What is your ILP?

My ILP was Manna. Manna is an organization that feeds people with life threatening diseases. Like cancer and aids. Manna is a non-profit organization. They raise their money by fund raising and get their help by volunteers.
What have you done?
At this ILP I packaged food that Manna gave to their different customers. This was something fun and different. It felt good to be able to help someone. Also while I was there I met people from all types of life.
What have you learned?
I learned that everything isn’t about money. You can do things for people without having to pay for them. Also I learned the art of appreciation. The people at MANNA all appreciate each other.
What are you taking with you from your ILP experience?
From my ILP I learned that everything you do doesn’t have to benefit you. You as another person can do something for someone else and feel just as good as you would if you did for yourself.

    This year I took an ILP course with the Big Picture Alliance, also known as BPA. The BPA is a non-profit media company that works with teens and students in urban Philadelphia schools and art organizations to make films, documentaries, and other forms of media. It was founded in 1994 by Jeff Seder and Jared Martin, and since the day it came to be, its main goal has been to help our youth develop self-expression, life and job skills through the inspiring and collaborative process of creating media arts.

   The opportunities and goals that the Big Picture Alliance strive to give and achieve are exactly what I have experienced as an intern, apprentice, and student. With BPA I, along with about 9 other students, was able to work hands-on in creating, filming, producing, editing and even screening a documentary about our school, Science Leadership Academy. We worked arduously for about 4-5 months in pre-production, production, and post-production to create the film, and not only did we do it, but we learned to do it the right way. Each class we learned a little more about film, media, and the bizz (that’s whats us filmmakers call the business). With everything we did and experienced I learned a lot about film and media in general. I do not think that I will watch tv the same again because now I understand all the hard work that goes into creating a media piece. It was a really worthwhile experience.

   Not only was my ILP with BPA unforgettable, but it also helped my interest in media grow. Ever since I have started working with media in school and in my ILP I have developed a great liking to the field. It has led me to thinking that perhaps media is what I want to continue studying and perhaps pursue as a career. It has broadened my view on the future and even if I do not end up working in film and/or media it has been a great lesson for me and shown me that there may be something out there that interests me and I can possibly succeed in. Not only that, but working with BPA has also taught me that putting 100% on my work is important. That is something I did not take too seriously before this experience but now I see things differently and know that from now on I have to put my all into all the work I do because I can do great things and that if I try hard enough i will be successful in school and in life, especially with deadlines, which is crucial to survive in this school. 

   Since I started my ILP experience in movie making and in media, I am planning to continue in that path because I have grown to love working in that area and since I have a little bit of experience in it now, I think it will help me out a lot. So I am hoping to start an internship at MINDtv. I have talked to the founders of the company and have been considered for a summer workshop there as well, so I am excited about that and hope I come out successful. Working with the Big Picture Alliance was a wonderful experience that taught me a lot, not only about media, but about myself as well. I recommend that people who have a sense of creativity and are willing to work hard and under pressure consider this internship because I guarantee that it will not be one that can be soon forgotten

    This year I took an ILP course with the Big Picture Alliance, also known as BPA. The BPA is a non-profit media company that works with teens and students in urban Philadelphia schools and art organizations to make films, documentaries, and other forms of media. It was founded in 1994 by Jeff Seder and Jared Martin, and since the day it came to be, its main goal has been to help our youth develop self-expression, life and job skills through the inspiring and collaborative process of creating media arts.

            The opportunities and goals that the Big Picture Alliance strive to give and achieve are exactly what I have experienced as an intern, apprentice, and student. With BPA I, along with about 9 other students, was able to work hands-on in creating, filming, producing, editing and even screening a documentary about our school, Science Leadership Academy. We worked arduously for about 4-5 months in pre-production, production, and post-production to create the film, and not only did we do it, but we learned to do it the right way. Each class we learned a little more about film, media, and the bizz (that’s whats us filmmakers call the business). With everything we did and experienced I learned a lot about film and media in general. I do not think that I will watch tv the same again because now I understand all the hard work that goes into creating a media piece. It was a really worthwhile experience.

   Not only was my ILP with BPA unforgettable, but it also helped my interest in media grow. Ever since I have started working with media in school and in my ILP I have developed a great liking to the field. It has led me to thinking that perhaps media is what I want to continue studying and perhaps pursue as a career. It has broadened my view on the future and even if I do not end up working in film and/or media it has been a great lesson for me and shown me that there may be something out there that interests me and I can possibly succeed in. Not only that, but working with BPA has also taught me that putting 100% on my work is important. That is something I did not take too seriously before this experience but now I see things differently and know that from now on I have to put my all into all the work I do because I can do great things and that if I try hard enough i will be successful in school and in life, especially with deadlines, which is crucial to survive in this school. 

   Since I started my ILP experience in movie making and in media, I am planning to continue in that path because I have grown to love working in that area and since I have a little bit of experience in it now, I think it will help me out a lot. So I am hoping to start an internship at MINDtv. I have talked to the founders of the company and have been considered for a summer workshop there as well, so I am excited about that and hope I come out successful. Working with the Big Picture Alliance was a wonderful experience that taught me a lot, not only about media, but about myself as well. I recommend that people who have a sense of creativity and are willing to work hard and under pressure consider this internship because I guarantee that it will not be one that can be soon forgotten

This year I took an ILP course with the Big Picture Alliance, also known as BPA. The BPA is a non-profit media company that works with teens and students in urban Philadelphia schools and art organizations to make films, documentaries, and other forms of media. It was founded in 1994 by Jeff Seder and Jared Martin, and since the day it came to be, its main goal has been to help our youth develop self-expression, life and job skills through the inspiring and collaborative process of creating media arts.

