with Iran?
2 Minute Summary:
I have stated in previous interviews that Iran is a “significant threat” to the United States. But what is more of a “significant threat” is the fact that our president has put us at risk of a nuclear war with Iran by withdrawing the U.S. from the JCPOA back in 2018. A president that is supposed to protect us has just put us at risk of nuclear destruction. As I've stated before on warren.senate.gov, “America should be a country that keeps it promises. The Obama Administration negotiated a landmark agreement to peacefully prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” This was a monumental moment in U.S. history. Finally being able to be a part of a peaceful agreement with Iran meant we might finally hold a stronger relationship with Iran, and a safer one. I’d rather deal with Iran’s bad behavior with a nuclear deal than without it. Our president has isolated us from many deals that could be pointing America to a better future, but instead has just isolated us. Now that we withdrew from the JCPOA, President Trump’s “administration has pummeled Iran with crippling economic sanctions.” according to Business Insider. Since September, Iran has already begun taking a “big step away from the deal when it announced it would begin developing more advanced centrifuges that allow for more rapid uranium enrichment.” from business insider. The JCPOA deal only limited Iran to “3.67% of Uranium enrichment to maintain the country’s energy needs.” according to NPR. That percent would not give Iran the ability to build a nuclear bomb. Now that we have Iran fighting back, we have increased our potential of nuclear war. As a senator serving for almost eight years, I have seen our presidents make decisions that can destroy America’s future. I will treat America like my baby if elected president. If I am elected president, I will make sure that every family in our country is in safe hands and never at risk of nuclear destruction. If elected president in 2020, I will make sure to get us back on that deal. Foreign affairs seems like an Eye of the Needle for some presidents, but it’s an issue we must address. We, as Americans, need to make sure that we make amends with countries like Iran before we go ahead and make other plans to better this country. We, as Americans, need to make amends with countries like Iran for the safety of this country. We, as Americans, need to make amends with countries like Iran in order to keep these influential generations alive and love this country. We have been divided for too long and it is time for us to make America what it should have been these past four years.
Overall, this AP got me thinking about America’s future. Next year, I will be able to vote for the very first time. I want to make sure that as a voter I make the right decision about the candidate I choose, and I want to make sure that our next president is able to make a difference for our country. Foreign affairs is a topic that I really look into when thinking about what makes a good candidate. I personally feel that in order to set orders on what can make our country better, we need to think about the countries we need to make amends with first. We need to make foreign affairs priority for the safety of our country.
Citations:
1. Gathright, Jenny, and James Doubek. “Iran Will Surpass Uranium Enrichment Limits, Officials Say.” NPR, NPR, 6 July 2019, www.npr.org/2019/07/06/739171142/iran-could-surpass-uranium-enrichment-limits-on-sunday-according-to-top-aide.
2. Haltiwanger, John. “Here's What's in the 2015 Nuclear Deal with Iran That Trump Withdrew from, Sparking a Crisis That's Led to the Brink of War.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 19 Sept. 2019, www.businessinsider.com/iran-nuclear-deal-explained.
For my community service hours this year I felt that it was important that I do something that I wouldn't only use as community service hours, but also be able to put on my college applications to show that I am a global citizen. This year I decided to volunteer at the Syrian Community Network near Edgewater to help Syrian refugees with the work they receive from the educational systems that are pushing them back from education they deserve. Something that i've learned throughout helping these kids with their homework, social emotional learning skills, and more, has been that our education systems in the U.S. are not suited for everyone. These kids are still adapting to the U.S. after fleeing from their homes which is now a war zone back in 2011, which is when the Syrian civil war began. At SCN, we help these kids adapt and understand the education system in Illinois and help them with basic social and emotional learning skills to use in their everyday lives. This has been quite the experience, and i'm glad to have been able to experience it. These kids have taught me patience, exploration, and have shown me to give gratitude to the little things! I am glad that my school motivates my peers and I to go out and help our community because I would never have known about organizations like SCN if I hadn't gone out my way to look for an organization that catered to what I was interested in. I have not only gone out of my way to help these refugees, but i've also built friendships along the way with teens my age! I have taken some photos throughout the year as well. Take a look below! I was also included in a video made to promote the After School Programs SCN offers!
