Poetry
Project Description:
The Poetry Project looks into the core elements of how poetry is written and how poetry is read. We explored the concepts of meter, rhymes schemes, and poem types. We observed the works of poets in their presentation of their poems to create inspiration for the presentation of our own poems. We practiced memorizing and presenting poems. After we had dived into poetry, we wrote our own poems. Our own poems were based upon what we have learned in this class throughout the year, focusing particularly on someone specific that impacted us as students.
The Poetry Project looks into the core elements of how poetry is written and how poetry is read. We explored the concepts of meter, rhymes schemes, and poem types. We observed the works of poets in their presentation of their poems to create inspiration for the presentation of our own poems. We practiced memorizing and presenting poems. After we had dived into poetry, we wrote our own poems. Our own poems were based upon what we have learned in this class throughout the year, focusing particularly on someone specific that impacted us as students.
Facing the Beast
Found all alone, he took me in
He raised me all these years
He told me where I was to go
He ask I shed no tears
Together in my room, wee Gwyn
His castle large and grand
It was right there he’d watch me grow
Exactly as he planned
To the market, he’d leave me home
He picked out all my clothes
“Try this one on” he said to me
He always asked I pose
He shunned the sports I’d play outside
He ask I be refined
The things I do in my spare time
Only what he’d assigned
From my window, I watched them come
With their pitchforks and spears
I warned my master as they marched
On guard he now appears
My heart now beating like a drum
And then I saw a hand
My window he now arched
To my floor, I’d then land
This man I saw was here for me
“You must leave here at once”
I said I’d stay, I couldn’t leave
He wasn’t pulling stunts
It was then he told his story
His brother was taken
By a horrible beast, master
A well life forsaken
Consumed, so master might gain youth
Truth turned into silence
I saw his eyes, I now believe
His past gained him valiance
I still refused, though I saw truth
My fear not mistaken
Scared master might cause disaster
He returned to his men
It was that night my fear would grow
I’d keep my voice down low
To seek my master out that night
What he’d do, I must know
I saw him let out one loud blow
He screamed, “The time has come
I can not wait any longer
I must consume that bum”
He told me how to see the world
He told me what to do
He taught me everything I know
Caused my obstructed view
In my heart, I knew I must leave
I couldn’t feed that foe
I tore the drapes with all my might
From my window I’d throw
My whole life I had been deceived
I’d leave where I’ve come from
And down the drapes, I soon would wander
I ran as I grew numb
To the village I soon arrived
They welcomed me that night
The choice I made will serve me well
At last I’ve won this fight
My happiness had soon thrived
A knight, I then became
To save those who may face the beast
Who found and took me in
Happiness
Project Description:
Happiness is something we all want in our lives, but we often don’t understand what it takes or even what it means to be happy. The Happiness Project explores the concepts behind happiness and how to achieve it. In this project, we dived into the differences between true and artificial happiness through Brave New World, the qualities of people who actually are happy through a variety of videos and articles. Learning about happiness allows us to start working towards achieving a life that we can be satisfied with. From our previous knowledge of society through the Socialization and Identity Project and this new knowledge of happiness, we can assess why are society is so unhappy and how we can work towards the improvement of this dream our nation strives to achieve.
Project Reflection:
Project Reflection:
- As a student, I feel that this project has opened my eyes to what my educational career could be. Through projects and assignments, I can offer aid to others with things that I have full understanding of to be involved with others and to have meaning. I can take advantage of other’s skills to discover how to refine and better my own work. I can “own my work” and use my passions and my skills to drive what my projects become. I can focus on working on aspects of my work and my education that I want to improve rather than working on improving parts of my work and education that society says I should improve. I can support others in their educational careers. From studying happiness, there are so many ways that I can change my education to become happier with it and all that is because I know have an understanding of happiness that I previously did not have.
