The essential question that we wanted to answer during this project was: what tribes do you belong? where do you belong? what does it mean to belong? and how does it feel to belong?
We made various activities and read different material to answer this questions.
House of Mango Street
This is the first activity we did, the class was divided in various groups, each one having a chapter of the book, reading it, memorizing it and do a spoken word segment including rhythmic sounds using various items at hand.
My group first organized itself, reading over the chapter we got to read; we each read a paragraph aloud, listening to each other as we read. Next we each chose a paragraph to read at the performance and thought of what kind of sounds will go well with and at what moment.
Since the chapter we had had to do mostly with education and school, I was flipping the pages of a book, to keep rhythm, Dylan was drumming; to add effect, when the words 'firecrackers' came up, Daniel let a book drop to create a loud sound.
There parts when we got stuck, such as the part when we tried to talk at the same time, either we weren't coordinated enough, or one of us will start early or late, but, considering it was our first time doing something like this, we did pretty well and if we had a little more time, we could have been able to do more music and be at the same rhythm with each other.
I SING TO YOU
First project was writing a poem about someone, 'I sing to you..', to this we got paired up randomly with someone else, and we had to interview them about them to know them enough to write this poem; the question were about the most important things to you.
My partner was Kashawn, someone I barely knew, and that was the problem. Both me and Kashawn were to uncomfortable sharing our lives stories in that level, so it was kind of hard.
She didn't know me enough. I didn't know her enough; and yes, I know that to get to know someone you need to ask questions, but we didn't think someone will just go over to some stranger and ask them what was the most important moment in their, maybe is too personal and they don't want to share it with you, and that's how I felt; sometimes the most important moment in your life, is something that you don't like to think about and you rather forget it.
The first draft was pretty simple, just to get my ideas in paper.
The procedure was full of taking notes and thinking of how to add more effect to it, whether is the way of writing it or adding details to make it more realistic such as smell and sound.
As soon as I got that down I was able to write it down and add things here and there, creating the structure as if it were a drawing or a story, for I was doing that, I was telling a story, it may have been a short one, but it still was special.
This is a link to the first draft:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g8gY29nBlaNumV_lEy0eX35OYwoBFC9F0EjWYpuc1HY/edit
And this is to the final draft:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bl1aVyvjlKUuElebz3DHvQXRgda4UMyQuTT_C3Huosw/view
At one point, my partner had to make comments about the poem, if it looked okay or what should change, but there was nothing when I looked at it, so there was really nothing to comment on, maybe she couldn't find anything wrong, or everything was going to be high lighten wring so she took pity of me, who knows.
The point is, that I didn't want this poem to just talk about Kashawn(even if that was kind of the point) but I wanted everyone to relate to it so I tried to do my best so it could a apply for everyone.
After the self critique we went to the middle school to get critique from eight graders, strange but we did. As soon as we got there it was kind of awkward because most of the middle school er knew some of the group and I knew no one, so obviously I was left alone the first few minutes being there until Dr. P assigned me a partner and got to work. We weren't able to finish, but I got pretty good feedback from them to use, some I used and other I didn't, but in the end the feedback was useful in some way or another.
I SING TO YOU OF KASHAWN
BY ILSE URIBE
I sing to you of Kashawn
the killer of wasps;
who even though was afraid of them,
went up against them.
Equipped with rubber gloves and masks,
she and her faithful friend went over to the wasp hive
and ATTACKED!
But the wasp, buzzing angrily, retaliated
and our heroes had to run across the yard
away from the angry bugs
and into the safety of their home.
I sing to you of Kashawn,
who even though was afraid,
stood against her fear.
Self-portrait
It kind of looks weird, but that's mostly how I am, I keep to myself a lot, am used to being kind of a loner, keeping to myself and my books being my only company, I mean I did watch TV, but that was after I finished a whole book of The Sisters Grimm series, and usually I picked up the next one and continued reading. So I guess this represent that side of me that still keeps to itself and spend her entire time with nooks instead of human beings. But I finding it peaceful, silence and a good book is going to forever my favorite lifestyle.