            The opportunities and goals that the Big Picture Alliance strive to give and achieve are exactly what I have experienced as an intern, apprentice, and student. With BPA I, along with about 9 other students, was able to work hands-on in creating, filming, producing, editing and even screening a documentary about our school, Science Leadership Academy. We worked arduously for about 4-5 months in pre-production, production, and post-production to create the film, and not only did we do it, but we learned to do it the right way. Each class we learned a little more about film, media, and the bizz (that’s whats us filmmakers call the business). With everything we did and experienced I learned a lot about film and media in general. I do not think that I will watch tv the same again because now I understand all the hard work that goes into creating a media piece. It was a really worthwhile experience.

Not only was my ILP with BPA unforgettable, but it also helped my interest in media grow. Ever since I have started working with media in school and in my ILP I have developed a great liking to the field. It has led me to thinking that perhaps media is what I want to continue studying and perhaps pursue as a career. It has broadened my view on the future and even if I do not end up working in film and/or media it has been a great lesson for me and shown me that there may be something out there that interests me and I can possibly succeed in. Not only that, but working with BPA has also taught me that putting 100% on my work is important. That is something I did not take too seriously before this experience but now I see things differently and know that from now on I have to put my all into all the work I do because I can do great things and that if I try hard enough i will be successful in school and in life, especially with deadlines, which is crucial to survive in this school. 

Since I started my ILP experience in movie making and in media, I am planning to continue in that path because I have grown to love working in that area and since I have a little bit of experience in it now, I think it will help me out a lot. So I am hoping to start an internship at MINDtv. I have talked to the founders of the company and have been considered for a summer workshop there as well, so I am excited about that and hope I come out successful. Working with the Big Picture Alliance was a wonderful experience that taught me a lot, not only about media, but about myself as well. I recommend that people who have a sense of creativity and are willing to work hard and under pressure consider this internship because I guarantee that it will not be one that can be soon forgotten

I was pretty pleased with our final product and how we presented. As expected, the making of the puppets was fun and although I wanted to do a voice with my puppets I didn't. I think we did a pretty good job on the project and that our theme was evident in our line choice. I think we kept the class engaged in our performance with the puppets and the wa we made them interact with each other. 

SO midway through this benchmark is when we really started talking as a group and pulling this play together. The individual line pulling was pretty simple. Getting al the lines and making them into one play that makes sense was hard. Hannah and Sam get most of the credit for that because I really wanted to give up and not do it. It seemed like none of the lines went together and that we were never going to get one solid script done. Eventually, we got a script together that all of us were satisfied with and began thinking of how we were going to present it. We came up with the idea of a puppet show and it really got me interested because I thought the making of the puppets would be fun.

The Othello project has finally came to an end. However my group still didn't preform yet, we are going today. Through out the whole entire project I expected my group to fall behind, because sometimes we got distracted or side tracked from the task in which we tried to complete. Such as if we trying to find lines, it took us about a whole class period to get on track. However, when it did come down to having a finally script together we had it done! Everyone worked well in their own way. We all just plugged in our headphones, took our  Othello books, and started line finding like crazy. The whole group played a part in editing as well. We all read out loud an act from the script, and voted on what was important, and what wasn't important. So we all collaborated. It was tough though, because there is so much stuff that needs to be kept in the script, but can't be added in. 

 My group and I are actually performing today! It is going to be a staged reading it's about twelve to fifteen minuets long, and we all are wearing black shirts that have velcroew on them. Attached to the velcroew is a sheet of paper with out characters name on it, and every time we become a different one we rip it off and change the character on our sheet. Our script does outline the main plot of the story, and it does show some jealousy, however, I am nervous as to if our theme will show, and that's one of the worst things that could happen because it was most of the main point of the project.

 As the plot was outline in the script, I actually understood the plot. The plot was very confusing to me before, except I understand that Othello was jealous of Cassio and Desdemona, but I didn't quit understand that Cassio was innocent, and that it was all Iago's fault. I also didn't understand the importance of the handkerchief until I re read and sae Othello say the part about the Egyptian woman giving it to her mother.

 The scholarly article I read was :http://www.shakespeare-online.com/playanalysis/othello.html

The article breaks down Othello into what was actually happening at " Othello kills his beloved wife after the devious machinations of Iago, then perhaps Othello is as much a victim of Iago's evil as Desdemona is of Othello's wrath. Some may argue that the sin of Iago - to plot the downfall of the Moor - is worse because it blossoms in a diabolical, calculating mind"  This quote makes me look at what Othello does to Desdemona deeper then I have before. It's saying that as Othello was becoming a victim to Iago's plan, Desdemona became a victim to the plan of Iago, and fell victim to Othello's jealously. This article breaks down the plot, and ties in history of the war between the Persian people, and the African people, and all the things that were going on during the time Othello was written, published and preformed. 

In the beginning, my group assigned each member a part in the book to search for lines. We all had basically the same amount of acts to search through. I, of course, as always, slacked off and didn't get to work right away. This seemed like it wouldn't make that big of a deal at the time but it did. The rest of my group was making pretty good progress and I was glad that I had the members I did. Hannah and Sam were motivations to work, and they helped me et work done and to help Deron get on task.

The Othello project has finally came to an end. However my group still didn't preform yet, we are going today.

Through out the whole entire project I expected my group to fall behind, because sometimes we got distracted or side tracked from the task in which we tried to complete. Such as if we trying to find lines, it took us about a whole class period to get on track. However, when it did come down to having a finally script together we had it done! Everyone worked well in their own way. We all just plugged in our headphones, took our  Othello books, and started line finding like crazy. The whole group played a part in editing as well. We all read out loud an act from the script, and voted on what was important, and what wasn't important. So we all collaborated. It was tough though, because there is so much stuff that needs to be kept in the script, but can't be added in. 

 My group and I are actually performing today! It is going to be a staged reading it's about twelve to fifteen minuets long, and we all are wearing black shirts that have velcroew on them. Attached to the velcroew is a sheet of paper with out characters name on it, and every time we become a different one we rip it off and change the character on our sheet. Our script does outline the main plot of the story, and it does show some jealousy, however, I am nervous as to if our theme will show, and that's one of the worst things that could happen because it was most of the main point of the project.