- I will be spending my summer attending GOAL Art Camp, Science Immersion, Summer Theatre Academy, and Band Camp. Even though, my summer is quite busy, I can incorporate my new understandings of happiness and meaning into my summer activities. At the GOAL Art Camp, I can my art unique and I can make it mine rather than basing my artistic decisions off of the provided examples and the work of others. Through the Science Immersion camp, I can socialize and make new friends. At Summer Theatre Academy, I can work towards improving my craft and take acting to the next level. At Band Camp, I can help the upcoming freshman get adjusted to how our band works. I don’t have to spend my free time on social media (or should I say “social” media), I can spend that free time over the summer working on those things that I’ve always wanted to do, but never had been willing to take the time to do them. My whole summer can incorporate happiness and meaning if I just let it.
- My biggest take away from the Happiness Project is that happiness is more real if you feel as though you truly deserve it. Through Brave New World, we saw that true happiness is something than can only be achieved through knowing pain, true pain. In the book, those who lived in the civilized world were living with false happiness, they were constantly living in a neutral state, one from which they didn’t know what it meant to experience disappointment, pain, and loss which ultimately meant that they didn’t know what it meant to have true happiness. In an article about the book Mindset, happiness was something that can be achieved through having a growth mindset. Having the kind of mindset where you want to get better at something, particularly something important to you, creates the kind of thinking that achieves happiness because you have worked hard for it and you have endured pain to try to get to that point, so you not only having happiness from what it took to get there, but you also have pride and having that pride allows you to feel like you’ve fulfilled something. Being handed things that you want is nothing compared to working for them; being handed things achieves false happiness while working for them achieves rich and true happiness.
Brave New World:
Model Unitied nations
Project Description:
Should Palestinians have the right of return? Should North Korea, as a sovereign nation, have the right to nuclear technology/weapons? Model UN is a project that allows us to embody the position of a representative for a nation and gain knowledge on your country's perspective on issues facing the world today. This project allows you to develop a collection of information on how your country is involved with and interacts with the world in order for you to make logical decisions that reflect this information when determining how a situation should be handled. This project not only teaches you about where your country lies in terms of handling issues and options on those issues, it also teaches you critical thinking, collaboration, debate, speaking, and consensus building. A fair amount of this project is understanding how the real world works and how.
End-of-Project Reflection:
1. What are you most proud of about this conference?
I am the most proud of getting votes in this conference. During our previous conference on the North Korea problem, though my resolution was on the docket, I was not able to persuade other delegates to vote for my resolution. The goal I made for myself, if I were to get onto the docket again, was to be able to build consensus, to compromise with the needs of other nations in order to make my resolution more appealing to the international community and get votes. Luckily, I was given a second chance and made it onto the docket for the conference on the Israel-Palestine conflict. I took advantage of this second chance and sought out nations within the conference that may be willing to agree to my resolution under certain circumstances. Based on my experience with the previous conference, I knew that if I wanted to achieve my goal, I would need to take matters into my own hands and find people to build consensus with, so I made compromises with other nations to made amendments to my resolution as well as consider votes that would be given to my resolution under curtain circumstances. Not only was I able to get votes, but I was able to get votes from delegates who felt very strongly about their opinions on the topic that did not originally correlate with mine.
2. What did you connect with most in this project, and how did it affect your performance in this project?
In this project, I connected the most with the country I was representing. Originally, I was meant to represent the United States, but the person who had China did not have the desire to present that nation, so we were able to switch nations and because of this, I was able to represent a nation that I was passionate about. Seeing as I was given the opportunity to represent a nation that is very important to me, I feel that it allowed me to care more about the work I was doing in this project. Gaining insight into a nation that I care deeply about has allowed me to engage with the research and opinions of my nations with gave me the motivation and drive to represent those ideas with confidence. Having my country's perspective has changed my own perspective. When starting this project, we learned about this topics without originally having understanding about our countries perspectives which built upon and formulated our own personal opinions, but as we continued and learned about our country's perspective, we learned about the reasons behind those opinion which for me made my own personal perspective more similar to that of my country.
