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Core Competency English 12

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Synthesis Essay and Core Competency

Effects of Childhood Influences on Adults

Although many believe a personality is inherited at birth, certain traits develop from certain experiences throughout life. Obtaining a personality based on childhood influences is accurately represented by the main characters in the short stories Long Long After School, written by Ernest Buckler, and A Teachers’ Rewards, written by Robert Phillips. In both stories, the authors demonstrated the affects that bullying can have on certain individuals, not only in the moment it’s occurring, but in the long run as well. In Long Long After School, Wes portrays an African American male attending a school that’s attended predominately by white people. As a result, Wes is discriminated against for his skin colour by the students and faculty except for one teacher, Miss Trethewey. She saw Wes for who he was as a person rather than judging him based on his skin colour. In the short story, A Teachers’ Rewards, Raybe portrays a lower-class student that got tormented for his lack of wealth by his classmates and his teacher, Ms. Scofield. Unlike Ms. Trethewey, Ms. Scofield did not see Raybe for who he truly was beyond his appearance. As a result, both characters lived different lives that were heavily influenced by the experiences they had during their childhood.

Wes and Raybe grew up in opposite environments which led to differently experienced childhoods. Wes, unlike Raybe, had people in his life that cared about him. When Wes was younger, he punched a glass window that left him in need of a blood transplant, but “in those days no one felt too comfortable about having his blood siphoned” (Buckler, 52) because of the dangerous connotation associated with it. Despite the risk, Wes’s mother was willing to do it to keep her son safe. His mother was unable to follow through because she had a different blood type, but expressing she wanted to take the risk proved how much she loved him. Wes’s schoolteacher though, Miss Trethewey, offered to donate her blood for Wes to survive. It was not only a risk for someone to donate their blood to someone else, but Wes believed it was uncommon when it was for a person of a different race stating that “…no one felt like taking any chances for [him]…” (Buckler, 52). But Miss Trethewey was willing to give “a whole quart” (Buckler, 52) of blood to Wes for him to survive. Miss Trethewey risked her life and reputation to donate blood to Wes which clearly depicts how much Miss Trethewey also cared for Wes. Alternatively, Raybe was not exposed to the same affection that Wes was. From when he was young, Raybe’s parents and grandfather had died and he was left with his aunt who couldn’t provide much for him which left Raybe feeling isolated. The feeling of isolation heightened when he attended school because Raybe was constantly bullied by his teacher, Miss Scofield, in front of the class which hindered his ability to create friendships with the other kids as “The other kids left [him] out of things, because [Miss Scofield was] always saying [he] was bad” (Philips, 386). The bullying exemplifies that not only did Raybe have no support at home, but he had none at school either. In the end, Wes, although consistently picked on by his community, had people such as his mother and Miss Trethewey that cared for his wellbeing, whereas, Raybe had very little people that supported him. As a result of these outside influences, Wes and Raybe continued to lead different lives.

As a result of their upbringings, Wes and Raybe’s influences during their childhood led them to pursue different futures.  Wes, although bullied by his community, had people in his life that cared for him. He was able to overcome the hardships of his childhood and became known as the “caretaker-about-town” (Buckler, 48) by the people that used to bully him. This occupation signifies that he grew up to become a caring person. Moreover, Wes is also known as the guy that has a house that “is furnished with almost nothing but books” (Buckler, 48), and “can quote anyone from Seneca to Henry James” (Buckler, 48). He has a reputation of being a knowledgeable man which is a favourable trait to have. In addition, he put a corsage on Miss Trethewey’s grave which exemplifies how he didn’t disregard the risks she took in standing up for him. The action symbolizes the constant love and respect he has for everything Miss Trethewey did to help him. Because of this, Wes grew up to be an honourable man despite the hardships he faced during his childhood. Alternatively, Raybe underwent constant teasing from his teacher and peers during his childhood and had no one that could support him through it. Because of that, he went down the wrong path and hung out with the “rocky crowd” (Philips, 386) which landed him in jail for 10 years. Following his release, Raybe confronted Miss Scofield for the harassment during his schoolyears. Raybe acted with aggression to get back at her which exemplifies how he grew up to become demoralized and hateful towards others. Wes was able to overcome adversities and become a respectable man, but Raybe expresses, through his actions, that he was unable to do the same. Wes lives a content life despite the trouble he was put through at a young age, whereas Raybe grew to have immense hatred towards others.