 As the plot was outline in the script, I actually understood the plot. The plot was very confusing to me before, except I understand that Othello was jealous of Cassio and Desdemona, but I didn't quit understand that Cassio was innocent, and that it was all Iago's fault. I also didn't understand the importance of the handkerchief until I re read and sae Othello say the part about the Egyptian woman giving it to her mother.

 The scholarly article I read was :http://www.shakespeare-online.com/playanalysis/othello.html

The article breaks down Othello into what was actually happening at " Othello kills his beloved wife after the devious machinations of Iago, then perhaps Othello is as much a victim of Iago's evil as Desdemona is of Othello's wrath. Some may argue that the sin of Iago - to plot the downfall of the Moor -is worse because it blossoms in a diabolical, calculating mind"  This quote makes me look at what Othello does to Desdemona deeper then I have before. It's saying that as Othello was becoming a victim to Iago's plan, Desdemona became a victim to the plan of Iago, and fell victim to Othello's jealously. This article breaks down the plot, and ties in history of the war between the Persian people, and the African people, and all the things that were going on during the time Othello was written, published and preformed. 

The Othello project has finally came to an end. However my group still didn't preform yet, we are going today. Through out the whole entire project I expected my group to fall behind, because sometimes we got distracted or side tracked from the task in which we tried to complete. Such as if we trying to find lines, it took us about a whole class period to get on track. However, when it did come down to having a finally script together we had it done! Everyone worked well in their own way. We all just plugged in our headphones, took our  Othello books, and started line finding like crazy. The whole group played a part in editing as well. We all read out loud an act from the script, and voted on what was important, and what wasn't important. So we all collaborated. It was tough though, because there is so much stuff that needs to be kept in the script, but can't be added in. 

 My group and I are actually performing today! It is going to be a staged reading it's about twelve to fifteen minuets long, and we all are wearing black shirts that have velcroew on them. Attached to the velcroew is a sheet of paper with out characters name on it, and every time we become a different one we rip it off and change the character on our sheet. Our script does outline the main plot of the story, and it does show some jealousy, however, I am nervous as to if our theme will show, and that's one of the worst things that could happen because it was most of the main point of the project.

 As the plot was outline in the script, I actually understood the plot. The plot was very confusing to me before, except I understand that Othello was jealous of Cassio and Desdemona, but I didn't quit understand that Cassio was innocent, and that it was all Iago's fault. I also didn't understand the importance of the handkerchief until I re read and sae Othello say the part about the Egyptian woman giving it to her mother.

 The scholarly article I read was :http://www.shakespeare-online.com/playanalysis/othello.html

The article breaks down Othello into what was actually happening at " Othello kills his beloved wife after the devious machinations of Iago, then perhaps Othello is as much a victim of Iago's evil as Desdemona is of Othello's wrath. Some may argue that the sin of Iago - to plot the downfall of the Moor - is worse because it blossoms in a diabolical, calculating mind"  This quote makes me look at what Othello does to Desdemona deeper then I have before. It's saying that as Othello was becoming a victim to Iago's plan, Desdemona became a victim to the plan of Iago, and fell victim to Othello's jealously. This article breaks down the plot, and ties in history of the war between the Persian people, and the African people, and all the things that were going on during the time Othello was written, published and preformed. 

The process my group took into finishing up the script for our play on deception was time consuming. The things that I was responsible for got done. like  finishing up the last Act of the script. I had to go on sparknotes to get the sense that express our groups theme. Then I  copied and paste it to the Google Docs under the sections that I was responsible for. Everybody in my group put some working time on the script by reading, and going to sparknotes to copy and paste it to our Google Docs.

The success in our group was when it was time to deliver we did. Like for example, when the final script was do we did not talk or fool around. But instead we stayed in the class and did some reading and collaborating with one another to get an image of how the out come of the play was going to turn out. The difficult task in our group that is still not done is we do not have an opening for the play. The person responsible for the opening part of the play has been missing for some time so we do not have an opening for the play.

The editing methods we used was Will because he is the group’s manger.  He was going through an editing the script. The task that Will gave us as far as editing was to go back to our Google Doc and edited things out like for example, if we copied and paste a whole act from Othello we would get the most important thing from the act that highlights the message we are trying to send out to our audience. The reason why we had to edited a lot of things out was when we printed out our script it was about 28 pages.  We did not have enough time to act out a 28-page script in 7 minutes because we were only allowed 7 minutes to act out our theme.

My understanding about Othello is he is gullible. The reason why I think that is he believed all the lies that Iago was telling him about his wife. The other thing that puzzles me is that Othello is a suppose to be a military general and when I think about that military people are not that easy to crack. But Othello is supposed to be the person in charge but that was not the case. It seem that Iago was mad at Othello for not getting that lieutenant position. Which at the end cause Othello to lose everything like himself and him killing his wife.

        To get a better understanding of Othello I read a scholarly article on http://www.answers.com/topic/othello-play-7 titled Othello (Criticism) written by Andrews Henningfeld a English professor at Adrian College that writes about literature for educational publishers. Henningfeld writes “In believing himself welcome in Brabantio's home, he has also believed himself worthy of Brabantio's daughter..”  It seem everything was bond for destruction for Othello because Othello was not of the same race. He thought he can come into a society that operates differently and do as he please with no consequence because of his social status.

       In the play Othello the only person that was the smartest was the Duke because it says “Thus, the second reason that the duke recognizes Othello's marriage to Desdemona becomes clear. Venice needs Othello to go to Cyprus to quell the imminent danger from the Turks. Giving Othello a Venetian woman becomes a form of payment for Othello's service. Moreover, because Othello wants Desdemona with him, the duke is able to remove the rebellious element from Venetian society. He is able, in this move, to accomplish several goals: he can pay off the Moor in female flesh, a bargain for all the Venetians save Brabantio; he can protect his city-state from the Turks by sending the best soldier to lead the battle; and he can isolate Desdemona from other women of Venice who might be encouraged to form their own alliances with prospective husbands, thus depriving their fathers of their rightful marriage profits.”  The duke has no repayment for Othello and on top of that Desdemona’s father can not appeal the Duke’s will because the Duke is looked about of the person that makes the final decisions in important matters. 

