Advanced Essay #2

As a writer this helped me reralize that everyone learns different and the self set goals we make for others and ourselves.


“Proficient literacy”

In the warm brown fluorescently lit dining room, with stacks of textbooks and papers. My brother was across from me getting really frustrated doing his english homework after flying through math, while I was kind of the opposite. The three lined cinnamon apple candles flickered in the middle of the table covered with green lining; their smell was masked by the smell of arroz y gandules and pastellios, not to mention the delicious smell of the sofrito my mom had made to use in these things, freshly cut cilantro and peppers, among many other ingredients. I was trying to finish my shape, multiplication and identifying rays and lines so I can go in the kitchen and help because i love the smell of the “classic Puerto Rican food” that most people thing we eat everyday, while i glanced towards the kitchen to make sure she wasn’t done I noticed my brother enticed by the flickering of the candle as he held his paper closer and closer until it caught fire. He threw it on the table and my mom came rushing over smacking with her cooking mitts.

“I am sick of this bull shit she stated, Tati go get the children's

Dictionary”. “Okay” I responded not knowing why her anger was directed to me. She took the book and flopped it on the now charred table-cloth and paper. “Flip and point to anyone” she said, I flipped a few paged and pointed to car. “Matt say that word”, struggling I saw his mouth reform over and again, “fars” he said. Frustrated, but trying to calm she said “Okay, it takes practice you can’t try to hide or destroy your homework every time it get’s too hard, c makes the ka sound” At that moment, I realize my mom wasn’t going to let my brothers disability get in the way of him learning. It was weird to see her have to teach him different and that he didn’t learn the way most people did, I didn’t know why I even assumed he was supposed to learn like me.

People often define for themselves what is proficient literacy, but what is to one, isn’t the same to another. In most cases, figures of authority determine the definition of proficient literacy and hold every person learning from them to that specific standard. As, Mark Rose said, in ‘I just want to be average’,  “Students will float to the mark you set” which is true, like in the class he was mistakenly in the standard’s were set low, but if you set them high you’ll get someone willing to work. Setting individual goals of learning is more important than setting a set in stone mark for everyone, to reach at a certain time. My mothers definition of proficiency was different for my brother and I.  She knew the difference and she knew we couldn't learn the same.  My brother had set a low mark for himself, however my Mom set one way above what he thought was capable of, helping him float to the mark realizing a mark set was temporary and changeable.

Again, when the ‘students’ are expected to do the minimum by the ‘edler’, ‘wiser’ person people can become discouraged and Like in How to Tame a Wild Tongue. Gloria Anzaldua said “when not copping out we know that we are more than nothing.” Which took me back to the look on my brothers face a month after my mom pulled out that dictionary and word slipped and skidded off his tongue with ease, no fighting with the letters and vowels and I saw confidence. In this moment my brother knew what he was capable of more on literacy, he knew he could advance and understand if he tried. Self exploration with a push is important of the beginnings of literacy.

Sometimes, when we let the learner, reader, the student find and indulge in literacy themselves, we  allow for, that ‘proficiency’. Like in How Changing Your Reading Habits Can Transform Your Health stated, "We use challenges a lot in our work, because they give you something tangible to aim for and a sense of achievement once you’ve completed them. It can help you develop your skills, or help you discover something new," says Wilkinson; this goal setting system is an idea that can be in ones thoughts. However this is a self defined achievement, which has nothing to do with cultural capital, but every indivisual persons ambition and self defining proficient literacy.

Although figures of authority often decide on, what is the ‘standard’ for proficient literacy, it is important that once one begins to explore literacy in the simplest form. With time comes the understanding of code-switching and the belief of ‘cultural capital’ however with the fundamentals of literacy it is just a person testing the limits and floating to the marks the authoritative teaching figures set for the  learning students. As long as students can meet the glorious feeling of  being literate  they will crave full literacy and raise their previously sets of proficient literacy.


