For the first unit of Language Arts, we explored the connection and difference between power and leadership by reading novel and biography as well as watching movies. I discovered my own path of the understanding of power and leadership through the process of doing assessment task and writing the essay. Before this unit, I know that power and leadership cannot be separated; power can be used well only with good leadership. And leader always leads and influences the group.

However, when I finished reading the novel The Wave, I realized that leader could also be influenced by the power of the group. So for the assessment task, I decided to do a PowerPoint to demonstrate the relation between the leader and the power of the group. But as I was doing it, I found myself fell into a strange circle: groups influence individuals, the leader influences the group, but the leader is also an individual. It became confused and hard to explain clearly, so I communicated with Mrs. Taynton about this. She said I didn’t need a result; I just needed what I found. So I grab a paper and wrote down what I have already had, by doing this, my conclusion was groups influence individuals, the leader influences the group, the leader is also an individual, so the groups can also influence the leader. To my surprise, it was a successful assessment task though it was my first time doing it.

For essay writing, since it was the first time for me to write a Language Arts essay, deciding thesis statement became my first challenge. After reviewing my notes, I got different perspectives on power of groups, but it was hard for me to combine them into one thesis statement, so I chose one of them as my thesis statement at last: People are attracted by the power of groups because everyone has an aspect of evil within them. This was a difficult thesis statement because it’s not easy to prove everyone has an aspect of evil within him or her. So at last I wrote about even if not everyone has an aspect of evil within him or her, people all have potential to do harm. I wrote about the situations in The Wave and Lord of the Flies to prove my idea. It was a challenge to write my first essay, but I learned a lot through the process, essay is an analyze article, it needs to be very compact, everything in essay is for proving thesis statement. I also learned about how to do work cited. It’s a very important skill for essay writing.

All in all, through this unit, I experienced many first times and learned a lot through the process of doing them. I also have clearer and deeper thoughts about power and leadership through finding my own path and researching. I enjoyed this unit a lot and I am also looking forward to next unit.

How did I come up with my research question?

For the couple of past weeks, we have been working on power and leadership. I did a presentation about power of groups and individual and it was successful, so for essay research question, I decided to keep working on power of groups. First I made a table to review my notes on The Wave, Winston Churchill, The power of One and Lord of the flies. I divided the notes into three parts: individual, group, and both and tried to find relation between them. There are my five conclusions according to the notes:

1. The power of one can start a group to become the power of group, once it become the power of group, it will bond together as the power of one again.
2. Distinguishing levels of power and threat and seeing clearly through the things make a person not be caught into a group and then not be able to get out of it.
3. Once a group of people has the same thought and the same aim, they become power of one.
4. People are attracted by the power of the group because everyone has an aspect of evil within them.
5. Although the leader is a person who has power in a group, once the leader is caught into it and loses ability to think and judge, the leader will be swamped by the power of the group.

I found it difficult to mix them together to get one conclusion because they are completely different aspects about power and leadership. After considering and talking with Mrs. Taynton, I decided to use the fourth one as my thesis statement: People are attracted by the power of the group because everyone has an aspect of evil within them. Although it’s a very strong thesis statement and it’s arguable, it’s hard to explain people all have an aspect of evil. So in my outline, I use one paragraph to talk about even if not all the people have aspect of evil, they all have potential to do harm.