Throughout
the year, with both Copper Stream and Mr. Block, I have created many things
that I thought I wasn’t capable of. When I look at both the History Class and
English class, I can say that the things we did in here reminded me of
kindergarten because the projects showed who we were and what level of
creativity we are at. It also showed that we had no limits when it came to
writing and Mr. Block just sat back helped us along the way. This whole year he
guided through our projects but Mr. Block used a new sense of guiding….he never
really told us the answer that we were so used to getting. I think that led me
to all of my ideas because there was never really a limit. But I wasn’t always
like that, I was always shy with my work, I think its really when I finished my
descriptive piece, I saw that Mr. Block’s way of teaching. I was always scared
to talk to him because he would change up my ideas but now I see that he has
helped me finalize everything and anything from my papers to my podcasts to my
ideas. Also, Copper Stream did a lot of collaboration work inside and outside
of school so we were never cooped up into a room. We had freedom and learning
mixed in together. There are three main things that I have learned about how I
can tell my story, the different perspectives that are out there, and how the
world isn’t always fair. All of these general understandings helped me become a
better writer and helped me have a whole new point of view on how the world
will see my work in the future.
With in the first week of school, we
had to write our descriptive piece. We had no limit to what we could write
about. The next day after writing our pieces, we gathered up into a circle and
shared our story. That was when I realized that everyone has a story, it is who
we are and the way we chose to tell it is always different. But in the end, it
always defines us as people. I saw a whole new point of view on my class and
the different individuals learning a long side me. The first project we did was
the descriptive essay and we had many mini lessons leading up to the final
piece. In this piece we had to write descriptively, using our senses and we had
to make sure that the reader not only read our piece but also felt it. When it
came time to writing, I felt that "all moments in life are important, but
not all are special" (Revised Descriptive Essay Post). I felt as if
I could describe at least one thing from each of the years that I was living,
in detail but I didn’t know what to focus it on so I chose to write about my
camera because it caught all of the emotions, actions, and moments from my past
years. After that project, the language unit came next and I felt that I had a
strong connection to this unit because my family speaks multiple languages and
I act as if a translator. Until I wrote everything down, I didn’t realize how
much I could help my family and what I am capable. Language has changed my life
so much. When we were asked to talk about what language meant to us, I said:
"I think that the language and the way you use it depends on how you grew
up and self choices. Your speech is a part of your identity and your identity
is what people will know once you have the power to speak. That's how I see
it" (Worksheet Scene: Your Language Identity).
While growing up my parents would use
words that weren’t real but I would say those words like they were real.
"I’ve grown into those words thinking they were real and usable but they
weren’t. They were only to the “fresh off the boat” people because that’s the
slang they spoke" (Q2 Family Dictionary). In the end, "I
struggled with my reflection because I had so much to say but there are so few
words to describe it with. This is a feeling hat I can never describe. That's
how amazing it is. I've learned that what I do is not necessarily a common
thing and that putting it on paper makes me feel proud and happy of what I can
do. Writing this autobiography was a blast" (Language Autobiography
Reflection Sheet).
Language isn’t the only thing I learned
in this class, I’ve learned that I can speak my mind in this class and discuss
my ideas with others. Throughout the whole year, I had problems with sticking
to one main idea. I would get a bazillion ideas and become sad when I couldn’t
use them. During the Art in the Open unit, my group and I concluded that
"We had so many ideas but we couldn’t portray it out correctly so we just
had to drop them. It came to a point where the deadline was coming up and we
had nothing" (Art in the Open Reflection). But when I finally got
my ideas together, I had a work of art! An example of this is the podcast about
my father’s journey and the boundaries he had to over come while making his way
to America. "I tried my hardest trying to pull listeners into my dad's
journey and life. I made sure he described everything" (Podcast
Reflection Sheet).
During the whole year, my personal
ideas have allowed me to impersonate, create, and be the person I probably
would never be. We started off the year with the Spirituality Role Play unit.
In this unit, we were given a role to research, answer questions too, and
impersonate as we sat in a circle. I was given the role Karen Armstrong. It was
the first time I got to act like some one I wasn’t. I always thought that role
plays needed scripts, a stage, and actors…like Broadway but we didn’t. All we
needed was our research and a big circle. For our next role play, I chose the
role of King Louis the sixteenth. In this role, I had to act like a spoiled
king. I often said during the role play: “All men are born equal to their
estate. Nothing more, and a lot less. That's how it was when I was King and
everything was fine. Also, if a man needs to be killed, then so be it…what does
it have to do with me? I am living. I do not need to worry about any of the
peasants. They barely do enough as it is” or I would be carefree and say: “I am
royalty so don't worry…you can worship me as you please. People called me the
wishy washy king because I satisfied neither the royalists nor the reformers.”