Q1 Final Project

This quarter, I made this ceiling tile. It’s based off of a “spray” from Overwatch, a video game. It’s of my favourite character, and the one i play the most, Junkrat. It’s kind of a grenade, I think? And it’s my favourite spray of his, so I thought it’d be really cool to remake it and be able to leave it behind in the school once I’d left. I really think people should play/appreciate Overwatch, and I think this is a good start.


Advanced Essay #2 (Start of Rewind)

This essay explores the way teaching one's self music can change your worldview. I explore how influences and lack of proper musical training can provide the world with a deeper and more mysterious meaning. 

The gray smog sat like a wiry wool blanket over my block. Filling the spaces between duplexes with a thick dampness. The fog gagged the open air, it bit at the wood beams and expanded door frames and made the house feel slow and cold. I was lying in my room, with my back against the floor. My socks were soaked from the walk and were leaving ghostly streaks along my water damaged wall. My finger reversed the tape, the black plastic whirred between the teeth of side A until a light click signalled the end of the rewind. I slid the worn headset over my ears, the faux leather snug against my head, and hit the yellowed plastic play key.

Music has been perpetually present throughout my childhood, a silent buzz beneath the heavy breath of life. Equivalent to the hum of an A.C. unit or the hiss of a radiator. I have distinct memories of sitting in ACME parking lots with my father listening to metal or punk. He would blare The Police and blow curling smoke out of the window. I would sit strapped into my booster seat singing, “Rock Sand!” Along to the song. As the years past and as I grew too large for booster seats and too cool for Sting lyrics, I began to notice the intricacies beneath music.

My father had played guitar since age fourteen, so there was always a cheap acoustic in the corner of the room. It was equivalent to a lamp or a framed photograph. It wasn’t until my freshmen year of high school (when I started listening to The Smiths and The Dirty Projectors) that I began to notice the instrumentation and not just the feeling of each song. I picked up the dusty guitar and taught myself to play. This quote from Superman and Me perfectly speaks to this situation, “I can remember picking up my father’s books before I could read. The words themselves were mostly foreign, but I still remember the exact moment when I first understood, with a sudden clarity, the purpose of a paragraph.” (2) In this quotation it is clear that instead of reading literacy I am exploring the literacy of music which I adopted from my father.

As time progressed the idea of songwriting became more prevalent in my mind. I quickly moved away from learning songs, once I understood basic chords I found variations and places on the frets that held a sourness or brightness that provided more character to songs. I took the mathematical side of music and explored it through a natural lense, the musical theory became instinct and/or logic. I was nowhere close to understanding the instrument fully but I was beginning to grow acquainted. I began using my unique knowledge to write these bedroom compositions, which quickly began to alter my world view. I began hearing music in a different light, like I was watching the stage play from behind the curtain. Sounds and melodies would erupt from the streets, everything began to influence me. From my IPod’s playlist to the car alarm that kept me up until two in the morning. This language of music was clawing itself out of me, rubbing calluses into my hands and painting my eyes purple with sleep deprivation.

There was a single night where I played the same original piece tirelessly, plucking each note and assigning moods and characteristics to each portion of the song. There was an itch, a tingling urgency to immortalise what I had made. I found myself in my basement digging through mildewy boxes of polaroids and 2008 check receipts and removed my father’s old four track. It was a Tascam with a single blank tape in its deck. I entered my room and began to record, the milky crunch of the dusty plastic made my heart flutter and my will grow. When I ultimately reached a sense of finality the sun had risen. My bones were sore and my hands were damp, and I had to walk to shake my nervousness.

When I returned, I placed the worn faux leather headphones on my ears and pressed play. The detail of my poorly produced and composed tape altered all ideals of my person. The meaningless of deadlines and work became apparent, the world grew in the warmer shades of a watercolor painting, and my need to conceive new sounds consumed all of my thoughts and actions. Music is form of literacy like reading or writing that holds a great deal of importance, it transcends language and worldview. It holds a primal emotional pull to all people, based off of life experiences and the nurture of biasness.

