15 Sources

NHD Resources:
http://www.easternstate.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_State_Penitentiary
http://www.oboylephoto.com/esp/esp1-1.htm
http://www.opacity.us/site98_eastern_state_penitentiary.htm
http://missioncreep.com/mw/estate.html
MOST IMPORT PRIMARY DOCUMENT: http://books.google.com/books?id=vOksh31rBSAC&lpg=PA1&dq=eastern%20state%20penitentiary&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
http://www.cpaulphotography.com/
http://www.livingplaces.com/PA/Philadelphia_County/Philadelphia_City/Eastern_State_Penitentiary.html
http://www.ticketmaster.com/Eastern-State-Penitentiary-Historic-Site-tickets-Philadelphia/venue/16537
http://search.travelchannel.com/travel/Eastern%20State%20Penitentiary
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/weekend/20091127_Top_regional_attractions.html
http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/North_America/United_States_of_America/Pennsylvania/Philadelphia-860659/Off_the_Beaten_Path-Philadelphia-Eastern_State_Penitentiary-BR-1.html
http://www.missioncreep.com/mw/estate.html
http://americanhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/history_of_eastern_state_penitentiary
http://www.webshots.com/search?query=Eastern+State+Penitentiary
http://www.graveaddiction.com/esp.html

PROCESS PAPER

The Eastern State Penitentiary is one of the most infamous innovations in history. ESP corrupted the roles that Society, Religion and Economy play in the rehabilitation of prisoners. I chose ESP as my project because it is close to Philadelphia and it has impacted history so much. For this project, I chose to do a documentary. I also decided to do my NHD project with a group, which consists of Zach Kara, Talissa Riley, and Veasna Huon. The project promises to be a very interesting and history filled documentary.

The main reasons I chose ESP was because of it's location, history behind it and the treatment of prisoners. Due to its close location my group and I will be able to go there and get stick footage and interviews. Those interviews and footage will add a very professional and interesting component to our documentary. Not only will it show we did the project ourselves, but it will also make the information that is being presented tat much more credible. This now leads into the history behind it. There is just so much history behind it. From its' early beginning creation to its' shutting down, so much history has occurred at ESP. A lot of the history is tainted with stories and reports of torture. This factor of its' history really interests me and is the main reason I chose the project.

During my four years at CHS I have done a documentary for NHD for my Junior and Sophmore years. They were very successful and praised by many of my peers and teachers. After I received that praise I obtained a drive and passion for documentaries. Whenever I had an oppurtunity to make a documentary I took it. Due to all of my documentaries that I have made (6) I have gained much experience with documentaries. This project also has a lot of media to be put in to it. I will have live footage of ESP and many videos of it as well, not to mention the interviews we will be conducting. My strength for NHD is in documentaries and I will be playing my strength and making an incredible documentary.

My NHD project is looking like it will be a winner. During the making of my multiple documentaries I have faced the same issue over and over, and that issue is that I overload myself with too much work. This year I have decided to have 4 people in my group. Two of us are very adept at technology and documentary based tools. The other two of us are better adept at research and gathering materials. With each of us exploiting our strengths I believe that we will be able to do a lot of work and not feel rushed or overloaded. We will be able to do a lot more in a shorter amount of time and with that extra time, we will be able to refine and refine our project until we are completely satisfied and prepared for NHD.

As I have resaerched and worked on my NHD project I have seen that many of my decisions were right on point. My topic both interests me and I enjoy researching it. There was more than enough history and primary sources for my project. The choice of project was great. My ability to see a documentary and layout what I want really helped me creat my project. My videos and such really impacted the project well and made it look clear, sharp, entertaining and professional. As for my decision of going with a group, it was a success. Much of the work was done on time and in great quality. I felt a bit more relaxed and focused on the project. It seems that my NHD project this year came out better than what I was expecting.

Sources!