We are currently working on editing our pieces for our script. In our group, we have decided that each group member individually look at their own parts and see what it is they feel should stay or go in the scenes assigned to them, so that afterward we could all go over the script together and try and edit it even more. It is not an easy task. Part of that reason is because our group gets distracted by things so easily and therefore cannot concentrate on the work that is put in front of us. Maybe it is because it is a group of friends, maybe it is because we all have such strong personalities that we sometimes collide, maybe I am too bossy or dominant, maybe there are 1,001 other reasons to explain it. All I know is that we have work to do and we don’t have a lot of time to do it, so we need to get on top of our game.
Another problem that we are currently confronting is that our group cannot seem to figure out our method of presentation. The response is due…. Yesterday… and yet we still cannot figure it out. I as captain want it something that everyone else will be comfortable with, because I know that some people do not feel comfortable up in front of a lot of people, but I cant even come up with an idea that will suit everyone, and I don’t want to just do it the traditional way because it just seems, well, cliché. Only thing is that no one seems to be giving feedback, and I don’t want us to say don’t care what it is we choose to do now, and then go up in front of the class and only give 50 or 60% because some of us decided we didn’t want to act it out like everyone else in the end. If we all choose as a group then I figure no one can complain about this or that not being what they wanted to do, so hopefully we can pull it together.
Although it seems like my group is facing a few difficulties, I do have a lot of confidence in us. I know that everyone in the end will pull together and get it done, I just don’t want to have to wait until the end to see that happen. I mean, I have seen it in those instances when we are not being distracted and I read a line out loud and we have to analyze it as a group to decide whether or not it should be in our script. Everyone has an interpretation of each line, and everyone begins to learn more and more Shakespeare’s play on words and which ones are crucial to our plots and which ones just take up 4 lines to say ‘that handkerchief is special’ (or something along the lines). So that really makes me happy that although we don’t notice as it happens but we are learning as we go through this arduous, exasperating, protracted process.

6/8/08

    To continue on from my last post, my group's main accomplishment has been completing the script. After editing down to just enough lines, I feel as if we successfully are portraying the plot and illustrating our theme in a 10-page script. It’s funny that it’s possible to edit down that entire play and manage to get everything that matters into 10 pages. Shakespeare apparently liked to drag things out a lot.
    I also feel like my group managed to work efficiently together. I think we all did a really good job of staying on task during our work times and each putting forth our best effort. Hopefully, our presentation comes out just as well. Our puppets have not been created yet, but our background for the show is looking good.
    The most frustrating part of the script’s composition was copying and pasting the lines into the right places. Certain parts got mixed up and I ended up putting a line into our script in two different locations. Luckily, editing helped remove that.
    Our presentation date is Tuesday, so we have one more day to practice. Hopefully, all goes well.

BLOG 1

Group Members:

VINCE

Moriah

Autumn

Gracie

So far our group has competed the following…

We all have started our lines for the script that will be performed, blog posts, assigned tasks to each member of the group successfully, carried out our tasks which were to basically summarize in a script like manner the acts, lines, and scenes we were given.

Success in the group would be having Moriah as a teammate since she’s on point with all the events and keeps me updated periodically. (Domo arigato Moriah-san) Most of us do all of our work and are responsible so that’s good and there are no quarrels between any of them so we all behave rationally toward each other.

There aren’t really any difficulties in our group except my work habits that I have under control. I tend to be lazy and not care at times but I’m doing fine I suppose.

Our team edits according to urgency in the story and most of our pieces link up logically.

BLOG 1

Group Members:

VINCE

Moriah

Autumn

Gracie

So far our group has competed the following…

We all have started our lines for the script that will be performed, blog posts, assigned tasks to each member of the group successfully, carried out our tasks which were to basically summarize in a script like manner the acts, lines, and scenes we were given.

Success in the group would be having Moriah as a teammate since she’s on point with all the events and keeps me updated periodically. (Domo arigato Moriah-san) Most of us do all of our work and are responsible so that’s good and there are no quarrels between any of them so we all behave rationally toward each other.

There aren’t really any difficulties in our group except my work habits that I have under control. I tend to be lazy and not care at times but I’m doing fine I suppose.

Our team edits according to urgency in the story and most of our pieces link up logically.

This is a bit late, but better late than never. Anyway, the entire English Othello script writing is a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. I mean, the breaking down of scenes to strictly show the plot line, and your chosen theme was fairly easy and not very complicated to do, but after your entire group is done doing that, and being the person to read the entire script and edit it down to about 10 to 15 pages is extremely difficult. If there wasn't so much content, or if Google docs didn't run as slow as it does, a lot less stress would be present. Just today, in class, which was our last work period to finish the script, I was reading through the script, and editing down soliloquies, and removing un-needed dialogue. I was doing my job. But while I was, Google docs was running tolerably slow at first, and I didn't mind, but eventually it got to a point where I couldn't work with it. It was unbearable, and so frustrating at times. The only reason it was slow was probably because some of my group members were still adding text to the script that should have already been done on Tuesday. And yes, that is another frustrating part of the group. Deadlines were missed, so that kind of put me back on the editing part of the script. Deadlines are pretty much over now though, so editing should be a little bit faster and easier to do.

