Independent Blog Post Quarter 1 (2014 - 2015)

Have you recently listened to Pop music ( as in popular music)? By listening, I mean listening to the lyrics as well as the sound of the music. I believe that most people including myself, do not pay enough attention to the lyrics; however, recently after actually analyzing the lyrics of many songs, I have come to a startling realization.

Inspirations play

Inspirations Play FINAL VERSION

Title - Inspirations Play   Year - Freshman 
Skills - compromise, communicating, writing, media, editing Category - Media and Communication

I believe that the inspirations play was one of the hardest projects of my freshman year. I do not say this because of the work load or research but because of the amount of compromising that had to be done. In the beginning of the project, we were asked to come up with two play ideas that inspired us. I had an idea about finding one’s self and fitting in while my other idea was about media’s hypocrisy on the issue of body image. I really liked my first idea of finding one’s self because I felt it related to me and my life experiences. That was the play that truly inspired me. However, we were then to find a group of people with similar play ideas to create a play. Nobody had my first play idea but a few people had a variation of my second idea. Throughout this process, the fact that nobody had my first choice made me want to do the first choice even more because this tied into my play of trying to fit in (and how that never seems to work out). I was disappointed.

Critical Thinking Paper

Critical Thinking Essay

Title - Critical Thinking paper   Year -  Freshman  
Skills - research, analysis, persuasion, problem solving Category - Critical Analysis

The critical thinking paper is a three year project. This requires each student to write a 4-6 page essay to support one side of a particular issue happening locally, nationally, or internationally. I decided to write an essay against the one-child policy of China. At first I thought this would be an easy thing to argue however, afterwards I realized that most of the arguments I had in mind were humanitarians. The essence of this essay was to use logic and facts to support my point of view therefore I could not use humanitarian issues as a basis of my arguments. I found this to be very hard towards the beginning of my research. I wondered to myself “what other reasons could there be to end the one-child policy?” however what I didn’t realize was that this drive to know what else there could be helped me in my research. It caused me to be more interested in what I was doing. I learned quite a few interesting things about the one-child policy such as its actual effect on the population. I also found out that the one-child policy could possibly lead to an economic crisis in China. Before this point, none of these things even occurred to me and I found these things quite interesting.

Independent Blogpost #1

         Recently, I have found myself dreaming of independence. All my life, someone has been telling me what to do and how to do them. I have always tried to live up to people's expectations but I would like to find my own person. I realize that I am unique and that at the end of the day, I should be happy. To accomplish this dream, I am trying to find my niche or  on which I can expand upon. Also I have become more assertive in general. I am trying to come up with ideas for me to have a kind of steady income such as tutoring, therefore; I will not need to be as dependent on my mom for somethings and be able to help when I can. With time I hope to be as independent as possible.

Senate Debate

Senate Debate (Neutrality) by AshaRCAP2017

Assignment/Activity Title— Senate Debate Year—Freshman

Skill—  research, analysis, strong arguing Portfolio Category— Critical Thinking

  

The Senate Debate on whether to provide arms to England during the beginning of World War 2 was a very educational experience which has expanded my thinking in many ways. This helped me in learning how to formulate arguments. Since we did this in debate style, there were many things that I had to do that are not really necessary in an essay. With a debate, I have to state my opinion from the beginning and remain concise because I might not be called on again. Also I need to make sure that I know all about what I am going to say because there are people to refute me as soon as I am finished which would damage my credibility. I also learned how to place my arguments. With debates, one cannot simply go back and re-read, therefore I place my strongest argument last because it will  be last to leave the memory. It also benefits if you can comment last. Lastly, this taught me to look at things from the other perspective. In debating, it is not guaranteed that you will get to speak twice, or directly after your opponent, therefore you need to refute what your opponent says before they say it. This skills can be very useful in future research and essays such as the critical thinking paper.

Harlem Webquest

Assignment/Activity Title— Harlem Webquest     Year—Freshman
Skill— Presentation, research      Portfolio Category— Social Awareness

During the Harlem webquest assignment I learned a lot of things about the Harlem Renaissance and the ideas surrounding it. During this project we were asked to search the internet to find out about the Harlem Renaissance. We had to find out about the history in general, the art/literature of the time, and the politics to create a brochure. We also had to read a poem in front of the class.

Cinematic Analysis (Quarter One)

Cinematic Analysis Quarter 1

Assignment/Activity Title— Quarter 1 Cinematic Analysis Year—Freshman Skill— Writing, analysis, media, research Portfolio Category— Media and Communications

The first Quarter cinematic analysis asks each student to watch a film from or set in the Gilded/Progressive era and give a plot summary, a historiography, and analyze the basic hooks of the movie. My first Cinematic Analysis with Quiz show was not my best work. I did not know how to connect the plot summary to a theme without being redundant. After receiving my grade and looking over the plot summary, I realized that it was very bland. With my next cinematic analysis I made as many relations to the theme as I could to try to make the plot summary more interesting. It was during this process that i realized how many things a film has to portray it’s theme. Even the smallest aspects of the film portrays the theme.