For this independent study, I spent some time working on an idea that I had been thinking about for quite some time, starting a brand. I follow a lot of brands on instagram that all create streetwear to represent Middle Eastern culture such as Palestinian, Yemeni, Jordanian, Lebanese, Iraqi, and Syrian culture. As much as I love those culture, and hold them close to my heart especially growing up with friends who cam from that background, I always wished that there would have been a brand like that for my roots. I come from a Mexican and Moroccan background, it was always really hard growing up and trying to find something that resembled me. I was never ashamed of who I was and where my parents came from, in fact, each time someone started a conversation with me I would inform them on my background. Because I saw that these brands have a trend with the people who they wanted to bring forward, Middle Easterners, I also saw a lot of people who came from a North African background whether they were Tunisian, Moroccan, or Algerian, who also followed these brands. I wondered if they felt the same way that I did. I wondered if they wanted something to relate to, but still wanted to educate others on their background. From there I played around with the idea of starting my own brand that catered to North African countries. I had been thinking about it for a while to the point that I was certain that I wanted to start something. I talked to my parents about the idea, and they agreed. My independent started with me trying to come up with a name. I knew that I wanted to think about incorporating French and Arabic to the name because those are the two commonly spoken languages in the Maghreb region. I wanted a name that joined these countries together, but I also wanted an urban flow to it. I played with the idea of street names, and in France every street name starts with Rue, meaning street or route. Maghreb is the region in North Africa which include three countries such as: Algeria, Morocco,Tunisia. From there, I found the name, Rue Maghreb. I created an instagram handle, and started contacting people I knew to follow and inform others about the brand starting. From there, we started the process of creating a brand!
Now the process included, how do we print shirts? I went to different screen printers across the Chicagoland who would be able to print my designs on shirts. Another question came up, where do I purchase wholesale shirts? How soft does the shirt need to be? Do I cuff the sleeve? Many questions were coming up which may have been the most stressful time of the business planning. It came down to my teachers recommending me to screen print my own shirts because not only was it cheaper, but I would be able to see the process myself. I do not regret printing my shirts one bit, especially because of how picky I am with things. I was able to see the process from building a screen printing frame, to picking the colors I wanted for ink, to printing my very own shirt. I bought the shirts from a wholesale website, and chose the Bella + Canvas brand shirts to work with. Now that that process was over, I needed to take some photos of the merch to put up on the website. My friends and I held a shoot at my house, and then we headed out to Wicker Park to get some shots. Chicago is the best place to take photos, especially when your trying to get the urban vibe for your shots. When I was thinking about the brand, I wanted to make sure that people were aware that the brand is based in Chicago. I grew up in Wicker Park and I think the area has a lot to do with the way I am today. This area has allowed me to express myself, and my culture. I got most of my fashion style from seeing the people around me. Walking around Milwaukee Ave. and seeing everyone's outfits inspired me and made me feel more confident in who I was. I want people to feel the same way with their merch when walking around an area they feel connected to. As we were shooting, my friends and I also felt that confidence with what we were wearing. The shirts fit in and people began asking us where we got our shirts fun which was my very first interaction with people asking me about the brand. It was a great feeling. Here are some clip of the shoot that day!
Lastly, it all came down to creating and designing the website. I needed a domain in order to make the name official! Now that I had settled with the name, Rue Maghreb, I was very confident in the decision I had made. I created the website using Wix.com which was a great way to start off creating a website, especially when you don't have experience. I started thinking about the ways that I wanted to design the website to make sure that it caught everyone's eye. I made sure to release a countdown on instagram to inform my audience to tune into the website when I launched. While I was designing, I also made sure to direct message a bunch of people who were also interested in North African culture. Whether they were North African themselves or already had a shop dedicated to Moroccan rugs or even teapots, I made sure to message anyone and everyone to get the word out that the site was launching. The day I launched, I had people from Antwerp, Belgium which has a huge Moroccan population putting the Rue Maghreb site on their instagram pages. I also had people in Dubai informing their followers. People in the U.S. Three days before the launch, I emailed this beauty influencer who is Moroccan. She is famous for being the very first hijabi model for the popular makeup shop, Sephora. She helped Sephora in making a big step in terms of diversity for the brand. She wore the merch and posted about Rue Maghreb on instagram. Prior to the launch, Rue Maghreb had 138 followers. After the first day of the launch, we made 210 followers! It was great seeing the messages from people who were excited not only for the launch, but also to know that they had always wanted a brand that was dedicated to their culture! Today, you can check out the merch on the Rue Maghreb site!