As I was editing the script, I realized that this is an extraordinary task that I had to do. It was difficult, and took a lot of patience to do. I paused for a second, and thought to myself what I had to do. I had to edit down this--currently 25+-page-- script down to a ten to fifteen page script. Not only that, but it has to make sense, and the basic plot line has to be able to be easily identified, along with your chosen theme. Yeah, sounds repetitive since it was explained before in the same blog post and probably the first one, but it has to be repeated, to show the difficulty of this fourth quarter English creative benchmark project. Even though the project is kind of like a ball on a chain that's bound to you--it isn't that bad-- it really gets you to think, and analyze text in Othello. Without this project I wouldn't have read through Othello again, unless a project had to do with it. Overall though, the project is a mind bender, and requires a lot of work.

It tests you, in a way.

This is pretty much the beginning of our process to do our final benchmark for English. Right off the bat I felt that it would be an interesting yet, somewhat challenging task, not so much for the work in itself, but the collaboration to get the work done. I have a group of four and was chosen leader (not my choice) so I am trying my best to make sure my group is doing all that we should be, while at the same time also keeping myself on track as well. So far though, it seems like everyone has been on track and doing the work that they need to do. We are all keeping up with our lines and not much complaining has happened… yet.
One thing that is difficult in this project is finding the perfect lines that will capture, not only the plot of the story, but the idea of our theme as well which is revenge. The thing is that when it comes to revenge Iago is one who is definitely out for it in the book, however, we as a group do not want to solely focus on Iago because there are numerous characters who take revenge out on someone throughout the book, one way or another. For example, Othello takes revenge out on Desdemona for cheating on him, falsely, but revenge none-the-less. Another person is Emilia who takes revenge out on Iago for all the wicked and heinous crimes that he hath committed by exposing the truth about him to Gratiano and everyone else, etcetera. So, I am currently trying to portray that in our script without overdoing it and throwing a million ideas into a 7-minute presentation, and that is one of the problems that my group is facing as a whole.
A thing that we have all learned though is the beauty of www.nfs.sparknotes.com. It allows us to go check lines from the play if we do not fully understand them. However, this project is allowing me to go through the book again and understand Shakespeare’s wording and vocabulary now, because when I first began reading the book I had absolutely no clue as to what was occurring in the book, but as I went through it I began to understand it piece by piece. Then, with all of our class discussions and our analyzing it has helped me so that now when I go back into my sections I can reread the lines and because I understand the plot better, it allows me to also understand the dialogue better as well. It has really helped me learn my Shakespeare.

Well I know that we are gong to have to be acting out scenes, unfortionetly I’m not quite the actress and me being shy doesn’t help either.  However since this is going to determine my English grade, for this benchmark I might be Holly Berry for the day.  Another con of this benchmark is that I will be acting out Othello and that means understanding Shakespeare.

    Anyway, enough with complaining, my group is coming together and communicating a little more and that’s great.  We have done most of our scenes and lines with the exception of about two or three, but we’re making progress.

 I think that this benchmark will have a great outcome, however there are two problems.  One, my group doesn’t communicate with each other as much as we could to help get our work done faster and we have a slacker that could work just a little bit harder.  These are minor problems that can be worked on in time to make this project a good one. All we have to do is address what needs to be done, sort it out as a team, and get it done.  Without communication there will be static between the group and no one will know what needs to be done.

    With the help, support and motivation of the group, the slacker can get on track and our work can be done.   I don’t like this benchmark but it does help me understand Othello better than before.  I never know what Shakespeare is talking about, but from breaking the scenes down and looking for one theme, it helps me understand what he means when he says different thing.  I hope the whole thing comes out good.

Well so far were like 60- 75% done AS A CLASS. As a group I think we still have to work on our script and do and put the finishing touches to everything. Like I’m pretty sure every has there lines all put up on Google docs now the last thing is the script. The only difficulties I think we are having is jus things in on time because of like e how this whole timing period is benchmark season and things like that. But other then that the people that I work with are good partners. They like to get there work in and done. Which is a good thing for me and a group as whole? 

To me, the play makes this benchmark more exciting, because we have the ability to act it out or present it in our on way. Now we can act out each scene they way we want it. Since each scene is filled with anxiety and deception and all love and hate and all different types of themes, it makes it fun to act out or write about the book.

Blog 1.

So far, my group has assigned each other with which scenes they are going to do. And we have  talked about how we are going to perform our play. I would say the hard thing about working in a group is having to depend on other people. For example, if someone doesn’t do their part, your all looking at a not so great grade. And like that saying “if you want something done, do it yourself” that doesn’t apply when your working in groups. That’s what I hate. But we did get our scenes done real fast. Editing the text wasn’t too hard. I thought that if I just took the text straight from the text, and then edit it later, that would be easier. I soon found out that I shouldn’t have done that. Now I have to go back and edit everything. I’m becoming used to the language more. It doesn’t look like complete and total gibberish anymore. I actually didn’t realize how much I enjoyed this book until this project. It’s an interesting story. And the ending just… sucks. There’s not much more you can say about that. Everyone just dies.

Joshua Ortiz
English
6/3/08

Reflective blog # 2

As of right now my team and I have got all of the lines we needed for our theme and finished our script. The only thing I am worried about is that our script is to long. It’s a great script but I don’t think that we are going to get our point across in the 7-minute time limit that we have to get our theme across to the audience.

Our group is working really well together. It really feels like a team to me for example Julia wrote the script but she didn’t have enough time to finish getting lines to support or theme. So she asked me to finish that for her and I did and we got every thing we needed to finish our script and she did a great job doing that. Every one is looking out for each other in our group we have a great team leader and great teammates that actually get work done.

Well in order for our script to come out right not to long and not to short we needed to get our theme across and also the plot. So we couldn’t pick any line that we thought involved loyalty even if our theme wasn’t complete in the text but if there was a major part of the plot in that same text we needed it.

Well when I first started to look through the text for lines that support our theme I didn’t know the plot that well. I was just getting lines that I thought involved loyalty. Than Nakkera explained the plot and how we needed that also, I started to understand the book a little better.

My crew and I finished our research for the lines that show our theme today. We also put together our script but it still has some minor errors. We have been decided that we are going to use paper bags for our presentation. We are using four major characters and I think one minor character. We are not sure on how we are going to stage things yet, but things are moving along smoothly. 