1. http://www.easternstate.org/
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_State_Penitentiary
3. http://www.oboylephoto.com/esp/esp1-1.htm
4. http://www.opacity.us/site98_eastern_state_penitentiary.htm
5. http://missioncreep.com/mw/estate.html
6. MOST IMPORT PRIMARY DOCUMENT:http://books.google.com/books?id=vOksh31rBSAC&pg=PA47&lpg=PA47&dq=eastern+state+penitentiary&source=bl&ots=ESo7sWhJCG&sig=79oWlCTcBk8l26GtyHOjn1PcnRA&hl=en&ei=8138SszRN8ndnAfQk5CeBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CAsQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=&f=false
7. http://www.geecoders.com/MollyMaguires/eastern.html
   
8. http://www.prairieghosts.com/eastern.html

NHD Interview Updates

There has been an update with my NHD interviews. There is an Eastern State specialist, Linda Nylon, who works at the prison, has been in constant contact with me. Linda has agreed to help me with my project as much as she possibly can. I have just received an e-mail from here, as we speak, and she seems very excited about our project. Things have been going very well. Along with the constant research and help we are getting to our goal very quickly.

My NHD Topic

My NHD topic for this year's theme of, "Innovation In History", is The Eastern State Penitentiary. I will be doing a documentary,(as usual), along with Zach Kara, Talissa Riley and Veasna Huon. I have chosen to do this topic, because it was an innovation in the way we treat criminals and also an evolution from tortures to socially acceptable punishment. Without this prison many criminals would have been hanged, tarred and feathered, yank apart by horses, or just plain shot execution style. Another interesting fact about this prison is the amount of money that was put into it. It was the most expensive structure of its time and endorsed by many famous historical figures. There is enough history behind this prison to make a dynamic documentary and has many different type of media sources to go along with it. My team and I will actually be able to have expert interviews in the prison and take some stock footage for the documentary because it is so close to where we are.

Service Learning Week #6

This week was very progressive. There was a lot of good and not a lot of bad. My group cleaned up the room for our future store, we went on a walking trip and found products for our store and designs were made for our room.
We began our day by cleaning up our room for our store. The room was filthy when we opened up the room, by the way we have switched rooms and now have a bigger room. Even though the room we have now is bigger it is filthy and will need a lot of cleaning up and hardcore floor scrubbing. With this in mind, I might ask for a buffer or scrubbing utensil to clean that room.
One group went out to stores in the Gallery to research products to sell in our store. We tried K-mart, but they had nothing we could use. We then went to the store 5-Below and found all of these neat and useful items for our store. We found popular school supplies, there were pencils and pens with princess and Disney characters. All of these things are very popular and we are confident that they will sell. We will use the list we made to figure out the prices for the stuff and figure out how we can make a profit.
While one group was researching products another group was at school designing a layout for the store. Some ideas were very good, like instead of using the shelves which would require approval from the building owner, we could use the bookcases like in the library. We also have a lot more room so we will be able to fit more and have a lot more flexibility with out store and design.
Overall this week was very good. I have to give grades to everyone and I am not going easy or letting anyone slide, because they are my friend. This last week will be very laid back, but I will make sure everyone id doing work or else there will not be any chance of their grade going up.

Meeting with Dr. Davidson

We had a short meeting with Dr. D that went very well. He seemed very excited about our idea and he completely supported us. I am very confident that our school store idea will work. We have so much support and now Dr. D is backing us up. With his support our school store is as good as done. Dr. D gave us some advice, criticism and his views.
The advice that he gave us was very good. He told us to get a student rep. to introduce the bill. Their is a lot a lot of grant money that we could apply for and he told us to take a shot at it. Then he told us about the room and how we could clean it up and how to get money for shelves and things of that nature.
The criticism that he gave us was simple. Dr. D thinks that the school store could be used as many other things and to include that in the bill. Dr. D told us that we would need very trustworthy people to run the store and he didn't know if we had people like that.
His views on the school store are all positive. Dr. D thinks that the school store will help our school and bring in profit. He is happy to help us in any way he can.
The meeting has encouraged me to further pursue the school store. With all this support all we need to do is the writing. I am extremely excited to finish up this project.

