Science Leadership Academy @ Center City

MACBETH CREATIVE BENCHMARK

Posted by Ava Olsen in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 11:37 am

The following was a project for a 9th grade English class, using creativity and imagination to extend a quote analysis into an engaging piece that shows that character journey of Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth is an inhumane controlling power-hungry woman that wants to leave her gender, but after King Duncan is murdered, it turns her into a frail and broken self-loathing human being. This is shown through the project I decided to do, using clay and sterling silver to create one of a kind pendants that represented the character change of Lady Macbeth throughout the entire play.

PENDANT DESCRIPTION

(PICTURE IS SHOWN AT BOTTOM OF POST)

The first pendant is pink with leaves curling around. Lady Macbeth started out as a normal woman that wasn’t necessarily bad, and wasn’t necessarily good. Pink is considered the color of life, good health, and a new start. The leaves represent the life that started out so innocently. The second pendant is green with purple spirals coiling around the sphere. She began to become secretly desirous and envious of those with higher power. Green is considered a color that signifies jealousy. The leaves turn into spikes that swirl around, showing that her intentions aren’t exactly clear yet. The third pendant is orange with silver stems blossoming from the bottom. She then begins to demand attention while she thinks of a plan to murder the king. Orange is considered a color that means “flamboyant” or “exuberant.” The outward and touching spikes are together in a stem at the base of the colored sphere, almost as if they are growing upwards and reaching out to get away and branch out. The fourth pendant is a lilac purple with a sky blue vine entwining the sphere. Lady Macbeth begins to design the perfect plan involving homicide. Light purple is said to represent cruelty and arrogance. The vines seem to be trying to connect as she devises the perfect scheme. (“How now, my lord! Why do you keep alone/Of sorriest fancies your companions making/Using those thoughts which should indeed have died/With them they think on? Things without all remedy/Should be without regard. What’s done is done.”) (Act 3, Scene 2, Line 15, Page 45). The fifth pendant is a cherry red with a black snake twirling around. She feels dangerous and wants nothing more than to be a man so she could do the deed herself. Red is said to be the colors of danger and aggression. The black “snake” (“...scorched the snake, not killed it.” (Act 3, Scene 2, Line 15, Page 45). ) twirling around the sphere represents the fact that she is now in the perfect position to convince her husband to murder an innocent man for power. (“Come, you spirits/That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here/And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full/Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood/Stop up the access and passage to remorse/That no compunctious visitings of nature/Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between/The effect and it!”) (Act 1, Scene 5, Lines 30-37, Page 17). The sixth pendant is a black sphere with a ribcage wrapped onto it. She is now turning into an evil woman with a weapon - a killer. Black is supposed to mean “wicked.” The ribcage is holding the sphere, and represents the fact that she feels like she is blinded with power and can’t escape. (“Come, thick night/And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell/That my keen knife see”) (Act 1, Scene 5, Line 49, Page 17). The seventh pendant is a deep purple wrapped with barbed wire. Lady Macbeth now becomes frustrated with herself because she almost regrets having the deed done, even if it’s not said. Dark purple is considered the colors of sad feelings and annoyance. The silver spikes resembling barbed wire represents the point that she can’t do anything to go back and take back what has already happened. (“Naught’s had, all’s spent/Where our desire is got without content/‘Tis safer to be that which we destroy/Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.”) (Act 3, Scene 2, Line 5, Page 45). The eighth pendant is a silver ball with a broken rope. She begins to worry, and realizes that she was wrong in what she did. Gray is said to be the color of tormenting or panic. The rope is recoiling away from itself because she is beginning to have mental breakdowns, because she feels like her hands are covered in blood and she can’t rinse it off no matter what she does. (“Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One, two. Why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.”) (Act 5, Scene 1, Line 35, Page 84). The ninth pendant is a white sphere with black wings growing out of it. Lady Macbeth takes her own life to get rid of the suffering and self-tormenting. The white sphere means peace, because she is done with worrying and being in constant pain.

To create the pendants, I had to do many things before actually producing the finished product. I needed to plan out nine emotions that I could portray. I made a list of parts in the play where Lady Macbeth had a prominent emotion. Later, I researched the relationship between colors and emotions and what colors represented which emotion. The colored sphere in each pendant represents a different emotion. After that, I had to create the pendants, so I used clay for that. I made sterling silver hooks, and then after the pendants were dry, I reinforced them with epoxy and added gloss glaze.

I think one huge difficulty in this project was that it was extremely time-consuming. The pendants alone took me around ten hours in total to complete, and that’s not including the display. I did spend a lot of time on them. I think that next time, I could easily start earlier if I didn’t want to do so much work at one time.

I am most proud of the fact that no one else had my kind of project. I also am proud of sticking with it even if it did take a long time. I hope that everyone else enjoyed my project as much as I did.

If I were given the chance to do this project over, I would 100% go with the idea of the pendants. My original ideas weren’t as great. I originally wanted to do a pop-up book, but I thought that with all the people that were touching it, it wouldn’t last very long. It would also take most likely more time than the pendants did.

My colleagues also did creative projects to represent the character development of Macbeth or Lady Macbeth. I think that they were very well done. A lot of them made me see the character development in a whole other light that I hadn’t seen before. Also, some of them pointed things out that I had never noticed. It made me realize how creative we all are, and how differently our mind works from the rest of us.

Through this project, I realized that I can most definitely complete something even if it seems impossible, if I put my mind to it. I also learned a bunch of different creative ways to represent a storyline that I could use to my advantage in the future.

