SHakespeare Project
Brave New World
"Our task in this project was to recreate a scene from the book Brave New World in a graphic novel form. Most students were paired into teams of authors and artists, though several worked alone and handled both aspects of the task. The authors wrote a paper analyzing one of the main characters in the novel and used noun-phrase apposites and concessive theses to make their arguments. Artists focused on key choices of moment, frame, image, word, and flow in creating a graphic novel about the chosen scene. Our exhibition featured both an art show of our graphic novels, and a seminar discussion about Brave New World."
Semester Reflection
In all reality, most every concept, reading, and idea has helped me understand the world and myself better, however there are three that really helped me more than I expected. The documentary Happy really helped me to understand that we can do little things to improve our happiness and even reduce stress which both are very beneficial to my life. A few of these little things that I am trying to incorporate into my everyday life are having compassion which helps you be outside of yourself and care more about others, being with people you care about which is really all about having the mutual support with your friends and family or whomever you care about so that you know you have a safe place to talk, and doing random or planned acts of kindness which is proven to help (over time) one have more compassion towards others which again helps to relieve stress. While we watched the documentary about North Korea I realized how much we don’t see in the world and how we all really need to look deeper into issues even in our everyday life so we can find the root cause so as to solve the conflict. While learning about the Hitler Youth I learned about how manipulative people can be right under your nose and how ridiculous it is that no one really analyses different situations. This information will help me be a bit more careful about what I believe and how I think which I think is a good thing as in the past I have just gone with what everyone says instead of challenging those assumptions and beliefs about a number of controversial topics.
In Humanities we have learned many new skills that can and will help me navigate this world however I really appreciate Headspace, the socratic seminars, and learning how to effectively self grade. Headspace is a ten minute meditation period where we get to relax but also take in our surroundings and look deep inside to see how we are feeling. I really love how we take a part of our day almost every day to relax, de-stress, and concentrate. I feel that doing the meditation has helped me become less stressed, more concentrated, more of a calm person (even after coffee), and it has even helped me become a little bit more patient. The socratic seminars have really helped me be able to express my thoughts, ideas, opinions, and beliefs on any topic in a professional, positive, and kind manner among others in a group. This will quite honestly help me in the future in arguments and different debate type situations where evidence is needed as well as being respectful with presenting my ideas. Self grading has really helped me be more critical of my work so that I can make it more beautiful and have more quality to it. I admit I can be over-critical but I think accurately grading my own work is something that comes with practice which I hope will happen over the next semester. These skills will help me be a more calm, fair, and critical person (when it comes to work) and I think this will serve me well over not just the next semester or even the rest of high school, but the rest of my life hopefully.
I have had so many great experiences this semester between theatre, friends, and a few ideas. I have made so many great friends this year that have really shown me some very valuable things that I will cherish forever. Caity and Alex have shown me that even in a dark situation there can still be fun and humor that will always make you feel better if you just look for it. McKayla has shown me how if you work hard (even if you’re losing sleep) you can make such beautiful work and still be a super fun and beautiful person. Cheyenne has taught me that people can still be wonderful friends even with very different ideas, opinions, tastes in music, and hobbies and that you can both teach each other things about what you enjoy. Curtis, he has taught me how you can be a wonderfully kind person, even if it’s just little things, and you really don’t have to give it a second thought. Anna and Jenna have taught me so many things but the one that has been the most meaningful is how even if you just meet someone, they can be your best and most trustworthy friend if you just say ‘hello.’ Jordan has taught me that you can care for anyone, no matter your relationship with them. Russell, he has helped me get through some very dark times and shown me that you can overcome your darkest moments with help as long as you ask for it. In class we have done Headspace and watched the movie Happy. Both of these have shown me different ways to be happier, less stressed, more patient, and more calm with are definitely things that I need in my life right now. Over this semester I had the joy of being in my first high school production, Les Misérables and we ended up getting to perform the show in front of 5,000 people at the Bellco Theatre in Denver. This was a wonderful experience for me that was filled with so much growth in my relationships with other people, school, and my acting. I am so glad I was able to have this wonderful experience. All of this will help me to grow further in my communication, school, acting, and just in general life.
In Humanities we have learned many new skills that can and will help me navigate this world however I really appreciate Headspace, the socratic seminars, and learning how to effectively self grade. Headspace is a ten minute meditation period where we get to relax but also take in our surroundings and look deep inside to see how we are feeling. I really love how we take a part of our day almost every day to relax, de-stress, and concentrate. I feel that doing the meditation has helped me become less stressed, more concentrated, more of a calm person (even after coffee), and it has even helped me become a little bit more patient. The socratic seminars have really helped me be able to express my thoughts, ideas, opinions, and beliefs on any topic in a professional, positive, and kind manner among others in a group. This will quite honestly help me in the future in arguments and different debate type situations where evidence is needed as well as being respectful with presenting my ideas. Self grading has really helped me be more critical of my work so that I can make it more beautiful and have more quality to it. I admit I can be over-critical but I think accurately grading my own work is something that comes with practice which I hope will happen over the next semester. These skills will help me be a more calm, fair, and critical person (when it comes to work) and I think this will serve me well over not just the next semester or even the rest of high school, but the rest of my life hopefully.
