Embedded Files
Writing a Novel
Writing a Novel
From the author's introduction to this project:
Hello everyone, I am Rachel Thompson, a Junior in AP Lang. For my Pareto Project, I have chosen to write a novel. It is a book about a 17 year old girl named Lydia Brown living through the revolutionary war. It shows how the war tears a family apart, and how it affects each and every individual in her family. I hope you enjoy reading it, and leave any comments or questions you have. I can use snapchat (rae_meredithh), or you can email me at rachel.thompson@brewsterschools.org.
Click the image or this link to load a copy of the first chapter.
Vegan Advocacy
Disclaimer: This presentation contains imagery and ideas that some people might find offensive.Vegan Advocacy
This is a presentation on veganism by three students. They also created this pamphlet, which was distributed in the school.
From Ang, one of the student creators:
I am really happy that I did this project and got to present it to my classmates. I hope I can be more confident in myself so that, if there's an opportunity for me to speak about it somewhere, I won’t shy from it. There are definitely some things I wanted to add to the presentation which I recently realized. However, I’m really happy with the result.
Becoming a Writer
Becoming a Writer
Erin's project is also one of the Medium portfolios featured on that page. Here, you can read her reflection on how this project arose, what she learned, and what she hopes to do next.
A Short Story
A Short Story
Nick's project was a short story. His reflection on the work is below.
This was a very interesting project to do and I really enjoyed doing it. I have always been a fan of fantasy works and I do have experience with writing these stories. In fact, I wrote my pareto project to be a sequel to a work that I wrote in the sixth grade! Yeah. I set it in the same place, the village of Ur, except it was under very different circumstances. I like to think of it working like the Legend of Zelda games do. Basically, when the hero of my story in sixth grade, Arc, defeated the villain, Dimentia, she stayed dead for about a century. Then either a descendant of hers, or even Dimentia resurrected in a different form, comes back and starts the process of destroying the world all over again. This is how it works in the games. Link, the hero, kills the villain Ganondorf, only for him to come back a century later, where he is again defeated by a descendant of Link’s. That is how this ended up happening, but that was not my original idea. My original idea was to have an epic adventure like The Lord of the Rings. However, as I began writing, I decided to make a more self contained story about this little village. I raised the stakes by having it be the last remaining village so that it would be a bit more realistic when the villain showed up in person. He wanted to finish the fight himself. I also originally planned to have the Gandalf-esque character Gasper die, but I decided that that was too obvious. So I killed the main character. I thought it would be more unexpected, and I think it worked better in the long run. The story isn’t perfect and there are things that I want to change about it, specifically the ending, but overall, I thought that this was a pretty good piece.
Two Projects: One Personal, One Community-Based
Two Projects: One Personal, One Community-Based
Maria's projects have inspired a new shape for the Pareto Projects. Next year, each student will devise one project around a personal passion and a second project around the community. Her first project was to learn Arabic. The second, to develop a club in line with the National Alliance on Mental Illness, can be seen below, above an insightful reflection on the process itself.
Artwork and Reflections
Artwork and Reflections
One of the goals of a project like this is to couch a student's passion in the writing- and reading-based logic of the Humanities. Art fits perfectly, of course, and in this project, Olivia wrote frequently about her process. Of the lion paintings, she wrote:
"The lion painting is one of my favorites. Lions to me symbolize leadership and strength, something that is very important to me. Originally when I started i, I didn’t know how good I would do and I doubted myself a lot. But, I ended up doing very well because after awhile I submerged myself in my work."
Her thoughts on the Bob Marley sketch are included as a caption.
"This was one that completely exceeded my expectations. I tried something new, and wasn’t sure about how it would go. Thank god I tried though, because I will definitely be doing more like this one. "
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