Rockets Win Fall Ball C'hip, Set Sights on 2017 City Title

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Back in June Mother Nature, and some other nefarious forces, prematurely cut short the Rocket's march to a City Tile after a 2nd consecutive undefeated season and Back-to-Back Division Titles. But picking up where they left off, "The Rocket" surged throughout the Fall season with commanding pitching, dangerous hitting and consistent defense. Securing a spot in the Finals after a 15-0 win over Glenside on Saturday, the squad was singularly focused on the first Championship of the season. 

It was a perfect "Leon Weather" day as Senior Leon Finney took a no-hitter into the 5th, striking out 8 with a dominant fastball in the high 80s and a devastating slider. Senior Ben Simon, who closed out the 8-4 win to secure the Championship, said it best before the game. "We play really well when it's on the line. We won't fold!"

Their bats did plenty of talking, scoring 8 runs on 10 hits, most notably Sophomore Avi Cantor whose lead off Triple (2-3, 3B, RBI, R) set up Junior Alex Torres (1-2, BB, 2RBI) for a huge 2-run single to break it back open in the 6th. But the big story of the day was defense. Senior Lukas Supovitz-Aznar (2-3, 2RBI) set the tone early with a diving grab to snare a flare hit into left. Moments later Senior Arsenio "Pepe" Gomez made a diving stop in RF backing up an errant throw and sent a laser beam to nab a greedy runner at 2nd. In the next frame a deep shot into the right field corner was played perfectly by Ben Kenney and Junior Alex Torres to nail another hungry runner at 3rd with Ben Simon applying a perfect tag. 

After Mt. Airy made a game of it in the 5th, Lukas Aznar cut off their momentum with a scoreless 6th, the Rockets' bats exploded for 3 insurance runs in the bottom half and Ben Simon shut the door in the 7th. As Junior Ijustice Avery flipped a hard hit grounder to Senior Jason Greene for the final out at 2nd, a title was secured and a deeper belief about what is possible in the Spring started to settle in.

The Rockets, 2016 Fall Ball Champions, open their 2017 regular season against Washington on March 23rd with one solitary goal- Win It All. If they keep playing as they did today, a book-end City C'hip is most assuredly in the cards.
 

Q1 Artist Slideshow

I am most proud of my ceiling tile by far. Ever since freshman year I never thought I would be able to create a ceiling tile yet I have finally achieved. I decided to add to the collection of superhero tiles and add the flash since in my opinion he is a very underrated superhero. I wanted to go for his classic design, but make the red a deep shade since the shade of red changes depending on the designer. 

For my self-portrait, I tried to free-hand draw myself at first but that turned out to be terrible, since I am not very good at that type of drawing so I decided to trace a picture of myself on the white board, I chose to attempt to shade in the parts of my face that were covered by shadows in my picture so I could make almost an exact replica.

Learn From Each Other

Intro

My goal for this essay was to express how language plays a big part in the division of our country.  If we could cut down on the judgement of the way people speak, we could learn a lot more from each other and establish better relationships.


Where you live or where you are from plays a big part in literacy or language in general.  Traveling to different places and meeting people from different places can make one realize that there is different forms of language that live inside one language itself.


“The mission statements of major publishers are littered with intentions, with their commitments to diversity, to imagination, to multiculturalism, ostensibly to create opportunities for children to learn about and understand their importance in their respective worlds.”

This quote from “The Apartheid of Children’s Literature” to me is saying how writer try to pick up different forms of literacy or different forms of language to make their writing more interesting.  It’s crazy how people will read a book or poem or an article that has language in it that they don’t understand but they try their hardest to because it is a good read.  Or, a movie that has different forms of language in it that they don’t understand but they try to understand because they heard it is a good movie.  But in person or in reality when it comes to hearing these different forms of a language that we know very well the will to understand or learn is nonexistent.  

