Blog #26- Harrison Steele- 4/28/2020- PD 2

Harrison Steele        04/28/2020         Blog #26      Sophomores 2020
Aim: How do George Orwell's themes of literary protest transcend time?

Do Now: THINK/PAIR/SHARE

- Elitism is leadership by a socially superior minority group. In what ways is elitism fostered among the pigs of Animal Farm?

Pigs are clearly elite compared to the rest of the animals on the farm. They are the only ones involved in making decisions or the farm and are the ones that interact with the other humans. They get the luxury of living in the farm house as well as extra rations to “fuel their brains”

- Is there evidence that Elitism still exists in our society? If so, how?

Elitism definitely still exists today in society. Some people amass so much wealth that it is actually insane. For example Jeff Bezos makes an average of $2,489 a second. The amount of money that he makes is entirely unnecessary. There is no way he can realistically spend that much money. When people like that exist then there is absolutely elitism in today’s society.



Blog Content:

- What is it like working from home?

Working from home is a challenge. I feel like staying at home has made my sense of time passage a lot worse. I tend to get distracted by things and not realize when hours go by. In addition when I am in class learning I feel like I am just doing homework not actually learning and my attention span is a lot shorter. I miss seeing my friends and teachers and just the overall experience of being in school. It’s nice to have my sister back home from college though!

- What are the updates around the world/community regarding the virus?

Currently in New York, COVID-19 diagnoses have been in decline. The curve has been flattened and it was a lot lower than previously predicted. However, it still is strong and we are very much in quarantine. Even on my own block four people have it and one has passed away from it. It is extremely dangerous still and it looks like we won’t be able to end quarantine until around late May- June.



- Your own personal feelings and thoughts about what is happening right now.

Personally, I am very concerned about what is happening. With the amount of protests happening to reopen businesses and lift quarantine as well as people not staying home. If this continues and everything opens too early we will be hit with a second wave and be forced back into quarantine for much longer. I am also very concerned for my own family as both my mother and sister have asthma and weaker lungs and my father is 60.I have faith that it will all be okay and even if things are very different it will just be that, different, and different isn't always bad.

Reflection:

In today’s lesson we learned about literature protest and elitism in society. In our discussion of Animal Farm, we concluded that the pigs represented an elite class in animal farm. The pigs represent an elite class in animal farm that do little work yet reap all of the rewards, and make all the decisions. In class we discussed that the rich represent this elite class. They get to live in superior comfort and luxury that the majority of the population can not afford. When discussing a situation where a student is being cyber bullied, the class had varying opinions. While most agreed that it was morally wrong, many were hesitant to say they would take action, and that it depended on factors like how bad the situation was and if they personally knew the victim. We also discussed the quote, “All literature is protest. You can't name a single novel that isn't protest.” said by Robert Wright This quote is in reference to the fact that no matter what a piece of literature is about, it will always be in protest of something. In addition, we watched two videos about the effects of cyber bullying and how truly harmful it can be. This is a really important lesson today as many people now don’t understand just how damaging cyber bullying can be. People think that because it isn’t face to face and can be anonymous that it has less of an effect however it is quite the opposite. This is really important for people to understand as even though the people I know don’t cyberbully, they tend to make light of it or not see it being quite as damaging as traditional bullying. Sometimes even I might not think of cyber bullying as “that bad” but these videos serve as an excellent reminder that cyber bullying is exactly the same and a lot of times worse than normal bullying.