Macbeth Benchmark Creative

Posted by Naomi Fecher-Davis in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 11:29 am

My project is a representation of Lady Macbeth's character change. It takes you through the color of her feelings and how they changed. I sculpted the letters "I", "We" and "Me". The letter "I" was sculpted in the color red, that represented the power that she wanted for herself. The "We" was in the color purple, this represented her passion, the passion she felt for Macbeth and her trying to get through everything together. The "Me" was in black which stood for desperation, the desperation she felt inside herself to get away from from everything. Which only ended in her committing suicide which in my opinion is a selfish thing to do. The letters when put together are ment to make a circle. The circle represents how her character took a 360 degree turn, she went from just thinking about herself and what she wanted, to thinking about herself but also Macbeth, the final stage in the book she was once again selfish and only thought about how she could no longer deal with the pain she was feeling. I then put the quotesI picked into the letters according to what part of Lady Macbeth's character they were said by.
I chose to do this for my creative portion of this project because I think it gave a very exact visual of what I tried to say in my thesis. As you can see this wasn't the best circle. This was a pretty big difficulty that I had. For this project I used modle magic, this might be a good material for somethings but I set it out for two days and it didn't dry so getting it to keep the form of a circle during transport was near imposible. Overall I think I am most proud of the idea I came up with. I am not a very creative person and to think of something like this and to execute it with such precision was a accomplishment for me. I think if I was able to do it again I would try harder to make a circle out of the letters. I think currently it just looks like a weird square. While doing this I think I learned more about myself. While looking at others work I saw that many people interpreted the story in different ways, not just between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth but also how their characters acted through out the book. I think I learned that I might be a bit more creative then I thought, maybe not through my execution but I think more creatively then I thought I did. I really enjoyed doing this project and I hope you enjoy mine as well.

Macbeth Creative Piece

Posted by Jasmin Gilliam in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 11:28 am

This canvas is the creative portion of my Macbeth essay. There are many elements that go into this creative portion, it goes through what Lady Macbeth and Macbeth both experience throughout the story together. While the killing of Duncan shook both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, they reacted to their newfound power differently, causing their relationship to shift. They both went through changes in the story and this canvas is demonstrating the shift in the relationship. The project went through many versions before getting to what it is now. I new I wanted to show that they switched roles in the relationship so I went to drawing them in quadrants and switching places on the bottom from the top. Then I wanted to add branches creeping in at the corners. The branches went from being drawn to being real quickly. Then I ditched the quadrants all together and essentially came up with this. I went through many problems with the gluing of the branches to the canvas and solved that by cutting them and gluing them back together. I am most proud of the way it turned out I didn't expect it to turn out this way and as I was putting it together I fell in love with it more and more. If I were to do this over I would use spray paint instead of brushes because I don't like the streaks that were left in the white background. I learned that this story is copied many times even now and I learned many things about my classmates from what they chose as their creative piece. I learned how many things I do subconsciously that turned out correct for what I was trying to portray. This project taught me to appreciate how everyone thinks and expresses themselves and the diverseness of our stream.

Macbeth BM Creative

Posted by Javier Peraza in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 11:23 am

For the third quarter benchmark our English 9 teacher had us do a quote analysis write up for Macbeth. This was meant to explore our abilities we learned on quote analysis and to be standardized on it too. Basically, the better the better you soaked up the lessons for the quarter would be the better you do on the project There was a catch though because this write up would only count for 50% of our grade. We also needed to do a creative project!
The creative portion of the project had to reflect on our quotes and our thesis. In my project I really wanted to show the evidence on how my quotes proved my thesis correct. My thesis revolved around the idea that Macbeth had healthy ambition and curiosity his whole life but when his fate was made known it all became quite nefarious. To do that I needed to incorporate every stage of downfall into the creative portion presented by the quotes.
I soon came up with the idea of making a clay Macbeth and quote weights. As the story progressed, each quote weight would be added to Macbeth to show the struggle he endears on his journey. By the final quote Macbeth is no longer able to hold up the weights and therefore falls. This is supposed to show how in the end all of Macbeth's choices finally kill him.

In the beginning the process was tremendously easy and had no challenges or annoyances. I always thought of myself as a pretty creative person and knew myself well enough to see that I could get anything done. It did not all go so good though for when I sat to brainstorm ideas I only found that I was sitting there for thirty minutes with nothing. To figure out what to do I stopped thinking of creative projects and started thinking of things that could be used with my quotes. That is when I came up with my project idea.
It did not get better from there unfortunately. I had to use clay for my project and because of that I went to the store and bought clay. Simple enough but I was terribly wrong. The amount of clay balls I had to create for different combinations of quote weights were in the fifties. There was only one right combination of sized balls where the statue of Macbeth would fall on the last quote and not the others. The process even got more tiresome after cooking the balls and seeing that it didn't work when cooked. Inevitably I had to go buy more clay and do it again. Crafting the Macbeth dolls was a pain for he never stood up on his own which lead to toothpick supports. During the whole thing I was constantly thinking about how this makes sense compared to my written portion of the project. I would stop and plan out everything. Most of the times the plans did not go so well and I had to go back and just plan something different.

It's difficult having good ideas that you really enjoy but having to scrap them because in reality they are terrible. That was something I encountered many times. Surprisingly though a majority of the ideas weren't bad but just out of my capability of doing. Now I usually believe that anyone can do anything but sending Macbeth to the moon was a bit over exaggerated.
I am seriously proud of my dexterity, endurance, and effort. I never gave up and multiple times tried to do better. After hours of tiresome work I did not go for the B but went up and beyond to get the A. I fought my own "furies" and pillaged on through lack of sleep and tired, clay filled hands. In short, it was all kind of amazing.
In thinking about it now I honestly don't know what I would change in this project. If given time then I would have hundreds of answers. If I could change the project maybe I would spend more time on brainstorming and decision making. I want the best ideas possible and the greatest decision made. Although I see perfection as an infinity, making it impossible to reach. You can always approach perfection but when you try to grab it then it will just ran miles away with harder possibilities trailing away. It is this idea though that pushes you to do better each time. Which makes a college student generally better than a high school student, which makes a C student into an A student.

Many things were learned from this experience, which was intended. First, I saw things that I would never even guess that some of my colleagues could achieve. Next, I found out somethings about people that I wouldn't know from not being social with them which will make me more apt to change so. I also learned that even though we all see ourselves as great and invincible, you should never over estimate your abilities. I struggled more than I thought I would but something I did not need to learn was that I amazing and therefore fought through the struggle.
If I could acknowledge anyone it would be Ms. Dunn for teaching me well, my friends for listening to my presentations and presenting fantastic projects themselves, and my family for putting up with all the clay in the house.

