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.

This is the cover for the movie Invictus.

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.

In Grade 7 English we have just read Journey to Jo’burg, by Beverly Naidoo. Before reading the novel I researched and wrote a magazine article on Apartheid, this was the second hardest topic. We are exploring the relationships between texts and the real world and we found many connections between Journey to Jo’burg and the real world during Apartheid.

In the book, when Naledi and Tiro were lost in the station, there was a pass raid (The pass is a small passport which contains your name, where you live, your employment and your age. All black adults (above 16) had to carry a pass with them at all times. If they were caught without their passes, they were sent to jail, and maybe even beaten up).
a man, forgot his pass and the police sent him to jail, after this, Naledi and Tiro found his family and notified them about what had happened.

This is has happened in the real world also. Pass raids occurred, and many black South Africans were sent to jail, just for not carrying their passes. The thing is that only black people had to carry passes with them; white people didn’t.

In the book, while Naledi, Tiro and Grace had dinner, grace told them a story. It was about how Grace and her brother Dumi, were walking with thousands of kids protesting that what they taught the black kids in school was “rubbish”. When the police saw the riot, they started shooting all of the kids they could. Later, helicopters, and tanks came in. The children kept protesting burning down schools and offices. When the riot finally ended, many people were killed, injured or put to jail. Dumi was caught and put to jail, when he got out, he said that he would keep fighting until they killed him. Then, he disappeared and went to another country to study.

This actually happened in real life. It was called the soweto uprising. Many children were killed and sent to jail. Although the protest was to actually not have to learn through the Afrikaan language. In the protest they said “If we must learn in Afrikaan, Vorster must learn Zulu”.

So far in the story of the Count of Monte Cristo the protagonist, Edmond Dantès has been sent to jail on an island. Danglars (The person who was responsible for the imprisonment of Dantès) is now Dantès’ substitute as captain on the pharaon. Villefourt the man who imprisoned Dantes has travelled to the king and told him about the news of the emperor.

For what will happen next I think something will happen to Dantès and he will have some hope of getting out. I think the possibilities could be that he is moved to another jail, someone accidently finds him: Digging and hits his wall, or someone that tries to escape and for some reason, opens his door. I think this because if something interesting in the story doesn’t happen, then it is almost pointless to read. Also, I think that Dantès must get his revenge, the only way is to escape. As for Villefourt, I think he will go back to marseille and marry his fiancée. I think this because he left his fiancée for a short time just to send a message to the king.

Intro:

In English class we are using a program named DEAR, DEAR stands for: Drop Everything and Read. I think it supplies kids with more than  than a just-sit-there-and-read time. I guess it also teachers time to understand each students level. But what I think is the most important part is that it gives us students time to read what we want to read and share what we’ve read. After we read for 20 mins or so we write in our book journals, our book journals are our blogs and our notebooks.

Book Journal:

The name of my book is ” The Count of Monte Cristo”. The book begins with a young sailor named Edmond Dantès. He returned from a long journey aboard the pharaon, as the shipowner rushes out to greet him. The shipowner learns that the captain of the ship past away and that Dantès took on the position with some nice skill. He then rushed to meet his father and later, his beautiful fiancèe Mercedes. Unfortunately, Dantès has made 3 jealous enemys due to his luck and possibly becoming the captain. Now they are planning on destroying his future. Thats pretty much all i’ve read so far.