The Danger of a Single Story
Reflection
Project Description:
In this project, we first listed what we knew about Africa, and talked about how the world sees Africa, compared to what it actually is. We then learned a lot about how Europeans colonized Africa, and about how bad it was back then. We also talked about how Africa is today. Then, we each chose a country and based our short stories around our research on that country. We created characters and a plot, and then took a couple of weeks to write out stories. They were supposed to show that Africa is more than just a war-torn starvation country, and that instead it was very many countries, all with different and diverse cultures. We also stressed the theme that the Europeans invading and stealing the lands was a wrong thing to do.
Takeaways and Further Understandings
The single story of Africa was that its just a fairly small land, with pretty much the same culture all over the continent, and that its encased in starvation and poverty. While this is true in some cases, other parts of Africa are doing very well in terms of their economy, such as South Africa. After all, Africa is not just one country. It’s huge, bigger than most continents combined, and has about 57 different countries, all with their own cultures and people. A lot of Africa’s history was shaped by cruelty from the European nations that only saw profit from the continent, and the aftereffects of their imperialism are still very alive today. Some countries in Africa have not or have just recently gained independence from European countries, and African people everywhere still face intense discrimination today.
The Writing
A strong story is made from careful critiquing, and lots of research. The facts should be accurate for the setting, characters, and realistic plots. For my personal story, I researched for a long time before really even thinking about writing anything. Then, during the writing process, I continued to research, to make sure everything was as accurate as possible. I am most proud of the characterization in my story. Planning out my character was the first thing that I did, and I put a lot of effort into it. I’ve gotten feedback for my story that my character development was strong, and that she was also very relatable. She didn’t exactly act like I thought she would when I planned out who she was, and she definitely became almost an entirely different person than I thought she would be when I started. I had difficulty with the writing itself, and how to write it. My strength is not in descriptions, and I would rather explain what is going on than show it in detail and leave it for the readers to figure out. I would have like a little bit more time to edit, because in the last couple days of the project I got so many new ideas that I feel I should have included, things like making my climax happen a little differently.
The Art
My cover turned out pretty simple, and I think that I like how it looks. It was an old looking map, with a red dotted line marking where my character traveled throughout the story. I chose to make it simple based partly on my skill level with digital art, and partly because I think that with a lot of elements in a cover the real meanings can get lost. So, I made my cover straightforward, and simple. It communicated the theme of traveling, and following your passions. I’m proud of the idea, and of the small edits I made to the original images that I used, such as making it more faded into the background, adding in the dotted lines, and doing fancy things to the font to make it stand out against the background better. It was challenging to think of an idea that I would like to use, because my story had so many elements to it, and including all of them would be very difficult, so I went with the simpler overall theme of my story, which is creating new experiences. I probably could have made it a little more complicated, though.
Personal Growth:
The most important thing I learned during this project was the things that we never hear about Africa. Things like the King Leopold’s Ghost video were eye-opening, and it was a reminder that schools don’t like to talk about the bad parts of history, mostly the bad things that Europeans specifically have done.
Project Description:
In this project, we first listed what we knew about Africa, and talked about how the world sees Africa, compared to what it actually is. We then learned a lot about how Europeans colonized Africa, and about how bad it was back then. We also talked about how Africa is today. Then, we each chose a country and based our short stories around our research on that country. We created characters and a plot, and then took a couple of weeks to write out stories. They were supposed to show that Africa is more than just a war-torn starvation country, and that instead it was very many countries, all with different and diverse cultures. We also stressed the theme that the Europeans invading and stealing the lands was a wrong thing to do.
Takeaways and Further Understandings
The single story of Africa was that its just a fairly small land, with pretty much the same culture all over the continent, and that its encased in starvation and poverty. While this is true in some cases, other parts of Africa are doing very well in terms of their economy, such as South Africa. After all, Africa is not just one country. It’s huge, bigger than most continents combined, and has about 57 different countries, all with their own cultures and people. A lot of Africa’s history was shaped by cruelty from the European nations that only saw profit from the continent, and the aftereffects of their imperialism are still very alive today. Some countries in Africa have not or have just recently gained independence from European countries, and African people everywhere still face intense discrimination today.
The Writing
A strong story is made from careful critiquing, and lots of research. The facts should be accurate for the setting, characters, and realistic plots. For my personal story, I researched for a long time before really even thinking about writing anything. Then, during the writing process, I continued to research, to make sure everything was as accurate as possible. I am most proud of the characterization in my story. Planning out my character was the first thing that I did, and I put a lot of effort into it. I’ve gotten feedback for my story that my character development was strong, and that she was also very relatable. She didn’t exactly act like I thought she would when I planned out who she was, and she definitely became almost an entirely different person than I thought she would be when I started. I had difficulty with the writing itself, and how to write it. My strength is not in descriptions, and I would rather explain what is going on than show it in detail and leave it for the readers to figure out. I would have like a little bit more time to edit, because in the last couple days of the project I got so many new ideas that I feel I should have included, things like making my climax happen a little differently.
The Art
My cover turned out pretty simple, and I think that I like how it looks. It was an old looking map, with a red dotted line marking where my character traveled throughout the story. I chose to make it simple based partly on my skill level with digital art, and partly because I think that with a lot of elements in a cover the real meanings can get lost. So, I made my cover straightforward, and simple. It communicated the theme of traveling, and following your passions. I’m proud of the idea, and of the small edits I made to the original images that I used, such as making it more faded into the background, adding in the dotted lines, and doing fancy things to the font to make it stand out against the background better. It was challenging to think of an idea that I would like to use, because my story had so many elements to it, and including all of them would be very difficult, so I went with the simpler overall theme of my story, which is creating new experiences. I probably could have made it a little more complicated, though.
Personal Growth:
The most important thing I learned during this project was the things that we never hear about Africa. Things like the King Leopold’s Ghost video were eye-opening, and it was a reminder that schools don’t like to talk about the bad parts of history, mostly the bad things that Europeans specifically have done.