Advanced Essay #2: The Things I Learned...

Introduction:
While reading other essays, particularly "I Just Want to be Average," I was reminded of my time as a kindergarten, where I was literally the worst behaved student in the class. I wanted to write about all of the things I did but settled for two because to the length constraint. Still, I feel this essay has more story than reflection, and I want to become better at writing reflections.

Advanced Essay:
Once upon a time,  I was not a quiet person. There was a time where I was not cautious of danger. Instead, I greeted it with open arms. Better yet, I didn’t even acknowledge it. There was a time when I was a terrible kid, and that time was kindergarten. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been reminded of all of the bad times I’ve had in my first year of school. Kindergarten is supposed to be that time where kids learn basic education. I got nothing out of it. All I remember are the bad things I did.
The teacher passed out these handwriting sheets about some concept we were taught to call ”numbers.”  The sheets she handed out were in a packet of ten pages, each labeled from 1 to 10. My teacher talked to us about what we were doing.When I got my packet, I immediately scribbled in all of the numbers. My teacher noticed me in the speech she was giving. “WHY ARE YOU ON EIGHT?!?” she bellowed. I quickly shot up from my daze and stared at my teacher, as if I was frozen. “Go flip your card.” I got out of my seat, walked over to the corner, and changed my card from green to yellow. That meant I had done something wrong.
I could barely focus, often didn’t know or hear what was going on, and I started talking to myself at that age. What was going on? Something I think was happening was that I was doing whatever I saw. My teachers were just trying to teach me and keep me in line, but I wouldn’t listen. I recall something that Mike Rose wrote in “I Just Want to be Average,” “Students will float to the mark you set.” I feel like that was true for every kid in my class, except me. As if it didn’t apply to me. Everyone else could follow directions. Everyone else could focus on their work. Why couldn’t I?
It was a cloudy afternoon after school one day. My dad was dragging me down the sidewalk outside the school. “You are in so much trouble.” His words exactly, in the same fearsome voice he spoke in when angry. We walked to the car and drove off. My dad got on the phone with mom, going over the details of the bad thing I did that day. I don’t even remember, but I had an idea about it. It was probably that time when I said something like, “I hate this mother%#$* school,” but I have no recollection of it. “ALL HE CAN DO IS EAT AND READ!!!” I was jolted back to reality when my dad spanked me on the leg. Looking back on that day, I realize that my father was just looking out for me. He knew I had potential and desperately wanted me to use it. Mark Rose said it best when he wrote
After a spanking, I was left in my room to read. There was a bookshelf in my room with simple books, like “The Cat in the Hat” and other Dr. Seuss stories. I stood up on the shelf and randomly selected a book. At first, I was just flipping through the pages looking at all of the pretty pictures. However, as I went on, I started looking more at the words rather than the pictures. I knew how to read at that age, so I was able to get through the books. There were a few things I picked up here and there, like the sounds animals make and the many numbers there are. I was actually gaining knowledge, something I seemingly was unable to do in school.
All of these memories of kindergarten, and countless others have helped me understand that there are multiple kinds of education. Mainly two. There’s the sweet, educational things you learn in school, and then there was the realistic, societal things you learn everywhere else. For example, I didn’t know what 6+7 was, but I knew how many curse words there were. I had too much societal education and not enough room for ‘actual’ education. And the way I see it now, actual education is more important. I wish I didn’t act up so much back then. Even after I read that day, I still acted up in school and didn’t officially get it together until 4th grade. But now, I know that I have a balance between education and society.
Works Cited:
Rose, Mike. "I Just Want to be Average." 1989. Accessed December 10, 2017. https://www.cengage.com/custom/static_content/OLC/s76656_76218lf/rose.pdf.

Advanced Essay #2 - Ethan Larrabee

Introduction:
In this paper, my goal was to establish a link between how early one learns to read and their success in the future as well as how this can be used to disenfranchise certain groups of people. I'm not particularly proud of anything in this paper (in fact it still needs a great deal of work) but it's getting late and I can't think of anything else to write.

Literacy, specifically in terms of the ability to read and write, is an essential part of one’s education. Reading is especially important as without being able able to read, one cannot hope to be able to write. One’s ability to read determines one’s ability to better perceive the world around them as the vast majority of our information is presented in a written format. Thus, the sooner one learns to read, the sooner one can begin to truly learn about the world they live in.

I was a rather fortunate child in this regard as I learned to read at a notably early age compared to most children. From as early as I could remember, my parents had been reading me stories which I would listen to with a sort of obsessive focus, which says a lot as I can rarely focus on any one thing for an extended period of time. By the time I was three years old, I was attending a preschool at which I was being taught how to read and write. We started with basic subjects like pronouncing letters and writing our names. While the teaching was effective, it seemed to move too slowly for young me as I craved more. As I was an ambitious child, I decided to teach myself to read. First, I had to find the right book. It had to have enough words to be challenging, while still being a relatively light read. I settled on one of my favorite dinosaur books. It was quite large with full page illustrations and a few sentences per page. It was perfect.

I set about my task in secret, not wanting to risk my parents offering their assistance. This was something that I knew had to be done entirely on my own. Each night, after going to bed, I would stay up for several minutes attempting to decipher the pages. I sat hunched over the book under my covers with a flashlight as to not disturb my brother nearby. The process was slow and arduous as each page took me several minutes to complete and I was constantly sidetracked by the illustrations. Still, I pressed onward, each page becoming slightly easier than the last. By the end of the fourth night, the book was finished. From then on, my reading quickly improved as I seemed to outpace the rest of the class. While others would play, I would find a spot to sit and read. Since then, I have always been at an advanced reading level. I don’t mean to brag, but this was extremely helpful in the earlier years of school.

Literacy is one of, if not the most valuable forms of cultural capital. The ability to read is necessary in society for finding and absorbing information. It allows one to learn independently as they can seek out information without the need for someone to explain it to them. However, if one is deprived of this ability, than they lose a great deal of their independence and makes them much easier to control. For example, slaves were absolutely forbidden from reading or writing as keeping them illiterate made them incapable of arguing for their rights. While a slave could find evidence of the wrongfulness and immorality of their enslavement, they would never be able to because they weren’t capable of obtaining that information. All they knew was what was told to them by their masters, who used this to better control them. This is how Frederick Douglas managed to escape slavery because he taught himself how to read and write. Similarly, in the segregation era, black schools were deprived of resources in order to better control the students. Without being told about the importance of literacy, many of these children never pursued it later in life and so never developed the skill further. In The Apartheid of Children’s Literature, Christopher Myers states “As for children of color, they recognize the boundaries being imposed upon their imaginations, and are certain to imagine themselves well within the borders they are offered, to color themselves inside the lines.” When it comes to children’s literature, books for children of color simply aren’t published. This indirectly deprives them of a way to improve their own literacy skills and, by extension, their knowledge of the world around them.

