We finished our multi-modal projects this week, and I couldn't be happier. I'm grateful for the experience that this project gave me, but I'd truthfully be happy to never do anything like that again. The best thing about this project was the gallery walk. I loved being able to see what the other teams made and how they interpreted their novels. With Weebly, there's only so much that you can do with the coding, so being able to see little bits of what we used in other projects was really interesting. I liked being able to sit and listen to the ideas of interpretation from the other groups. This project was overall a learning experience. Although with my own personal group, we hit some rough spots. A certain team member wasn't very flexible with changes, or they were being stubborn with the question we decided on as a team. But even with those road bumps, I believe that we were still able to create a really nice end product. Our website is visually pleasing and the text is all informative and interesting. With this project done, I'm really looking forward to working on and planning my senior project.
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This week was a full week of work. My group finished our books (mostly) and have a good start on our picture notes and website. Something that was unexpected was the amount of friction in my group. We're all intelligent and understanding people, but this project is testing our limits a little bit. A key ingredient in group projects is open mindedness. If you are not open minded, no work will be accomplished. There has been disagreements and a few minor arguments while trying to pick our topic and also on determining what our big question would mean to us. We're trying to be a cohesive group while holding contempt for some team members. This back and forth that we're going through is also present in the book Things Fall Apart. Okonkwo's clan is facing opposition with the missionaries that come to teach them, but many vlan members respond to these strangers with anger and aggression. The best way to work through problems like these is to talk openly and freely about what isn't working and what could work instead. We've just got to hang on and trust each other that what we're doing will eventually turn into one cohesive project. In a song called Hang On Little Tomato, there are lyrics that read; "Just hang on, hang on to the vine Stay on, soon you'll be divine If you start to cry, look up to the sky Something's coming up ahead To turn your tears to dew instead." We are little tomatoes, and we need to work together and hang on to each other and our ideas. There hasn't been anything that tomatoes haven't gone through. We can do this. We're working on our multimodal project. The book that my group chose is Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. We haven't really started our actual project. We're working on finishing the book and starting the picture notes. So far, I really like this book. The characters and their cultures and lives are really interesting. I love reading about cultures that are different than mine. We chose to work with the question, "Does the world put too much pressure to strive for specific and arbitrary goals?" This question works really well with our main character, a strong man with the name Okonkwo. Okonkwo spends his whole life trying to be a better, stronger, and more successful man than his father ever was. He views his father as a lazy, good-for-nothing that had nothing to his name. Okonkwo is put under extreme pressure to become successful and powerful, to become a true leader of the tribe. The materialistic goal that Okonkwo so desperately wants to achieve is to become extremely successful, and he has learned that with no hard work, there will be no reward. But the journey to success has turned him into a cold, stubborn, and strict man. At some points in his life, there are more cons than pros when it comes to success. To say it simply, AP Lit has been a lot of work. But, today is the last friday of the trimester. After 10 exam weeks, we're about to face our eleventh session of exams. I feel like this friendly stock image man on the left. Trying to keep it together. It's been hard these past few weeks, finishing This I Believe, completing scholarships, starting the Pecha Kucha presentations, being in the pit orchestra for the musical; it's been a lot of work. I am extremely grateful that this trimester is ending and that I will be moving on to my final trimester as a high school student. I'm super sauced by the idea that after spending thirteen years in public and private schools, that I'm moving on to the next chapter in my life. I'm going to start making choices that'll impact the literal rest of my life. After all that I've done, I think that I made a good call taking this class. I'm learning way more than I would in the other English class available, and I am positive that I'll utilize the skills I obtained here later in my life. Okay, so to sum this up, I'm glad that I learned so much in high school to prepare me for my future, but I definitely will not miss it. I'm ready for bigger and better things. This week in AP Lit was focused on stories. We finished our This I Believe videos and shared them with the other people enrolled in this class. The sharing of the videos was really interesting and intimate. I learned so much from my classmates just from these three to four minute videos. In these small stories, a raw belief was exposed and defended, and I really enjoyed seeing people's beliefs and hearing why and how they came to this belief. The belief that I shared was my belief in people. How I came to my belief happened through a loss of a loved one, and while sharing this, I felt really exposed. I felt like my belief came from a really personal experience, and sharing this experience really took some courage. Not many people know that I have a little