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For my research, I wish I had found sources outside of my school, to add more information to my survey results. I also could have gotten adults to fill out my survey, because I mainly got students from the school to fill it out. I want to know to whether certain individuals reacted in a way that was different from doing nothing. Were there any physical or verbal fights, because one was simply labeled?  I only want to know that, because in the survey, I just asked how they felt, but now I want to know whether they reacted out of those feelings they had.

For my original research, I did I survey and sent it out to the girls in the school. The sad part about it is the fact that not many people took it, and ever since I added a question, some people retake it. If I were to it again, I would first make sure I have a draft of the survey, before I send it out to people. The good thing is that people took it, otherwise I would have nothing for my research.

This project was the most interesting of them all, You and the World project actually changed my views on a lot of different things and it was because of the different project that everyone did. Some glows that I had were the presentation that I did in class, I thought that doing this project was the biggest glow because this project was so personal I feel like I'm helping my Mom in so many ways possible that I didn't think I could do. Some Grows that I have would be to continue this project outside of class because it become something that I enjoy doing. I enjoyed doing the Original Research, but lets start at the beginning of the project, I’m not talking about the Research part of the project I’m talking about the proposal. Coming up with a topic to actually research was a little difficult but the way I actually got my topic was from my Mom, she thought that doing this would raise awareness to the topic and get people thinking about it and though the entire project that was what I went by. Now the Research part of the project I was easy but I wish I could find more infomation on my Mom Ms so that I could share with all of you. It’s a lot still to be discovered and I will continue you update you guys if anything changes.

My Original Research was interviewing a doctor, which was scary. I thought that I wasn’t asking the right questions and getting enough information, but then I thought well it's good enough to actually write about. Things that I would do differently is maybe not have a bunch of kids there in the background making a lot of noise. I enjoyed doing the Original Research I thought that part of the project was most interesting part.

For my Agent of change, Me and My Family took part in the MS walk in late April to Early May. The walk raises money for research and new medicine, things like that maybe even finding a cure. I also did a presentation to the class, I was going to do it for advisory but plans got changed. I thought that it went well I just wish the entire class was there to see it. I hope to have a bigger impact and I’m thinking about doing something similar for capstones my senior year at SLA.

As an artist I use painting as a way to cope with my everyday life, especially situations I find stressful. I find the stroke of the paint brush calming and I am filled with a sense of pride whenever I finish a piece. My favorite way to paint is by using acrylic paints. I like to paint solid pictures or pictures that don’t involve a lot of blending with these. When I use water colors, I’m better at blending. I normally paint scenery whenever I use watercolors. Currently, I’ve been really interested in landscapes and fantasy paintings. I try to use these elements in my current work. I hope you enjoy my fourth quarter portfolio.

Something I wish I would have been able to do is having actually been able to do an interview with a victim though there was, and still is, a very slight chance that could be possible. I think that if I was to be able to do this, I would of found a lot of more personal information that would of been very interesting to my audience. So what I do want to know is basically just the other side of the story. The more detailed, more visual side. But I do think that what I accomplished with interviewing an expert on helping victims, was a great addition to my findings. This gave me a sense of what goes on from the personal researcher’s point of view and I believe that was what made my argument strong.

I think my overall performance was pretty great. With the resources I had and time frame, I feel that I did well with dealing with this Sex Trafficking issue. If I had to change this, like I said before I would see if I could actually meet a victim or listen in on a conversation of an expert with the victim because of the different type of information I would receive.

My audience seemed to have a positive response towards my project and seemed to have learned a lot from it and fairly enjoyed reading about it in my series of blog posts. I will not be able to know this information, but I hope that the people who stop to read my stickers actually visit the website that is being promoted and inform themselves on the issue going on around them. I also hope that they share the information with more people so that more of the community are aware of the situation.

This is it! My English Benchmark is over! I won't have to submit another Blog Post until next year!

This entire project was definitely a growing experience for me, as it taught me a lot of things. It was AMAZING! I thought it was such a wonderful experience to understand the concepts of Leukemia and then be able to pass it along to anyone I can. An experience at different places and seeing how they all react to the problems of Leukemia is very inspiring.