Macbeth Bm Creative Portion

Posted by Desmond O'Donovan in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 11:21 am

My project was the creative portion on a quote analysis of “Macbeth”. My thesis statement was “At first Macbeth was a decent person who wouldn’t kill someone in order to be king, but once he gained power he had to kill more people in order to stay in power, his power caused him to do terrible things he was previously against.” I picked five wrote that were related to that thesis, and analyzed them. For the creative portion of the project I made a poster with the five quotes on it, and added illustrations for each of the scenes that the quotes were from.

For making the poster I first mapped out where I was going to put everything. Then I made rough sketches of each of my drawings in pencil. I finalized them, and added the quotes. I like to draw, so the drawing part of the project was pretty easy. It did take awhile to draw illustrations for all five scenes though. I also had to research Shakespearian clothing, and decide what I wanted each of characters to look like. By doing some research, and allowing a lot of time to be put into this project, I got it done.

I am most proud of the drawings a did, because I thought that they were pretty good, and creative. I also liked my use of symbolism, by using the color red. If I could change anything I would probably add backgrounds to each of the drawings to make it look better. I could also put my thesis statement on the board so that people would know what it is, and could see how the quotes relate to it.

My colleagues had very creative projects. I really enjoyed seeing them . A lot of them had thesis statements that were similar to mine. It was interesting to compare their quote choices for their thesis’s to mine.

I learned that I like to draw for projects, and that my drawings are pretty good. I also enjoy doing it, which makes the project better.

Macbeth Creative Piece Reflection

Posted by Zack Hersh in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 11:19 am

This project is about how Macbeth was a good and sane man until he began chasing power and was king. It shows his character journey and downward spiral, and also tells the story of the play. The creative part is a song parody of the Maroon 5 song "Love Somebody"
I actually got this idea way back when we started reading the play. From there I got the original lyrics from the song and listened to the song a few times to get a feel for the rhythm before writing my own lyrics. The ideas for the lyrics cam pretty easily and worked well, and I recorded on garage band. So overall, my creative process was simple and fun, but took a lot of time and hard work.
The most difficult thing I encountered for the project was actually finding the music to use. In the past when I have done parodies for school, I have found just the instrumentals (karaoke version) on youtube and recorded it on garage band, but finding just the instrumentals for this song was surprisingly difficult. It seemed like this was the only song that didn't just have instrumentals, and all of the karaoke versions still had the original singing in it. I searched around youtube, the web, and various karaoke sites, but could not find the needed music. I looked on iTunes, but they didn't have it either, so I eventually just had to buy the music for a couple of dollars.
Another very challenging aspect of the project was fitting everything I wanted to say into the song, which doesn't have that many lyrics. There are 3 choruses, two 4 line verses, and one 4 line bridge. While the chorus come easily (love somebody became kill somebody), the verses were more challenging because space was limited, there was a lot I wanted to say, and incorporate quotes. I overcame it by shortening lines and using shorter synonyms, and replacing lines with quotes. I also used lyrics in the parts where the original song just has "ohs". I also decided to have extra space by putting some parts into the chorus. While this made the chorus different each time after "kill somebody", it was worth it and helped me overcome the challenge.
I'm very proud of everything in this project. The outcome was much better than I was expecting. I think I wrote/used great lyrics that not only incorporated all five of the quotes, but told the story, supported my thesis, and fit the rhythm of the song. I think the song itself turned out very well (at least as good as I can be singing with laryngitis) and sounded great.
If I were to do something differently, I would record the music and the singing separately, if that's possible (maybe listening to the music on headphones). I played the music while I was singing, so they recorded as one, so I couldn't lower the volume of the music and increase it of the singing which would've been helpful and made it sound better.
From the classes presentations, I learned and had justified how creative our class is. I was very impressed with many of the projects I looked at, and very impressed with the level of creativity and amount of effort. I learned about all the different ways the same story can be interpreted and expressed, and that was really cool.
I learned about myself in this project also. I learned that if I really set my mind to something, I can exceed my own expectations, come out with an impressive result, and lose track of the time while my mind is whirring. I also learned that I'm willing to spend the extra time to take my work to the next level and not settle for good enough.

Here is my song parody.

Here are the original lyrics with my lyrics:

I know your inside, you're feeling so hollow
Macbeth was the worthy Thane of Glamis
And it's a hard pill for you to swallow
“For brave Macbeth- well he deserves that name”
But if I fall for you, I'll never recover
But now he’s Thane of Cawdor, and next in line for King
If I fall for you, I'll never be the same
Once he began chasing power, he wouldn’t be the same

I really wanna love somebody
I really want to kill somebody
I really wanna dance the night away
I really want to take their life away
I know we're only half way there
We could be king and queen, so come on
But you can take me all the way, you can tak e me all the way
Let’s do it today, Let’s do it today
I really wanna touch somebody
I really want to end somebody
I think about you every single day
King Duncan’s standing in our way
I know we're only half way there
If we kill him we’ll have it all
But you can take me all the way, you can take me all the way
So let’s kill him today, let’s kill him today

You're such a hard act for me to follow
So Macbeth, he killed King Duncan
Love me today don't leave me tomorrow, yeah
But had a hard time getting over it, yeah
But if I fall for you, I'll never recover
“Methought I heard a voice cry, sleep no more
If I fall for you, I'll never be the same
“Macbeth does murder sleep!”, and became King next day

I really wanna love somebody
I really want to kill somebody
I really wanna dance the night away
I really want to take their life away
I know we're only half way there
In order to keep my power I’ll
But you can take me all the way, you can take me all the way
Do this every day, do this ever day
I really wanna touch somebody
I really want to keep on killing
I think about you every single day
“Returning would be as tedious as go oe’r”
I know we're only half way there
Because of that I won’t stop here
But you can take me all the way, you can take me all the way
I’ll be killing every day, killing every day
Whoa, whoa, whoa oh oh oh
He’s becoming, he’s becoming, he’s becoming a tyrant
Whoa, whoa, whoa oh oh oh
He’s going, he’s going, he’s going mad

I don't know where to start, I'm just a little lost
Soon an uprising begins, led by Malcolm and Macduff
I wanna feel like we never gonna ever stop
Against “this tyrant whose sole name blsiters our tongues”
I don't know what to do, I'm right in front of you
The walls are closing in, Macbeth’s not not panicking
Asking you to stay, you should stay, stay with me tonight, yeah
“Direness, like to my thoughts cannot once start, me!”

