#development of epq

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A print screen of my initial email to Elena Dorfman

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EPQ Session 2

Hello and welcome to the 2nd ever weekly update! So what have I done this week? Well I got my first chunk of research done - and found potentially the best piece of research out there. In the second EPQ session I showed Deborah my blog, to just check it was all cool, and she said everything looked fine. So, really I spent this week just looking up resources and noting down any ideas for my artefact that popped into my head. 

I’ve already made a separate post about my referencing system (update 5), and in fact most of what I will mention in my weekly updates will already have been posted about - this is just a round up.

Update 6 details my plan for going through resources; I went through 5 pieces of research this week - one of which I discarded as it wasn’t particularly relevant but c’est la vie. There is a post for each piece of research in which I have scanned in my annotated research and then done a brief write up on my initial thoughts. Those posts can be found as update 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13.

Thursday (17th) evening I suddenly recalled my GCSE poetry exam, in which we looked at poems with the theme of conflict; I seemed to remember one which may be useful. Indeed there are two; At The Border, 1979 and The Right Word - I like them for different reasons but will talk more about those in their own posts sometime this week.

During Friday’s EPQ session I did further investigation on the author of one the articles, Elena Dorfman, as her photography project is very similar to my EPQ focus. I have subsequently found contact details for her, which I will investigate this week.

Check update 7 for my thoughts on my artefact this week

Friday’s internet finds (18/09)

http://elenadorfman.com/

http://elenadorfman.com/assignments/syrias-lost-generation/

http://www.newyorker.com/project/portfolio/syrias-lost-generation

http://www.americanphotomag.com/elena-dorfmans-portraits-syrias-lost-generation

http://www.ushmm.org/confront-genocide

http://www.unhcr.org.uk/

http://www.unhcr.org/pages/4ab356d36.html#_ga=1.93517021.1315623408.1442566628http://www.unhcr.org.uk/resources/educational-resources.html

http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/search?page=&comid=4b66b4656&cid=49aea93ae2&scid=49aea93a6e

http://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rwmain

http://www.refworld.org/country/SYR.html

Plan for this coming week.

This is the last full week of September, so I am aiming to have completed my September Checklist by EPQ session 3 (25/09) - I will make a separate post detailing this checklist

Contact Elena Dorfman

Contact UNHCR

Evaluate resources found on Friday

Pretty much have finished my main resources list - obviously as relevant news stories come up they will be noted; however October is to be dedicated more to the planning of my artefact rather than trawling the internet

Made an initial plan for my artefact

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A NOTE TO ANASTASIA ON FRIDAY

Check update 8

Poems need to be uploaded

Search about Elena Dorfman

Think that’s it...

Oh and wait I’ve already said that nevermind

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Another nice article for the what the world is doing aspect, shaming Britain’s terrible efforts (I particularly like that we’ve been branded ‘the slackers of Europe’). A cold, hard look at Britain’s contributions is an important resource I will be keeping on hand; there are resources which are filled to the brim with information (I’m looking at you Elena Dorfman) and then there are those that are useful in a subtler way. Certainly a document I will be keeping on hand, we shall see where it fits in the final arrangement!

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Note to self

- Research Lost Youth project

- Find International Law legislation relevant to this topic

EDIT: I did both of these things on 18/09 and I mention this in update 15

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Artefact ideas - kind of

But Anastasia, you know that you’re doing a display for your artefact!

Yes, examiner[s], however what will be in the display - that is the question. As the weeks go along I’m hoping to amass some ideas (not all of them will probably make it to the final product, but that’s cool - developing and all) about the different mediums to incorporate.

As of today - 15/09 - my ideas and thoughts are the following;

World map print off (centre piece) with annotations of what countries around the world are doing to support the crisis - intending to exemplify that it is a WORLD ISSUE not a “Syrian issue”.

QR code that when scanned takes users to a pre-made Brainscape quiz containing statements that are either facts or myths - intending to eliminate misconceptions surrounding the crisis.

What the law says - international law legislation and what it means; bringing in the area of public international and humanitarian law that I am particularly interested in. 

Guess the number (???) with prize for nearest guess - winner and correct answer displayed the next day and Tyber messaged

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15/09/2015

It is 1930 and I am sat on my bed getting crumbs absolutely everywhere... sigh HOWEVER this is not a post about my poor eating location decisions, it’s about my resources - more specifically, how I intend to analyse/examine/sort through my resources. It’s all very well having a sizeable amount of resources, but when you actually have to use them trouble kicks in - I would know, I’m speaking from a great deal of experience.

But this time will be different! I have an awful habit of leaving things until the end, I’m a fabulous procrastinator but that isn’t the most useful trait when you’re doing an EPQ. To combat this flaw in my person I have checklists for each month (which I will post about), but I really need to be micromanaged so I have decided to limit the resources I can have - un-analysed - at any one time. the hope is I’ll sort through sets of articles, etc. and then discard the irrelevant ones leaving me with less, but more useful, research. Sounds like a plan, hey?

I’m going to print off each article and examine it with my highlighters and colourful pens, once it has been annotated I’ll scan it back in and post about it with a photo (that’s the plan right now, anyway).

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So, what happened then Anastasia?

That documentary got me thinking about human rights and my interest in law; I’d been floating around in a space of “what the hell am I going to do at university” for quite a while” and after watching that documentary I was like “I’m going to be a massive cliché and do law so I can help people around the world!!!” and so that was my basis for my EPQ... 

Until I changed my mind, as usual. 

But, Anastasia, now I’m confused because you seem to still be doing this E Team thing??? I hear you cry, yes that’s because as per my usual indecisive self I changed my mind again!

So, what then? Then, my (probably bored) reader, I had a blinding revelation that my calling in life was in trauma nursing (the story of how that happened is ridiculous and pretty much involved me spending a day in A&E and finding people watching really interesting). So, I changed my EPQ plan to focus on how emergency trauma care had developed over the course of history a pretty interesting topic - I know. BUT THEN on my way to the train station to visit my cousin for a few days I overheard some people discussing Oscar Pistorius, and my mind was rerouted back to thinking about law. It wasn’t until four days later on the 23rd of August while lying in bed at my aunt’s house that I really thought about it again and so my mind was changed again.

Between then and now, however, I have stuck with law simply changing on topic; after research on Oscar Pistorius I realised the likelihood of me sourcing good quality information about the trial was slim to none and so here we are now!