brother, and sharing how I lost him was difficult to say the least. But, I am sort of glad that we did this project. Every time that I share what happened, it hurts a little less. Maybe everytime that I share, the permanency of what happened is reinstated. Sharing personal things is hard to do, and it always will be. If you take a moment to think about it, everything you hear is a type of music. Everything has its own rhythm, moving and flowing. The typing of keys, the scratching of a pencil, the clicking of a pen, it's all music. But the most intriguing music is the tune of a voice. The way someone speaks, with all their halts and hesitations and tones and inflections, is a music in a genre all in its own. The way that someone talks gives a little insight on what they're feeling. In the class' "This I Believe" projects, it's all about the power and the music of the voice. The way that we present our story is a story in itself. The way that people's voices betray them and waiver or shake is extremely raw and is the most beautiful and basic sense of music. I love listening to people because I love hearing their voices tell a story. The way that someone presents their tale really helps you connect with them better, it's human nature to want to connect. In AP Lit, we are doing a project about what we believe in. I really like this project. One of the reasons why I really like this project is because I'm a sucker for a good story. My whole life, I've loved stories. Being able to be transported to someone's own personal world with a few words is on par with magic. I love life stories because they're real and true. You may never be able to experience a certain thing, but through the words of someone else, it feels like you've been there. My mom has told me that I have a knack for telling stories. I'm able to take my experiences and use fun words and voices and introduce something new to someone. I'm only 17 years old, and in my 17 years, I've experienced so much. I've lived in the Arabian Peninsula, I've travelled to Japan, I've experienced death and grief, I've endured excruciating pain in hospitals. I have all these experiences and I love sharing them. I love talking to people about my life and sharing a bit of myself with them. One of my favorite songs is "Here We Are" by Patrick Park. A line in this song that I really like is "We can't see past our own sad stories and forget how to listen." The stories that we have, be they sad or exciting or happy, make us who we are. We need our stories and we need to listen to other people's stories. Your story is who you are. Share it how you please. A main focus this week was online tracking. As a class, we read two articles on online tracking and what it does and the consequences that there is. In one of the articles that we read, there was a statement that made me think about what's really happening. "By spying on you, companies can learn about your personal finances, religious beliefs...even health problems or sexual preferences.". This sentence drew my mind to an episode of the television series Parks and Recreation. In that episode, an Internet company named Gryzzl uses intrusive data mining on their cell phones and emails to uncover details about their customers that would advance sales and to increase customer loyalty. While this episode was satire, it really showed what could happen of tracking got out of hand. Satire has lessons buried deep inside, and every so often, satire could become reality. People need to be careful of what they post online, for whatever they say can and will be used against them. This week in AP Lit, we've been focusing on finishing our Shakespearean presentations and papers. My group presented on Wednesday, and I'm proud of the work that we've done. We worked really well as a team, and our collaborative efforts were realized. Even though I'm a little disappointed that my group got an A-, but I'm proud of us nonetheless. I feel like this group project was easier than the last group project that we did. I think that it was easier partly because I was working with three other people as opposed to one, and I'm more interested in the critical theories than elements of literature. When I am interested in a project, I am way more likely to put more effort into researching and writing. I liked the Shakespearean drama project, and I'm excited to work on the "This I Believe" project. It'll be interesting to dig a little deeper into what I believe, and I'm also interested in seeing what other people believe in. I like AP Lit. It's a class that engages me and that challenges me to think more critically about different ideas. These past two weeks in AP Lit have been focused on getting our Critical Theory projects up and going. I have been focusing on the Feminist/Gender lens with the play King Lear. We have been working primarily with the characters Cordelia and Edmund, for they both have a significant influence on the other female characters. I enjoy this project, but working on it has proven to be more difficult that I had previously thought. The level of difficulty seems to be rising when it comes to tasks in this class, and I appreciate that. I like that I am constantly challenged in this class. It allows me to grow as a student and as a coworker as we continue to experiment and work in groups. But while working in groups is good in theory, it is easier said than done. In the group that I am currently in, I am constantly facing challenges with my team members. I am having problems with not having a member contribute, for they rely on others to get their work done for them. While this is not nearly an ideal situation, I am trying my best to work hard and to also motivate myself and my companions. I really like this project and I hope that it'll all turn out to not be a terrible mess. |
AuthorCailin Rose Russell Archives
April 2017
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