I really wanna love somebody
I really want to kill somebody
I really wanna dance the night away
Anybody who is in my way
I know we're only half way there
Everyone is after me
But you can take me all the way, you can take me all the way
But I’m not dying today, not dying today
I really wanna touch somebody
I really want to keep my power
I think about you every single day
I don’t want it to go away
I know we're only half way there
But Macduff is coming for me and
But you can take me all the way, you can take me all the way
On this world I might not stay, on this world I might not stay
Whoa, whoa, whoa oh oh oh
Macduff is, getting near, adding to Macbeth’s despair
Whoa, whoa, whoa oh oh oh
The final, battle ensues, and Macbeth will lose

You can take me all the way, you can take me all the way
His tyranny ended today, his madness ended today

Macbeth Creative Benchmark

Posted by Amelia Stuart in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 11:17 am

This project is all about finding Macbeth's transition from loyal, dedicated lord to a cold blooded murderer in different songs.

  What was your process like in crafting the creative portion of this project?
I put a lot of work into this project, finding the songs, then taking them apart and piecing them to fit my thesis. Sometimes it was easy, and sometimes it was really difficult, there were times when I would get distracted and watch some TV or talk to my friends, but when i came back my mind was fresh and I was able to get the work done.

     What difficulties did you encounter in doing this project? How did you overcome them?
The main difficulty I had was probably picking what I would do, I had the idea of trees and grass, really connecting to nature and his growth. However I didn’t have time to get to the store, so instead of going at six-o'clock on a Saturday and staying up all night to finish it, I told myself I would spend Sunday working on it. Unfortunately I work on Sunday’s, from 10-12 I figured I would do it in the afternoon. Little did I know there was a meeting that many parents were going to, so I stayed until three watching their kids. When I got home I did thorough thinking, I didn’t think it was rational to go at 4 and work on it for about 4 hours then do the rest of my homework. I decided on a soundtrack because I’m good at working stories into music.
      What are you most proud of in this project?
I’m proud of all of I guess, it wasn’t what I really wanted to do, but I think I did a good job and worked very hard on it. I’m proud of my final product because I honestly thought that I wouldn’t have anything, so I’m glad I’ve brought something in not only thats good, but something that I like. I don’t love it, there are some improvements that should be done, but i think I gave it my best and the final product may not look like I put work into it, but I did, and I think I did my best
      What would you change/do differently if given the chance?
Time- Management. Thats something I really, really, really, need to work on.
      What did you learn from your colleagues' presentations/projects?
That they all did really good projects and put time into them, I also learned that some of my classmates have secret talents. I had no idea Des could draw, I thought he was all running, but it turns out he is crazy good!
      What did you learn about yourself as a result of doing this project?
That I need to manage my time more, and work with Ms. Dunn/ Sasha for guidance and not do it all myself.

For my Macbeth Soundtrack Click Here (songs are on the document)

Text Based Macbeth game (Macbeth Creative Project)

Posted by Tobi Hahn in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 11:09 am

For my creative project, I wanted to show the development of Macbeth's character through the quotes, and also how Macbeth justified his actions. I ended up making a text based game that showed the quote and a decision that Macbeth had to make. If you chose the wrong answer, it would tell you why it was the wrong answer for Macbeth. My process while making this game was at first making a code template for the decisions. Next, I added the quotes and the decisions. I then added the responses. A difficulty I encountered while making the game was that at first, my code would not run. I looked at documentation for a while and ended up finding the answer. I am proud of being able to engage an audience while showing Macbeth's character. If I was given the chance to do something differently, I would add more interactivity to the game, and multiple endings. I learned from my classmates presentations that you can incorporate the quotes and characters of Macbeth into a wide range of projects, from videos to sculptures to board games. I learned that I should take more time to look over my code while debugging it, as I spent a very long time finding a simple mistake.

You can play my game by downloading this .zip file, then unzipping it and opening the app inside. It requires internet the first time you launch it.

Friedman; Creative Macbeth

Posted by Michelle Friedman in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 11:06 am

This creative project is an extension of an analytical essay assignment. This project shows Lady Macbeth’s transformation from a ruthless woman to a frail lady is both beautiful and pathetic.

The process of crafting this project started with an extensive period of brainstorming. It took nearly 3 weeks to come up with a pleasing idea for a project. The idea for news articles came from the fact that this story is very two-sided. After some planning on what the articles would be on, and how the quotes would be included, it was fairly easy to start writing. From there is was simple.

The greatest difficulty, by far, was just getting everything done. The initial plan was to have many more articles that there are now, however due to lack of time, that number was reduced. The struggle was completing everything.

I am most proud of the contrast between the news sources. One article does not stand out to me in particular, however their relationships are very interesting and I am proud of them.

If I had the chance, I would start this project much sooner and create a legitimate news website and paper for the articles. However, due to limited time, this was not possible.

I did not get to see any of the other projects because I was sick; so, sadly, I did not get to learn from my peers like I would have hoped. However, I learned something about myself. That is that I am not very excited about writing. I thought I might be, but I'm not.

This is a collection of news articles from two news sources- "Scotland's Best" and "Scottish Times". "Scotland's Best" is more positive towards Macbeth and what he does; whereas, the other is against his beliefs.

