1st Quarter Reflection

     This quarter in US History has been outstanding for me because of the amount that I have been able to learn so far. So far this quarter we have learned about Slavery, the Civil War, The Constitution, reconstruction, black codes The West, film history, and much more. However, the most interesting and thought- provoking thing I have learned in history is the theme of empathy and what it means to empathize with someone. This is important because it will help me in many years to come because it made me understand the information I was learning and not just learn it. Also, research on film history was very interesting too. This is because I never really knew how much you could learn about a historical topic by simply watching a good movie. I had never seen 12 Years a Slave before but after watching it, I had a better idea of what slavery really was. I also understood the hatred that went along with slavery and the end of it because I got the chance to learn more about how the whites tried to still keep slavery alive without actually calling it slavery. I never knew this before and it was interesting to learn because I learned about how passionate the southerners were about slavery. Also, I have learned about progress in the United States. Our country has come so far and it is striking to see how much progress we made from hating the people who do not look the same as others to being able to love  and accept them. Another thing that we have learned this quarter that I found engaging was the West. At first, we all thought the West was what we stereotyped it to be, but in the end we realized that some stereotypes were real and some were not. Because of the assignments that we did that involved the West, I realized how much movies can change our perspectives on things because of the way they advertise them. Most of the things people learn these days come from things like movies because we are able to see and hear the things that were actually happening during that time period. Tying in history with film history was a great idea because it made us engaged and understand the things that we really didn't understand before.
     I think that my progress has been good this quarter. I kept up with all of my assignments and wrote an essay that I was very proud of. I learned about things that I was very passionate about and because of that, I was more fascinated by the work that we did in class. I do think that I have grown as a thinker because with the topics I learned, I allowed my mind to let go and truly express what I felt about them. I feel that my strength has been being able to analyze movies because filming has aways fascinated me. I also think that I am more open to the value of history because in order to prevent these bad things from happening again, we must learn and understand both sides to the story to see the good and the bad about different times in our country's history. Our country has a very interesting history and because of this I would like to learn about the bad things that we have done that weaker our country.
     In conclusion, I have had a great first quarter in history and I hope to be able to learn much more!