Perspectives Project
Inspirations
Critical Lenses
Critical lenses are different perspectives to interpret literature and art. Our study of perspectives required us to look at multiple forms of media and analyze them through these lenses.
Critical Race Theory: A study in how character's race play into the themes of the story.
Psychoanalytic: A look into each character's background, thoughts, and actions to judge their psyche and how it might affect how they behave.
Marxism: As the title implies, a comparison of the plot and characters of a story to Karl Marx's concept of the economic struggle between the bourgeoisie ("the factory owners") and the proletariat ("the factory workers").
Queer Theory: An analysis of the character's gender identities under the idea that gender is just a cultural concept created by society.
Feminism: An analysis on how gender and the oppression of women plays a role in the plot of the story.
Reader Response: How a story is meaningless until read and interpreted by the reader. In a sense, it's really the reader that is making the story.
Serial
Serial is a podcast by investigative journalist Sarah Koenig about the murder of high schooler Hae Min Lee, and the trial and conviction of Adnan Syed. Koenig, through interviews and looking over evidence, explores for herself and the audience what may have happened that fateful day. The interviews and conflicting stories were exemplary of the perspective project in its exploration of how, through so many stories from so many people can somehow come together to make one, your story (reader's response ;)
In Cold Blood
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is the true story of the crime, conviction, and execution of Dick Hickock and Perry Smith for the quadruple murder of the Clutter family. Described by Capote as "imaginative nonfiction," In Cold Blood is very reminiscent of the modern biopic in its narrative presentation of true events. Capote insisted on its factual accuracy despite a few notable claims against such. Though throughout the book, it is clear that it is from Capote's personal point of view through his interviews. Capote's purposeful presentation, fully fleshed characters, and vivid descriptions of settings fill the read with suspense, imagery, and intrigue.
Critical lenses are different perspectives to interpret literature and art. Our study of perspectives required us to look at multiple forms of media and analyze them through these lenses.
Critical Race Theory: A study in how character's race play into the themes of the story.
Psychoanalytic: A look into each character's background, thoughts, and actions to judge their psyche and how it might affect how they behave.
Marxism: As the title implies, a comparison of the plot and characters of a story to Karl Marx's concept of the economic struggle between the bourgeoisie ("the factory owners") and the proletariat ("the factory workers").
Queer Theory: An analysis of the character's gender identities under the idea that gender is just a cultural concept created by society.
Feminism: An analysis on how gender and the oppression of women plays a role in the plot of the story.
Reader Response: How a story is meaningless until read and interpreted by the reader. In a sense, it's really the reader that is making the story.
Serial
Serial is a podcast by investigative journalist Sarah Koenig about the murder of high schooler Hae Min Lee, and the trial and conviction of Adnan Syed. Koenig, through interviews and looking over evidence, explores for herself and the audience what may have happened that fateful day. The interviews and conflicting stories were exemplary of the perspective project in its exploration of how, through so many stories from so many people can somehow come together to make one, your story (reader's response ;)
In Cold Blood
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is the true story of the crime, conviction, and execution of Dick Hickock and Perry Smith for the quadruple murder of the Clutter family. Described by Capote as "imaginative nonfiction," In Cold Blood is very reminiscent of the modern biopic in its narrative presentation of true events. Capote insisted on its factual accuracy despite a few notable claims against such. Though throughout the book, it is clear that it is from Capote's personal point of view through his interviews. Capote's purposeful presentation, fully fleshed characters, and vivid descriptions of settings fill the read with suspense, imagery, and intrigue.
Writing
Blackout Poetry
We started by reading the poem "Let America Be American Again." A social commentary on America as a society, written at the peak of the civil rights movement. Our assignment was to black out all but a few choice words in the poem to make a new, yet thematically similar poem. Rather than make what I felt was a "tl;dr poem," I decided to take the meaning of mine in the exactly opposite direction. I instead blacked out the poem to praise American and deny all the flaws mentioned in the poem. The blacked out style in reminiscent of black ink censorship of media. To reference this even more, it even include an "approved" stamp at the bottom. The Essay Our final assignment for In Cold Blood was an essay about its themes through one of our critical lenses. Based on the nature of its creation. I decided to explore its presentation and background through a reader's response lens. Our first draft started as a complete essay with at least five pages of materiel. We received two rounds of feedback from our peers and touched on issues (most notably improper citation leading to plagiarism). Our final was due after two drafts were given feedback. Imaginative Nonfiction My personal favorite of our large writing assignments was the Imaginative Nonfiction creative writing piece. Our goal was to write a short story about one of our peers. However, this piece would be based solely off of interviews with our peers. From which we were to take one "nugget" of information about their lives (for example "I used to always take the bus to school, but now I drive.") and develop an entire short story around it. My story was based off of my classmate Emilio's nugget of him and his friends playing football in the street. Part of our entire piece included a visual art piece we called "kinetic art." It is simple two photos cleverly arranged to change to one another as you walked past it. My first image was a lone football in a field, and my other image was the same football covered with blood and surrounded by polices lights. Lastly, each of our stories had a corresponding piece of a large mural. Each piece would be about the story your peer wrote about your nugget (Emilio would base his off of my football story). My piece was based off of Ethan's hilarious story about my nugget of spilling hot wings all over my face when I was little. It depicted a scene in the story where I attack a man by pelting with hundreds of hot wings I keep in my pocket and leaving the man covered in buffalo sauce in an elevator. |
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Unfair (mini-project)
This project involved a lot of personal reflection and self-awareness. We had to think about what people say or would say about us based on both your actions and stereotypes. We then had to write those on a photo of our faces.
