Month: August 2015

For our power and leadership project, which we began two weeks ago, we needed to develop a research question which would be our main focus throughout the unit, until the final assessment task. A research question needs to have some aspects to it. It should be about what you are interested in. The question must not be too broad, and should not be able to be answered easily. For example, if the question is “Who did Osama Bin Laden consult for his medical degree?”, you could answer that with a name. By the way, Osama Bin Laden never got a medical degree. Do not cite me. Anyway, one should always use a research question with the words how, in what ways, and what reasons. These words help narrow down a Thesis to what you need to focus on. With all of these things in mind, I thought of my interests. Osama Bin Laden is interesting, so let’s go with him. But what about him is interesting. Then I thought, and I thought, and I thought. It didn’t take me too long to make a narrow thesis. I came up with this.

“How did Osama Bin Laden’s Minority gain power over a majority of the world?”

It was perfect. It wasn’t too broad, it had my interests, and it needed more than one answer in order to be clarified. I am starting to begin my research on the question, and I think it will be quite interesting to see what the extremist did to terrorize the planet.

I am a tenth grader now, and one step closer to the IB course. I thought, why not chronicle my journey through Language Arts? So that is what I am doing right now. This year in Language Arts (LA), we are beginning with a unit on power and leadership, and see how those two can be connected, as well as used in different ways. In order to analyze them, we had to get one nonfiction book, one fiction book, and watch two movies, and all of these had to display power and leadership in some way. For my nonfiction book, I chose a biography on Osama Bin Laden. He was an Al Qaeda leader that many people hated, but that followers adored. I am in the process of reading it. My fiction book was The Wave, a story based on a true incident in a Californian high school. Basically, the school becomes like Nazi Germany was in the 1940’s when Hitler was Chancellor, but without casualties. I have finished it, and I think it was quite a good read. The two movies I am going to watch are Lincoln and Captain Phillips. I have not watched Lincoln before, but I have watched Captain Phillips, back in early 2014, when I was still in America. All of these resources are tools to provide me with information on what power is, what leadership is, how they merge together, and the ways power and leadership can be used. It seems like a fun unit, with an abundance of freedom with every task. I am looking forward to see what comes next, and whatever comes at me, I’ll be sure to tell you about it.