Our accomplishes so far are getting our research done in time. We also got our thoughts together for what we want to do, Julia is doing a great job at keeping people on task and I think I am doing a good job at keeping up to date. I am glad to know that our group is getting a long well and that we are collaborating and sharing good ideas. Everyone has something to say. Something I would like to move along is actually making the puppets and finalizing the scripts. 

We chosen to instead just have the lines read we put in pauses to set times for example after each scene there will be a card saying something like "one hour later" or " one day later". We might have to take time after school to set our stage. We also took and put together the text so that it smoothly flows into one another. 

My understanding of the play is much better then what it was before. I understand it more because we took the text apart and looked at it more carefully. Learning to understand the text will help us out because it will let us know where and when to put in each line at. Learning to understand the text can help you to apply it to real life, so you can be able to be interactive with the text. 

    So far our group has split up the scence and we have looked for things that have to do with manipulation. We all did that for our scenes. Luckily our group had is pretty well together and got all our scenes done by today.

    Today we had to decide quickly what were are going to do for the presentation. We unanimously decided on a podcast. Working in a team gives you and advantage to help eachother out and spread the work out so that each person doesn't have to much.

So far my team and I have been looking through the book to get specific lines that relate to our theme. We are equipped with an arsenal of sticky notes and high lighters to fish for our specific lines. Our group picked the theme loyalty. The reason we picked that as our theme is because it seems like it is always reoccurring in the book. As of right now I myself am going through act 4 scenes 4 to get what we need in order to write our script.

The thing about working in a group is that it can go two ways bad or good. You can have a group of people that don’t do anything and just give up because they think every one else is going to pull their weight for them. Our you can have a group of people that want to work and get it done because its easier to work with a group. As of right now I know I need to pull my weight a little better because I want to pass with a good grade and I don’t want to let the girls down. When they picked me they asked me if I was going to work and it just so happens to be that they are also in my every day group so they know my work effort can be so so. On my part I need to get my weight up as they would say in basketball terms and I plan on doing that over the weekend.

Through the project I notice how much Iago talks in the book. Something that got me was weather or not I should put some of Iago lines in our google docs. The only reason I was re thinking that was because he makes it seem like he is being loyal to Othello by telling him

I must admit, yesterday during English I was worried that my group was not going to be worried to make a rough copy of our script today. Almost five scenes didn't have lines, and there was no way you can make a script with the full plot with that missing. However, it all worked out. During English class today my group sent half of the period to finish uploading lines, and we spent half of it editing to make our script. Luckily, my group members are very cooperative and hard working. We all got focused and did what we had to do.

  As team manager, my team depends on me to keep us all on track. I feel like it makes working on the project easier though. Only because I get stressed easily. If one of my group members isn't on task, or isn't putting as much effort into something as the rest of us, I get upset. So being team manager gives me a chance to make sure things get done in time for the due dates. 

Editing the script was a challenge. My group members and I were not sure if something we took out would have a big impact on the script. Some lines were very long so instead of just cutting out the whole entire speech we would take out small parts such as "Tis true" or sentences that when taken out still made sense to the reader. The finale script seems as if it is about eight and a half minuets well. Hope the staged reading goes well.

Reading through my script, the plot is crystal clear to me and I actually understand it. Shakespeare is hard to understand in the first place, but having it broken down is easier for me to see the jealous, lies and deception.  

    So far my team has done a lot. I was scared for a while about how long it would take, but it went a lot better then expected. I also thought that there would be the problem of how un-uniform the writing would be, but again it was not as bad as I thought. It was my immense pleasure to make sure that everyone was doing his part. One member of the group had some technical difficulties that were very annoying but were eventually overcome. Now I just have to hope that everyone does his recording part!

    The actual task of compressing the text was much harder than I thought. Before I began, I was afraid that I would compress the text too much, but that turned out to be the least of my problems. I found that my part was actually rather long. My group’s script turned out to be a good length so it worked out well. The best method that I found to condense was to look at the end and beginning of each block of text and take important lines from those sections. This was my method with not only each block of text but also each scene. Through condensing I am also learning a lot about the characters in this play.

    Again, one thing that I am feeling so strongly is that Iago is so big. He seems to be everywhere. He is popping up in many scenes and just turning people’s minds to his will. About Othello, I am really seeing how crazy he is going. When I have to read each line carefully I realize how violent he is becoming. I am only beginning to notice how little Cassio is in the play. At first he seemed so big, but now it seems that his part is minor. Hopefully I’ll have good insight on Brabantio, Cassio, and Lodovico.    

So far my team is working well but we could not think of anything cool to do with our othello movie, so for now its just gonna be simple. Our initial script is a hard thing to turn into a good plot, most of it is important but its hard to make it all flow together and still use Shakespeare language because its a challenge to go from the way you speak now and then to be able to start speaking like Shakespeare.

Being in a group will always have its ups and downs but my group works well together overall. My group does have trouble coming up with ideas for how our edited script is going to turn out because we don't know where to go with it and it makes me fear being behind on everything because there is no extra time, schools almost out.

Editing the original text is a very tiring task. Nothing fits together the way you want it to and its hard to figure out how you good it will all look when you actually get down to recording the final.  I think I do know more about the reading then i did before because now we have to analyze it and determine which parts of the book are important to my theme and the whole book in general. 

So far our group has given out lines to each person and we have all posted most to all of our lines to the google document. We also talked about how we are going to present our interpretation of the play. We decided that we are going to do a stage reading with a twist. We are all going to have the same color shirt on and then use velcro with signs that have everyone’s names on it like Iago, Othello, Desdemona and so on. We will all have a few parts with the signs that say everyone’s name on it, so say I was to be Iago I would have the sign that says Iago on it but when my character changed I would real quick change my sign to my nest character.
    Well when I was going though the book I was reading and making sure that I had the plot and the theme together. I was looking for the parts that showed our plot and also the parts that showed the theme that we have chosen. When we were editing our things together we were just making sure that everything made sense together and making small changes adding some lines and taking some lines out.
    As I have been going over my parts of the book I am defiantly understand the book a lot better. When I was going though the google document and reading everything that everyone had chosen and I am really grasping the book better. I don’t know really how to explain how I my understanding of the book had deepened but I am really enjoying it. It’s kind of like reading it again and again but I’m not getting tired of it at all which I think is good.