Macbeth Creative Piece (Yam)

Posted by Brandon Yam in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 11:06 am

This is the creative piece for my Macbeth benchmark. My creative piece shows and proves my thesis and the character's journey throughout the story. My thesis was: Although Macbeth was a crooked man at the start of the play, he became more deeply corrupted later on to the point of no return.
The task of actually making my creative piece was pretty hard. Yes, it looks pretty simple, but getting the materials was a pain. I needed red clay for the hearts for the coffin and I didn't have anything. I had to look all over my house to see what I could use as a replacement. In the end, after two whole days of searching, I found little miniature hearts that I could use. Once I found them I was able to make the actual coffins, put the "corruption" inside the hearts, and make any changes to tidy it up.
I am most proud of the project as a whole. I liked how I recycled most of the materials I used in this project. For example, the box I got from a supermarket, there were strudels in there, the "flowers" are just pieces of paper nobody was using.
If I was given the chance to make any changes to my project, I'd most likely change the signs in front of the coffins. When I came up to present, the signs weren't holding up too well. Sometimes it would fall over and other times it would just tilt to the side.
I learned quite a lot from my classmate's projects. For example, August's project taught me about the show Breaking Bad and how it is very similar to Macbeth. This was a unique take on the creative piece because nobody that I saw had anything like it. I also learned that the project itself isn't everything. As a presenter, you must be able to talk about your project clearly and make sure your audience is engaged. I see it as a 50/50 thing. What I mean is 50% of the project is the project itself, while the other 50% is the presenter.
Something that I learned about myself is that I'm not bad at public speaking and keeping my audience engaged. I have presented many projects here at SLA where public speaking was involved, but nothing like how I had to present this project. With this project, I had my peers come to me and I was able to talk to them individually instead of as a whole class. This allowed me to feel a little more comfortable and confident. I had friendly little chats while explaining my project and threw in some comedy here and there.

Lady Macbeth poem

Posted by Angelica Owens in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 11:05 am

For my creative piece of Macbeth I did a poem about Lady Macbeth's character journey through out the whole story. It shows how before the death of Duncan she was the man in the relationship but after Duncan died she became very cautious and she wanted it to go away. To craft it, I thought it would be a little bit easier to write it since I am a poet but it was not as easy as I thought. Even though I am a poet to create a poem is not always easy to do but I already had an idea of what to put in it. The difficulties during making this poem was that I had to figure out to word it. I am most proud of the whole poem because it was hard but I still did a good job creating this. If I did this project over I would have definitely created something else more creative like an art piece or a sculpture out of clay. What I learned from looking at my peers projects were that they are really creative and are good at something. What I learned about myself during this project were that to try something different even if my specialty is poetry because I may be good at something else.

Macbeth's Road to Betrayal

Posted by Lauren Hummel in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 10:34 am

English Reflection

This project was about Macbeth's process as a rising dictator and how he begins to betray everyone he was close with. This particular piece ties into my thesis of, Macbeth is a lovable character with a strong moral compass, however, in the end, he betrays everyone's trust. My scratch video is representation of this thesis.

While I was beginning to brainstorm ideas for the creative portion of the project, I was at a standstill with no good and original ideas. Morgan Caswell-Warnick was a great help though by generously offering me the idea to do a Scratch animation. I had used Scratch before so I was familiar with it but I was also well aware that it would be time consuming and very frustrating, and it was. I went through all of the acts in sequential order, giving a little bit of background information before introducing the quotes. I also tried to add music and sound effects in order to bring the video to life. Towards the end, I added a some comical bits to keep the crowd entertained and I think it worked well because all of the people who viewed it, laughed at those last parts. I did come across some obstacles such as malfunctioning sounds, words moving to quickly across the screen or too slowly and frustration with the program. With some patience and moral support, I was able to overcome these obstacles and some constructive criticism also helped. I am most proud of the patience I had during this project with all of the malfunctions and setbacks, I was able to come through it to put together a project that I am, overall, proud of. I say this because, I usually am not patient and don't worry as much about the quality of my work but I was intent to hand in a piece of quality work for this project. If I could change anything in this project, I would be more selective with the music I chose. From my peers, I learned that there are a lot of options when crafting a project and that unless you hear it explained, it could make no sense. Also that Lady Macbeth has many different personalities that can be interpreted in different ways.

As a result of this project, I learned that I can put together really good work if I put my mind to it and that I am more patient than I realize. Also, that I am pretty good at making things using Scratch.

Macbeth's Road to Betrayal from Lauren Hummel on Vimeo.

Here is the video with sound.

The rise and fall of Macbeth

Posted by Alejandro Bautista-Garcia in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 10:29 am

      a. What is this project about? This project is about Macbeth’s rise and fall of his life and loyalty. Macbeth was a trustworthy man that let his dark desires change his life, he was a clean hearted man that over the time his heart grew of power and ambition making bad decision and at the end he was filled with regret.

    b. What was your process like in crafting the creative portion of this project?

My idea for the first time of making this project was making a collage of Macbeth’s life of how it went from a rise to a downfall, but then to make it much better and interesting I chose to make a comic with the quotes from each act and have a little side story so the reader could understand what’s going on with Macbeth’s life.

      c. What difficulties did you encounter in doing this project? How did you overcome them?

Some difficulties that I encountered doing this projects was finding the pictures from the same play but I overcame this idea by changing my idea of the collage into a comic with quotes and a little more information to make a story.

      d. What are you most proud of in this project? Why?

What i’m proud of making the project in one day not because I was procrastinating but I just got the date that it was due wrong, also because some of my friends thought the comic was really good due to the fact that i read comics I must had picked up some ideas on how to make the comics, I’m proud of this also because it’s my first comic project that I made and most of my friends thought it was really great.

      e. What would you change/do differently if given the chance?

What I would change if I do this project again would be making the story longer or making an actual collage.

      f. What did you learn from your colleagues' presentations/projects?

What I learned was that they had a lot of brilliant ideas on how to do this also they kind of knew what to do since the beginning of the project so they were very prepared for this.

      g. What did you learn about yourself as a result of doing this project?