 

I go to Ocean City MAryland every summer with my family.  It is a vacatio city and people come there from Philly, Delaware, New York, New Jersey, etc, so you are bound to meet some people from different areas of the east coast.  This year when I was there.  I would play basketball everyday no matter if it was in the morning, afternoon, or under the lights I would play either by myself or with the people I was on vacation with.  On rare occasions I would have the court to myself but most of the time there would be people on the court so I would only have half of the court.  One day i went to play and there were people on one half of the court so I went to the other half just to shoot around.  Maybe like 10 or 15 minutes after I get to the court I hear “Aye what it is dummy?” I turned around confused because I thought he was talking to me but I didn’t respond.  He say “you wanna run a game?” I say “yeah let's get it”.  But I was still confused so I asked him what he said before to get my attention and he said “I said aye what it is dummy”.  I never heard anyone say that before so I had to ask him where he was from.  It turns out that he was from Baltimore and “what it is dummy” is a way to get someone’s attention in Baltimore slang.  He was confused with the word “jawn” when I used it and I explain to him the “jawn” is basically a noun… It can represent anything.  What I’m saying is we can learn from each other and slang is one of those things that the people that are not used to it will not understand understand.  So instead of staying in the blue and being fine with not understanding, ask questions and live up to the saying “learn something new everyday” it has its benefits.


In conclusion, when people don’t understand or are not used to something we tend to shut it out completely, and language can be one of those things.  When we hear someone use a couple words that we do not hear as often or a couple phrases that we do not understand, we categorize people based off the way they speak.  Instead of dividing people on the way they speak, we should look at it as a learning experience.  We all come from different places so why not learn from each other?  We look at other big topics that divide the people of our country like republicans and democrats, stereotypes, and other things like that, but we don’t look at the little things like language that play a big part in dividing our country without a lot of people even knowing it.  With that being said, if we worry more about what is being said instead of how we say it, there just might not be as much division in our country.

Jordan Grayes Artwork

My first assignment in this classroom was the tile painting. The inspiration behind my idea was the fact I had recently watched some Brandon Knight highlights, a player for the Phoenix Suns. After that I decided that the Suns logo would be the best possible way for me to have fun with the project. Also, the colors really pop in there logo and that influenced my decision heavily. My final product is located on slide #2. The final assignment was the self portrait. In the self portrait I decided to trace an image of myself that was from a photo-shoot I was a part of. The reason I chose that specific image was because it gave me a nice facial expression and would be more fun to capture details such as, the Tommy Hilfiger logo on my shirt and the straps from my book bag. something I would want to improve on in my artistry work is adding more to them. I only meet the minimum requirement and I should start to go above and beyond the standards set. 

Brandon Jones Art Portfolio Q1

For Q1 I drew I created a ceiling tile, fall wall hanging and a charcoal self portrait. For the first project, we were assigned the ceiling tile. I chose to do a comic book cover from DC Rebirth, the newest reboot of comics for DC comics. I was unsure how to go about it first. I decided to use only grey and black for the characters. The second project was a fall wall hanging. I decided to do a Jason Vorhees mask, as I felt it was appropriate for the season as Halloween was approaching. For the third project we had to create a self portrait using charcoal. I felt as though this project would take a lot of time and attention to detail. I enjoyed this one the most out of all the other projects we did. Unfortunately I was unable to create the water color painting due to the SEPTA strike and my inability to come to school. Finally, I enjoyed this quarter. I learned many helpful techniques and I look forward to future projects.