While literacy has always been an essential life skill, its importance hasn’t been stressed until quite recently. People are only just beginning to realize how much one’s literacy skill determines and what they can do to improve. Hopefully, people can have more access to literacy instruction in order to close a gap that has existed in society for centuries.


Works Cited

Meyers, Christopher. "The Apartheid of Children’s Literature." New York Times. N.p., 15 Mar. 2014. Web.

Advanced Essay #2: Women and Visual Literature

Introduction:

My goals for this paper is to share how visual literature changed how I viewed myself. I’m most proud of the flow of my writing. I could improve in making my thoughts on literature more clear


Women and Visual Literature:

I was sitting on the bed in my mom’s room. She was folding and putting away laundry while the T.V. was on. The T.V. screen was playing some sort of crime show. In the show, there was a man and a woman standing in a gritty city. The man offered a bouquet of roses to the woman. The woman laughed and walked away from the man, refusing his proposal. The woman didn’t get too far before the man shot her to death despite her pleas for him to stop. The woman’s body was left in the streets while the man drove away from the crime scene with his unwanted bouquet of flowers.

That scene gave me a fear of rejecting people and saying no. I grew more cautious of how much authority people have over me and how quickly and drastically I would be punished if I didn’t do what was expected of me. An article by UNICEF states that,  “... exposure to media among youth creates the potential for massive exposure to portrayals that sexualize women and girls and teach girls that women are objects.” Although the media I was exposed to was not sexual, the effect was the same. That scene gave me the idea that I should be afraid of men as well as the power that they had and I lacked. I had the expectation that when I would enter my teen and adult years I had to make the men around me pleased with my answers and behavior even if I would not be comfortable with the outcome. Without even knowing it at the time I was beginning to understand my role in society was to be objectified. Visual literature helped me realize how I was expected to behave and perceive myself. My perspective on what I could be as a woman narrowed down to one option; an object designed to please men.

When I was in elementary school I would spend my time during recess playing make believe on the playground. At times I was the only girl in a group of boys, making me have to take on the more feminine characters in our made up adventures. One recess we decided that we would play in the world of Star Wars. Despite the fact that I hadn’t seen any of the movies at the time, I would always get assigned the role of Princess Leia. The obvious reason was because I was the only girl that would play this game with them. However, my friends claimed it was because of the curly buns I had on the sides of my head. They would pretend to be Jedis and use “the force” to move things as well as have fierce fights with imaginary lightsabers. My job was to mostly sit and watch. On more eventful days I could pretend to be in danger until it was time for me to be saved by my friends.

Looking back on my times spent in the playground I realize that my roles have always been passive. The nature of the characters I would play did not matter. My male friends and I did not care if the women I pretended to be were strong leaders or highly intelligent. In our eyes, these characters were only girls and nothing more. Often times in the media, shows will have a singular female character in a group of men. In an article titled “Hers; The Smurfette Principle” Katha Pollitt defines the Smurfette principle as, “a group of male buddies will be accented by a lone female, stereotypically defined.” Pollitt also gives examples of female characters who only have one singular personality trait. Kanga from Winnie the Pooh is the mother of the group while Miss Piggy from The Muppets only exists as a “glamour queen”. Pollitt comes to an understanding and begins to see that, “Boys are the norm, girls the variation; boys are central, girls peripheral; boys are individuals, girls types. Boys define the group, its story and its code of values. Girls exist only in relation to boys.”  Visual literature has shown me that women are seen as singular traited individuals that exist only to levitate the qualities of men. This representation of woman in visual literature has caused children, like me and my friends, to dismiss the idea of women having larger roles. Women are put in a position where they must prove that they are too complex to just be accessories to the characteristics of men.

Eventually, I realized that I am too multifaceted to be reduced to an object. Despite visual literature introducing harmful stereotypes in the past  I believe it’s steadily improving. Every day I see better representations of gender and I hope children today are gaining higher perceptions of themselves.


Works Cited:

“Not An Object: On Sexualization and Exploitation of Women and Girls.” UNICEF USA, 9 May 2016, www.unicefusa.org/stories/not-object-sexualization-and-exploitation-women-and-girls/30361.

Pollitt, Katha. “Hers; The Smurfette Principle.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 Apr. 1991, www.nytimes.com/1991/04/07/magazine/hers-the-smurfette-principle.html.


Design Slide 2.0

Tech Presentation Design Slide (1)

I ended up missing my designated presentation time but that doesn’t mean that the criticism I received was any revered.

The main point of criticism for my slide was the fact that there was a lack of font and the photo was not as front-and-center as it should have been. In order to fix this I played around with fonts until I found the font, “Bungee Hairline” which is what I chose to be my final font due to its bold yet thin lettering and minimalistic aesthetic. I also cropped the photo and eliminated the section of the paper that had a bit of pencil scribble on it as that was distracting and took away from the overall clean look of the slide.

The reason why I aimed for an overall simple look was due to the fact that most of my research said to take advantage of large font and open space as well as the lines of focus. So I thought that the best way to achieve all three of those goals was to one, place my drawing in the center of the slide, two, make sure that it had equal borders on all sides, and three, only place bold font on the left side of the slide therefore taking advantage of one of the horizontal lines of focus while also leaving open space. In conclusion, the goal of my slide is to both simply and effectively convey the change that I have gone through both physically and emotionally throughout the course of my life and I believe, thanks to the power of design, I have been able to achieve this.


Advanced Essay #2: A Mother's Voice

​Introduction:

My paper follows the topic of parental influence on language and how our parents talked/ read to us as children and how that affected our development through life. The goal of y paper is to show how a parent who reads to their child gives their child an advantage literacy wise. I'm proud of my analysis in my paper I feel as a writer it has grown quite a bit and it sounds better all together. Places that could use some improvement, (if we had a larger word count), would be adding more to my scene of memory. 

A Mother's Voice: 

People believe that our school environment has the largest impact on our speech development and interpretation of literacy. This effect on our speech happens much earlier on in life. Our parents are this early effect. A parent who instills the importance of reading in a child's life gives that child an interest in learning, which will blossom into a dominant cultural capital. A parent who is not involved in a child’s life reading wise places this child at a disadvantage. Recently, I recalled when I went to my mother’s house and remembered a conversation we had about our childhoods. I was about 13.


I sat on the sofa and pulled out my book that I had been reading. Animal Farm, by George Orwell.


“Animal Farm. That’s a good book.” my mom said.


“You read Animal Farm?” I said.


“Of course, I read it a few years ago. Do you like it so far?”


“Yeah, I’m really enjoying it...in a strange way. But I wouldn’t peg you as someone who’d read something like this.”


“Why do you think that?” my mother said, confused.


“You read romance novels and I doubt that Nani would’ve asked you to  read something like this.”


“Why does my mother care about what I should and shouldn’t read?”


“You were sort of… for lack of a better word, poor as a child. I was raised reading books and craving to read more books.


“I had to work for my education, and sure, maybe I wasn’t as proper spoken as you as a child but I’m smart, Eric.” I stood up and grabbed my book not saying anything. I went to my room and fell asleep quickly. It was as if the night went by with a blink.


