Holocaust Resistance

Payton’s presentation was entitled Holocaust, her driving question was focused on how resistance groups throughout Germany compared to American effort during the war. Something interesting included the children who had participated in The White Rose movement. The White Rose movement was mostly known for the anonymous leaflet campaign, where 9,000 copies of the leaflets had been distributed throughout Germany, calling to rebel against Nazi Germany.. The movement had been led by a group of students and their professor. The group started in June of 1942, but then ended with the arrest of the core group in February of 1943. While Resistance groups such as the White Rose movement prospered throughout Nazi Germany, America had had a positive impact on the holocaust by saving thousands of lives, however, America had had an opportunity to not let the numbers of death rise and continue on. Interestingly, children ages 11 through 17 were forced to partake in German Youth Groups. Yet, many rebelled by listening to American music and growing their hair long. We learned that 90% of children throughout Germany had enrolled within the groups by the 1930s. Unfortunately, due to the rebellious actions, 13 children were publicly hung. Connecting it back to the classroom, while just being presented to the unit of World War II, it will be interesting to hear what types of other movements and rebellious actions people took part of throughout Nazi Germany, especially how children took part!

For the product Payton created an art piece with powerful images of the war. She has successfully depicted the aspects of life during the Holocaust by using arts and photography as her medium,

Food in the Internment Camps

Tess’s project was talking about Japanese lifestyles during World War II. Throughout her project, she described concentrations camps and what it was like to live in them. They had very little education and American born Japanese were held higher than older immigrants, which resulted into a loss in respect. Surrounded by many churches, the bible was a source of education for them. She explained how this resulted into a change of beliefs and a hope for change. Soon after revival grew throughout cultures and became aggressive and militaristic. This related to what we are learning now about World War II and Japan is one of the axis of World War II. Something we found interesting about her project is that the Japanese started promoting Classical dance, which relates to our project when we talked about how it emerged and what they used as a reference when emerging contemporary dance. We enjoyed that her project went into depth without being to lengthy. Also, we enjoyed how she brought in food replicating what was eaten there, which gives a different aspect of what actual occurred there. In conclusion, Tess’s Project brought a lot of factual information and helped really see what occurred in Japanese Internment Camps.

Spam Sushi

Harlem Renaissance

In her Genius Hour Project, Jada focused on the Harlem Renaissance and learned that it was a Golden Age African Americans. She learned that the Harlem Renaissance was a result of the Great Migration of African Americans to Northern cities, including Harlem. Black people were able to give themselves a voice through music, religion, poetry, and art. The integration of these people into the Harlem community made them feel powerful, which laid the foundation for the Civil Rights Movement to come. In the process, Jada realized how privileged she was to be able to have a voice through her own music in today’s society and assures herself to not take any of the opportunities she has for granted. Inspired by this, she decided to poems in the prospected of different African Americans in order invoke their powerful voices that were once seen as unsuitable to society. We were wondering, were there white people that helped further careers of black people in the jazz community in Harlem? Or did they have to move up the ranks by themselves? Also, who do you think is the most notable African American during the Harlem Renaissance?

Poem by Jada

Our favorite part about your project is how you stood so confidently reading your poems out loud to the class, while still making the messages of the African Americans in the poem powerful.

Bonnie and Clyde

Kat Mand Anna-Maria C’s presentation was extremely entertaining, among many things. They discovered that there is much more to the Bonnie and Clyde story than what people may be familiar with. For example, what made them famous was the photographs that they took of themselves and Bonnie was married to her high school sweetheart before Clyde.  Kat and Anna even recreated some of these pictures much to our dismay. Additionally, their presentation included trivia questions about Bonnie and Clyde to keep the audience entertained. They also wrote their own poem based off of a poem Bonnie wrote which, I personally think, stood out the most in their entire presentation. This poem captured their friendship just like Bonnie’s poem captured her relationship with Clyde. However, Bonnie’s poem was fundamentally less upsetting than Kat and Anna’s. Anna connected the chase of Bonnie and Clyde by law enforcement to a battle in the civil war (Bull Run I believe) because in both cases people came to watch in generally not audience friendly environments. I found it extremely interesting that Clyde convinced Bonnie to smuggle him a gun while he was in jail. Before this, Bonnie never had any trouble with the law but after committing this unforgivable offense, she really had no choice but to live the rest of her life on the run with Clyde. This makes me think less of Clyde because I see this situation as very manipulative on his part. He put his girlfriend at risk for his own gain. Both Kat and Anna seemed very confident in their materials and presented it comfortably. I liked the trivia questions especially because they engaged the audience and gave them an opportunity to think for themselves. Nonetheless, this presentation was still overall unsettling.