But my personal ideas didn’t stop
there, the class and Mr. Block soon explored the Keystone Pipeline and how it
affected everyone. We had to look in the point of view from a tiny fish to the
big CEO man overseeing the blueprints. I chose to do three monologues…one was a
girl that was saying good bye to her tree, the other person was an actor that
was protesting a long the White House, and the last one was a conflicted worker
building the pipeline in Canada. For this project, I had to keep an open mind
to all of the point of views, Personally, I hated the idea of the pipeline so I
wanted to focus on that but there are so many different point of views on hate
like sadness, confliction, confusion, or anger. All of those things could
apply. My first monologue had a girl named Janie talking to her tree, Bruce.
Bruce was a tree that she grew up with and now that her family has chosen to
move away from the pipeline, it meant Janie had to move away from Bruce. Janie
starts to tell Bruce his expected future: "Everything will be gone but
we’ll soon be gone before it" and "I tried to argue back saying we’re
leaving you, our view of everything, and our memories" (Janie, Monologue
#4). The next monologue was based off of the protesting in front of the
White House about the Keystone Pipeline. I involved an actor into this scene
because I wanted to shed a light that regular working class people aren’t the
only ones with a say in what goes on. Many celebrities protest and stand up for
their rights. Daryl Hannah, an actor, did that and that is why I placed her as
a main character in my monologue. “With that one cry for change, the U.S
Park Police zip-tied a nylon cuff restraint onto my writs and threw me into the
back of the car and I was brought to the slammer“ (Daryl Hannah, Monologue
#1). As I said above, I can be someone that I am in when I write. When
writing “The Missing Chapter 26” to the book, Things Fall Apart, it was
no different. I could say things like: “I am a man, a man of my tribe and
family. But the man inside of me is now gone.”
Throughout
most of the year, we had the honor to work with Kate McGrath. She helped us
create a play with her creative ideas and different techniques of writing. At
first, I didn’t know what I was going to write about…what struck out to me…I
didn’t want to write about family problems, or friendship and their dramas...I
just wanted to write something that no one would know about so I explored the
websites that Mr. Block gave to us and crossed a video…”Heaven’s Border”. This
video struck me at the heart because my family came from a different country
with nothing, legally and it was already hard enough for them. I wanted to show
people what others will do to pursue their dreams and I wanted people to try to
understand the hardships people go through for freedom. In my play, I had three
main characters, strangers that would come together to make a make-shift
family. Together, they flee North Korea by entering China, Laos, Thailand, and
then they must finally seek asylum in South Korea. The journey is not easy
because of the abusive smugglers and heartless border officials. At the end of
the journey, only two of the main characters make it out of the three that
started the journey. During the whole play, I was the minds of all of the
characters from the cruel smugglers to seven year old girl trying to change her
life. I was everyone and anyone in my play. I would either say: “Nuna, nuna,
wake up! We’re all going to die!” (Dong Dong) to a receptionist in North
Korea: “Thank you. Respect the general! Long Live the Sun of the 21st CENTURY!
- Kim Jong Il. FIGHTING FIGHTING!” One of the reasons I was so interested in
the play is because I got to create everything and bring in all of the work and
my creativity together. I worked day and night on the play, finding info and
watching more videos…and when I finally understood how the officials could
treat the defectors so badly, I wrote the last part of the play. I had the main
character who was caught, shot, and beaten say: “There are guards watching me
until I can walk again and when I can walk, I will have to wear this weird
monitor thing around my leg so they can find me. I have to keep it hidden too.
But when I am done this torture, I will get out and find you guys. My mom has
money for an airplane ticket so I don’t have to revisit any of those places” (Ji
Yong, Breaking Borders).
In conclusion, I felt that this year was a very
strong year for me because my work brought me to different places like: UPenn
for my Language Autobiography and Temple to watch and get ideas for our plays!
In all, I would not take anything back from this year. I feel as if everything
has happened for a reason and I have a new view on writing and how I should
incorporate my creativity into all of my work and not pass down any
opportunities that come my way.