Service Learning Week#5

This week we did a lot and I mean a lot. We started to write our bill, we put the finishing touches on the letter to Dr. D and the grants are getting together. This week was excellent and I am very proud of my group. We had 3 good things and I think we may have only had 1 bad thing.
The 3 good things are that the groups are getting their work done, the bill is already getting written and supplies for our school store are being researched. My group has already started to write the bill using the template we got from Brasof. Vee's group is finishing up their letter for the grant and support. Also a lot of research was done and we may have sponsors for our store.
The only bad thing I can talk about was that yet again people were of task. It wasn't half or 25% our group who was off task it was only about 2 people. I took note of that and will deal with that in a professional way. I am sorry to say that these people were slacking off, but I will solve that this week and just make it better.
My group is doing well and I know that we will keep it up.Our goals are starting to get accomplished and I know that with a little hard work they will be completely accomplished. Thank you to my group and let's keep it up.

Service Laerning Group Members

http://arlettesblogduh.blogspot.com/
http://gribbinsportfolio.blogspot.com/
http://jessiexxlove.blogspot.com/
http://meow215.blogspot.com/
http://brandonportfolio9.blogspot.com/
http://mauriceportfolio.blogspot.com/
http://mjw89.blogspot.com/
http://damagedxscene.blogspot.com/
http://johnseng89.blogspot.com/
http://marcuseng89.blogspot.com/

Service Learning Week #4

This week we did a lot of work.We have a letter to present to Dr. Davidson,letters for grants and we even have a rough draft for a bill.Things are coming along very well in our group.With all this good, you would think there was no bad, but there is.This week people were playing around and joking.I heard a lot of music and ruckus, I continually told them to quiet down.They did not listen the first 2 times.After the third time they did settle down...a bit.
The good for this week is pretty obvious, we have something to show and plans to put our project into motion.Our project is moving along now.It is picking up pace.The grant group did very well.Veasna has a draft for the grant letter and will be furthering his part.The group that is approaching Dr. D has many ideas and a thought out process to approach him by.My group has a draft of our bill and even came up with an NHD season for the school store.We have started to finalize our plans and we are moving along very well.
The bad this week was of course behavior.This group has very intelligent people, but they are not showing it.People are listening to music and on chairs playing around.They waste time and do not follow my directions.It seems to me that people in the group don't see that I am the leader,I do not want to give out and bad grades, but I will if I have to.I have a responsibility to the group and those in it to care of any nuisances.
To wrap up this reflection I want to commend the people who are working hard.I would like to commend Veasna for finishing a draft even though is team member wasn't here.He did what he needed to do and did it well.Jess wrote up the letter for Dr. D and got the her groups ideas down on paper.Brandon,John and Tabitha did very well this week.They contributed many ideas and worked very hard.I can tell that all the people I commended are serious about our project.To the rest of my team members who read this, please stop the nonsense and try your hardest so I can commend you and give you a good grade.

Service Learning Reflection Week #3

This week's meeting was kind of progressive I should say. We got a lot done this week. We went to the school store room and we made plans to make our store. We got rid of two members who were unhappy and that was a good thing. We also seperated into seperate groups in order to handle different aspects of the project. We also discussed the student hand book. It didn't go all that well. We are still debating that issue and it is probably going to getshot down, but it's ok.
The group was very focused and they got to work right away. Every person took their responsibility seriously. We made a lot of progress and have made very good plans. I am proud to say that our group is moving along.
The 3 things that were wrong with the group was the cooperation, yelling and etermination of the group. Most of the members are not taking the group as seriously as they should. many are there and only there to talk to friends. That is just my opinion and an observation and may not whart is going on. Also there were really only 4 people hard at work on Friday. Tabitha,John,Brandon and myself. We started a draft for the school store bill, looked at ther room to see what we could do with it and gave our inputs on the situation. I have not yet seen any work from the others. I will be sure to get their work or try to get it. I am going to make sure that our group keeps making progress. Until next week Buh-Bye.