3. What was the most important thing you learned in this project? Why?
The most important thing I learned in this project was probably consensus building. Although I knew it, I never fully realized how important it is to compromise with others to gain their support until our first conference on the North Korea problem. In that first conference, I did not build consensus with others well enough to gain support and because of this my resolution only get 1 vote, myself. As I reflected upon the outcome of the first conference, I knew that if I wanted to gain support, I would need to build consensus and work with others. Upon this reflection, in our second conference on the Israel-Palestine conflict, I kept the idea of consensus building through working with others and compromising in the back of my mind throughout the meeting. With this thought constantly there to remind me of the goal I had set out to achieve, I found delegates who may be able to work with my resolution and see if I could gain their support through compromising through reasonably amending my resolution or making agreements to build consensus. I feel as though the Israel-Palestine Model UN conference was my chance to act upon my reflections of the North Korea Model UN conference and build consensus. Through this, I have found that building consensus means to give up a little piece of what you have and agree to gain something that someone else has, its about being willing to make sacrifices to achieve something greater.
Mid-Project Reflection:
1. What has been most challenging about this project? Why?
The most challenging thing about this project has been understanding the fashion in which such is meeting is done and prepared for. When writing the resolutions, I wasn’t quite sure how to go about writing it and how to properly make it fit to the format in which it was to be presented. When I viewed examples of previous students, I couldn’t quite comprehend what to do until I had listened to what my peers were doing. At first, I really didn’t understand parliamentary procedure. Despite having a script and the previous attempts to use it with a guide, it wasn’t until part of the way through our actual meeting that I started to understand the concepts. In order to really understand parliamentary procedure, I had to see it in action to actual get a feel for what to say and when to say it.
2. What challenges have you overcome? Why?
I have really been able to overcome the challenge of a lack of comprehension. Being able to wrap my head around these concepts about the United Nations and how their meetings go. Understanding how the United Nations comes to consensus, how order between the nations is kept, and the power between bodies and concepts of the United Nations had been difficult. Being engaged in the activities and assignments leading up to this point and especially our meeting itself has given me clarity and allowed me to see what previously could not.
3. What are you most proud of at this point? Why?
Despite the lack of votes during our meeting, I am incredibly proud of my Resolution. As China, I had to deal with the many complications behind the perspective my nation had on the issue of North Korea and with that knowledge, I had to generate a solution to the problem with the best interest of China constantly kept in mind. Seeing as China wanted to put an end to the nuclear weapons program, since it is potentially dangerous and that on the other side of things, China is fully supportive of North Korea and its decisions. In order to balance the conflicting views that China had on the subject, I came to the conclusion that if North Korea were to ever use their nuclear weapons for anything other than defensive protection that the United Nations would use military force to put an end to their nuclear weapons program. Although my resolution was not popular among the interests of other nations, I am proud that I was able to come up with a realistic solution that balances the complex needs in the situation from the perspective of China.
4. Analyse and explain what the following quote means to you: “Complacency is where genius goes to die.” We really learn from our failures. Dissatisfaction with ourselves can be the drive that allows us to better ourselves. Being satisfied with who you are and the work that you have done means that you do not have the motivation to improve yourself and being intelligent, being a genius, means to continue to have the desire to grow your knowledge. Without the desire to want to grow your knowledge, you may be fine with your knowledge, but you will never improve and meet what it takes to become a genius. Being a genius simply doesn’t mean to be able to retain a large amount of knowledge, it means to continue to grow the knowledge that you already have and the knowledge that you have not yet discovered.
