I have really enjoyed this year studying with my class, and of course being with Mrs Clifford. Studying about apartheid, homosexuality, racism as a whole class really gained our knowledge about the separation between people and how some people think of that. Studying this in an creative way, vignettes, stories, movies was really interesting for us. We did not just study about this but we also studied about the different styles of language authors use to get the readers attention in a creative way.

The novel, Two weeks with the Queen tells readers about the separation between the homosexual people and the non homosexual people. As a class we were taught from this book to respect the word homosexual as it is a right that humans have. The main character’s father, even as an adult, refused to use the word homosexual and refused to see Ted, a homosexual friend of Colin, the main character. Some people will push homosexual people because they are homosexual. As you can see, nowadays some children flinch when they hear the word, homosexual and I used to, too. But I have realised, from reading this book that it is really important to respect others for who they are and don’t take them as anything negative. Even some adults flinch by hearing that word but people are all different and by  disrespecting them, we are not being open-minded.

I think that separating people into groups and into ranks is one of the most cruelest things to do. While reading the novel and watching the movie, I have gained knowledge about the rebellion between the black people against white people. Journey to Jo’Burg, explains this situation really well as a story. While reading this book, I realised how important it is to learn these kind of tragedy and war humans had about racism. As we are in an international school, it is really important for us to respect people from different races and to learn their culture. Time of Fire, Nelson Mandela, Apartheid, these are the most important keywords we were taught during this unit. We also watched an interesting movie, The Power of One about an english boy, one person willing to change the world so people will respect the different races. While watching this movie, I could see how the English and the Afrikaans were big enemies and how they treated the black people as slaves and disrespected the black people. The english and the afrikaans treated the black people like animals and punished them when they did something wrong, and sometimes killed them when they tried to rebell.

Sandras Cisnero’s book, The House on Mango Street was one of my favourite stories we read. We as a class have studied about not just the meaning of the book but also the style and writing techniques. We have been taught how to write an vignette and how to use figurative language like simile, metaphors, alliteration and lots of other techniques. We have studied about the themes in each vignette and the connection to other stories or vignettes. By writing some vignettes, we were able to use these styles effectively so it catches the readers attention. I personally thought that by studying these techniques, I can make a better writing with lots of imagination and meaning into it. I have also realised that all of the books I read have these techniques and authors write books like a lot of meanings into small things like colours.

Overall, in English class we mainly studied about the different lives of people in different points of views.

Thankyou.