         In my group we have a lot of catching up to do. First, we have to get a rough draft script in by today. What my team and I did so far was upload our assigned Acts and Sense on the Google Docs. At first we had nothing on the Google Docs do to some complications of communication some of my group members wrote things on paper and on a Word Doc but never got the chance to upload it so we were behind on that. Now, we plan to get a rough draft in but one of our groups members is not here she will be back on Thursday I think.    

         One of the successes so far is the most important that is getting things uploaded on the Google Docs and also everyone is contributing to the workload. The difficult thing about working in a group is that everybody is assigned different task to complete and when a person is not there we all suffer. Like for example, when we are making decisions on a simple thing like editing the other person is not there to put their opinion in. In addition, if they were responsible for a certain Act or Sense that we did not understand it would be real helpful for them to be there and explain it to us so we wouldn’t edited out something important that they had work.

        The choice we picked in editing is not yet determined because we do not have a complete rough draft done. But if we were done the steps we would take on editing the script is we would first list the most important things in each Acts and Sense and then put them in somewhat of chorological order in it goes on from there that highlights our theme.  

         Our understanding of the plot is somewhat in order the important characters involve Iago, Roderigo, Desdemona, Othello, and Cassio. Iago is the one going around lying to the our characters which will result in them destroying each other. While Iago is taking great pride in what he is doing while at the same time making himself look innocent and drawing away suspensions about his true nature. But it’s sad to say we are not up to that yet because we do not have a script done yet.  

The rough draft of our script is almost finished; we are working on in finishing the script.  Well my group is having a little difficulty finding the lines that goes to the script. Most of my group doesn’t have their laptop including me. That is saintly a problem to collaborate on the google document. Which means we have to share one of our shown laptop for every computer need.
I understand some of the characters in more deaths since we start doing this project, I specially understudy Desdemona

  The script is on its way! Lines are pretty much all pulled, and now it’s on to the editing stage so it makes sense. It’s ridiculously long. The original play is probably three hours long or so, and we have to do it in seven minutes. That will be interesting. Our script is twenty-five pages long, before editing. There’s a lot of editing to do. The finished script should be around ten pages or less.

In line-pulling, I tried to weed out unimportant events. I pulled from Act three. So, I kept a lot of the handkerchief drama in, but tried to edit out as much meaningless banter as possible. Iago says lots of random things just to get a reaction, and now a lot of that is gone. However, you can’t just cut out the important lines and forget the rest. It has to make sense and flow. I pulled important events, yes, but connecting lines that weren’t directly plot-related had to be kept as well, for the scene to make sense.

Honestly, my understanding of Othello really hasn’t deepened because of line-pulling, because I’m not reading for understanding or meaning when deciding what stays and goes. I’m just looking for what events are important to our theme, entering the line into the google doc, and moving on. I think we should be thinking more about our theme, though, because I’m not sure we really have an idea of what in Othello really relates to betrayal. We’re kind of just pulling general important parts.

Our group dynamic is still pretty good. We’re chill people for the most part, so we quietly do our work and get on with it. Most of our group is a bit slow, too, so line-pulling took longer than expected, and these blog posts are a bit late from all of us. Oh well. It’s getting done!

Tomorrow we’ll be making puppets! Twill be exciting. Hopefully I remember the felt.

So far in the team we elected our team captain, and we decided that it would be Sharon. The next thing that we did was divide up the workload and we decided that everyone would have three. We also did more than half of our lines in class so that we would not have to go home and work. Also what we found to be easy was in certain scenes we noticed the revenge was either evident or not there at all. Like if you found revenge in there than you found many, but in the opposite where there was no in between scenes. The scenes were hard to find lines to represent what was going on in that scene. In addition to the success of finding lines we had some difficulties such as when we began we had started off slow but it did not seem to damage us to much because we picked up our work paste since then. .

We are done Acts 1-5 and we are now finishing the putting together process of our lines we have found. When we get tht done, will be doing the next step.

So far for our fourth Quarter Benchmark my group and I have found within the book, what we think is useful information. We are almost finished looking for scenes for our play. We are working well together and we have gotten a lot done. My group has appointed Julia as team captain and me as the coordinator. Everything is going well but sometimes we are not able to find lines within the scenes that go along with our theme, or if we do find something that matches our theme, our main characters are not saying the lines. We have not yet talked about how we were going to put the lines together but I think we are going to do that this week. By us, understanding the text and what is going on it will help us know which lines matches or theme. 

As the end of the fourth quarter begins to approach, Chase hands us our benchmark. About a week later we get our group members, and here I am now, already blogging. The group I was placed in (L. Kriss, B.Hair, C.Harris) is making a lot of progress and I am honestly pleased. I was chosen as team manager to keep things organized. Today my group used out English class to add lines to our Google Doc, and decide how we should perform the skit. We are considering either a staged reading, or a show using Barbies and Bratz dolls. There are several lines and quotes already inside our Google Doc, and my group came to the decision that by the end of this weekend, we will all have our lines up. So that during Monday’s English class we can get the lines we want to use in our script together. As well as begin to hand out roles. B.Hair is in charge of the staging. Such as making sure everyone will be prepared the day we are to perform, and let everyone know what they need. As for me, my own personal progress is okay. I got some lines on the Doc today, but not many. However that is going to change, and soon.

The first time I had read Othello, I wasn’t very into it. But now as I go through and look for important events, I have changed my mind. The second time around I pick up on things I haven’t picked up on the first. Such as the way Othello presents himself. Before I had this image of a modest man, but boy, I was wrong.

