Semester Reflection

Over the couse of my first semester in global ed. english class I learned a lot of things I didnt know happened and many things I wouldnt have learned in a normal Language Arts class.

For one, I learned extensivly about the Rwandan genocide, an event I never knew occured. It happened because of years of tension between Hutus and Tutsis, as a result of constantly switching power over the nation. The Belgians, who had colonized Rwanda, made their few differences a big deal with the implementation of identity cards, separating them. When the Hutus were in power, an unknown group succeeded in shooting down the Hutu president Juvenal Haribyama's plane down. The MRND, a Hutu extremist group took the news and immediately blamed Tutsis for the attack. A civilian army formed itself after the event, calling itself the Interahamwhe. They went on to the killing of thousands in less than 100 days. The genocide was brought to an end when a multi party system was proposed to represent both ethnic groups, and the killings stop. This was one part of history I was surprised to learn about.

Another culture we studied this semester was South Africa. It was colonized by the Dutch Boers after being discovered and used by Portugese sailors a few years before. The Dutch moved into the territory forcing native Africans out in battles like Blood River. Eventually the natives were overpowered and were forced to move. The British took South Africa for a period of time as a base in their war againest the French. After the war was over the British still occupied South Africa and wanted to keep the land for themselves. When diamonds were found under the country Britains desire for it grew higher. On two occasions, wars fought over South Africas resources. The British wern't successful in either when matched against the Boers. South Africa stayed under control of the Boers for years, and after many elections the National Party took office. It was under this government, in which apartheid was formed. The NP's idea was took take the already discriminated againest, black population in South Africa and totally separate them from whites in all aspects of life, from stores to health care. Ultimately the apartheid ended when Nelson Mandela took office as president and South Africa has been free for two decades.

Even though these pieces of history were interesting to learn about the most things I learned in this class was about writing. Most of the time when we had to write something in class it was an article response. The articles I remember most were the ones regarding a nuclear Iran and a stronger school program in China. For the most part we had to have a good straight-forward thesis statement to show what side of the arguement we were on and had to use one or two different reasons we feel this way as support for the response. The most challenging part for me wasn' writing enough, but writing too much. Our class learned how to effectively remove clutter from our writing to have it make more sense. For example, to get rid of clutter it is good to get rid of words that dont help explain the idea your trying to get across or excess information that dosen't need to be there. The most comlicated piece of writing we did this semester was Paul's Letter. I got one of the only A's in the class because I tried to think of it as a bigger article response. The only difference was this one had to include a counter-arguement which was a s simple as looking at the same issue from another point of view. Overall this is where I learned the most and the part which will be most valueable in the future.

There were also blogs which taught me this class didn't have to be all that serious, and taught me to write about my own life and be creative in what I choose to write about. Some blogs like the Emerson one related to an article response but the free blogs were an activity that was an easy way to get writng.

I learned effective note-taking skills in the form of margin notes and QCVI's. Margin notes are useful when I am struggling to find the whole meaning to piece of writing I may not understand. Basically, I look for the important details of the piece and underline them, and try to make sense of it in the margins of the paper. I ask myself questions when doing these so it helps me focus instead of just reading it once. QCVI's were also helpful for the same purpose, being the most useful when reading "Walkabout" because I had to search for details and question we had to dicuss later. Connecting the book to other sources helped me study for the "Walkabout" quiz. Both thses skills were useful during the semester for novel and short story reading.

The movies we watched in class really helped me get an idea of the area we we studying. We watch a movie for each major region we covered. "Rabbit Proof Fence", "The Power of One", and "Hotel Rwanda" gave a visual approach to what was happening in the time period and was something the class could discuss afterword.

These were the important things I learned this semester.

Rwanda being colonized

The best country to live in during its early colonization would be Rwanda.

Discrimination has happened in Australia, South Africa, the US and Rwanda. However, in South Africa and the US slavery and relocation were common to make room for the colonists. In Australia children were stolen by the government to be raised in the colony and married to white men, until no trace of Aboriginal culture remained. In Rwanda, during its colonization, had no slavery or elimination plans. Although Hutus were treated as second class citizens, no harm would come to them as an ethnic group until the genocide, which was still years away. Hutus led lives of discrimination and hard labor, but it’s obvious this life was better than one spent watching your culture deteriorate or being a slave.

The second reason living as a Hutu is the best of the scenarios is that early on there was no real barrier between the Hutus and Tutsis. They were free to inter-marry, be friends and work alongside each other. It was only the moderate Tutsis that ever caused any problems in the early stages of Rwanda's development as a colony. Both groups were living together in one life, not seperate lives of slavery and freedom. Both these reasons explain why living as a Hutu during Rwanda's colonization is much better than living as a minority elsewhere.