This memory is like an essay we read in class, The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children by Lisa D. Delpit. “I am also suggesting that appropriate education for poor children and children of color can only be devised in consultation with adults who share their culture. Black parents, teachers of color, and members of poor communities must be allowed to participate fully in the discussion of what kind of instruction is in their children’s best interest.” (296).  

As a society, people neglect poor children no matter how much they need help, but the moment a child with money has an issue they get all the necessary help. When Delpit states, “instruction in their children’s best interest,” she believes  that  as a society need to put our differences of privilege aside and help the poor, using our privilege because that is a part of our culture. My mother as a child wanted help and my grandmother never got my mom any help at all.

The next morning, after my “discussion” with my mom, I heard her voice from downstairs in the kitchen. I walked downstairs, making a slight noise and saw my mom drinking coffee in the kitchen, her phone was on the table. On the phone was her mom.

“Never heard of Animal Farm, sounds fancy.” my grandmother said.

“Yeah it’s pretty advanced for his age, guess all that reading at night with him helped.” my mom said.

“ I loved reading to you.”

“ You never read to me, Ma!” my mother snapped back

“ Yeah I did, I read you….”

“You can’t even think of a book, you were never there for me!” There was a moment of silence, my mother burst into tears and hung up the phone, putting her head on the table in shame.

As Mike Rose wrote in his essay, I Just Want to be Average,  “You're defined by your school as "slow"; you're placed in a curriculum that isn't designed to liberate you but to occupy you, or, if you're lucky, train you, through the training is for work the society does not esteem; other students are picking up the cues from your school and your curriculum and interacting with you in particular ways.” (3).

We separate kids into two groups, smart and slow and we do this at a young age but old enough so that child understands that their behind. Instead of allowing “slower” kids to integrate their ideas with “smarter” kids so that both groups benefit schools put you in classes that just fill up your time, rather than giving you a purpose.

Literacy is a tool used to understand words and people, some people understand these messages better than others. Our parents are meant to lead us, the amount of guidance are parents give us varies.



Works Cited:

I Just Wanna Be Average by Mike Rose

Rose, Mike. "I Just Want to Be Average." Lives on the Boundary: The Struggles and Achievements of America's Underprepared. New York: Free Press, 1989. 162-67. Print.


Baca, Jimmy Santiago. A Place to Stand: the Making of a Poet. Grove Press, 2001. [This is the book…]


The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children by Lisa D. Delpit.
Lisa Delpit (1988) The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children. Harvard Educational Review: September 1988, Vol. 58, No. 3, pp. 280-299


Advanced Essay #2: The Language of Masculinity

Introduction:

The goal of this paper was to explain how I view code switching, especially in concern to masculinity, as a language.I am proud of the connections I made about how men view being feminine as a bad thing along with how I connect to the grand scheme of masculinity. I could improve more on being concise with my words.


The Language of Masculinity:

When I was fourteen I entered the workforce with my first job, which was anything but glamorous. I was condemned to spend a little more than a month of my summer trapped in a very old and hot gym with a gaggle of small children. While the children were annoying, it was my fellow coworkers who I found to be the most unbearable.

I have this complex when it comes to interacting with guys my own age. I do not consider myself to be overly masculine in the slightest, so I find myself feeling lost and mildly annoyed at the behavior of my fellow men. Not all men, but just the majority of them who flaunt their masculinity and force it onto others. The ones who find ways to insult not only each other but different groups of people as well.

The camp in which I worked seemed to reinforce stereotypical gender norms much to my dismay. Me and the rest of the boys were in the gym playing sports with the older kids while the girls were confined to the “tot room” watching over the smaller campers.

Lunches, where all of us guys would sit in the break room, were the worst for me. Conversation would buzz around me, but it was as if the guys were speaking a foreign language that I barely had a grasp of. I had mastered the art of nodding along and laughing in order to pass as just another guy, but every now and then though one of them would say something that snapped me to my senses.

“Dude stop being such a faggot,” I had heard one of them yell.

“Shut up, you’re the faggot,” another had retorted, his mouth full of sandwich. They all laughed except me. I always hoped that no one would notice my flinch when they said certain words like faggot or retard. Those were words of their language that I had refused to speak.

It had always fascinated me that men use the term faggot as an insult, as if being gay would  suddenly strip a man of what makes him a man. It seems as though men are obsessed with the concept of a fag, which is to say an overly feminine and flamboyant man who likes men. It must make them feel better about their own fragile masculinity.

To me, masculinity is a language in itself. It is one born from years of privilege and entitlement, of aggression and hate. It not only harms those who are not men, but it also harms the men who use it.

As Steve Almond wrote in his article What I Learned in the Locker Room, “We look to pro sports as a reminder that it is our duty to conceal the parts of ourselves that feel vulnerable, the parts we associate — erroneously, but inextricably — with the feminine.”

Hypermasculinity not only harms those who are not men, but it also harms the men who perpetuate it. The fear of being feminine or the fear of being a “fag” is what drives men to act the way in which they do.

Men conceal their feelings, their vulnerabilities, and repress them until there is no other choice but to push those negative feelings onto others. It makes sense then, that they would attack the so-called “faggots” because they are jealous of a man who can take ownership of who he is and who can take responsibility for his emotions and actions. “Faggots” are a threat to their way of life.

Towards the end of my first summer of work, I found myself exhausted keeping up the charade of masculinity. I think the facade that I had put up began to fade because one boy reached out to me during my last week of work. We were in the gym, and he had stopped me in the middle of my weak attempt at shooting some baskets.

“I just wanted to tell you that I notice how uncomfortable you seem around some of the other guys, I get it,” he admitted. “I just don’t want you to think that I’m a horrible person because of how I act around them. I’m not like this really, I just do it to fit in,” he had told me.

I think I replied with something along the lines of, “Yeah don’t worry about it, it’s no big deal,” but in reality I was confused. Why did this boy care so much about what I thought of him?

The answer didn’t come to me until much later, after I had become more comfortable in my own skin. He was trying to reassure me that he was not a “horrible” person, but in reality it seemed as though he was trying to reassure himself, which makes me think about what Gloria Anzaldúa emphasizes in her work How to Tame a Wild Tongue, “Wild tongues can’t be tamed, they can only be cut out.”

This boy had given up who he was in order to fit into the male archetype. He took the parts of himself that were against the norm and cut them out in order to become what every man is expected to be. While he may have found comfort in the conformity, he had lost himself in the process of doing so. I came to realize that you cannot bargain with society, you either speak the language it wants you to or you risk becoming a social pariah.


Works Cited:


Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands = La Frontera. San Francisco: Aunt Lute, 1999. Print.


Almond, Steve. What I Learned in the Locker Room. The New York Times Company, 11 Sept. 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/opinion/sunday/what-i-learned-in-the-locker-room.html. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017.