Abstract Expressionism

Francesca’s Genius Hour project was focused on the artistic styles created in America. Her driving question detailed her interest in the way art represented culture and political/social struggles during the 40s -60s. To start with, she explained the way that Fascism in Europe affected the American artistic style, especially the start of transcending European influence. She discussed how social realism expressed left-wing politics in its artistic modes, and then moved on to some of the defining characteristics of the new American style of abstract expressionism. (Jackson Pollock). Her project connects to the problems we discussed in class associated with the Treaty of Versailles, especially the sanctions on Germany and the rise of fascism in Germany and Italy (and Spain, kind of).

Work by Francesca L.

I thought she did an excellent job explaining the techniques in a way that people who were oblivious to the art scene could understand (i.e. me), and her presentation was very thorough. It was clear she put a lot of work into her presentation. Also, she was able to relate to her own experiences and feelings when she shared her personal favorite paintings and artists. I also found very interesting the way she described how the styles exposited influenced her personal art. It was fascinating to see a movement that is decades old influencing a young artist. Her research process seemed complete and it was clear how much she enjoyed investigating that topic.

 

Mary Cassatt

Gail researched Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt, her life, and how her art mirrored the time. The project for this topic was a colorful, Impressionist style painting which featured the daily lives of two people. The project connects to how everything was changing during this early 1900s time. Not only were people rebelling against societal standards in America, people were branching out with their art. Paintings began featuring skewed perspectives, bright colors, and less traditional topics/themes.

The painting was interesting because it featured a trans person in the front, and the main idea was that people of any sex, gender, etc. can have normal, healthy, happy lives. I really loved this idea as a whole, it was very inclusive, and the painting was beautiful. Overall the project was very well done. Both presentation and product were very thorough and lovely.

The Harlem Renaissance

The driving question was “ How was The Harlem renaissance a form of rebellion and resistance?” First we were given the gist of what it even was: a rapid increase of art and music, took place during the great depression, focused in African American neighborhoods. In class and in our reading we have been learning about the great migration, and The Harlem renaissance was in fact a reaction of the great migration. The Harlem Renaissance was a symbol of African American symbolism! It’s so interesting that art a music was able to help break some of the stigma that whites were better than blacks. Integration was finally becoming accepted. I liked that they chose to do something that mattered to them both. The game at the end was cute! But also nice to see examples of the amazing things that came out of The Harlem Renaissance.

Education In America

Jora and Julianne’s genius hour project was about the continuity and change in education from 1850 to 1950. They researched the development of education in America and focused on specific movements, such as college for women, a law mandating that states give land for schools, African American schools, etc. Their project was an interactive timeline quiz.

Progression in education represents the progression in U.S. society, and is reflective of women and African American rights movements, acts to resist those movements, along with changes in America’s view of education regarding whether or not it’s a human right.

I found it interesting that sex education was first introduced in 1918 in Chicago. I didn’t know they started it that early!

I really liked the timeline quiz. It’s cute, interactive, and educational. I liked the velcro and lamination! It was clear that there was lots of care put into making it.

The Mafia and Prohibition

Mo and Troy did their Genius Hour Presentations on the Mafia and Prohibition. It not only went into detail on the Mafia’s role in the prohibition, but in society in general. I really appreciated the fact that they talked about the mafia at all, because they are overrated in the media, but underrated in history. And in US History we have this overarching theme of who’s voice is missing and the mafia isn’t in history although they have contributed to history greatly. I found it particularly interesting that the mafia built opera houses and the fact that there was a protection fee if you weren’t in the mafia (like Muslims did back in the day, according to MoMo). The presentation was overall intriguing and the homemade (fake) alcohol was a crowd favorite.

Say Yowzers to Trousers!

Our classmate (Rhiannon) did a presentation on the reasons behind women beginning to wear pants. Here’s a link to her video on women and pants.

Things We Learned

• Pants weren’t always gender-specific
• The need for pants came about when men started riding and fighting with horses
• In the West, women wore thick skirts
• Those skirts were very dangerous. They were a fire hazard and tripping was an issue
• When bicycles became popular, bloomers were worn. They were good pants for an active lifestyle.
• In WWII, women took over the jobs that the men left. Women wore their husband’s work clothes for work
• After WWII pants were worn more regularly by women
• Title IX – outlawed discrimination by sex and dresses weren’t required for women

 

How It Connects

This project connects to what we are learning in class because of the growing progressive ideologies of men and women during this time period. In class we learn about the suffragists and activists who pushed for their freedoms. We are able to see from the pants project this change in attitude in physical form. Women gaining control and wearing some pants. They really did it to em.

 

Interesting Thing

We found interesting the one political figure who wore pants in the 1980’s and everyone freaked out. It was interesting how recent it was and how we’ve come a long ways but still have some work to do.

 

Positive Feedback

The product was delightful and concisely wrapped up the project in a meaningful and comedic way.  We like that the project was done on pants. Now we are pants people. Hahaha