Empire Of The Sun Review

Hello there everyone.Well today I will be writing my review on the movie "Empire Of The Sun".This movie was funny,sad,action packed and just kept my focus.My class and I watched this movie in my English class and the movie was so good I started to complain when people started to talk.That is how good that movie was and just plain awesome.
The movie was very sad. James was a very interesting character.He suffered both physical, emotional and mental damage yet he never cried.The only time he ever cried was when he realized he couldn't remember his parents and what they looked like.This in my opinion was the saddest part of the movie.James also had a friend or who he thought was a friend.Basie was James' supposed best friend.Basie did take care of James for awhile and taught him a lot.Even though Basie taught James a lot he never gave him any type of love and put him through a lot.James had to see Basie beaten down and almost killed because of his actions.James had to make sure he survived physically, but never protected himself emotionally or mentally.
As sad as this movie was it was hilarious in its' own little way.James was rich and very spoiled.He made his servant do whatever he wanted and constantly disobeyed her.Not once did he ever think his servant would ever hit or talk back to him.After the attack he was smacked across his face by the same servant he ordered and disrespected.James also had a very weird obsession with planes and was in love with the P-51.At the end of the movie the P-51 was attacking the Japanese base and James was yelling over and over P-51 CADILLAC OF THE SKY,CADILLAC OF THE SKY,CADILLAC OF THE SKY,CADILLAC OF THE SKY,CADILLAC OF THE SKY,CADILLAC OF THE SKY,CADILLAC OF THE SKY,CADILLAC OF THE SKY,CADILLAC OF THE SKY,CADILLAC OF THE SKY.It was funny trust me.
Empire of the Sun had a lot of action.There were constant beatings and fights, There was also a lot of bombings and a lot of people dying. It was sweet.The Japanese were brutal and the planes just continually caused unimaginable fires and destruction.So the movia had everything you could want in a movie.
As you see this movie was very good and had an awesome story line.I personally loved it and it is a movie worth watching.This movie was great it wasn't like the best movie made, but it was still very good and worth watching it.So check it out.

Website For Service Learning

This is the website I looked up. When I read this website I was able to see that we should definitely write a guide on different subjects, bios on some of the teachers and student opinions about our school(of course only good ones). When I looked at this website I saw all these guides to vocabulary and other things of that nature. This website wasn't really about guides and things like that , but it had a lot of resources and little bits of info that we could also intragrate into our "How To Guide". This is the link: http://highschoolace.com/ace/ace.cfm. Hope you enjoy.

Service Learning Session #1

The Friday(4-11-08) that just passed was our first service learning session. In my opinion it was kind of slow. We just spoke on our ideas, but then again I think that;s what that first session was for. We all have many ideas like a student lounge and How To Guide. We all agreed that the student lounge was not our best choice and not relative to our groups purpose.
Many of us liked the idea of the guide and we all agree that we should go through on that project. I'm guessing that Veasna should lead that project, because he seemed a lot more interested in that project than any other ones. So we have one project for our group and working on another one.
I was thinking of other possible ideas for our group and one that came to mind was a guide that could be handed to all the students who come in the summer to see our school and orientation. We can give them to all the students and parents and the guide would show our school through the students eyes. We can give them our perspective of the school and help the students relate instead of just the normal booklet. The booklet talks about stuff that deals with school, but not what the students want to know. That's why I think that booklet shoudl be gone and replaced with ours.

My Service Learning Project

Wells people my service learning project is mentoring for our school. It's pretty simple, my group is coming up with ways to help our new school kids. We are planning on making a "How To Survive Constitution High School" guide. It should help our student tremendously and hopefully help our new students adapt to our school a lot faster.
I have the feeling that the guide will only take a few weeks and we will have to come up with something else to do. So some of my ideas are:
1)Guide on problem solving and avoiding conflicts.
2)System for sorting out issues, alternative to peer mediation.
3)Student mentors who have more of a role in the students lives.
4)More students who are committed to their students.
These are only a couple ideas for my service learning project. I hope that my group will shape up and be the best that we can be. My group is a bit shaky right now, but I have full confidence that we will be able to overcome that and better ourselves. Until next time see you later.