Advanced Essay #2: Language in furthering cultural literacy

Introduction
This essay details experiences in my life with literacy and explains the ways in which the ability to get a bilingual literacy should be accessible to all in creating a more just society. I am proud of the ways I connect personal experience with evidence from other personal accounts and broad ideas. With more writing I would improve on adding more perspectives and making the scenes from my personal experience much more specific. 


Advanced Essay

I entered my kindergarten classroom literate in English, and left literate in two languages. This was a phenomenon I couldn’t fully process as a five year old. My brain swirled in circles, as a child does, and learning two languages at once just became custom. I started by learning Spanish the way I had learned English years before, Maestra Maricarmen would point to a grape and we would all respond in unison, “uva.” I spoke Spanish all day long, to the point where it felt weird when I would go home and have to speak English. I ate dinner and went to bed like the usual kindergartener, with the thoughts off all of the things I had learned and had yet to learn. My eyes slowly started to drift into dreamland. My mind began to swirl into a scene where I was doing my homework and my mom was standing above me. She was speaking and speaking in a way I had never realized her do before.

“¿Qué dice la pregunta 5? Creo que la maestra equivocó.”

Through my dream I slowly started to realize what was off, my dream was in Spanish. My body jerked up in shock. What just happened? The sun was slowly rising through the shades on my window. I could feel my eyes droop back into dreamland and I fell back asleep.

As my literacy in two languages was growing, I realized parts of my learning experience that were changing. I was becoming more culturally aware solely through the ability to communicate with others and connect through a common factor. When we went to the Mexican market on the corner, me, the 7-year-old, was the one who would talk to the owner. When I read books, I was able to read about Latin American culture in the language they speak. When I went to class, I was able to communicate with students who didn’t speak any Spanish. When I travelled with my family, I was the one who got us around. These experiences made me realize this great power that I possessed. It was an ability to communicate with others who had very different backgrounds than myself.  

Sixth grade began with a huge influx of new students, most of whom were Mexican immigrants who arrived in Philadelphia a few months before. One of these students, Brenda, was seated right next to me in Maestra Antonia’s class. I looked to her and asked, “¿Hola, cómo estás?” She looked at me with a smile and responded, “Bien, eres la primera Americana que ha hablado en Español a mi.” In translation she was saying that I was the first American who had spoken in Spanish to her. Over the years she would always look at me during class and smile, realizing she was in a community that accepted her culture. The school was full of diversity in language, and we were all learning more Spanish together. This power of multiple literacies helped with the ability to communicate with people comfortably in their own language, instead of the much too common story of other language speakers having to adapt to English for the comfort of others.

The immersion school environment that I had become used to and loved went completely against the idea that “If you want to be American, speak ‘American.’ If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico where you belong” (Anzaldúa, How to Tame a Wild Tongue, 34). Culture and language was celebrated in every course. The ideology was led through further understanding from communication and adaptation.

People are so often limited to their world by the language they speak. They lack perspective on culture because of the vast majority of people they can’t communicate with. This creates ignorant conflict of the oppressor versus the one being oppressed by the lack of ability to express their full culture. This comes into play in the oppressive manner that America treats language and diversity, where it backplays in the constitution itself, “Attacks on one’s form of expression with the intent to censor are a violation of the First Amendment” (Anzaldúa, How to Tame a Wild Tongue, 34).

Other countries treat bilingual education as a vital element in the education system where kids leave bilingual or even trilingual. The American school system sees literacy in two languages as a waste of resources and laughs at that vital element. In result, children aren’t given enough language courses, of which are treated as extra instead of a main course. This limits the ability of students to acknowledge changing diversity and see the broad places that the world has to offer, because of the lack of a diversity in literacy. This in turn changes the way that students of diverse backgrounds are treated, their languages are seen as less and a waste of time to deal with. Those students are treated as dumb and not brought to their full potential because of the way the school system places them in a, “dumping ground for the disaffected” (Rose, I Just Wanna Be Average, 2). Diverse versions of literacy create a more culturally literate and accepting society.



Works Cited


Rose, Mike. “I Just Want to be Average .” Google Drive, Google,   drive.google.com/file/d/0B8Cvq7ioloJpN2JmMDk3ZWQtYmI5OS00OTM3LTk5MDctZWMzZTViNGVhNjBi/view.


Anzaldua, Gloria. “How to tame a wild tongue .” Everettsd, www.everettsd.org/cms/lib07/WA01920133/Centricity/Domain/965/Anzaldua-Wild-Tongue.pdf.

Advanced Essay #2: Curious George Pt. 2

​Introduction:

In, Curious George Pt. 2, I really think I did well on this paper, as there were times writing this that I was just clueless on where I was going with it. With these complications, the essay ended up really strong, and I think overall a good essay. The one part I am not too sure of is how I spread the analysis throughout the paper. I am not sure if I did a well enough job on it.

Advanced Essay:

Almost every child goes through the phase of curiosity, and I was no different. At the age of 7, I wanted travel around the world with my best friend, Julie. Julie and I were inseparable,--physically and mentally--she was imaginary friend, even though she was a purple sprinkle. I sought advice from Julie everyday because she was always right, ever since she popped in my head a year before.This joyous time came to an end, when a fateful Saturday afternoon ruined our relationship.

“Mommy are we gonna get ice cream?” I questioned.

My mother swiftly turned around and gave my the death stare as if to say: ‘Don’t you dare ask me that question again’. My brain immediately registered the look and I slumped back into my car seat, staying silent.

We arrived at a place full of people. My mother, Julie, and I walked through a gate, leading to rows of golf clubs hanging, all different colors. My mother handed me one.

‘What is this, a bat?’

‘I don’t know maybe mommy wants us to play’

‘Play what?’

‘I don’t know Julie!’

‘Stop yelling at me! That’s not nice’

‘Alright, I am very sorry. I’ll ask mommy what it is’

My eyes trailed up to my mother, who was handing the man at the booth money. I tugged on her shirt. She ignored me, didn’t even bother to look down at me. I grabbed her shirt again, with a better grip, and pulled it again. She rotated. Her demeanor changed, and her face looked as though it was caving inwards, with her nose scrunched up.

My curiosity is just like building up a skill or habit, it’s something I was proud of, didn’t get ashamed or embarrassed by it. Although my mother constantly wondered why I was like this, it just came naturally to me, I couldn’t control it. It was like my brain needed to learn and understand what is going on, how everything works, and how to make sense of it all. Like Ta-Nehisi Coates said in the biography, Between the World and Me: “You are growing into consciousness, and my wish for you is that you feel no need to construct yourself to make other people comfortable.” Coates explains that people who use creativity or any other way that is different to interpret the world is inspiring, and nobody should make fun of it; instead let it be an example to aspire to.

We went through a lot of different golf courses, and I went skipping along with my club swinging around in circles. I was singing my favorite song: Leave Me Alone, by Michael Jackson. Right away, Julie started singing along.

‘So just leave me alone’

‘Leave me alone, leave me alone’

‘Leave me alone, stop it!’

