My journey began ages ago, reading the book “Journey To Johannesburg”, within english class. After finishing this book, it was time for a break, a very long winter break. We returned back to class, and quickly began one of our main tasks: The Magazine article.
This was our first task after reading the book. The main task, was to create a magazine article, within one of four topics, the Soweto uprising, Apartheid, South Africa’s Origins, and Nelson Mandela. All of these had to do with South Africa years ago. We were in table groups, and had to split up, so only 1 person from 1 table, could chose a certain subject. I chose to research on the Apartheid. Within a week’s timeframe, I had learned so much about the Apartheid, that I could speak to an expert on the subject. After this, we discussed our findings with the people who researched the same subject, and exchanged information. Finally, we were ready to begin our project. After treacherous hours of continuous work, we had all finished our magazines. In the first part of this journey, I had learned many things about Apartheid, and South Africa’s past. This expanded my mind and helped me understand what has actually happened. I used to think that South Africa was just a poor 3rd world country, now I know why this is.
The second part of my journey started with a substitute teacher, cruel as it may seem, was be endured easily as we began watching the movie “Invictus”. This is a movie about South Africa’s Apartheid, and how Nelson Mandela brought everybody closer using American Football. Back on topic, we finished watching the movie after another class, and we just wrote thoughts of it on paper right after finishing. The next class, we had to chose colours that we thought went with the movie, draw a symbol that we thought represented it, and finally, we drew a picture that we thought described a part of South Africa, or had to do with the movie. For the colours I chose dark green and yellow, those had to do with the movie because they were the colours of South Africa’s Jerseys. The symbol I chose was a footbball, this had to do with the movie, because the movie was based around football. As for the drawing, I drew a football post, with a football zooming through it, this represented the movie, because the winning shot was kicked by a player, through the posts.
The third, and final part of my journey, was the “Time of Fire” writing task. In a part of the book, one of the characters tries to describe the Soweto uprising, but fails horribly to do so. We took the information from the book, and from the interwebs (slang for internet), to create a much more detailed, and eventful description, and story. The only problem, was that we had to write in present tense. Although this may not be as small a problem as you think it is, it gravely affected our writing, and how we thought. Once again, many grevious hours, and Perilous classes past by, and we finally managed to complete this gruesome task. In this task I learn’t that I can actually write in present tense pretty well, and that the Soweto Uprising was pretty harsh. This gave me a new view of the past, and how cruel the white government in South Africa was.
What is the Relationship Between Texts and the Real World?
This, is our unit question. All of the work I did in this unit, was related to this exact question. Now, along the road, we were asked to find some connections, that we noticed, with texts, and the real world. In the book, there were some things that actually happened, and things that didn’t happen. I think, that the fiction helps you get around to the non-fiction, the way the book was written, and the information in it, really helps with that. Although sometimes, texts may be misleading, and untrue, there are still some out there that tell the truth. It’s just that they are sometimes hard to find.