I learned that Macbeth after all was easy and I remember I used to say it was confusing in some parts of the story.

Macbeth Creative Piece

Posted by Jamison Turner in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 10:29 am

My creative piece is about the downfall of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as to where my written piece is only about the downfall of Lady Macbeth. The creative piece took me a while only because I am not a very artistic person. My first idea was to draw a castle crumbling on one end and on the other it is perfectly fine but I am not good at drawing elaborate pictures like that. So I stuck with the castle idea but changed it up a but and I still kept the same concept. The hardest part of the project was probably thinking of a project that would be not just fit in with the others and I am pretty sure I am the only one in the class with a power point. I'm proud that I came up with my own type of project because all of my life I just did what every one else did. If I could change something I would add more slides. I learned that other people also did very individual projects and I found out that when I put my mind to something I come up with some good ideas.

Macbeth Machinima

Posted by Miles Cruice-Barnett in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 10:28 am

This is the creative extension of a Macbeth quote analysis. This is a machinima made in minecraft that shows the journey of Macbeth and how Macbeth started as a loyal subject to King Duncan, but when the weïred sisters told him he would be king, Lady Macbeth convinced him to kill Duncan and he lost himself in the murder.

To create this I had to build all of the sets and find “skins,” or costumes, that went with each character. I then had to use my screen capture software to record the different scenes and then edit them together and voice over them.

One problem I had was that I did not have screen capture software on my school laptop so I had to use my home computer and only work from there. Another problem I had was that I had finished recording about half of my scenes and I realized that the texturepack, something that changes how the game looks, was wrong. I had to re-record everything and start from scratch.

I am really happy with the way it turned out. Building the sets was fun and they looked great on camera. Minecraft is a game of blocks so some things are not easy to replicate, you have to be creative.

If I had time I would redo one, or two scenes that I think could be better. There was one where it was daytime when it was supposed to be night, and another where I was going to do a voice but forgot and had two voices for one character.

From seeing my classmates’ projects I realized that there were many ways to creatively represent our papers and that there are other things that I could have done when I did not know what to do.

You can also view it here
Skins here

The Journey to Success that led To Failure

Posted by Sattera Mark in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 10:27 am

Reflection

For my projects I decided to do journals. These journals are Lady Macbeth’s. They show how Lady Macbeth’s character changes throughout the story.
I wanted to do these journals so the reader can better understand the character of Lady Macbeth. In the story it seems as if she doesn't really have a heart. She seems cold and cruel. I wanted to show the readers that Lady Macbeth does have feelings and does regret her actions. I did these journals by incorporating quotes from the story.
It was hard to come up with creative ideas and it was also hard managing time. Usually teachers give immediate deadlines, but we had complete control over what we wanted to do.
I’m proud to see my writing progress.
If I could I would have started the project earlier.
My colleagues’ projects were all outstanding. From them learned that they’re are so many ways to show case work. I saw projects that I would never have thought of doing.
I learned that I should stop putting limits on what I can do and excel.

"Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely"

Posted by Stephanie Dyson in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 10:26 am

In this blog post, I present to you the creative extension of my Macbeth quote analysis. This project, based on the tragic downfall of Lady Macbeth, is one of my favorites that I've done this year. It, as I stated, represents the downfall of Lady Macbeth. I intended to portray my thesis visually, which read "Lady Macbeth, the epitome of a power-hungry woman, has a querulous personality that swells with an ambition that eventually leads to her demise."

The small orbs on the top of each box were painted with specific colors. I referred to a mood-ring chart to show Lady Macbeth's various emotions throughout the play ranging from stormy and passionate to lonely and paranoid. I set the boxes in descending order by height to visually show her downfall, and because the boxes had lids and could be opened, I put the quotes that I analyzed for that specific body paragraph in each box and I was done.

The process for my project was actually rather timely; it only took about an hour and a half to finish and I did so the night before with ample time left in the night for me to sleep. The only problems I encountered during the creation of this project were gluing pieces in the wrong order and having to reorder things, mixing colors to properly coincide with those on the mood chart, printing problems, and actually getting my project to school. However, there were very few learning walls and mind-blocks for me to experience.

I'm definitely most proud of the design of this project. It was something I wasn't sure exactly how to put together; it sort've began as an idea without a plan, but for me to pull through and make it look relatively professional and artistically display my thesis. This is, as I said, one of my favorite projects thus far in my freshman year and I'm sure I'll remember it down the road.

In my classmates projects, I saw a deep thoughtfulness throughout. The artistic qualities of my classmates and the ability to be as innovative as some were was extremely noticeable. I appreciate their hard work and I feel that there was a level 'playing-field'. No projects were absolutely utterly mind-blowingly incredible, but no projects were dull, drab, or pointless.

In my own project, I do see a bit of myself and my project should certainly reflect who I am. It's clear and concise, but it does require someone to present, making it interactive and enjoyable at the same time. I learned that once I can take an idea and run with it, my creativity flows from my fingertips. My process for this project is certainly something I'll take with me for the rest of my years at SLA.

Please pardon the relatively poor image quality on the pictures of my project.

William Shakespeare's Macbeth

Posted by Lauren Thomas in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 10:22 am

In Ms. Dunn's English Class we collectively read Macbeth by William Shakespeare. Everyone had to write an analytical essay. In the essay, we had to analyze 5 quotes from Macbeth and/or Lady Macbeth. I chose to write about and choose quotes that showed how Lady Macbeth manipulated Macbeth. Based off of our essay we had to do a creative piece including the five quotes. I chose to do crayon art.

I decided to write Lady Macbeth's suicide note. In the note, I wrote about how sorry Lady Macbeth is for changing Macbeth's integrity. I wrote/paraphrased the quotes I chose in red, both on canvas and on the computer. To read the whole suicide note, click here. To listen to my suicide note and watch the process, click here.

For what couldn't fit into the suicide note, I used the crayons to symbolize. Also, you can't read the note on the canvas because it was done purposeful.