‘Just stop doggin me around’

Our duet came to a stop, as the screech of my mother’s voice was heard. I stopped my music video and ran back towards her, realizing I sang my way past the pretty fountain. The fountain had a humongous gold golf ball on top, with four holes in the sides of the ball. In these holes, water poured out gracefully into a pool. Intrigued with the whole thing, my body moved towards the fountain on its own.

Next thing I knew I was standing right in front of the fountain, as I climbed up into the wall and looked over the rail and into the fountain water.

This gorgeous purple golf ball was staring directly at me.

‘You know you want it, just go get it’

‘No I can’t go in the water’

‘Then put ya hand in and get the ball’

‘But…’

‘Do it, you know we want it’

With an evil grin, I let curiosity take over me. I crawled under the rail and stood up. I stretched my arm out, to where the purple ball was, and wiggled my fingers to move closer. Without thinking, I leaned forward some more, way past my limit of balance. I fell head first into the fountain, making a huge commotion.

‘Julie, this is all your fault! We are not friends anymore.’

I grabbed my purple ball and got out of the fountain, and walked a couple of feet to where my mother was standing. She looked down at me and started laughing.

Many people people saw me as a bad little girl playing around, other than my mother. My curiosity lead me to a tool to learn and grow from my mistakes. Without curiosity, there would be nothing to try, therefore nothing to learn from in my life. Learning makes me intelligent, only a fool does not learn from his mistakes. My mother understood this about me, she knew my curiosity would get me in trouble.

“You did all of that to get a purple ball?” She said, with a puzzled look on her face.

I nodded my head and raised the ball to her face.

“You are so cute, let’s go get ice cream and sit in the sun.”

Even in The Giver, by Lois Lowry, everything is so plain and boring city and everyone has to follow the rules with no exceptions, but Jonas is different. When Jonas’s eyes are unusual, he is able to see color, when most people in the community cannot. He has an exceptional gift that allows him to see and interpret things different than everyone else; he is able to see “deeper” into the world that is around him, giving him the advantage of understanding and seeing life.

Jonas and I are just the same, the same glow in the eyes that say: extraordinary. We both are anxious about the world we live in, and we learn the exact same way.






Advanced Essay #2: Keeping thoughts

Introduction:
This essay is about exploring the ideas of speech and how it affects people in different ways living there everyday lives. People from different countries who come to the U.S are affected by the way that they speak and how seriously they are taken. 
James Klenk 
Mr. Block 
English 3 
December 10, 2017
Essey:

When I was growing up I was a lonely kid with the little friend outside of school and not being friends with people in my neighborhood. I understood why I was going to a school far away from my house but I never got the concept of what that meant until I got older and started to experience the world more with the different culture and environment. I am dyslexic with slur speech and a high pitch voice annoying voice, I was weird to talk too. I went thru school not being self-conscious on how I talked but once I got to high school and started to meet new people I started to care about my voice and punctuation.

As my friends and I were talking about the class reading that we had to do for Mr. Kay's class. We were talking about the main character in the book and what we thought about her. As we walked, we were talking about the character choices in the book. I was telling them that I thought that the character actions were too impulsive to make any sense. As I told them that they gave me a look of confusion and giggles. I asked what happened. And all they said was what is the character name. ¨Why her name is Dane¨” everyone laughed with the laughter filling the halls ¨ẅhat did I say, that's her name¨. ¨Her name is Dana, You know that right¨ I looked at them thinking that they're crazy because I knew that I said. ¨You said Diane you know that right¨  as I looked at them I said ¨ Ya I guess¨. I went through that day not truly know what I said wrong but I know that the reason why they didn't fully understand me was that of my speech and dyslexia. The knowledge of know that your being affected by something that you can't change about yourself. I know that I am not the only one effect by a speech in their everyday lives. The short story Mother Tongue  It illustrates the struggle of a mother who is trying to live her everyday life with working, finances and raising a child, and dealing with the knowledge that she will not be fully understood and taken seriously because of her ability to speak English. “I knew from a four fact because when I was growing up, my mother’s ‘limited’ English limited my perception of her”(2). This ideal of speech impacts someone's ability of taken seriously is something that many people have to face in their everyday life with people with speech people are being less likely to be hired over other people. This practice can not only affect business body with them not hiring the best person for the job because they don't speak perfectly but instead picking people that might not be qualified and cause them to lose financially.

Cultures around the world have dictated their version of success in their society with people who ability took and speech a certain part leads them to be more successful in their society. Thru their eyes they cherry picking people that will be able to compete in the world to make them look more smart and intelligent.  The Idea of only picking people that looks and sound like the part cause them to overlook smarter and brighter people because they are different. This Practice not only limits the society as a whole by not putting their best foot forward in the areas of ideas, jobs, and knowledge. But it's also limit the society in another way. Its limit people experience and culture with them suppressing there difference and accents it fixes the average way people speak. As a society, we need to think and talk about if we want this to be the process of people being accepted into a job. If as a society we are comfortable with that we need to ask why. Why are we comfortable with allowing a part of our population that percentage numbers in the double-digit not being able to be heard or taken seriously.  That the real question that everyone should be asking themselves and that will people with claim different causes are more moral the ideals that anyone forms any background cannot listen be the cause of the way that they speak is something that we all need to acknowledge and do something about because for more people it´s unchangeable.


Advance Essay #2 - David Roberts

This is an essay about my love for literacy stems from my earlier love for books. Because of my exposure to books, I have learned to love literacy.

Literacy is a part of life that many people underestimate. When any form of literacy is left out of the curriculum, people forget it. It becomes something they no longer pay attention to, and when mentioned, its gets degraded into oblivion. But literacy is really something great. It does in fact play a huge part in our lives, and no matter what people say about, it will always be there. Whether literacy takes the form of social media, news, writing a paper, or other things, it will remain a major part of life. This is why we cannot forget it. And I, from experience, can say that books don’t give me the chance to forget literacy.

“Let’s go bud, time for bed,” my mom called to me.
I put down my pencil and ran up the stairs to get ready for bed. I always loved reading; it would make my imagination run wild. I didn’t know how yet to read, but with everyday I got a little bit closer to understanding.

“Alright son, tonight, we’re going to finish The Horse and His Boy.”

“Nice,” I replied. “Finally the ending!”

As soon as I was born, my parents were reading to me, or so I was told. My parents to me so often, that they still today tell me about all the books I read during my childhood. Granted, they have given a significant portion of those away, but there still exists a small collection of children’s books in the house. My parents say those are their favorites. has left me with a true love for reading and literature.I have learned to love all different kinds of books, whether that was a biography about some famous person, or a nonfiction novel about a kid’s experience growing up with no parents, or even a science fiction novel about life on another planet. I’ve learned to truly appreciate books

As I got older, and learned how to read, I would do it  constantly. I would read anything I could get my hands on, whether it was a nonfiction book, magazine, or even an essay online about something I was interested in. I think it is acceptable to say that there was never a time in my early childhood when I wasn’t currently reading something. Nowadays, this is no longer true, but I distinctly remember reading all the time, even if that meant re-reading a series once or even twice because I loved it so much. Sherman Alexie described my situation perfectly in her essay titled, The Joy of Reading and Writing, “I read books late into the night, until I could barely keep my eyes open.” She, like myself, remember reading whenever she could, even when she wasn’t supposed to be.

