Learning Targets
Throughout the course of this school year, I have learned how to properly present projects, from articulating my voice to using nonverbal cues to direct attention to certain topics. Going forward, I plan to use these skills to clearly project my views to an audience, allowing me to become a stronger speaker and leader.
During the Japanese mythology presentation I helped present alongside my teammates during the first term, I explained the origin of the islands of Japan according to legend. In the recording of the project I included, I was able to project my voice so that all my classmates could hear me. Additionally, although I have a tendency to stutter while presenting, I was able to articulate my words clearly. Additionally, by gesturing, I was able to direct the class's attention towards images I had drawn to convey the islands' creation. Finally, although the names of the islands Tsushima, Oki, Sado, Iki, Kyushu, Shikoku, Awaji, Honshu, and Hokkaido were unfamiliar, I was able to confidently pronounce their names and did not make a mockery of them (5A, 5B, 5D, 5G).
On Thursday, I recorded our group discussing why Claudia was so anguished and why Louis can never make her happy in Interview with the Vampire in order to answer the prompt titled "Unrequited Passion". I presented my views to my peers, describing how Claudia's request for Madeline to create a doll of an adult woman for her felt "fake", merely a coping method for the fact that she would never be able to grow to an adult. In addition, in the video I added on to my classmate discussing the struggles of being a five year-old girl: I theorized that one of the reasons Claudia hates being stuck in a child's body is because she lacks a sense of authority. After all, adults are typically more intelligent compared to a mere child, and feel so as well. Furthermore, my classmates and I were able to split up the conversation so that we were able to direct attention towards another person's dialogue. Finally, although the videos I took of our conversation featured a lot of teams in the background discussing the question as well, I was able to project my voice and articulate my words in order to for my classmates to hear me and for the video to clearly pick up my words (5C, 5E, 5F).
Although Grendel was a challenging read, I loved studying the characters' deeper meanings and motivations, in particular Grendel's himself. Although I did not necessarily agree with his viewpoints, especially his believing it was right to slaughter dozens of people to find a purpose in life, as a student who has pondered on the "meaning of life" before I felt it fascinating that someone would go that far to feel a sense of worth. Culminating the unit was the Grendel story project I made alongside my teammates Jason and Alvin. I enjoyed conceiving an Unferth backstory alongside my friends: Alvin was inspired by The Lord of the Rings to name Unferth's brothers after some of the characters in the series, and I, remembering the video we watched in class about how Viking swords were made, was inspired to include the name of the sword in our text. In retrospect though, our group could have came up with a more satisfying explanation on how Unferth killed his brothers and a deeper significance behind the slaughtered hunter. Currently, our class is studying Interview with the Vampire. Although I have never had a particular interest in vampires, I find the themes presented in the story and discussed in class fascinating, though oftentimes disturbing, as was the case with IWV - Lesson 4.