While they were both stereotyped during their childhood, the actions Wes and Raybe perused later in life exemplified their true characters. When Wes was younger, he was discriminated for his skin colour. “The kids used to tease [him] at school” (Buckler, 50), he was referred to as “dirty” (Buckler, 50) by his classmates, and make comments about how he would be “turning pale” (Buckler, 50) or “blushing” (Buckler, 50). After all the harassment he was put through, Wes grew up to stand up for himself. The narrator of the story was a former classmate of Wes that picked on him, but after Wes told his perspective of his childhood, the narrator was able to see Wes’ true character. Being able to change the perspective of someone who stereotyped him proves that Wes grew up to be nothing like how he was categorized. Moreover, Raybe was stereotyped based on his lack of wealth. His former teacher believed that he had “no motivation” (Philips, 385), “no follow-through” (Philips, 385) and claims that she “knew where [he’d] end up” (Philips, 385). She believed that since he came from little money that he was eventually going to go to jail because that’s “true to form” (Philips, 385) for people like him. Raybe got in with a “rocky crowd” (Philips, 386) and ended up in jail for ten years just as Miss Scofield predicted. When Raybe confronted Miss Scofield, instead of using his words to express himself like Wes did, he chose to use violence. He rapped her knuckles with a hammer which just continued to illustrate his stereotype. The actions Wes and Raybe ensued later in life expressed their true nature. Wes overcame the hate given by his community and lived a content life, whereas Raybe ended up in jail and acted according to the way he was categorized.

 

Wes and Raybe grew up to live unlike futures as a result of their different upbringings. Wes had a mother and teacher that stood up for him, but Raybe had no one on his side. These differences contributed in their dissimilar futures. Wes grew up to become an honourary man, one that no one believed he could be at a younger age, therefore overcoming the stereotype that was placed on him during his school years. Contrarily, Raybe grew up to be exactly how his teacher said he was going to be. He went to jail for many years and decided he wanted to get back at his former teacher for everything she put him through by using violence. Raybe grew up to be “true to form” (Philips, 385).Childhood influences don’t just affect adulthood, but they determine how the adult’s personality and behavior will be like. Differentchildhood experiences account for the differences that every individual has when they are older.

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Desmos Art Functions Card 2019

Link to Project: https://www.desmos.com/calculator/tjlq4gubeg

I started this project with having done one other Desmos project before in grade 10. Since that project I haven’t used Desmos much, therefore; I don’t remember how to use it. As a start, I went back to my grade 10 project to jog my memory which helped a lot. I remembered I have to use a specific domain and range to get functions to connect accurately. Then I thought about the picture I wanted to recreate and thought about how I could incorporate the 6 functions we had to use into the picture I had in mind. Having a rough idea of what I wanted to do helped speed the process along.

One thing that I found the most difficult was the domain, because it’s one of the most important aspects of the project. This is because in most instances I only wanted to use a certain part of a graph, so using the domain just to get that certain area only was difficult. It was also difficult to get the lines to connect properly using the domain. I had to try different numbers and keep zooming in to get them to attach and not overlap.  Another challenge was making the function fit in the area I wanted it to. For example, I had the outline of the window and when I wanted to do curtains with a logarithmic function inside the window, it was difficult to get a function that would fit in the window and also look the way I wanted it to. It took multiple guesses with reflections and translations to get a function that was close to the one I wanted and then played around with the domain to make it more accurate. I used that strategy in other aspects of the card such some of the Christmas tree decorations.

Besides domain, another thing that’s very important when doing this project is transformations and reflections. It makes the project move along faster because rather than copying the same function down and then changing it so that it is where you want it to be, you can just write down the function label and add a transformation to it. This helps get the desired line. I also used a lot of inverse functions that helped me get a function where I wanted it to be. It helped me get familiar with transformations.

When I was stuck on certain things I would google how to do it on and it helped me out more than expected. It was really helpful in helping me understand how to use inequalities to shade areas and shapes. The inequality that I used to shade in my eyebrows is something that made me proud because at that point I had learned how to use equalities and functions well that I could use my knowledge to apply it to shade my eyebrows in. Besides google, I have multiple friends that have already taken pre-calc 12 and had to do this project too so I asked them for things when I was stuck. For example, I asked how to label and how to organize all my functions. Their recommendation was to make a lot of folders with less functions in them rather than fitting a lot in one folder which was really helpful when I had to go back and redo something. It was easy to find the function. They also helped me with functions that I wasn’t very familiar with such as circle functions and semi-circle functions that were necessary in this project.

At first I found the project extremely tedious, but after I got the hang of it the process quickened. I didn’t have a specific strategy that I used, but I had a plan that I stuck to. My idea was to get the basic shapes of what I wanted done and then add detail after. After that, I fixed the domain so that all the lines were connected perfectly without overlapping. It took a lot of time, effort, and detail to achieve the holiday card that I had envisioned, but in the end I learned a lot and I am extremely proud of the my holiday card.

 

Fahrenheit 451 Reflection

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My group did pages 59- 65 from the big book. My role in this project was the literary luminary meaning I had to pick out quotes that contained figurative language and talk about their meanings and why they are significant to the theme of the book. I completed by role with care and detail and used notes that Ms. Shong gave us to complete it. After I completed the quotes, I moved on to putting it on the powerpoint. Closer to the due date I messaged group members outside of class to remind them to stick to the timeline we discussed prior. I also added group members work that they only put on the collaborative google docs and not the powerpoint to make sure it was completed on time.

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