I am so glad that I started the brand up! I think it was a great experience through everything. Although this is an independent study, I couldn't have done it without the help of my teachers who guided me through questions that kept popping up. I have been able to connect with Moroccans, Algerians, and Tunisians throughout the U.S. and internationally which is awesome. I see some really exciting things happening for the brand very soon. I have two contacts, one in Morocco and the other in Chicago to collaborate with which is really exciting! This independent study was a great way to wrap up the end of the school year!
For my last AP for STEAM this year, we were asked create a medical patient profile. Throughout the term we discussed the topics of how to prevent a disease from happening based on your family health history. We discussed nutrition plans, and which certain vitamins and minerals are found in the foods we eat now. We also looked into experimental probability that would help us later for our Action Projects. We had an in house guest, Gayle Vaul, who was a certified CPR trainer who was able to teach the class the basics of CPR. For this AP, we were asked create a medical patient profile. This patient was supposed to be a fictional character, and include a family tree. We found the most reoccurring health disease in the family tree, and calculated the probability of the patient's chances of getting that disease in the future. We created nutrition plans, goal timelines, alternative treatments, and more to prevent our patient from getting their families most common disease. Read my medical profile I created, and ways I helped my patient!
To conclude, I thought this AP was very useful for me. Personally, I never really thought about my family health, and thinking about my family tree until this AP. I think it's important that we take time out to find out more about our family backgrounds and health. Chances are that you are more likely to develop a disease that you didn't know you could get because you weren't aware of your families medical history. Wrapping up the year, I just want to say this was my favorite STEAM course by far for as long as i've been at GCE. These courses have really guided me, and allowed me to think more about the choices I want to make in terms of thinking about classes to take in university. I have definitely started thinking about taking the medical approach for my potential future career!
For my last AP for my last humanities class of my sophomore year, Drama, we were assigned to read the playwright, A Raisin In The Sun, a story inspired by Langston . This tells a story of a family in Morgan Park, Chicago who are crammed in one apartment complex. All these characters have dreams that are deferred in some sort of way. Walter, the man of the house, has a dream of opening his own liquor store. Mama, Walter's mother, wishes to leave the apartment, and purchase a home. Ruth, Walter's wife, wishes to gain respect from her husband. Beneatha, Walter's sister, wishes to go to university; and Travis, Walter's son, wishes to work outside of the grocery store to get paid. For this AP, we were asked to get in partner's and read dialogue that came out to us throughout the play and write some commentary about it. We recorded our commentary and how these character's are in the right and wrong of the situation. Listen to the audio below to listen to my thoughts on the situation.
NB. Ruth & Walter Dialogue. 2019
Works Cited:
1. “A Raisin in the Sun.” File:A Raisin in the Sun 1959 2.JPG, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_Raisin_in_the_Sun_1959_2.JPG.
2. Meditation, Relax Music. “[ No Copyright ] Coffee House Jazz | Calm Jazz Music | Relaxing Music | Relax Music Meditation.” YouTube, YouTube, 1 Apr. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mgYnwhM4eg.