Jimmy Santiago Baca put how I felt about books into words in the film A Place to Stand. “I didn’t want to the guy to hit my eyes so I could read the story.” I was so deeply in love with reading that if something happened to me that rendered me unable to read, part of me would die. Reading was such a big part of my childhood, that if I didn’t have books, I don’t think I would be same person I am today. I would not have the same imagination, the same creativity that I have today. And those things are such a part of me that I would indeed be a different person.

Looking back on these things, I can easily see how books and literacy helped me grow. Reading helped me to understand and appreciate forms of writing from a very early age.. I’ve learned to value books and whatever wisdom they held within their two covers. I learned to see the meaning or reason why a certain part of a book was written. I can very easily read what is happening “between the lines,” as some people say. Reading gave me this ability, which I cherish with all my heart.

Now that I am closing on my seventeenth birthday, I still read every now and then, but I’m no longer that little kid that was obsessed with books. Other things occupy my time, and some days I don’t even touch a book. I still retain my love for books and literacy though. If I find a book I haven’t read I’ll be busy until I read the last word. I also can still look at things in life and appreciate the literacy held within it. I doubt anything could happen that would take away my love for books and literacy.

Advanced Essay #2- Autumn Lor

My essay revolves around phones and why I hate and love my phone. I'm biased about phones because of the experience but the story is identifying what a phone can do, off and on screen. 

Blinding by a Screen 
Learning about the world, you have to look at things multiple times to understand everything. I wish I could look at things once and just understand it all completely. Every day something new is created and every time us, humans feel the need to learn about it. We look at a device called phones as if we should a book. We create statues on social media as if we’re writing an article for the world to see and read. Jean M. Twenge wrote an article about how smartphones destroying this generation. She mentions, “The shift is stunning: 12th-graders in 2015 were going out less often than eighth-graders did as recently as 2009.” Surprisingly enough, when people do go out, they’re still on their phone.  
In 2013, I got my first phone where I could only call people. In 2014, I was able to text and in 2015, I got my first iPhone. It allowed me to talk, text, use wifi and so much more. Taking pictures to capture the moment and playing digital games to pass the time. I have a love/hate relationship with phones. There is one main reason why… 
Why is everyone walking so slow? I turn around and I see phones. They’re looking at their selfies and don’t know where they’re walking. “I don’t understand why you guys have to do this right now,” I say out loud, but no one hears me because no one is listening. I look straight forward again. There are two people standing in the parking lane, wearing big green coats with fur on their hood; they’re wearing matching coats while being on their phone. They both just look at the phone as I see the car that’s in front of them turn on his lights as if he was backing up. In that moment I screamed, “The car is backing up, get out!” Not one person moved. I watched the car back up and hit the guy as he pushes his friend. But the girls and I just kept walking as I watched and they were looking at their phones. I turn around, “Did none of you guys see that?” No response, “Hello, did you hear me? None of you saw that? Those people who just got hit by a car! How did you guys not see that? Did you guys even hear me scream?” They looked at and still didn’t know what I was talking about. 
Kara finials answer back, “See what? Those people aren’t my problem, they can get hit again and I’ll it watch this time,” Kara shouts.
“What do you mean?” Selena asks while still looking at her phone. She sounds concerned but the way she looked, it didn’t seem to add up. 
“What great friends you are. Always paying attention to me and actually caring for me. Don’t worry about those people because if that was you, I’ll just walk away and not say anything. I will watch you get hit by a car nothing will happen.” I rolled my eyes and just walked away. After taking some time away, I thought about the quote Lisa D. Delpit that says, “If you try to suggest that that’s not quite the way it is, they get defensive then you get defensive” (Delpit, 281). People get really defensive when they believe they are 100% correct. By defensive, I mean pushy and rude. They will say anything to make themselves right. I tried my best to see if they could change their minds but all I got in return was their attitude. 
We’re walking to the train station at 42nd and Market street but I walked faster than them so I got to the train first. When I got to the station, I didn’t look back so I didn’t know if they got on the same train as me but I know they didn’t get on the same cart as me. While being on the train I didn’t want to think about what happened, so I took out my phone and started to play a game called Bricks. By the time I looked up my score was 2098, my highest score, and I was two stops before I had to get off. The Market-Frankford Line takes so long that I never look up. 
After getting off the train I jumped on the bus. “Phone is low battery, 10%” my phone screen popped up. I put my phone in my pocket and slept. Half sleeping and half thinking, Why was it so hard for her to listen and look around? Maybe it’s because of the person she is, but I do that sometimes, I might not do anything but I would have thought about it. Knowing what happened means something can change if there is a next time. 
A few hours passed, Selena texts me, “Are you fine?” 
I responded with “fine,” but what I wanted to say was fine with what? I just hate the fact that I think too much about everything. It’s either that or people don’t think enough. I don’t know what to think anymore. I hate it so I exited the iMessage app and went on Instagram. 
Instagram makes me forget everything, being able to watch videos that are a minute long and watch another where my mind will completely switch. Instagram changes my thoughts in four seconds. Lisa D. Delpit brings out the point about “bitterness and resentment expressed by educators” (Delpit, 289). Although while she wrote it she meant something else but just reading that part, I see it as my educator being a distracting for me getting away from my bitterness and resentment. Instagram is my educator that reminds of my bitterness. 
While others may not feel the same way as I do towards the phone, I find phones more on the bad side of life. I could live without a phone. A phone is just one little device that provides ten thousand things together. I can call, text, locate yourself and others, capture pictures, record videos, and so much more. But phones are a distraction and it doesn’t allow people to connect with people face to face. Instead of talking to a person, you’re talking to a screen. Right now, you’re reading this off some type of electric device and my question for you is: are your eyes hurting yet? 

The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Education Other People’s Children by Lisa D. Delpit 
Citation: Delpit, Lisa. “The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Education Other People’s Children.” Harvard Educational Review, Aug 1988. Research Library pg 280 

Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? By Jean M. Twenge 
Citation: Twenge, Jean. “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” The Atlantic, Sep 2017.