Belonging Articles: The Man Who Saves You From Yourself
https://drive.google.com/a/hightechhigh.org/file/d/0BwCeiORtv8bHZC1LSFM2bWwteXc/view
This article talked about a detective named David Sullivan, who with his knowledge in cults and good acting skills, was able to infiltrate different cults and societies to save people from within and stop them from doing anything that they might later on regret, also busting the cult leader as a fake.
I chose this article because am really interested in cults and secret societies and how they work, so I was really excited to read. What I learned about how cults function, made me see how this article relate to belonging; some rules are:
-People can be manipulated if you exploit their weaknesses.
-After being broken down psychologically, the initiate is overwhelmed with acceptance and love.
This two rules are all about making people think they actually belong, when in reality they are just tools to something completely different of what they believed, sometimes even evil, but they are so desperate to belong that they follow those leaders like, mind the chose of words, pathetic lost puppies, and I been in that situation before, but I was able to go back to one important step when staying true to yourself:
-Resist being programmed
That's important, because if you actually change to belong, you're not actually there, you're just living a lie, as harsh as it sounds.
Just stay true to yourself, you'll one day find somewhere where you actually belong, or maybe it's actually someone.
Performance
I was in the music group for the performance and I was working alongside Lily to create a song.
She wrote down the lyrics and I was helping her find the tune and the melody for it without changing her expectation of the song to much.
Then we went into rehearsals, she would be playing her song and I would give advice on it, in how it could sound better, how to make it look rushed and all that.
The day of the performance came and she was nervous, one of the plans we had was that she would play the guitar and I would sing, but by the time she had the song down we couldn't practice together, but she did amazing on her own on stage.
Belonging Articles: The Man Who Saves You From Yourself
https://drive.google.com/a/hightechhigh.org/file/d/0BwCeiORtv8bHZC1LSFM2bWwteXc/view
This article talked about a detective named David Sullivan, who with his knowledge in cults and good acting skills, was able to infiltrate different cults and societies to save people from within and stop them from doing anything that they might later on regret, also busting the cult leader as a fake.
I chose this article because am really interested in cults and secret societies and how they work, so I was really excited to read. What I learned about how cults function, made me see how this article relate to belonging; some rules are:
-People can be manipulated if you exploit their weaknesses.
-After being broken down psychologically, the initiate is overwhelmed with acceptance and love.
This two rules are all about making people think they actually belong, when in reality they are just tools to something completely different of what they believed, sometimes even evil, but they are so desperate to belong that they follow those leaders like, mind the chose of words, pathetic lost puppies, and I been in that situation before, but I was able to go back to one important step when staying true to yourself:
-Resist being programmed
That's important, because if you actually change to belong, you're not actually there, you're just living a lie, as harsh as it sounds.
Just stay true to yourself, you'll one day find somewhere where you actually belong, or maybe it's actually someone.
Performance
I was in the music group for the performance and I was working alongside Lily to create a song.
She wrote down the lyrics and I was helping her find the tune and the melody for it without changing her expectation of the song to much.
Then we went into rehearsals, she would be playing her song and I would give advice on it, in how it could sound better, how to make it look rushed and all that.
The day of the performance came and she was nervous, one of the plans we had was that she would play the guitar and I would sing, but by the time she had the song down we couldn't practice together, but she did amazing on her own on stage.
This is Lily at the performance, after she called out on me, and everyone turned to look at me, am was really uncomfortable having everyone's attention on me, as the beginning of the performance wasn't enough:
There I am, the one on the blue and white flannel, standing on a chair as soon as I finished saying my line, that caught everyone's attention.
But it went well, and that's all that matters, sure we had slips, but it went great for it being our first performance; am just saying that's going to be a while before I agreed to stand one chair, I mean look at this!
But it went well, and that's all that matters, sure we had slips, but it went great for it being our first performance; am just saying that's going to be a while before I agreed to stand one chair, I mean look at this!