Infograph

(This is my first draft of my infograph. For my first idea, I thought I should show a dollar bill to represent how much the government spends and about 12 coins to represent the amount spent in a couple of states.)

 

(This is my second draft, and in here I decided to show government spent money going sown the drain, when it could be used for better reasons.)

(This is my final draft, and for this I decided to use the same main idea as my second draft, but add more details.)

After the student critiques, my infograph changed a lot. For example I started off just showing a whole bunch of numbers and states without having a true purpose, but after my first critique I learned that I should have my infograph relate more to my topic and have more of a meaning. Later, for my final draft my critiques suggested that I add color and add pipes to show what is going on in the statement . Overall, I'm so glad that we could critique one anothers graphs because it allowed me to learn how to correctly show my information in such an amazing way!

Us having fun splatter painting!!!

This is my Government Spending letter:)

Ella

San Diego, CA 92131

January 20, 2012

Barack Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Barack Obama,

I believe that the government should slow down on spending and use the money on more useful things such as education and poverty instead of wasting it on things that just get us in to debt and trouble.

First of all, the things that our government spends our money on are the main cause of why we are in this financial crisis. If we were to spend it on more reasonable things, then our country as a whole will majorly improve. For example, it costs about $78.95 a day to keep a criminal behind bars when it only costs about $10 per day to send a child to college. Think about it, would you rather spend the money on crooks who go around causing mischief or on a child who has worked hard though elementary, junior high, and high school and needs the supportive money? I sure know what my choice would be.

Second off, our tax money is sometimes used for good causes, however the money usually goes over board or past the budget. For instance, the Iraq war helped protect our land, although, the budget was around $60 billion and we spent a total of $3 trillion! Another situation was your family vacation. Of course you deserve a vacation, especially since you’re the president, but spending $1,474,200 is just a little bit too much. Or the tobacco settlement when we ended up using $206 billion dollars (which could have been used to build multiple homeless shelters). So in other words, it’s nice that the money is used for good things, but maybe you could keep an eye out for how much money is spent.

Lastly, our country is in so much debt and trouble, yet it seems as if the government doesn't care and just goes on making things worse. Ever since around 2009, we have been in debt somewhere around $14 trillion dollars and for quite some time we have been taking lots of our tax money and giving it to foreign countries (about $300 billion dollars just recently). But what is most confusing is that we have been giving food, health, and other supplies to places like Africa when really, we are the ones who need it. In each state there are thousands of homeless and starving people yet here we are helping out other places before we help ourselves.

Overall, the way that our government is spending money is negatively affecting this country. So in order for this to end, we need you to think twice before you let a law go through and consult with Congress about how to provide for America.

Sincerely,



Ella