I put the colors in a specific order to show Lady Macbeth's journey through the play :

Black & Gray: to symbolize how evil & deranged Lady Macbeth was in the beginning
Purples: Lady Macbeth's need for royalty & the want to be the queen
Red: Lady Macbeth's need for royalty transitions into the need to kill; the red symbolizes all the blood that was shed
White: how Lady Macbeth was blinded by everything she wanted & how she didn't care about the consequences
Pink: when Lady Macbeth realized what was happening & how ended her life with an essence of innocence

Reflection upon my work:

What was your process like in crafting the creative portion of this project?
In the beginning I knew I wanted to do crayon to show Lady Macbeth's journey; however, I didn't know how to incorporate my quotes. One day in class I had the idea for a suicide note. I decided to type up my suicide note and have a peer of mine, Dillon, to edit it. I then hand wrote the letter onto the canvas in pencil and then again in sharpie. Here is a video I made of me melting my crayon and reading the suicide note that I was covering in the crayon.

What difficulties did you encounter in doing this project? How did you overcome them?
I almost ran out of room to write the note on the canvas, which scared me, but I added more lines to write on and the problem was some-what solved (it goes to the very end of the canvas).

What are you most proud of in this project? Why?
I am most proud of the way it turned out. I thought it wouldn't look as nice, but I was glad when I finished.

What would you change/do differently if given the chance?
Maybe a more symbolic piece, like sculpting, but I am proud of my project and wouldn't change much.

What did you learn from your colleagues' presentations/projects?
I learned that many different people create differently. We all had the same base (quotes, the book, etc.) and we all branched off uniquely with our own talents being displayed.

What did you learn about yourself as a result of doing this project?

I learned that I can do anything I set my mind too, even if someone else in the class does something similar to you.

Macbeth Creative Piece

Posted by Jesse Shuter in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 10:20 am

For my project I chose to do a continuation of my written piece. In my written piece I talk about how Macbeth was not always a bad guy. At the beginning of the book he was a good person. It was only through being provoked and triggered into changing that Macbeth changed his personal traits and became such an evil person. To represent this I started by making Macbeth's head. The head that I made is similar to the head that is shown at the end of the Macbeth movie. Then to show all of Macbeth's triggers I made small sculptures of the triggers and placed them on Macbeth's head to symbolize the fact that Macbeth was only taking action based on what other people inspired him to do, not because his own brain told him that these actions were okay. For Act 1, the trigger that I chose was Lady Macbeth; for Act 2, the trigger was the crown and the role of kingship; for Act 3, the trigger was the Weïrd Sisters; for Act 4, the trigger was Malcolm; and for Act 5, the trigger was the kingdom and everything that comes with being king (wealth, power, followers, etc.). The hardest part of this project was coming up with the idea. Once I had the idea the project was relatively easy. The only trouble I had was deciding which things I would pick as the triggers for each act, and also making the sculptures. If I could do this project again, I would put more work into making the sculptures better.

A Macbeth Machinima

Posted by Andrew Roberts in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 10:18 am

This is the creative portion of my Macbeth project for my English class. I made a Machinima in Minecraft portraying Macbeth's character change: he goes from a loyal and praised thane to a feared tyrant. You can see that video here.

To make this project, I took a series of shots with some of my friends as actors and later put them together into scenes. I added scene title slides and then finalized my video and uploaded to vimeo to make it easier to watch.
I encountered several difficulties in this project. The foremost is getting the actors to do exactly what I imagined; it can be hard to convey a thought that you cannot put into words well. I also had trouble with timing the stage directions. My final difficulty, and perhaps the most annoying, is creating this reflection; I have accidentally deleted it twice.
I am proud of the backdrop the video is in, especially the courtyard. I also like how when a character dies, he drops what looks like blood (it is actually a minecraft item named redstone).
I would change several things, though. The intro for each scene is too short; there is not enough time to read the quote. I also would get rid of the little yellow circle that appears at the beginning of every shot, though I am not sure how to do this.
I learned from my colleagues' presentations that there is almost never just one way of doing a project. All of the different projects surprised me; I had trouble coming up with an idea.
One thing I learned about myself is that when someone does not understand what I am trying to get them to do, it annoys me. It is also oftentimes my fault. I also learned that I dream bigger then what I am able to do. I wanted to add a couple other shots as well as the ones that are there, but ran out of time.

Macbeth Dies A Tragic Hero.

Posted by Amanda Thieu in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 10:17 am

This is my Macbeth creative project for english class. I wanted to show his's stages throughout the play. I wrote Macbeth's name 5 times to represent all the quotes that I incorporated. It also shows that Macbeth's name changes it's font, color, etc because it shows the audience how much his character changes. It goes from bottom to top, Act 1 to Act 4. I used two quotes from Act 3 therefore, I didn't amalgamate quotes from Act 5. For my first quote, Lady Macbeth was conversing with her husband saying that he wasn't a man until he killed King Duncan. That's why I drew LADY over lapping Macbeth to represent the dominance in Lady Macbeth's character. I colored LADY in pink because in the play she was using her feminine features (being a woman) to her advantage. The second quote which is blue is similar with the quote Macbeth saying that he will not sleep innocent any more because he feels extremely guilty on the deed he has done. I drew a night cap, "zzz", moons, and stars to represent his sleep. The third quote which is in yellow represents his royalty and greed. He has finally received the crown and is now convincing the murders that Banquo is their enemy as well. Macbeth is taking over Lady Macbeth's manipulative character trait and using it on the murders. The swords represent how many times Banquo gets stabbed. I drew the ghost of Banquo sitting in Macbeth's seat at the banquet. Whenever you see a gold crown it emblematizes Macbeth. The fourth quote is all red and bloody because the quote regarding that is when Macbeth says he has stepped in blood so deep... The red color betokens the body count that Macbeth has annihilate. The last and final quote which Macbeth recites is that he is not worried that the forest will walk to Dunsinane hill. So I split the Macbeth in half, I drew "MAC" in trees to represent the forest and the "BTH" as the hills. I had the idea to draw the "E" the moving people who carried sticks to the Hills and the crown exemplify where Macbeth is located which is in the hills. All of these Macbeth's are written to show the change in his personality once he was crowned King of Scotland. Since I love to draw and paint, this wasn't that much of a challenge for me. I'm most proud of the creativity I put into the project. I would change the quality of the work. I might add more quotes next time.

