Angela’s Conclusion on Our Prohibition Project

At first, I was just thinking that prohibition was a minor group of women who were protesting alcohol. I didn’t really know anything about how it started, or how it impacted the society. My thinking changed because now I realize that the women were trying to protect their families and children from men that would drink too much. They had a good cause for protesting drinking. I think I realized more of the background on how it all started, while before I didn’t really think they had a good purpose.

I learned that the women who were trying to ban alcohol were very serious about what they were against. They wanted to get rid of it for good. A lot of people disagreed with this ban, but the protesters stayed strong in their opinion and they stood for what they believed in. Also, I learned about marijuana and it’s negative and positive side effects. One connection I made throughout my research on prohibition was the yellow fever plague. Many of the doctors including Benjamin Rush had a very strong opinion that many people thought were wrong. However, they didn’t care and they went with what they thought anyways.

My biggest “AH-HA” moment was when I learned that the women were protecting their own families from alcohol, and not just thinking about themselves. Some of the women were getting beaten by their husbands who were going to saloons and were getting so drunk that they went crazy. I saw that many teenagers starting at around my age were drinking tons of alcohol. Basically, I just realized how big of an impact alcohol had, and the thinking behind prohibition.

I learned that when you are curating you really want to draw the readers in. You don’t want to just state the facts, you want to let them in on your thinking and what you found was interesting. When you’re researching a topic you just look up some sources and write thing down. When you curate you find pictures, and you add a lot more of your personal opinions into the information.

Some things that went successfully was the actual research itself. I could easily find the information that answered the questions I had at the beginning of the project. Another success was being able to create my own opinions on the subject. They were many successes but they were failures as well. A failure for me was not being able to take my own opinions and connecting them to what the people thought during the temperance acts. I kind of just said what I thought but wasn’t giving an in-depth point of view. Overall, I think me and my partner did a very good job on this project.

If I could do this project over again, I would definitely add a lot more opinions. I would also want to add more of my research path, and how I came across the information. I would draw in the readers more so that the information seems more exciting. To me the topic was really cool to learn about, but I could have done a better job sharing that to the readers.

Making a blog is a very creative way to share information to people, so I could see myself using it again. Maybe on a language arts project when I have to do a book report, I could use a blog to share my thoughts while I’m reading the book and give my incites on it.

I learned a lot more about citing my sources and finding information on the web because of this project. I learned about formatting my information for a blog and making it seem professional. Before I wasn’t really clear on adding pictures to a blog or adding captions. Now I know the steps I have to take to make it look right. Additionally, I’m more informed on researching things on the internet. On this project I found that when you go to a web page it might make you curious about a different topic that branches off of that one, and you can look that up as well. That way you can go to related topics and learn a lot more about whatever you want to know about.

I can see myself using a blog in my career when I get older. Whatever career I choose, I can inform people about my topic through a blog. That way other people can gain knowledge from my experiences and know what I have learned. Also, people could use my blog to help them with a project and use it as a source.

I learned that I think about my opinion and what I would have done if I were in that position in the past. When I learned about the women’s groups that protested alcohol, I found myself wondering how I would have reacted to that situation, if I had a relative that was for prohibition.

Lastly, this project changed the way I think about learning because now I know that you can add your own personal thoughts when you learn. You should always be trying to find connections between topics and themes to help you know more about what you are learning. Also, when you learn you should think about other ways to portray that information. Just stating the facts is really boring, so you should bring life to your research.

Overall, this project was a really good activity. I learned about prohibition and marijuana banning, but also a lot about technology and how curating works. I feel that I learned a lot about the topic and my own thinking path as I made a blog with my partner.