11th Grade American Literature:
About the Intersectionality and Perspectives Project
Stereotypes and Lenses
The Identity Maps and “Unfair Project”: This project was to write down every word that you've heard someone call you, either if it was good things or bad. It is crazy to see and look back at all the stereotypical name calling that was thrown at me throughout my life. I threw a inspirational quote in the background just because that is the motto I follow every time I'm put down. |
Literary Theory
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Reading and Socratic Seminars
James Baldwin: was one out of many articles that we have annotated and did a Socratic seminar on. In this article he explain his perspective on how to deal with racial profiling and discrimination. How to deal with the police and if police brutality will ever stop. He talks about how black people were treated like animals. How the white world = rich men and not provided for blacks. I found this article to be the most interesting article out of the rest that we have read.
Book club book
- What is this story about?: Homegoing is a light-hearted novel, without complicated characters or themes, but with mystery and twists of plot that make it pleasant entertainment. Each chapter has its own story about each character. Its about a village, poor village, trying to survive off of making trades to the Europeans (Warriors). The way they make trades are by they selling their daughters to the warriors and getting money for it. Its not all bad, it kind of benefits the family and the daughter, because now the daughter lives in a castle and married to a man. But its not all great, the daughter have to go through terrible conditions such as, rape, and being beaten but the warriors if not listen. Women are normally viewed as a sexual object in the book.
- What skills of close reading did you gain through this reading?: I don't really find reading as fascinating as writing. I was never a strong reader and I always got bored reading. Reading this book, it helped me overcome it because not only was the book interesting but it helped me read in the same pace with my class because we had 20 mins to read everyday as a whole.
- What Critical Lens did you read your book club text through and why?: I read it through it as Postcolonial theory, because it shows a lot about how culture were changing because of the Europeans. How there were trades just for the benefits of the white men. Because if it suits their needs than they have the power to get it. In this book, its mostly about imperialism and feminism.
About Our Writing Process!
Critical Lens Essay
- Deciding on a Critical Lens: I chose Postcolonial theory because reading the book, I only felt like there was postcolonial theory, I also saw a of feminism arguments but what clicked me the most is that the relations towards postcolonial.
- Drafting Process: We started off by gathering in the same book group and we just threw a lot of ideas out on the table about what critical lens best represent Homegoing. My group mostly agreed with Postcolonial. Afterwards, we started writing our first paragraph and argument on what post colonial is in the book.
Documentary & Imaginative NonFiction
In this project, we were given the option to chose either Documentary or Imaginative Nonfiction. I chose Documentary because I find editing as one of my favorite hobbies. I was paired with a partner for this project and our documentary was about two people that came from a tough background. Now all we do everyday is pass by a stranger but we never really know their background and how they grew up. There are tons of stories that have not been heard. Obviously we could not interview thousands of people in San Diego. The two people that we have interviewed have shared racial discrimination stories. One person shared that when he was young, he was picked on because he was Mexican, he also grew up with his grandmother and not his parents. Which he felt like his parents would've been more understanding in this new world, instead he was raised by a women that only knew how the world was like in the 1960's.
- Participating in Empathy Interviews: Setting up the interviews got frustrating because it was hard to find a quite place so could shoot the video. Not only did we need a quite space but we needed a decent background as well.
- Going to see I am Not Your Negro - documentary AND storytelling inspiration: Seeing the documentary, there was a lot of history put into it. There was videos of riots in the past then riots in the present.
- Scriptwriting Process: This was just a way on how to visually see the outcome of our project. It was somewhat useful, I did like the fact that it was easier than just making ideas on the spot.
- Working with partners: Working with a partner made the project a lot more fun. It almost made things less awkward when going to an interview.
- Final Documentary:
Serial Podcast
We listened to a podcast about the miser of Hae Min Lee. This all happened in1999. Hae Min Lee, a popular high-school senior, disappears after school one day. Six weeks later detectives arrest her classmate and ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, for her murder. He says he's innocent - though he can't exactly remember what he was doing on that January afternoon. But someone can. A classmate at Woodlawn High School says she knows where Adnan was. The trouble is, she’s nowhere to be found.
- Guilt vs. Innocence and the American Justice System: In the podcast, it's not always easy to find out an investigation about something that happened years ago. But at the same time when you are interrogating a felon about a murder, you can't really forget that, it should be burned in your brain. So if you are guilty, and you're trying to get away and say that you're innocent, don't act dumb and say "I don't really remember what happened that day." It's obvious to say that you're the murder.
- What to believe?: it's hard to know what to believe. It all matters on their tone in their voices, or if they don't sound confident in their stories or if they keep changing their answer.
Self Reflection of the Intersectionality and Perspectives Project
One of my goals from the beginning of the semester was to help improve not only me but my partner with projects and help them as much as possible. I was never a team leader, especially in projects, so making this documentary, it made me realize what I can really do for other students and help them reach their goals. I worked my way to do as much as possible for the filming, I drove my partners to their destination for interviews and I shot B-Roll with them. What I need to work on as I head into Senior year is to really stop procrastinating. To really using the advantage of work time. I am most excited about, finishing the school year knowing that I started in Explorer than went to High Tech Middle than here. not only that but I am the last member in my family that will graduate from the same school.
Honors Reflection:
Engineering:
Mountain Project:
- What I learned from this process was that all of these cuts were done by 45 degrees angle which amazed me. I learned that when staining with white, you have to do lots of coats for it.
- The most challenging part of this project was to make the cuts as accurate as possible because if you cut too much or too little then it might not fit the pockets which sucks.
- The steps that we took to complete this was gathering all the wood we needed, then sketching out our idea. Then we measured the cuts we need to make. Then we made those cuts on our wood. Then we stained the wood to the color we wants and boom we started to glue and kaapowww masterpiece.
- My thoughts on the final product: Our mountain turned out really good and even though we were in a rush to complete the project, we still manage it and got it done.
Self-Directed Project:
- What I learned through my process was building a table was not as easy as it looks. In fact, this took some blood and sweat to complete.
- The most challenging part was making the holes for the legs so the other part can fit through it. That took forever to make and it took a lot of muscle to complete.
- The steps that we took to build this table was plain and simple. We look for images on the internet to have an idea on what wanted to do. Then we started by gathering the wood that we needed and planned it all out. The measurements we needed took a while to do. We used a measuring tape to find the demensions on the classroom tables to see what's a good a length and height. We cut all the wood that needed to be cut and we started crafting.
Math:
Self Reflection
- There was a time where I felt confused and lost in of of the lessons. Actually to be honest, there were few lessons where I wasn't getting it. One of the topics which I forgot the name to, I remember doing the warm up and I had no idea on how to do the work because I was never introduced to the concept. But then doing the problem with the class helped me learn step by step but still couldn't figure out on how to solve other problems. Getting a worksheet and working as a group at our tables helped me learn materials and techniques that I can use to solve problems
- The way on being precise and taking your time in math is really important because if you are more accurate with every step than you are half way there on solving the problem.
- Some goals that I have in my life does involve math. I want to study computer science and graphic design and both of those studies involve math. So I can take what I learn in math to another level in my career.