Advanced Essay 2 - Educational Equality

This essay is about the importance of teachers who care about the futures of students and who's driving force is to propel kids far out into the world. The essay reflects of the fact that this isn't present in most of our country and for very specific groups of people. Hopefully this comes through in my work, and next time I hope to articulate even further with my points. I think I did a good job here but I want to hit the audience even more clearly next time. Enjoy!

https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1BgKRvlnzcitgnd82BoWh8RtUbw79gX7jTAUMVC5H8Hk/edit?usp=sharing

Bea Gerber
Educational Equality

           I’ve never been ashamed to admit that I love math. Since elementary school, I remember correcting the mistakes on the whiteboard and turning in my worksheets early. Math has right answers, leaves nothing up to chance, and can always be solved, even if the solution is that there is no solution. I’ve taken geometry two times, two summer math courses, and have been taking math with seniors since sophomore year. This may come across as bragging about my smarts, but in reality, it’s me bragging about my opportunities. Freshman year, a few of my friends and I were ready to take our learning to the next level. Geometry had been a breeze for us and we wanted a challenge. Without hesitation, our math teachers and parents helped guide us through the process of taking a summer math course, and even gave us extensions to accommodate our exciting summers. I remember on the final day, clicking the last submit button and running down the stairs to my parents singing We Are the Champions by Queen. I was finding joy in my education on my own time and was accelerating my learning with the support of those around me who believed that I could be successful. The following year, our schedules were rearranged to fit our special math classes, and teachers constantly checked in with us to make sure we were able to keep up and stay afloat. We were encouraged by all who heard of our situation, and taking a harder math course felt a time to prove myself while being grateful for the chance to learn. 
This scenario is not typical, and I’ve realized this as my high school career has continued. While I was able to jump ahead easily and gain the support of others, many students across the country can not. At my school, being smart isn’t “nerdy”. Participating in class isn’t lame. We strive to be smart and push each other to our highest potential, something I now realize is not gifted to everyone. The author of I Just Want to be Average, Mike Rose, corroborates this while describing vocational school in LA: “If you're a working-class kid in the vocational track, the options you'll have to deal with this will be constrained in certain ways: you're defined by your school as "slow"; you're placed in a curriculum that isn't designed to liberate you but to occupy you, or, if you're lucky, train you, though the training is for work the society does not esteem.” I see the education system to be flawed because of this. The fact that one child is encouraged to achieve while another is seen as less than and not given the chance directly impacts education they can and will receive. This comes down to the school environments and the people who run them. If teachers believe that the end goal for students is to go to college as free thinkers who can make change and do more than stay in one neighborhood and live the lives their parents live, then those students have a chance at that life. If their teachers just believe in getting good test scores for their schools, the children they educate will reflect that. Jimmy Santiago Baca, the author of A Place to Stand, recalls, “I first got to talk to someone who made me feel human at the age of 22,” when speaking about how his relationships with people in and out of school during his lifetime. Our education system is too good at this. It is too good at looking at students as numbers and statistics rather than people with futures. Everyone, simply by attending school, should have earned the right to an education that actually wants to create a better person at the end of it. Currently, our education system only does that for certain people who fit a mold of a certain type of citizen. These are white middle class Americans, and that can be narrowed depending on your part of the country. If you don’t fit into that guideline, your education is streamlined into “what’s best for you” or how others feel you should learn. America is taught by white people. We learn whitewashed history and we read whitewashed books. We have special weeks or months where we take in literature written by people of color instead of that being the norm all year long. We learn through a white lens. This probably won’t change, since America feels comfortable here. What can change are the teachers and the motive behind the way they teach. A good teacher has the power to change a student’s life. Whether it be supporting children who want to jump ahead or the one time they learned their future actually mattered because there was someone looking out for them when the rest of the world wasn’t, a good teacher is life changing. Without good teachers pushing children, black children, forward, they fall victim to a system that is designed to ignore them. Designed to say “that’s enough.” Fully ready to assume children don’t want to achieve higher, therefore making the children believe they don’t want to achieve higher, perpetuating the cycle of being too cool to be smart. Continuing a circle that leads away from higher education and back into jails and prisons. The school system leaves behind children. Two kids can go to school for the same number of years and still have different different options and opportunities for their futures. Teachers have to teach to the students’ world and experiences, and not their own. Until teachers can meet children where they are, lift them up, and grow them as people, educational equality will not exist.

Media Fluency Remix Slide

Meida Fluency Tech Assignment
​After hearing the constructive criticism given by my classmates and teacher, I made a few crucial changes to my slide. I decided it be best to remove my name from the slide all together. I found that it was a distraction and it looked messy. I kept in mind that it's nice to have lines that guide the viewer to what's important on the slide but we also learned that rules are meant to be broken, so I placed an image with swirls. I think it represents the my personality so I found an image that would show that.
In the new slide, I edited the font and presented my quote differently as well. I felt it complimented the image. From what I saw in class,the shadow drop added a nice look so I added it knowing it would make the words stand out. It also made it easier to read rather than one color such as black or white that matched the background. Without it, it'd be either be too hard to see. 
I also kept in mind that it's easier to focus on the point of the slide when there aren't a lot of things covering the screen so I tried to keep it similar. Besides that I knew that if I did too much, it'd be a new slide rather than a remix. I had considered removing the quoter from the slide but if I did that then there'd be even more negative space then there already is. Once I had put these touches on, I realized it was a sharp, clean, slide. Overall, I feel these small changes helped professionalize my slide and increase my knowledge in design.

Remix 1 Google Slide

Remix 1 Slide
I learned a lot from the critique  that i was given. My first slide was very distracting, and the images that I put on there were also distracting and clashed with my background image. One of my friends pointed out to me that I did not have a color theme and that having a theme might help so that my slide is less distracting and conflicting. 

When i was thinking of doing my new slide, I wanted to make it a much more simple, but still with something important to me on there. I thought...what is  one of the most important things to me and I thought of my faith and my friends. So I chose a bible verse about friendship. I wanted to make the colors pop, so i bolded them and put them in white so that it would really pop off of the background. I put the bible verse in the top center because that is the focal point of my slide. That is the thing that I want people to look at and read first. 

The research that I did helped me to realize that I needed to make a simple slide. I needed to limit the colors that I used so that they did not clash and I had a solid theme. For my research, I used Presentation Zen. The main point that I noticed was "One Slide. One Point." I used this in the recreation of my slide because my first slide was very crowded. In conclusion, I think that the recreation of my one slide project is much better because of the research and the critique that I received from my classmates.  

Remix slide-Mawusse Akohouegnon

Untitled presentation (1)
​From the critique I got from my slide, I learned that when making my slide I should making things bigger. I was told that everything was fine I just had to make the heart bigger and play around with the words and see if that is the best place for it.
To remake my slide, I made my heart bigger then it was before so that it covered up more space. I also played around with the words and try to see if their was a better place of placing them but the way it is now is the only way that works.
In my research just told me the same thing that I found the first time. And I didn't really have to change much so it didn't requir for me to research  much. I just refured but to what I found before

Remix of All About Me Slide

Tech project (1)

I had learned a lot from the critiques I was given during the presentation. I had taken everything in consideration since I had certain things that could've been better. One of the critiques was to fix all the tangents on the slide. I had tried my best to fix. Another critique was to move the two images to the right over more so it didn't interfere with any of the text. I learned that if you want to catch someone's eye with a slide you have to make sure there isn't anything that will annoy or make them think what your slide is actually about.
I made these changes to my slide because I knew that it would make it better then it was before since it was our first time trying this out. The changes I made were to insure that everyone wasn't questioning why something was placed a certain way or that it was annoying them because of what ever reason they have. Also to make the slide as short as possible without it being way too much for people to look at. 
The research actually helped me a little bit because I had already an idea of how I wanted kmy slide. I wanted to make sure I should who I actually was an athlete. So while researching I was basically trying to find pictures that were simple enough but also popped. Some of the sources I used was the Zen website with the Ikea billboard. This actually gave me an idea to use colors that were bright and mixed well so someone would be able to see if from afar. Which in the long run actually was a success. This is my slide hope you enjoy.