In this class, Drama, we looked into the play, A Doll House. This play also looked into gender roles just like the play from the last unit, The Taming of the Shrew. We went on multiple FE's to the Goodman Theatre where we got some training on how to act and make sure that the plays that we curate are the best they could be. What we were asked to do for this term is have the main character from A Doll's House, Nora, a man, and a character who was a part of The Dinner Party. The Dinner Party was a famous feminist art installation by Judy Chicago. She featured multiple different influential women. We decided to choose the Indian God, Kali for our mythical character. The guiding question for this AP was, What would happen if gender roles were switched in society? Read and watch the rest of my AP to learn more, and check out my groups AP's as well! PA & JNL
In this class, Cure, which is my last STEAM term of the year, we are looking into medicine. We looked into OTC(over the counter), Rx (prescription), and homeopathic remedies. We had an in-house guest who graduated from med school, and is going through her placement as an anesthesiologist. It was interesting to get her perspective on what she does and how she balances her life as a medical professional. For this AP, we were asked to make a medicine box. We looked into one certain symptom and found different ways to treat that particular symptom by looking into three different medicines that could treat it. Look at my AP to learn more about how to relieve sinus congestion!
The Lock and Key mechanism is basically a cause and effect for a chemical reaction. This connects to medication because we can use that cause and effect mechanism when we are looking for the correct medication to treat our symptoms. From pain medication we get a chemical reaction to our nervous system because our nervous receptors may get muted so that we don't feel pain or the swollen part of our bodies get healed.
To conclude, I found this unit to be very interesting! I liked looking into the different components of medicine, and looking into what really classifies certain medication. I think my favorite part was looking at different homeopathic remedies because alternative medicine does fascinate me. Knowing that there is ways to naturally cure or treat a disease instead of using a manmade prescription is something that people should be looking into. This unit really opened my eyes and allowed me to explore that!
For this unit we took a deeper look into surgeries. We started off the term by beginning to read a book called, The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks, which tells the story of a woman during the civil rights movement who has cervical cancer. We hear stories of her reaction to having cervical cancer, treatments, and more. Something special about Henrietta is that her cells were taken for multiple tests, but a medical professional at the time named George Gey sold them and they become internationally popular. As we go on in the course, we also looked into DNA structure and cell biology. For this AP we were asked to find a surgery we want to learn more about, and allow the audience to take a deeper look into the specific surgeries we looked into. I chose to look into Nerve Decompression surgery which is usually performed on people who suffer with migraines regularly like myself.
To conclude, this AP was very interesting to look into. For someone who struggles with migraines quite regularly, I thought it was nice to see that there are options to treat them. Migraines a constant struggle in my life and others, and it’s important to inform others on these surgeries, even something as simple as Botox, to treat migraines. This unit gave me inspiration to look into different surgeries and see the affects our bodies have when they are performed!
In Unit 1 of Drama we looked into the playwright of The Taming of the Shrew written by William Shakespeare. As we read, we stumbled upon some questions on gender equality and how it has evolved from then and now. We visited The Goodman Theatre to look deeper into costume design, set design, how actors prep, and more! The Taming of the Shrew tells the story of two young sisters living in Padua. Katharina is a young, independent women who will not get told off by any man, while Bianca is a pretty, kind, gentle girl who everyone is in love with. Practically every man in Padua is in love with Bianca, but Bianca is not able to get married until Katharina is married according to their father, Signor Baptista. The story plays around with gender in a way that gets the audience thinking which is something that Shakespeare was known for. Who looked at societal "issues" that weren't really issues at the time because no one acknowledged them. Another thing that Shakespeare is quite known for are his sonnets. Sonnets are interesting because Shakespeare followed an iambic pentameter which meant that certain words in the sentence would follow a "duh-dum" beat like the rhythm of your heart. Each sentence would have to have ten syllables. After reading The Taming of the Shrew, we were asked to make a sonnet for one of the characters in the play. We would need to give them advice for a situation that they were in or tell them something we agreed or disagreed with. I chose Signor Baptista, the father of two young women who he marries off. Read or watch my sonnet to learn more!
NB. The Taming Of The Shrew. (2019)
Sonnet:
Baptista sure knows how to be a vex
Although others may disagree with me,
It’s all about the superior sex.
You know all they care for is the dowry.
If you want your daughters to be happy,
Allow them to wed whom they truly love.
All the men for your daughters are scrappy,
Treat your daughters the same way one treats doves.