Social Identity
Project Reflection:
In my mask, I am the most proud of the stitched up eyes. I feel that the stitched up eyes really symbolize this idea of society leading us to believe certain things about people that aren't necessarily true. My inspiration for this portion of my mask came from the TV show Once Upon a Time. I was thinking about my project while watching it and when it showed the Seer with the area where her eyes should be all stitched up, I realized that it could work for my project, symbolizing how society hides us from seeing the truth, blinding us from the reality. I am the most proud of the stitched up eyes because the idea came to me originally through inspiration of something I love and I spent a lot of time to create it. The mask is quite thick and hard, so when I had to puncture my mask to make holes for the yarn, I had some difficulties. I started by trying to drill a hole in it using scissors, as I had done with the hole for the zipper on the mouth. That took a long time, so I seeked out other means of doing this and Sara had suggested using a nail and a rock to puncture the mask. I tried using the nail and it worked quite well, but certain parts of the mask were getting weak and starting to break from the large amount of holes I was putting into it. I made less holes then expected and started stitching the yarn through the holes. The stitching process took a long time because the yarn needle didn't fit through the holes. After stitching it, I added a layer of clear glue on it, hoping to keep the mask from breaking, since the holes had made it fragile. The next day after the glue had dried, I added a layer of black paint onto the yarn to make it bolder and added another layer of glue. Stitching the eyes, took the longest amount of time out of everything I did on my mask and I am proud of my hard work as well as the original idea.
In my essay, I am the most proud of my hook: "Perhaps you have never considered the fact that there is a difference between a human and a person. A human is a primate animal who is closely related to an ape. A person is a human that is a member of a civilized society." I am the most proud of this because I feel that it is a very powerful statement that has been portrayed in a way that puts instant realization into the minds of the audience members. I'm always think about life and how it would be different if there were no society, if all of us were only human and not people. Life as a human is simple, it only requires survival and reproduction where as life as a person is complex and requires the dedication to keep a society functioning. Being a person means to gain status in society, to make yourself accepted, to contribute to society through work, and to be "normal" enough. As a person, you are constantly worried about your own success, your own happiness, and the success and happiness of your family. If we were only human, we would not be so obsessed with self perpetuation and self enlightenment, we would just be worried about survival and reproduction. Societies give you extra responsibilities, give you thought about your emotions and self that provide stress that you otherwise would not have, and it ultimately leads to us worrying about things that don't matter as much as society has portrayed them to. The reason that I am so proud of that part of my essay is because it says so much in just a few sentences, that it causes the audience to realize all of these things about what it means to be a person.
My biggest take away from this project is that through exploring this subject of social identity, I having come to think more widely on the matter of socialization. Before this project, I was aware of socialization and how society effect me and my life, but I was not able to look a them and them about who they are in terms of ho they have been socialized. I am able to think about why people make the decisions that they do and why they are a certain way by just allowing my mind to think about how society has effected them and made the impression on them that causes them to do and be certain things. Thinking about the different groups in society, I have come to realize that society has told them that they are supposed to be a certain way and that greatly impacts their individual view on themselves. These stereotypes that society puts out there for us are internalized; we hear these stereotypes about ourselves and we hear them often enough that we come to believe them and once we believe them, we become them. I had never really thought about that before diving into this project, but now I know how powerful these messages that society puts out there are. Now, when I think about my personal ideas about myself and my choices, I am able to think about why society has caused me to think and choose in that way. After this project, I am not only able to think more widely about how I have been effected by society, but also able to think more widely about how groups of people have been effected and able to think more widely about how individuals are shaped and persuaded by society an it's messages.