I have had so many great experiences this semester between theatre, friends, and a few ideas. I have made so many great friends this year that have really shown me some very valuable things that I will cherish forever. Caity and Alex have shown me that even in a dark situation there can still be fun and humor that will always make you feel better if you just look for it. McKayla has shown me how if you work hard (even if you’re losing sleep) you can make such beautiful work and still be a super fun and beautiful person. Cheyenne has taught me that people can still be wonderful friends even with very different ideas, opinions, tastes in music, and hobbies and that you can both teach each other things about what you enjoy. Curtis, he has taught me how you can be a wonderfully kind person, even if it’s just little things, and you really don’t have to give it a second thought. Anna and Jenna have taught me so many things but the one that has been the most meaningful is how even if you just meet someone, they can be your best and most trustworthy friend if you just say ‘hello.’ Jordan has taught me that you can care for anyone, no matter your relationship with them. Russell, he has helped me get through some very dark times and shown me that you can overcome your darkest moments with help as long as you ask for it. In class we have done Headspace and watched the movie Happy. Both of these have shown me different ways to be happier, less stressed, more patient, and more calm with are definitely things that I need in my life right now. Over this semester I had the joy of being in my first high school production, Les Misérables and we ended up getting to perform the show in front of 5,000 people at the Bellco Theatre in Denver. This was a wonderful experience for me that was filled with so much growth in my relationships with other people, school, and my acting. I am so glad I was able to have this wonderful experience. All of this will help me to grow further in my communication, school, acting, and just in general life.
Mask Project
Mask Project Reflection
Socialization is the process where we learn how to act and what the social norms are by our families, our schools, and the media. Socialization affects my life today because I am constantly being told what is right and what is wrong from various institutions and people which can leave me confused because some of the messages are very conflicting. I have personally learned to accept what I am being told but not always listening to the ‘norms’ that I don’t believe in. In our society there are many messages such as, “girls must take care of people,” and “boys don’t cry,” and even though we say that these messages don’t exist, they still do, just not as prominently as we might think.
In this project we learned about socialization through watching different documentary style clips on events such as the Stanford Prison Experiment and the case of Oxana Malaya, a girl raised by dogs. We also watched Mean Girls and looked for the ways that the main character Cadie was being socialized by “The Plastics.” We then wrote many journal entries on how we have personally been socialized and proceeded to write an essay about how we have been socialized either positively, negatively, or both based on one to three of our social identities (race, religion, economic class, gender, sexual orientation, age, and abled/disabled). The last part of a project was making a mask about how we have either been socialized in our life or broken the cycle of socialization.
We had a somewhat long and detailed process when writing our essays for this class. We started off by choosing one to three of our social identities and weather we’ve been socialized positively, negatively, or both according to this/these social identities and wrote out a plan for four paragraphs about this topic. We then actually wrote our first draft of these four paragraphs the next day and got peer and teacher critiques on the paragraphs. We then used these critiques to refine our “essay pieces” to create our second draft. We repeated this process a total of three times, the last time adding in our introduction and conclusion paragraphs. Once we had our third drafts, we did our own personal little refinements and turned in our final drafts with a works cited included.
So far the piece of work that I am most proud of this year would have to be my mask. I say this because I made myself rather vulnerable by essentially putting myself into this mask. I thought long and hard as to what symbols I wanted to put on my mask. They are all very meaningful to me in different ways. I am also very proud of how much refinement I did to make this truly beautiful work.
Socialization is the process where we learn how to act and what the social norms are by our families, our schools, and the media. Socialization affects my life today because I am constantly being told what is right and what is wrong from various institutions and people which can leave me confused because some of the messages are very conflicting. I have personally learned to accept what I am being told but not always listening to the ‘norms’ that I don’t believe in. In our society there are many messages such as, “girls must take care of people,” and “boys don’t cry,” and even though we say that these messages don’t exist, they still do, just not as prominently as we might think.
In this project we learned about socialization through watching different documentary style clips on events such as the Stanford Prison Experiment and the case of Oxana Malaya, a girl raised by dogs. We also watched Mean Girls and looked for the ways that the main character Cadie was being socialized by “The Plastics.” We then wrote many journal entries on how we have personally been socialized and proceeded to write an essay about how we have been socialized either positively, negatively, or both based on one to three of our social identities (race, religion, economic class, gender, sexual orientation, age, and abled/disabled). The last part of a project was making a mask about how we have either been socialized in our life or broken the cycle of socialization.
We had a somewhat long and detailed process when writing our essays for this class. We started off by choosing one to three of our social identities and weather we’ve been socialized positively, negatively, or both according to this/these social identities and wrote out a plan for four paragraphs about this topic. We then actually wrote our first draft of these four paragraphs the next day and got peer and teacher critiques on the paragraphs. We then used these critiques to refine our “essay pieces” to create our second draft. We repeated this process a total of three times, the last time adding in our introduction and conclusion paragraphs. Once we had our third drafts, we did our own personal little refinements and turned in our final drafts with a works cited included.
So far the piece of work that I am most proud of this year would have to be my mask. I say this because I made myself rather vulnerable by essentially putting myself into this mask. I thought long and hard as to what symbols I wanted to put on my mask. They are all very meaningful to me in different ways. I am also very proud of how much refinement I did to make this truly beautiful work.