Category: Grade 11

Poetry Assignment

Image result for rainy sad cliff

Once My Closest Friend

Be it because you care I doubt with force

Still after you have changed which is my own

My inner thoughts escaped now off of course

You turned my days of sun quick into rain

It crashes down on hair upon my head

I lose my mind and think in total pain

Untrusting trusted wishing I was dead

But still I’m pulled to play in your cruel game

To hope this time you may have grown and changed

Absurd belief in you that sparks a flame

Of hope that you are some how not deranged

Again I have been bit by your flawed way

As well the snake that never I can slay

 

The Poem “Once My Closest Friend” by Cam Foster is a Sonnet The appears to be written about a friend he had. This poem is about the betrayal of a friend. They were toxic and tried to make up for it but their habits kept up and they betrayed him again.

 

This poem is a closed poem. It is in sonnet form. The rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg. It also has a rhythm of iambic pentameter all the way through which must have been a difficult task. Some figurative language in this poem is symbolism for their good days being sunny and their bad days being rainy. They use the snake to symbolise betrayal. An understatement is when they say “play in your cruel game” he isnt actually talking about a game. He is talking about trying to be your friend is like playing a game.

 

The tone of this poem is a very bitter one about being betrayed by someone who was once close. This has a couple different examples of symbolism. There is the snake which is a symbol of betrayal. There is also the sparking flame which is to symbolise hope that they have changed. The theme of the poem is that someone that he was close to betrayed him and it shows he was never the same when he says “My inner thoughts escaped now off of course” . This person has ruined their trust in people it shows this when it says “untrusting trusted” This is saying that he is questioning people he used to trust.

 

Canada Joining World War 2

1. Canada’s decision this world war was different than the first one because in the first one we were automatically at war as soon as Britain declared war. This time Canada is an autonomous country and made the decision by itself. Although we still felt connected to Britain it was parliaments decision and not Britain.

2.The BCATP is what king hoped to be Canada’s only contribution to the war. He wanted to avoid conscription so he wanted to send supplies and food. It is the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. This was to train pilots to go to the war. C.D. Howe’s total war economy is when Howe was given control to use whatever necessary to “gear up the economy”. He did this by telling factories what to produce, how to produce it.

3.Canada’s attitude going into the war is much less confident than the first war. They don’t believe they have enough troops to defend Canada. This was shown in some political cartoons. In political cartoons in world war one showed that Canada was very confident about the war. In world war two they are more hoping they can scare Hitler off. They aren’t as confident.

The Disorder of Our Lives

Entropy: Why Life Always Seems to Get More Complicated

 

I feel this is an interesting topic to talk about. The idea of entropy in science connected to our life is what drew me in. I really enjoy this author and his style of writing because it feels like hes having a genuine conversation with you. It doesn’t feel like hes trying to shove his opinion down your throat. It is descriptive and concise. I made the connection from the article to my life because my life is gradually getting more busy and disordered and stressful. I have breaks and other things like that and it helps me pull my life back together like that puzzle.

Energy Usage

This is the energy usage and cost for my house for one week.

Technology and Electricity is Becoming a Need Instead of a Want

Why Reliance on Technology is a Bad Thing

This topic is interesting for me because it hits close to home. I believe the topic is really relevant and pressing today. I liked the sense of realism the author portrays to you while reading it. The author uses examples like “Imagine a power outage… The kind that brought an entire coast of our country grinding to a halt”. He signifies how in today’s age it would be almost impossible to live in a power outage for any extended periods of time or when our fossil fuels run out. He claims that 50 years ago engineers, stock traders, and designers would be able to continue their profession rather than it being crippled as it would in today’s technological society. personally connected to this article because I used to rely on technology for everything and would not be able to put it down. It became more of a necessity for me rather than a tool. In a power outage that we experienced it felt impossible to continue when my devices died. When I stepped back and started thinking of it as a tool again I was able to continue without it. I can now read books and practice music without feeling unbearably bored.

 

Switzerland Population Pyramid

2. The dependency ratio is 49.9%. So it is really close to 50% of the population supporting the other 50%.

3. Based on my population Pyramid, Switzerland is in stage 4 and starting to transition into stage 5. The country is fairly stable in its population. There was a big spike for the baby boomers and now the population is leveling out after that spike.

4. Switzerland should start preparing to transfer to stage 5. They could start implementing rewards for the more kids you have to try to keep their population up or they could accept immigrants to level out the population. This should happen because the population could be starting to decline. This would present problems because There would be less and less people supporting the baby boomer spike and it cold make the country unstable. If they needed to reduce the population they should do it more gradually to keep from too little of the population supporting a much bigger portion of the elderly and kids. They could gradually tone down the birth rates to keep the pyramid looking almost perfectly straight up and down. This would provide a perfect balance and be able to transition the population to the perfect amount to not have overpopulation. They could do this buy analyzing statistics on where they would like the population to be at the end of each year. And if they would like the population to slowly decrease they could use the average death rates and calculate the amount of births per person and restrict the rates accordingly.

Government Change

Pressure groups/lobbyists, and petitions, civil disobedience all have some advantages and some disadvantages. There is sometimes better ways to do things.

A pressure group is a group that believes in change and tries to influence the government to make that change. They usually do this by appointing a lobbyist to argue for them. These can work really well when trying to change what happens in government because the lobbyists that get appointed often were former people in power so they have strong high up connections. They can fail however, because these pressure groups don’t actually make the decisions, so the government can just choose to ignore them all together. They also may lack the publicity that they need to actually make any change. This is where civil disobedience could help.

Civil disobedience is where you disobey the law or rule you are trying to protest. There are a couple principals to doing this. The first is you cant be violent about it or it could convey the wrong message and might alienate people from the cause you are fighting for. The second is that you take any punishment willingly and fully. They don’t seek to undermine the law – simply to repeal unjust laws. This way people are much more likely to notice what you’ve done because you’re actually breaking a law. One problem with civil disobedience is that you could just end up going to jail and they don’t look at the problem at all, so getting a petition signed could be your best bet.

Getting signatures for a petition is a great way to show people want change. A petition is where you suggest change and have people that agree with that change sign your petition. A few of the good things about petitions is that if you get enough signatures the government has to take a look at your suggestion. Again they really don’t have to do anything about it but they are required to task a group a people to look into it.

These are three of the ways that you can get change in the government and laws. None of these are guaranteed to work but if the government doesn’t listen to some serious concerns then it isn’t representing its people very well and that is a big problem.