This project involved a lot of personal reflection and self-awareness. We had to think about what people say or would say about us based on both your actions and stereotypes. We then had to write those on a photo of our faces.
Reflection
What does Perspective mean to you?
To me, perspective means from someone else's point-of-view. Different perspectives can lead to different stories and different meanings which really makes you wonder how differently people see the world than you.
What was the most challenging part of the work around the perspective project and how did you overcome it?
The hardest part was definitely writing the short story for imaginative nonfiction. It was crazy to think of creating a story out of just one small piece of someones life. One I had a plot figured out, I thought it would be easy from that point on. But unfortunately I hit a wall trying to connect all my parts together. I suppose dialogue isn't really my thing.
What have you learned sand gained so far in lour studies approaching perspective, not only on a personal level but also an academic level?
I actually think the personal and academic take aways from this project are really similar. I really just think that how two different points of view can make the same story seem completely different (The best example I could think of off the top of my head would be someone walking their dog from the point of view of both the person and the dog).
Where are you at with understanding the world from multiple and varied perspectives now? What is your current thinking of it and what are your hopes?
Perspective is actually something I wish was explored more. For example, I wish instead of prequels or sequels, people would create "equals" where it's the same story from a different perspective (I didn't come up with the equal thing bu thought it was really clever). One way I want to explore it myself is to create an EP where each song is a different perspective on a single event or idea.
What is the importance of perspective in the study of science?
Depends on the type science. Like in social science it's very important when studying how certain types of people react to different things. I talked about this a lot in my honors essay about the book Lullaby. In other sciences, I'd imagine it would be important to inspire different types of studies such as learning about the life of other animals or envisioning colonizing Mars.
To me, perspective means from someone else's point-of-view. Different perspectives can lead to different stories and different meanings which really makes you wonder how differently people see the world than you.
What was the most challenging part of the work around the perspective project and how did you overcome it?
The hardest part was definitely writing the short story for imaginative nonfiction. It was crazy to think of creating a story out of just one small piece of someones life. One I had a plot figured out, I thought it would be easy from that point on. But unfortunately I hit a wall trying to connect all my parts together. I suppose dialogue isn't really my thing.
What have you learned sand gained so far in lour studies approaching perspective, not only on a personal level but also an academic level?
I actually think the personal and academic take aways from this project are really similar. I really just think that how two different points of view can make the same story seem completely different (The best example I could think of off the top of my head would be someone walking their dog from the point of view of both the person and the dog).
Where are you at with understanding the world from multiple and varied perspectives now? What is your current thinking of it and what are your hopes?
Perspective is actually something I wish was explored more. For example, I wish instead of prequels or sequels, people would create "equals" where it's the same story from a different perspective (I didn't come up with the equal thing bu thought it was really clever). One way I want to explore it myself is to create an EP where each song is a different perspective on a single event or idea.
What is the importance of perspective in the study of science?
Depends on the type science. Like in social science it's very important when studying how certain types of people react to different things. I talked about this a lot in my honors essay about the book Lullaby. In other sciences, I'd imagine it would be important to inspire different types of studies such as learning about the life of other animals or envisioning colonizing Mars.
Exhibition
Our exhibition was set up in four stations. The first one was our kinetic art on tables in the English room. The second one was our short stories hanging on wooden displays on the catwalk. The third was the microscope and 3D printers set up in the biology room with our microscope photos hanging from the ceiling. The final were booths set up near the senior classrooms for biology honors projects. During exhibition I spent my time talking to guests about my microscope and 3D printing (which I highly recommend learning more about to everyone because they are the future). The other half I spent talking about and demonstrating me and Alvaro's hoverboard at the front of the school.