In the first semester, we did a project that showed me the different aspects of poetry, comedy, and politics. While working on this project I wrote and performed comedy and poetry. We all learned how to write several different forms of poetry. The next portion of the project was writing and performing a comedy skit with a small group. This opened my eyes at how writing and creating a five minute skit can be more challenging than expected. My class also learned how to create a Rube Goldberg satire in Adobe Illustrator based on a political topic. I studied portions of the history about LGBT rights, drone technology, and illegal immigration. Later on, I chose the topic of drones to write an argumentative paper that illustrated my viewpoint. This whole project was based on finding different ways for everyone in our class to learn how they expresses themselves the best. By the end of the project I had found that I'm best represented myself through comedy and drawing.
Reflection
Throughout this project, I have learned many new things. One thing I had learned was that even though I am not the best at writing poetry, I've come to respect people who write it. I've seen how much work and effort it takes to create a piece of poetry because it reveals so much of yourself that you may keep hidden. It also showed me how the poems truly meant something to each person. By performing the poems, I learned how much courage it takes to perform them because I myself was so filled with terror and many of my classmates were probably even more fearful than I was. But with all the fear, they went up and spoke, even if they became very emotional. Another thing I have learned throughout this project was how much work it actually takes to write and perform a five minute skit. We realized about midway through the project that we weren't performing something all our audience would understand, teaching us that we need to base our project to our actual audience. I also saw how much critique you have to receive in order for the skit to be strong. For many class periods all we would do is watch each other's performances and give them feedback on what worked or didn't work. One more thing I have learned from this project was how you always have to work hard. Many people would mess around with friends and hang out when they should have been working. In the end our teacher showed whatever the people had finished, which showed me that it's important to finish your work. I also saw how there are so many diverse opinions in the world of politics. The project showed me that even though someone believes in one thing, they still might believe in somethings of the other opinion. Overall this project has taught me so many new lessons.
Poetry
One thing we had worked on during this project was learning about poetry. For over a week we studied various forms of poetry, such as sonnets and slam poems. We discussed what made the different poems good or what could have been improved on. From there we worked on developing our own poems. All of us wrote a three minute slam poem to perform for the entire class. In class we watched videos of actual slam poem performances to learn a better way to perform successfully. We had five judges who would give a score on the poem to see which slam would go to the finals. I was chosen to be one of the judges, which I found to be a difficult thing to do. It was challenging because as you listen to each performance, you notice how revealing it is for each person, making it harder to score someone on how they feel. Each piece of writing seemed to have a personal topic for the author. After that step of the project, we were put into groups of five (the same as for the comedy skit) where we decided on a topic that both our poetry we each wrote and our skit had to relate to. In my group all of us decided on using passion as our topic. Each of us then worked on developing the poem, incorporating that theme in it. We never performed the poems in front of the class, but we did revise and look at them within our groups. We also found a poem we were intrigued by to write an analysis paper about. For this part I chose to analyze "The Haunted Palace" by Edgar Allen Poe. The reason I decided on this poem was because I liked the diction he used to create various images throughout the entire poem. Passion Poem Poetry Analysis
Punchlines
Another portion of this project was learning about comedy. We studied several different types of comedy, such as scripted skits and improv. In class, we watched several videos of the various genres to get a better idea of what it is that makes people laugh at comedy. After we watched one of the videos, we would go over what made the video funny and what made it work. Everyone then was put into groups of five (same as for the poetry) to create their own scripted comedic skit to perform. As a group we had to decide on a topic for both our comedy skit and poems to relate to. My group chose to use the topic of passion. All groups then worked on developing the story line, script, and characters for the skit. In my group we decided to portray some of the class dynamics we have noticed in our class, such as several inside jokes and characters relating to certain selected students. My group's skit was called "High Tech High Needs Slam". It ended up being about four contestants' performing their passion filled slam poems in front of three very diverse judges. At the end of this portion of the project, every group performed their skit for the entire team with costumes, props, and anything else they needed. Rough Draft of Skit
Politics
For the last couple of weeks of the project, my class learned more about current politics in both our humanities and physics classes. In our humanities class we split up into groups of Republicans and Democrats (decided randomly) and were assigned to research different aspects of the three topics: drones, immigration, and LGBT marriage. Every group would then present their findings to the class. We then chose the topic we wanted to write our opinion about. I ended up choosing drones because I found that human controlled drones are beneficial tools for the United States. Each person then created a thesis and topic sentences to help them build their argumentative paper. All of us researched evidence to support our stance, which we then used to strengthen our argument.
In physics we studied the six simple machines, projectile motion, and conservation of energy. We then started developing a Rube Goldberg styled cartoon that included all of the physics elements we learned about. A Rube Goldberg is a machine that starts with small action, then causing a series of smaller reactions that trigger each other, ending in usually one big action. The cartoon related to the topic we chose for the argumentative paper and contained a caption that went with the point the author was trying to get across. My caption was "Expect the Unexpected in the Race for Drones". In my cartoon it starts with a U.S. drone flying into another country which then accidentally tips off a ball, causing the start of the Rube Goldberg. It later ends with a toy car hitting the "Activate Attack Drone Button", which then sends the Attack Drone towards the U.S. We then wrote the definitions of the machines and physics elements we used, where they are in our cartoon, and why it truly is projectile motion, the six simple machines, and conservation of energy. Full Essay Physics Description