First off. WHY I choose Leukemia as my topic to attack. I have had a brutalizing past experience with Leukemia, as it was diagnosed to one of my closest friend and brought their life to a close. And that definitely changed the way I think and feel about Leukemia. I hate it. VERY much. It gives me a reason to try my best and change the outcome of its patients. Not so they end up like my friend, but so they can end up living their life to the fullest,, without any real worries. I guess it gave me a reason to attack this topic head on and get everyone else to know what happened to my friend, so they can support it too, and make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else anymore

Second, my research. Oh my. Was it was filled with trials and tribulations? Yes! It was hard to contact the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, but after getting a tour of the building, I have had a wonderful yet very emotional tour of the building,  and got insight on how they treat their patients. After a wonderful tour with Dr. Green, I had made my second blog post, ready to be seen by the public.

Throughout this project, I feel that I've out my best foot forward to produce an accurate and all around high quality work. When looking back, there are things that if I had the opportunity to do over again, I would change. Starting with my initial research, I'm very pleased with what I had done, and the information I found. Being that it was the first stage I think the facts I got were good, but not as good as they could have been since I eventually did want a more complete illustration of this topic. I wish that at the time I had not only focused on the negative side of Affirmative Action, and try to advocate for the other side. I did do this in blog post two but it took time out of the other things I could have been focusing on. Adding this entire viewpoint would have without a doubt made my first blog post better. Being that the topic is so broad, I did not get to cover everything in this blog post and there are still questions to be answered. I did very little looking into this, so I wanted to know why the advancement of Affirmative Action for the physical and mental disabled has been so slow. The miniscule amount that I do know about it states that much is being done unlike the significant gains for African Americans and most frequently women.

When it comes to my original research, I believe I did an even better job than in the first stage of the research. I think it went very well due to me developing both a new idea of Affirmative Action, as well as really understanding the pros and cons of the issue. I used my original research to get a more personal understanding of the topic, and try to stray away from the facts and statistics that I used in the first blog post. Because I had set two exact opposite stances in one blog and gave sufficient backup to support both sides basically trying to really make a reader decide which one was good proved to be successful in this blog. The only thing that I would do differently is explaining the Bakke vs. California case which was a big event that promoted Affirmative Action into the public light. It would have been great to add one of the founding reasonings for why this became such a big thing, and use aspects of the case to support the negatives of Affirmative Action side. This would have breathed new life into that argument, and could have made it better than the side opting for Affirmative Action.

Glows

While doing this project, I was able to do the things I know, can change/prevent and support. Each and every one of can make a change to support the topic I know and love and that’s #BLM. I love how we were able to organize this benchmark, it was amazing that I can do each assignment without hassling through at once, we can take our time and being able to complete it. I also like where we extended the time. One of the others things that were awesome was me working with others that had a similarity with our topics, sharing information we can put on our resources as well was outstanding.

Grows

Things that could’ve been better were the time to do this project, I know that it was time consuming but   I’ve had extra time that I didn’t use towards this and that was a waste of good opportunities. Others were starting the project too late, haven’t recently gotten to it until a week after. It was bad but I was able to counter it, if I would gotten right to it is to go around the neighborhood and get people’s feedback. Instead I’ve used a website for it and it turns out people are more sociable on social media than talking face to face, that is part of the reason I’ve created my own website and so many feedbacks i got were outstanding.

Research

I wish I’ve known that #BLM did a movement downtown Philadelphia on 15th street, Black Lives Matter I would know ahead of time and get into the action, it turns out this happened during our Bm., Hearing #BLM on the news and people talking made me inspired, I would want to know more how movements are like, what goals we show and why? Who are we representing and why there should be a change?

Original Research

I think it went great for me overall, I really have enjoyed this time of a Benchmark one of the best ones i’ve had so far. I would change the time and changing the website to touring around Philly.