I want the community to know about how society has pressured them to be a certain way. Society tells you that you must act a certain way depending on who you were born to be and that is what I want to share with others. Just that fact that society is the reason that yo feel pressured to be a certain way, that society is the only culprit for you trying to change yourself to fit in. Society should not effect how you go able your daily life, but it does and I want people to be aware of that, the fact that society has lead you to believe that the categories you fall under determine how you should be as a person. As people, we just want to fit in and be accepted by society and this common desire has allowed us to unknowingly give permission to society to tell you who you are supposed to be and how you are supposed to act. This desire is why we are all so greatly impacted by society to change who we are and morph to the norms of the categories that society has said that we fall under. Society dolls out to us these categories that we fall under, then expects us to fit the "requirement" of each. Many of us, who society deems to be "the lowest of the lows" are often times just as innocent as the rest of us, but society has said that they are to be looked down upon, that they do not meet the standards that society has laid out. All that I want people to know is that they are effected by society whether they like it or not, but that you don't need to give in to these stereotypes just because society wants you to be that way. I could share this knowledge by writing an article to the community to make them aware of the impact that society has on them.
In my essay, I am the most proud of my hook: "Perhaps you have never considered the fact that there is a difference between a human and a person. A human is a primate animal who is closely related to an ape. A person is a human that is a member of a civilized society." I am the most proud of this because I feel that it is a very powerful statement that has been portrayed in a way that puts instant realization into the minds of the audience members. I'm always think about life and how it would be different if there were no society, if all of us were only human and not people. Life as a human is simple, it only requires survival and reproduction where as life as a person is complex and requires the dedication to keep a society functioning. Being a person means to gain status in society, to make yourself accepted, to contribute to society through work, and to be "normal" enough. As a person, you are constantly worried about your own success, your own happiness, and the success and happiness of your family. If we were only human, we would not be so obsessed with self perpetuation and self enlightenment, we would just be worried about survival and reproduction. Societies give you extra responsibilities, give you thought about your emotions and self that provide stress that you otherwise would not have, and it ultimately leads to us worrying about things that don't matter as much as society has portrayed them to. The reason that I am so proud of that part of my essay is because it says so much in just a few sentences, that it causes the audience to realize all of these things about what it means to be a person.
My biggest take away from this project is that through exploring this subject of social identity, I having come to think more widely on the matter of socialization. Before this project, I was aware of socialization and how society effect me and my life, but I was not able to look a them and them about who they are in terms of ho they have been socialized. I am able to think about why people make the decisions that they do and why they are a certain way by just allowing my mind to think about how society has effected them and made the impression on them that causes them to do and be certain things. Thinking about the different groups in society, I have come to realize that society has told them that they are supposed to be a certain way and that greatly impacts their individual view on themselves. These stereotypes that society puts out there for us are internalized; we hear these stereotypes about ourselves and we hear them often enough that we come to believe them and once we believe them, we become them. I had never really thought about that before diving into this project, but now I know how powerful these messages that society puts out there are. Now, when I think about my personal ideas about myself and my choices, I am able to think about why society has caused me to think and choose in that way. After this project, I am not only able to think more widely about how I have been effected by society, but also able to think more widely about how groups of people have been effected and able to think more widely about how individuals are shaped and persuaded by society an it's messages.
I want the community to know about how society has pressured them to be a certain way. Society tells you that you must act a certain way depending on who you were born to be and that is what I want to share with others. Just that fact that society is the reason that yo feel pressured to be a certain way, that society is the only culprit for you trying to change yourself to fit in. Society should not effect how you go able your daily life, but it does and I want people to be aware of that, the fact that society has lead you to believe that the categories you fall under determine how you should be as a person. As people, we just want to fit in and be accepted by society and this common desire has allowed us to unknowingly give permission to society to tell you who you are supposed to be and how you are supposed to act. This desire is why we are all so greatly impacted by society to change who we are and morph to the norms of the categories that society has said that we fall under. Society dolls out to us these categories that we fall under, then expects us to fit the "requirement" of each. Many of us, who society deems to be "the lowest of the lows" are often times just as innocent as the rest of us, but society has said that they are to be looked down upon, that they do not meet the standards that society has laid out. All that I want people to know is that they are effected by society whether they like it or not, but that you don't need to give in to these stereotypes just because society wants you to be that way. I could share this knowledge by writing an article to the community to make them aware of the impact that society has on them.