Below is the link to my final project:
It all began with what I should write about that pertains to the topic social justice. Many came to mind such as gay equality and religion. What I decided to do though was gun violence/control. I really wanted to learn more about this topic. I wanted to hopefully open the hearts of people to this subject. It is a very hot topic at this time so it wouldn't have been too hard to get research.
When I was doing my part on the report, I soon found out that it was in fact very hard to find research. It was also hard to not put my bias into the report. Reports, I found out, are not for my bias but to tell the world research and what people think. A person cannot say that this person is wrong because of what they think. A report is not a commentary, it is neutral ground. I was flustered that I couldn't insert myself in my project. So it wasn’t my favorite paper to write.
I was very relieved when we took a small break from our topic, after the report, to find out more about our group members. I liked finding out which one of my group was an extravert, introvert, or even both for that matter. It was fun to find out which one I was to better understand of me. To find out what my group and I were, it made the group flow more. We had a better understanding of each other.
After that we were assigned to do a profile of our certain topic. That was a challenge. I was to find someone who was middle ground. I spent hours on Google Search using various words to find someone who was in the middle ground view about guns. With no luck I reached out to my instructor whom referred me to Gabrielle Giffords. I knew the woman from the news of her assassination attempt, but I had no idea that I would be writing my profile of her.
It was hard to get in touch with her. I tried to friend her on Facebook, but there was only a page about her. Even then I had no idea if that page was hers. Sad that I couldn’t get to interview her I thought I could try to get to know her through media. I watched over 10 YouTube video’s that were mostly from news and interviews with her. When I got a sense of her wonderful and powerful personality, I began to write my profile. I enjoyed writing about Giffords she is quite an admirable woman.
For my last paper, I decided to do a memoir. I knew that I wrote good papers when it comes to my memories. In this paper I wanted to show how I thought through what I was taught in my life. I wanted to show the good and bad things I learned about guns. So through my explaining my memories, I told my readers what I thought about gun control/ violence. This is what I wanted to do with my papers all along. I was happy that I could finally put my bias in a paper!
The website I trended lightly. I never used Weebly so I was worried I would mess up our group website. However, I wanted to show some of my personality a bit in my section of the website. The avatars that I looked for didn’t show my personality to me. So I decided to make my own. In that avatar, it showed that I am a sweet girl. I love art so I made me holding a pencil and my art book. On my t-shirt I show my love for zombies as well. The background shows my favorite colors blue and purple. So through my avatar, it shows a lot about me. When I began using Weebly, I got excited about organizing my sections however I wanted. However there were some things that I couldn’t do with my papers that I wanted to do. I felt somewhat restricted, I wanted to put videos in my Giffords paper but it wasn’t able to. So I had to put them at the end of my paper.
What I learned though my papers is that I need to research my topic before I take my stand. In the beginning I just knew the government was trying to take away the right to have guns. That was why I decided on that topic. However, there is more to it than the government wanting to take away guns. I got to see many point of views about guns. I even wrote my profile paper about a person who was middle ground. My thoughts about guns did in fact change. In the beginning I was for guns but now I have gone to the middle ground. I am for guns protecting people; however, I am against the gun violence and mentally ill people to have them. I feel more knowledgeable on this topic, creating websites on Weebly, and most of all how to write various papers.