Basie The Real Emperor of The Sun

After watching The Empire of The Sun I realize that an Emperor can be used and even taken down from his throne without him knowing. Basie was the very image of an emperor in the movie. He utilized everything given to him and everything that he could get. The entire movie was based around Jamie, but not a lot of people noticed that Basie was shaping Jamie and who he was. Basie taught and pushed family values, real patriotism and his survival skills. Basie basically taught Jamie how to be patriotic to whoever could help him the most, just as Basie did. Jamie also moved from family to family in order to have a better life, not necessarily love. Before Jamie met Basie, he had no idea how to survive.
Jamie lost his family and then found Basie. Basie was not necessarily a father figure, but he definitely was a man figure.Jamie moved in with the British side of the camp and had almost a real family.Even though Jamie had this he wanted to be near Basie so he could escape. Jamie worked hard worked for Basie. This furthered Basie's intentions and plans.Basie had Jamie do all the work he needed to do in order to move into the American side of the camp.Basie made Jamie think that this was going to be his family, but as it turned out his emotions and well being were more cared about in the British side of the camp, rather than in the american side of the camp.Basie ruled Jamie's thought of what a family was and where he needed to go for a family.In a way Basie was the emperor of Jamie's family values and views on family.
Jamie shows several alliances in this movie.As he moved on throughout the movie his allegiances changed.At first he was on the Chinese side, yet only because they provided Jamie's family with wealth and power.As the movie goes on his love for the Japanese planes increased and his allegiance shifted to the Japanese side.Then when Jamie was out of luck and out of choices he joined Basie.Jamie was completely on Basie's side.Basie was able to help Jamie live and he relied on him.When they went to the camp, Jamie joined the British community of the camp.While in the British camp he helped the doctor get away from a beating and earned a pair of nice shoes.The allegiance yet again shifted, this time to the people who took care of him.Jamie then tried and tried to get into the American side of the camp, where he hoped to have a chance to escape with them.When he did achieve his goal, he yet again became and ally to Basie.In a way Jamie had become like Basie,pledging allegiance and showing patriotism to those who would benefit himself and help him survive.Basie was the Golden Emperor of survival and had passed this on to Jamie.Basie passed on his throne to Jamie almost exactly like the real Japanese emperor does for his son.
Jamie was able to survive through the whole movie and war.Without anyone holding his hand and he was able to become almost a man.This child was able to endure a massive amount of loss and pain.Through this all he never gave up or even failed.Basie has taught Jamie how to live and take what he needed to survive.Basie taught Jamie how to make sure he ate at all times.Like in the building, Basie taught Jamie a lesson.In my own words this was the lesson:"Take from the dead what you need, in order to make sure you don't become one of the dead".I believe this was the lesson, because he would tell Jamie to take the feeding bowls of the dead people to get more food and survive.Another lesson Basie taught Jamie was to trade and trade until you have something of value to further yourself.Like in the camp Jamie went around to everyone and traded something to get the General's boots, so he could get close enough to get the soap for Basie.Over and over Jamie did what he had to survive.Exactly what Basie had done.Basie the emperor of survival, the monarch of life, and the will and intensity to survive.That is what Basie was, and this was all transfered into the small body of Jamie.
In conclusion Basie was the emperor of the camp and indeed the sun.Basie survived and triumphed constantly.Jamie who followed Basie like a shadow inherited all of these things.So as you see Basie was the emperor of the sun, but at the end of this movie you can see that Jamie had become "The Prince Of The Sun".

Death as a Side Dish

Early today a barbecued corpse was found. Who could it be? Who was the chef of this grotesque murder? It is believes that the broiled Mary Dalton was murdered by the black Chef named Bigger Thomas. How could this man dare to kill a white woman? He has crossed the line and must be caught and punished to the full extent of the law. The young man is about 21 years of age, not to husky, tall and black. Anyone matching this description is to be turned into the police. We cannot let racist injustices like this continue. Our entire police force is looking for this killer. We also have many volunteers helping in the capture of the killer. We urge everyone to help capture this man. In the memory of Mary Dalton and as a way to repay the Dalton family for their loses.



Another Death In The Black Belt

There were four murders last night. Three involving young black women and another involving a young black man. Anyone who knows anything about the murders call the police.