Design Slides

Design slides (2)
1) Something I learned from my slide critic was that my original slide was much too stretched out, which was a big problem. I also learned that people prefered the same shape when it came to logos in the design. 

2) I changed almost everything in my slide except my main concept: a person with a message in the brain. But this time, I have a quote instead of pictures. I also use a colorful background to draw attention to the not-so-colorful person with the quote which is the most important part of the slide. 

3) A resource that helped me a lot was "Presentation Zen". The website talked about a lot of tools and ideas I could incorperate in my slide. I think the most important tool was the rules of contrast.

4) The main two websites I used to help me with my slide was "Presentation Zen" and "Slide Design"

Tech slide remix

Tech slide (2)
The constructive criticism helped me make a better slide because people would tell me things I could improve on my slide.I changed my font to make it more appealing to the eyes.I also change my background picture because I found a better picture of the windmill with better lighting.I decided to remove my name from the Google slide because I felt it was not important to have my name on the slide.Another reason I removed my name from the slide was that it drew too much attention from my quote.

The From the presentation zen I learned a lot about making good slides.From the research that I did, I learned that having big text would help the text stand out so I decided to make the font bigger.I also learned that bolding the text makes it easier for the audience to see.I colored my text black because I wanted my text to contrast from the background.Presentation zen showed me a lot of ways to make a good slide.

In conclusion, I learned a lot about what makes a slide good. Using all of the sources I was able to create a good slide.I also found ways to improve on my old slide and make it better. I believe made a good slide but, I still could learn more things to improve my slide.

One Slide About Londyn:Remix

Tech_Me Slide-11%2F22%2F17 (1)

From the critique of my slide, I learned that since I am the creator, only I know what I want to grab the audience’s attention. I also learned that images get distorted sometimes when being shown on a projector in comparison to a computer screen so I should be careful when enlarging or minimizing images and text because it may make things be grainy or go unseen by the audience.


To remake this slide, I first remade a version that had my original background and text color but with more paint splatters as a border. I then decided to completely remix my slide so, I inverted the colors making the background black and the words white. It was suggested that, to catch the eye, I should make my name multicolored so, I did so. It was also suggested that I make my quote bigger so that the audience can read it since it was put on the slide for a reason.


I think the research helped me make a better slide because it showed that there are many different ways to interpret information and in order to convey the message you want, you have to catch the eye of the audience. I would also consider my classmates’ presentations research because I could see the things I liked about a slide and the things I didn’t like about a slide and I could see common mistakes that were present in my slide as well as theirs. For the most part, I used the given resources, google and advice from my friends to create a good slide. I used the ideas of eye catching colors, the rule of thirds and other advice from classmates/friends to formulate a new and improved idea for my slide remix.


Slide Remix: Nile Shareef-Trudeau

Media Fluency_ Nile Shareef-Trudeau (1)

At first my slide was just a word and design with a hidden meaning. You weren’t able to understand how it connected or expressed the essence of “Nile” without a thorough explanation from me. When critiquing my slide my classmates informed me that I could maybe add a definition of the word in my slide but it wasn't needed since I explained it.

I made the changes to my slide so that it could speak more so for itself. Although it still is simple, it looks a tad more special and I added the changes that were advised to me by my classmates plus a few extra changes that I thought would spice it up.Think these changes enace my slide greatly.

The research I did from all the source provided, really helped me to better understand the elements of a good slide design. I used space and the spacing of the different things to allow the presentation to look clear rather than cluttered. I used lines to draw the eye to the focal point of my presentation. The color I used changed to a slightly lighter purple than before, so that the text was still seen. Some shapes to go with my  “Special Person” theme, and a small shadow behind the focal point to make it bounce out and shine brighter than the rest. I think I made a lot of good changes to my slide and like it much better overall.



Nile Shareef-Trudeau

JUSTINE

Tech Slide
Tech Slide

I didn't know what to do for my slide so I chose to do something different. I haven found my way yet so I chose to put a blank canvas because I still have my whole life ahead of me. My canvas is just waiting to be painted. The title is Pristine Justine because thatś how I view myself.


I didn't get a lot of critiques, I heard that there was weird empty spaces everywhere and   too many pictures. I decided to change the whole idea because I wanted it to reflect more on me and how I see myself. I did something simpler and decided not to do a picture because I wanted it to be new and just something I made and not just get it from the internet.  


I still use the video about the ikea sign because I used a bright color blue. I think the font color compliments the background. There's a perfect amount of empty space I don't know if my slide will be seen from 5k away like the Ikea sign, but I think i did a lot better on this side.  


google slide recreation.

​Here is my recreated slide. I learned from the critique of my slide to delete the picture because it draws attention to what the actual slide is about, I also learned that my slide to should make a point so that the viewers would understand it. The color of the background creates a neutral feeling. It is not too bright where you cannot see the words, but it is light enough to go good with the color of the words. 
I made some changes because from research I did it did not meet the guidelines of a good slide. I learned about having  variety in my slide. I made some words bigger than other. I also had balance in my slide because  the colors bounce off each other. I also learned to have symmetry in my slide and I applied that to my slide, in between the words. I also left some space. 
 A Source that I used are Elements of Design Define. I also used Presentation Zen and the Slide tutorial. I learned to base my slide off of how theirs looked. They taught me that I need to include balance, variety, and spaces. I looked at the appearances of the slide and the tips, and I made a better slide. 
riri (n.)sweeter than honey. (1)

Slide Remix

All About Me (2)

From the critiques on my slide, I learned that color and font is a very important factor in design. Through color, we can catch people’s eyes, and changing the font up will make the slide less bland and boring. Furthermore, I removed my name from the slide because I wanted the viewer to focus more on the background picture, and not get distracted by my name being there. In addition, I changed the color, font, and placement of my slide because I learned that color plays a strong role in design and eye-catchers. Moreover, I used the clouds as a natural resource to put my quote on. By doing this, I allowed eyes to focus more on the quote and background, opposed to focusing on my name.

The research I did helped polish my slide because I used natural lines in the image to direct audiences’ eyes where I want them. In addition, I changed up the font to make a less bland slide, and color to catch eyes. I used presentation Zen, and other desgin websites to make my slide better. By studying how to make a good slide, I found a new interest in design and edit.

In conclusion, I enjoyed working on this project. It helped me learn a lot about design and where to place things. There is a lot of things I need to work on and this project has pointed that out. Some things I could have worked on are choosing a better font, and using better color.