Right now in the unit of studyin Othello we are in groups for a project. The group i have is really good. I have Autumn, Moriah, and Vince. Together we are working well and have divided up the work evenly and without any fuss. Each person has about 4 scenes to look up and find themes and quotes about manipulation. From donig this i have read the book over and saw it more in a prespective of people manipulating everyone around them to make them fit in their better interest. Looking at the book from another view gives you a broader prespective on how it was written and what Shakespear might be trying to get across.

My group consists of Gracie, Moriah, Vince and myself. So, far we have picked our theme (Manipulation), who is going to do what act and what scene, what type of performance we will give, who the team manger is (Moriah) and who the presentation manger is (Gracie).

The team so far has worked really well together. We balance each other out. Which makes it easier for us to get things done. So, far we have had no problems. The only problem I can see us having is the time to do what we want to do for our production.

My group consists of myself, Briana, Cameron and Brittany. So far we have created our google doc, color coded our document and assigned lines. We have also all started put lines on the document and have talked about how we will present our lines or play to the class. It hasn’t been that hard so far. Everyone has just taken on there part and has been working every hard or it seems to me like they are on getting in their lines. I think that everyone is performing as we all expected that each other would. So far we haven’t tried to edit together all of our parts but we have all made the effort to pick out the important parts that go with our theme from our assigned parts of the play. I feel like I am understand the play more and the plot but I’m not to sure if our theme is helping me deepen my understanding I think it is just me reading and rereading my scenes but I think as I keeping reading and finding more and reading everyone else’s it will help me in the end.

For this last quarter benchmark we are reading a Shakespeare play called Othello. Mr. Chase then assigned the tasks like he usually does. What we are going to be doing is we have to get in groups of four then pick a theme that the novel play expresses. Our group theme for the play is deception . Then we have to pick out important events in the Othello that shows deception. My task is read the Act five sense one and two Act three sense four Act four sense one. I already read Act three sense four and I am going to be reading Act four sense one to pick out important events. Everybody in my group is doing the same thing am doing but their just assigned different Acts and Sense to cover all fifth-teen senses in the play. One problem that my group and I had was that we were lazy at first we really did not upload things to the Google Docs when we were suppose to. Yeah, about the editing part we are not up to that yet but we will ASAP. So far the plot of our play is going to be base on deception and my group and I need to further collaborate to see how the understanding plot is going to come about.  

We're in English class, right now*, and if anyone were to walk in, they would be seeing us not necessarily doing anything. Or they would think that at least. There isn't any real teacher-student interaction, the teacher isn't talking to the students from the front of the room, but individually, and there's no discussion. What we're doing is looking for important lines-- you know what, just let me start from the beginning. We were assigned a group, and that group has to choose a theme shown within Othello. After we pick a theme, every member of the party is assigned scenes from the play. From those scenes, we have to track down the lines that have to do with our theme, and organize them so that you understand the play, and plot while getting the theme across; all at the same time. When the script of the play in complete, we have to choose a creative way to perform the play--in seven minutes.

Now that you're all caught up, I can tell you about the group I am in. My group, well, my group is done two of the fifteen scenes in Othello. We're getting there though. It takes a lot of discipline to sit down, and read an entire scene of Shakespeare, and look for your theme in lines said by the characters. It's hard, and it takes a long time. Mostly depending on which scene you have to do. That's probably the biggest issue that faces us. The fact that we have to spend over an hour to dissect scenes. The group has people who are smart enough to do it, it's just that the interest level is low, which increases the distraction rate. Either way, we have two completed scenes, which is better than none. 

Earlier I just finished II.iii. It was a semi-long scene, but it wasn't too difficult. It took about two class periods, which amounts to a little bit more or less than two hours. Reading through the scene I had to cut out some lines. Whenever something repetitive came up, I wrote down the first two lines of it, and deleted the rest of the lines. For example, when Iago and Cassio are talking about Desdemona. Iago says she's pretty, and Cassio agrees with him. Iago then says more about her. When Iago started to say more about her, I started to cut lines. Also, when there were soliloquies, some unneeded lines were cut. I eventually got used to cutting lines, and learned how to make cuts in-between lines flow better. Reading through the important scenes again really gets me to understand how they act a lot easier. I can read some of the lines and understand them. For me, it looks like act III scene iii is up next...

*I’m actually not in English class right now. I was just saying that so it would seem like I was telling a story.

5/30/08

    So far, in the progress of this project, my group and I have been doing some good work. We have identified our theme and began searching for lines that illustrate both the theme and the plot. The theme we chose to show is loyalty. It pretty much comes up as an issue for every character in the book and is the prelude to many of the events. We have also narrowed down on how we are going to present our script. We have decided between either a sock puppet show or a paper bag puppet show. So far, I would say my group and I are working well together. Our personalities and work habits mesh pretty well and cause for few conflict.
    One success we have had so far is working with the GoogleDoc. I personally, am in love with how easy it is making it to collaborate with the rest of my group. Also, I’m just a huge geek and I think it’s quite cool. We set it up in a chart, one row being the act/scene, the other being the person responsible for that section and the final row being the lines found that will be put into our script. We have color-coded each of our names, so we know who it is when someone writes in blue, red, ect. We even have a section for questions or conversations to have about different group decisions. Basically, we are talking about what to do over the GoogleDoc and either answering it then or later. Like I said, huge geek about it.
    As of now, the only difficulties I have reached are finding the perfect lines. It is really hard summing up an entire play into seven minutes. It is really teaching me how to sort through the text and find exactly where the most important and needed parts are.

Well, I know I am done my lines and so are a couple other people in our group. Right now we are finishing the lines and putting them together in a google doc. I could be wrong.

So far my group and I are working on the lines that is going to our play. Most as post lines to goggle document. Some of difficulty we are facing is using our time properly some