My Service Learning Ideas

For my 5 independent ideas I chose these:
1: Working at the Constitution Center
2: Working with the elderly
3: Cleaning up a park (Franklin Square)
4: Running for breast cancer
5: Doing some activities to help our school

For my 6 school wide ideas I chose these:
1: Our school could help the people at a retirement home
2: We could help some other organization make a mural
3: We could research way to get a mural for our school
4: Organize a marathon to help support the fight against cancer or other diseases except on a larger scale.
5: Hold a bake sale or some kind of dance and donate the money to someone needier than ourselves.
6: Help all the homeless people we constantly see on the streets

All of my ideas are just ones that I got off the top of my head, but i do feel strongly about the helping the homeless people I'm always seeing. I don't want to be rude but it's kind of nasty to have homeless people around our school. We don't want people to walk by our school and say how nice it is and then be asked by a bum "Do you have some spare change?". So I could contact a soup kitchen near our school and help out there and try to get the homeless guy and old lady on Market to go there.
Also I really would like to work with the elderly because I know how lonely they get and how much they appreciate the simplest amount of attention from young people. I could call the nursing home around my neighborhood and ask if I could volunteer.

NHD Reflection

My partners were Veasna, John and Jessica. We did a documentary on Street Racing. We chose our topic because basically we thought it would be an easy fun project. We thought all we would need to do is look at a couple street racing videos and put them together on iMovie, but we were wrong. We soon learned that this project was hard work and took a lot of effort to complete.
We learned a lot of things about street racing that we never knew. Street racing is actually an industry and a way of life for a lot of people. These racers spent thousands of dollars on their cars and are always at a risk to lose them. They have no other way to live other than racing.
We also learned a lot about the cops and laws point of view. They have to constantly waste their time trying to catch street racers instead of catching criminals. They also have to risk their lives and others lives by speeding and trying to catch them.
We completed our project and a lot of people loved it. Many people thought we should have gone to city, but we didn't. We also became a lot closer with one another. All of us made a new friend (John) and had the opportunity to help a ninth grader who had no idea what to do (JOHN).
Our challenges were time and patience. We didn't have enough time to make our documentary as well as we really can. With more time we would have been able to cut and include a lot of stuff that we needed. With our lack of time we were not able to put in our process paper and fix our bibliography, but never the less we finish.
Veasna was the main person editing until the end. We all had a problem because two of our members didn't know how to use iMovie and Veasna thought that only he could. Then towards the end he realized that I could use it and edit our video very well. Vee was running out of patience and because of that we lost some footage and time, but never the less we got it done.
Next year I will only be working with one other person and will still be doing a documentary. I will also be sure to pick a very unique and out of the ordinary topic with a lot of history to it. My topics will be either Hershey or Walt Disney. Hershey was used in the war and is one of our biggest industries in America and Walt Disney was actually very racist. In some of his movies he stereotyped black people and Spanish people. In Dumbo the crows were extremely racist, but that's only the beginning.
All in all my time with this years NHD was good I laughed and had fun. It was definitely better than last year.

Biblioraphy For NHD

www.nhra.com. 1995. N.H.R.A. 21 Dec 2007 -
This website is a main source to our project. We are able to pull a lot of information from this website. We have gotten statistics, interviews, real life stories and many facts about street racing. We were also able see how this organization is fighting street racing. Wally Park made this organization in 1947. The website was made in the 1995.

www.speed.com. 1970. SPEED Inc. 21 Dec 2007
- This website shows us the power and danger of street racing cars. We were able to find out what exactly street racing is and the different types of street racing. There is no clear publisher of this website, but it was made in the 1970’s.

www.motoraddicts.com. 2000. MotorAddicts Magazine. 21 Dec 2007. http://www.motoraddicts.com
-This website is a place where street racers talk and discuss cars and how they participate in street racing. We are also able to better understand why people like to street racing. Through this website we are able to see actual street racing cars. There is no publisher listed. This website was made in 2000.

www.octane.com. 2006. Ripe Digital Entertainment. 21 Dec 2007 .
-With this website we can find many videos of street racing and street racing accidents. This will be our main source of videos for our documentary. Made by Ripe Digital Entertainment in 2006.

www.sromagazine.com. 2006. Cirrus CMS. 21 Dec 2007 .
-When I visited this website I was able to find interviews, pictures and examples of street racing. I took a lot of pictures and interviews from this website. Made by Cirrus CMS.

www.superstreetonline.com. 2000. Source Interlink Inc. 21 Dec 2007 .
-This website provided me with prime examples of cars that street race. We are able to see pictures and events that involve street racing. There are models and stories about street racing at this website.
Made by Source Interlink INC. in 2000