The Feudal System

“Father Francois, you are my honored guest. Please allow me to explain the Feudal system to you before you ask any questions of me. I am but a simple Farmer. In order to obtain land, lords go to king William and ask for some land and in exchange they have to make an oath and give something back, like knights or hospitality. If the oath was broken the king would take back his land and if the lord refused to give it back, the king was forced to take back his land through a fight.”

1066: Who Had The Best Claim?

After king Edward died, there was a battle between three men that desired to become king of England, Harold Godwinson, Duke William and Harald Hardrada.

As we all know only one could take the crown and in the end Duke William became king. In my opinion, Harold Godwinson should have won the battle and become king, he was a pure english man and king Edward himself asked him to be king. I believe that an english man should have reigned England, not some foreigner. Harold was a noble and the head of the English army, he deserved the crown. He fought bravely and smartly in the battle, like a true english soldier; but he was out-smarted by the normans and collapsed. I think he should have been king because he was a strong and clever man and those are some of the qualities a great king has.

Eve Shalen And Her Experience

To think about:

How is ostracism different from other forms of bullying? When does ostracizing or excluding someone from a group become part of bullying?
Ostracism is different from bullying because it means to isolate or exclude someone from a specific group or society, while bullying is when someone uses power to hurt or intimidate someone weaker. Ostracizing can becomes part of bullying when a person is trying to hurt or make the person believe he/she is weaker by excluding them.


1.What’s familiar about the incident Eve describes?
What's familiar about Eve's story is that I've been through this as well and it is very annoying and confusing when someone dislikes you for no reason at all. I've learned to evade those people and stick with my own friends.

2.What surprised you?
What surprised me the most was how frequently we try to make the 'populars' like us and try to blend in with them even though we never really liked them or the things they did, and soon we start forgetting who our true friends are. I say this because I have seen this happen and I have been that true friend waiting.

3. How does Eve’s story relate to bullying? Was she bullied? Did she bully? How would you explain her behavior? (perpetrator/bystander/victim?) Make sure you justify.
Eve's story relates to bullying because the elite group constantly hurt a couple of girls on purpose just to show them that they were superior. Eve sure was bullied at some point, she got picked on by the 'popular ones'. She also became a bully herself without her realizing it. She was invading the other girl's privacy and we all know that truly hurts. I would say Eve was both a victim and a bystander. Victim because she was being harassed in the beginning and a bystander in the end because she didn't try to stop the harassment towards the other girl when she could.


4.How did Eve’s need to belong affect the way she responded when another girl was being mocked? Why does her response still trouble her? How do you like to think you would have responded to the incident?
Eve was desperate to fit in and belong that she forgot that the girl they were mocking felt the same way she had felt when they bullied her. After thinking it over she realized that her actions had been despicable and she truly regretted it because she realized that she would feel horrible if they did that to her. I would like to think that I would have tried to take the diary from them and given it back to the girl because I would have known how it felt to be picked on and I wouldn't have wanted anyone to feel that way.

5. Eve concludes “Often being accepted by others is more satisfying than being accepted by oneself, even though the satisfaction does not last.’ What does she mean?
What Eve means is that you can't make people accept you, it just happens. She was trying so hard to be accepted that she forgot that it was not true acceptance and that it was just momentary, it was never for real. If you want people to accept you for who you are, then you should accept yourself first.

Values & Choices

1. Think about a time you witnessed bullying/ostracism/peer
pressure/exclusion/discrimination/violence. How did you respond? How you wish you had responded? What stopped you from responding that way?

I have experienced pressure in my last school back in Colombia. There was a fight going on between my two best friends. They couldn't stand each other and I was forced to chose who I will be friends with. I didn't want that, so I decided to be friends with both of them. It was very challenging because both of them would talk bad about the other and I they were not the same. I just decided to take a break and let this all get better by it self but it never did. And soon they both hated me for not being on their side. I had lost both of them. I wish I had tried to stop their fight and try to fix things but instead I just stood by and watched our friendship collapse. What stopped me from responding that way was that I was scared that they both would go against me and that I would lose them as friends.


2. Where have we seen examples of bullying/ ostracism/exclusion occurring in texts studied so far this year- factual as well as fictional?

In the boy in the stripped pajamas there was clear ostracism towards the jews. In the Hunger Games it gets a bit tricky, I think there are examples of exclusion towards District 12 because they are considered to be weak and not so important. And in the shadow of the Minotaur, the boy (I don't remember his name) was being bullied by Adams.