Final Project Q1-4 - Shamble

This quarter I didn't have a main focus for my artwork at all, so I'm going to talk about the individual pieces.
My ceiling tile was a birthday present to a friend, and it ended up being something like two weeks late. She's really into the anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica (which is my fault), so I wanted to do something for that. The particular character I pained got beheaded and eaten in the anime, so the entire tile is a cruel, cruel joke. It was much more complicated for me than my tiles last year, which had much more simple designs and were just generally easier to paint. As a result of this, my tile last year didn't turn out as neat and nice as I would have hoped. It's not as symmetrical as it could have been, and some of the colors are wrong. However, the project as a whole looks pretty nice, so I guess I'm satisfied.
My self portrait was a pain to draw. I am used to much smaller canvases, and when I was given the size of the paper, I had no clue what to do, really. I just improvised, and it doesn't take up the entire paper, but it's something. I used a lot more blending techniques than I would normally because of the amount of space the drawing takes up and how tedious it would be to neatly shade everything with just the pencil. This is probably the piece I like the least out of all of them
My third piece wasn't assigned for this class, but it illustrates what I was figuring out on the side: markers. I've had two sets pf the particular markers I used since I was 13, and just have never gotten around to using them in depth. For the summer and most of this quarter, they have been my primary medium for coloring and I am very happy with them. They give a very clean and bright finish, and work very well with the way I shade hair. The character in this I made last year, and she has been one of my primary subjects for my marker art because of her color palette. She is incredibly fun to draw, and I hope to use her for an actual assignment sometime this year.
Overall, I haven't seen glaring improvement in my work this quarter, but am overall satisfied with it. I'm excited for what I'm doing next.

Senior Art Q1

This year in art, we began the year with a pretty big project. We started off with the year with a ceiling tile painting. I decided to do a grim reaper ceiling tile. Based off of Yeezus Tour art, the ceiling tile is a Wes Lang inspired reaper on a military green background. His scythe has a rose at the end to symbolize love over violence. The second project was a fall wall hanging, we were to create a fall themes drawing and I chose to do a skull (for Halloween) with fall leaves in the background. The third was a self portrait with charcoal. This was the hardest project of the year for me because I'm not that great with realistic drawings and I don't know how to draw with charcoal. In the end, I took my time and I enjoyed the final product. The final project of the year was a watercolor painting and this was a good way to end off the quarter. Personally, painting with watercolors is always a relaxing experience for me so after balancing the college process, social life, and school, I was able to relax a bit. 

First Quarter Works

My first piece, the Ceiling Tile, is one that I was moderately pleased with. I based the design off of Steven Universe, it represents an insignia featured in the show. I took the original design featured on the show, the four colored diamond, and added a flower with vines that strangled the original design. I surrounded the entire things with earthly colors, the colors of the flower and vines, to show that the original design was completely isolated. This reflects an event in the show that one wouldn't know unless they viewed it.
For my second piece, the Self Portrait, I decided to take my chances at drawing a cartoonish version of myself rather than a realistic portrayal. I have mixed feeling about the outcome of the piece. I wished that I had kept it in it's original pencil sketch, rather than adding color, and want to fix the hair so it looks more cartoonish. But I was very pleased with the facial structure and eyes.

My Art Project

This quarter in art we had two major projects. We had to make one of the legendary ceiling tiles and we had to draw a self portrait. I've never seriously been good at art so I thought the class would be a struggle for me. I´ve never seriously been interested in art either but over these last few months everything about that has changed. 

The first project was the ceiling tiles. I chose to do something a little complicated but in the end I was proud of it. I did the rap album cover for Lil uzi vert vs the world. I liked the cover, I thought it was very colorful and had a lot of different pictures inside one picture. I thought I could recreate it, make it into my own. I chose to use different colors then the original version. I wanted to make it lighter and brighter. I was so nervous about painting it because of all the colors and it was my first real time painting. I think overall my project came out really well and I'm proud of it. 

The second project was my self portrait. This was the hardest of the two to me. I struggled with trying to portray myself correctly. I´m not very good at drawing people especially faces so I was scared of the turnout. It took me awhile to actually get the portrait to look like me. I had to get the detail in my face and my beauty marks it was just extremely difficult. I think it made me realize the class wouldn´t be as easy as I thought it would be.