Agent of Change

I had the impact i’ve hoped for because all of the feedback I’ve got from sponsors and people, who actually care, it was amazing. I’m really glad we did this Benchmark.

The overall You and the World project was a great and new experience for me. I never have done a project like this before and as a whole it was semi-fun. At times the project became very stressful it felt like a mini-capstone but instead of a whole year we had one quarter. Considering that we had so little time I think I did an okay job on this project and there are many thing I could have done better, of course. But I am proud of myself and all the hard work,sweat, and tears I put into this project.

The Research part of this project was maybe one of my favorites. I found so many disgusting facts it was appalling. But I wish I could have dug a little deeper into other fast food restaurants. I mean I found out some stuff about Chic-fil-a chicken sandwiches but I wish I could’ve dug a little deeper into that. I also wish I could have really gotten into what is in Chipotle’s food. It looks like an okay place to eat but I really would like to know if it is for real. But that might have to be some individual research I’ll have to do and I’m fine with that.

The Original Research aspect of this project I wasn’t really a fan of. My results for my survey came out horribly. I think I should’ve asked better more centered questions that no one knows about. My blog post was terrible too because I think I could’ve did so much better I forgot the little/BIG things and it really frustrated me because I know I could’ve done better than what I did. But if there was a next time I would do something completely different for my Original research. I don’t know what but something better than what I did.

My agent of Change I am kind of iffy about. With the topic I chose for my project it was kind of hard to pick what I wanted to do for my Agent of Change because what can I actually change? No matter how many disgusting facts you tell people about what they are eating they might get disgusted but they are still going to eat it. I just wish for my Agent of change that I could’ve did something that made a bigger impact on people. Something that would have made them stop and really think about what they are eating. But I think I did an okay job on my Agent of change but like I always say I am my biggest critic so I’ll never think anything is good enough.

All in all I think my project went okay. I’m happy it is finally over. This project was one of the most stressful projects I ever had in my life. But I’m happy i stuck through it. Throughout all the pain and tears I think I had a successful project and I am semi-proud of myself.

And now, Reflection Time with Paul-Ann Whyte. So we are just about finished with with this year and with this Agent of Change.  I think this is an appropriate time to go back and look at everything we have done and how it could have been different. Or maybe things that we actually did right. Let’s start all the way back from blog post numero uno.

Blog Post #1, the research. The research by far was my favorite part. My Agent of Change was trying to raise awareness for Mental Illnesses. I chose this topic because I have friends who have this mental illness yet it shames me when I have to ask them “What is that”, when they tell me what the name of the illness is. Also I have a mental illness and I am also in the learning phase of what exactly is wrong with me so this was a learning experience for the both of us. The research taught me things I had completely overlooked as well as new information. I wished that I had researched more about the common mental illnesses as well. That would have been interesting that instead of focusing on a select few mental illnesses I could have branched off.

Then we move on to Blog Post #2, the original research. Easily coming in second for the things that I enjoyed with this project. The original research I believe could have went so much better. It could have been better but it was not my least liked part of this entire project. I completely ignore Ms. Gikinis’s suggestion of surveying a larger selection of people so it was much harder for me to interpret and use the results as I would have liked to. I wish that i could go back and ask a different set of questions and then send it out to a larger group of people. Not just a select few. Other than that, this section ran pretty smoothly.

Now it is time for the dreaded Agent of Change. My least favorite part of this entire thing. I believed if things had went differently that I could have easily enjoyed this part of the project but this project as life would have it, the odds were not in my favor. My Agent of Change was a walk/run to raise Awareness for Mental Illnesses which was on Saturday, May 16, 2015. The Wednesday of that week I took sick and on Thursday I went into the hospital. As life would have it, I didn’t come out until Sunday and even then I was encouraged not to do any physical activities. So no big problem right? Just think of something new. Well then that week that I came out of the hospital, I went right back in. My schedule was thrown off track with that and in the end I was not able to do anything for my Agent of Change. I was disappointed in myself because I was looking forward to actually making a change and doing something that would influence my life and the life of others. So definitely not my favorite part at all.