In all the first quarter projects were a success to me. I never thought I would be in art let alone be good at it. I´m very interested in art now, and I´m very excited for the rest of the year.
Untitled presentation

How has the corvettes changed

How has the Corvette changed overtime?


The Corvette has evolved over time because...


The corvette was first introduced in 1953. The first model was made from 1953 to 1962. It was the start of the C series cars. They were almost discontinued because GM expected way more people to buy the car, but that fell short drastically. but GM stuck it out and kept making models in the future.


In 1927, GM hired Harley Earl to be the new designer. 14 years later in his work career, Harley saw that another company called Nash-Healey was making an expensive two seater car. He convinced GM that they needed to make a more affordable two seater sports car. They started the project and named it “Project Opel” in late 1951. The way they made it inexpensive is they used parts you could find in local car part stores. they would used the used the chassis from former model chevrolet cars. So they didnt have to make whole new frame design.


In the next model, the C2 which came out in 1963, they Changed the design a little bit. They made the headlights rise up out the body, they split the rear window, and they came in solid hard tops. The head lights wouldn’t be an in-body design again until 2005.The outcome for these corvettes were a lot better than the original versions. The engine of course also got bigger and better like with most new car model.  


The C4 model which came out in 1983, became America's most desireable car. It was produced for 13 years. In 1986 the convertible became the Indianapolis 500 pace car. The C4 became known for its more sleek design than other cars and previous model corvettes. It was aso the first corvette with a uniframe. A uniframe is when the floor pan, windshield, halo, and perimeter frame are all welded together. In 1986 GM partnered with lotus for a new engine design to replace the stock L98 V8 engine. Lotus helped make the corvette’s ZR1 engine. The original engine made 245 horsepower at its max but lotus’s ZR1 engine made 375 hp.


The most recent Corvette, the C7, in my opinion is the best looking corvette ever made. This car has been in the makings since 2007. Which is only 2 years after they released the C6. The C7 is the first corvette to have a back-up camera and a magnetic ride suspension system. It also has an upgraded engine but it’s not an engine partnered made by lotus. This engine makes a minimum 455 horsepower and a maximum of 650 horsepower.

The corvette has drastically changed since the first model in 1953. The structural integrity of each model got stronger and stronger. Each improvement made the car lighter, stronger, and safer. While some will say as the years progressed the build quality got cheaper (using more plastic) but it was all for weight reduction purposes.



Works cited


Mueller, Mike (2012). The Complete Book of Corvette: Every Model Since 1953. St. Paul, Minn.: Motorbooks. ISBN 9780760341407. Retrieved 14 October 2016.


"Prototype Corvette ZR-1 Leads Day One Barrett-Jackson Bidding". Automotive.speedtv.com. 2009-01-14. Retrieved 14 October 2016.


GM Heritage Center. Official GM MY1963 Spec sheet. Retrieved 14 October 2016.

Q1 Final Project - Cynthia To

For the first quarter, I have done three art piece. They were the ceiling tile, the fall wall hanging, and lastly my self-portrait. For the ceiling tile, I decide to do something similar to my sister's tile, The Muppets. I did the character, Walter. I chose to make the background green because it looks like the character Walter is behind a green screen. For the fall wall hanging, I had an idea that I should make a banner that said, "fall is here" and decorate the background like fall. Also, I wanted to make my drawing to that fall is happy. For the self-portrait, it was hard to draw myself at first and on a big piece of paper. It was really a big challenge to draw all my artworks by hand and my eye skill.

Q1 Blog Post

For my ceiling tile, I painted myself with a fork sitting on the edge of a giant bowl of soup because I think this metaphor sums up my life quite nicely. I went with a simplistic design because I'm not very good at painting so I wanting to make sure I didn't add too many details.

For my self portrait, I used pencil and charcoal because I pretty much never draw using color. The reason it looks kind of terrible is because I like to draw on a much smaller scale so I had a lot of trouble with this particular assignment.