"Taking advantage of innocence will backfire"

Posted by Allison Kelly in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 10:14 am

This sculpture is an extended section of my Macbeth essay and the second part of my English benchmark. This sculpture shows Macbeth's character change, stemming from his wife, and also Lady Macbeth's downfall.

In this sculpture, the hearts represent Macbeth and the hands holding the hearts on each side represent Lady Macbeth. The hands are holding the hearts as a sign of control. The heart starts out as red, which show he was humble, kind, and felt things such as guilt just as any human would. It shows his innocence. The heart gradually gets white, which shows that he became neutral. he wasn't necessarily innocent anymore, but he was far from evil. His heart eventually gets black, showing that he became pure evil and out of control. On the left side, which represents the beginning of the story, Lady Macbeth's hand is black to show that she was pure evil, but as it gets to the end of the story, her hand becomes white and red. The white shows that obviously she is far from innocent, but she is no longer the evil one, and the red represents her own blood after she killed herself. There is a quote on each of the hearts that best represents that character at that point in the story.

My process of building this sculpture was one of which where I needed to be extremely patient. I first had to sculpt everything with the clay and wait for it to completely dry before I could paint. I then needed to wait for the paint to completely dry before I could glue any of the quotes on.

One of my biggest difficulties was just being able to finish in time because I wasn't planning on the clay taking as long as it did to dry, which kind of made me have to speed up the rest of my process. To overcome this I just did different things to speed up the drying process of the clay. I had it constantly in front of a fan and also left it near an open window over night so that it could completely dry.

I am most proud of how this project really shows the character changes in the characters. I think I made a lot of wise choices when it came to color and placement of things to show the development of each character.

If I had the chance, I would just start the sculpting a little earlier considering it took so long for the clay to dry. Other than that I am extremely happy with the outcome of my project.

From my colleagues, I learned how to think about the story of Macbeth a lot deeper. There were even new things that I learned about the story after hearing how deep some of my classmates thought about their quotes.

After finishing this project, I learned that I knew a lot more about Macbeth than I thought I did. I am much more confident when reading Shakespeare now because this project really taught me how to analyze and look deeper into quotes.

Serge Mass Macbeth Shoe

Posted by Sergei Mass in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 10:13 am

My project is about how Macbeth's character changed as the story progressed. It shows how he was in the beginning of the story to the end with the use of color. I chose to use a shoe because I have a passion of collecting shoes. The red paint on the shoe shows the blood Macbeth is in and how the blood is corrupting him and his sanity. Then the red turns to black to signify his down fall.

My process with this project was pretty long. I put in about 8 1/2 hours of work for this piece of art. I had to plaster a pair of black canvas vans. Then paint them red. Then let them dry. After I had to paint the back half black. Then after the shoe was done I had to write all 5 quotes on the nylon ribbon. Then to make the white nylon ribbon look like shoe laces, I made gold lace tips. Then on my canvas board, I hot glued red and black ribbon to the canvas and made them intersect at one point to show the transition and change of Macbeth's character. Once all the glue was dry, I glued the shoe to the board and the laces crossing the shoe.

One difficulty I encountered was the plaster would not mold to the shoe. I had to cool the hot glue and glue the plaster to the shoe. If I would of use the hot glue when it was hot, it would of burned through the plaster and ruined my work.

I am most proud of my final product because it was the hardest I have ever worked on a project and I feel passionate about my work.

I would of used a jordan sneaker and I would of used my Angelus paint to make a custom wearable shoe. It would have been amazing.

I learned that time and hard work pays off because I spent my whole day sunday to do this project and it was worth it.

I learned that if I don't rush things I can have an amazing output or product. I am capable of so much if I take my time. It shows in my pictures below. I also learned that I have a tendency to rush things.

Macbeth Creative Blog

Posted by Morgan Caswell in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 10:13 am

This project was the creative part of an academic quote analysis of Macbeth. I personally chose to write a song because I am a pianist and I found this an effective way to communicate the downfall of Lady Macbeth. While she was not the tragic hero in this play, she is one of Shakespeare's only strong female characters. She was power hungry and then manipulated her husband into killing people for the crown. This eventually lead to her ultimate demise as the guilt became too much for her to deal with as she fell into suicidal insanity.

My process in the was difficult to begin with but it became easier as things went along. It was hard to see how I should start with the music, but once I got started it was easy to tell the story without words through music.

As always, I think the hardest part was to start and to see how this story was going to be told within music. I just played with different sounds and different musical concepts until something felt right and then I stuck with it. Things pretty much fell in place once I got that done

. I am most proud of the ending to the music. I really like the way it end because its very full of tension and very dramatic and then the music is softer and then ends. I think that really fit her insanity and ultimately her death by suicide. This was a dramatic play and I think that fits well.

There are things I would have changes about the music. I would have made a few different choices about maybe using a higher or lower key at times. I believe music is never going to be perfect and with every composing project I do there is something I would change. My music is never going to be perfect; but that's something I really appreciate about the art form. Its a constant strive for perfection we will never reach.

I learned that there are many many ways to show the same concept. People made art in many ways, like sculptures and someone did something dominos and the crown. I didn't think that with something so old, such as Macbeth, that it could be so relevant today and that kinds who are 14/15 could produce such creative things with it.

I learned that I really like using music to express things; that it really is a powerful art form. I never had the chance to use music in middle school for anything academic, so coming to high school and getting to use it has really been something powerful and different. When I read Romeo and Juliet in 8th grade I swore I didn't like Shakespeare; I thought it was very formal, stuffy, and irrelevant to the world today. But getting to use it in both academic and artistic mediums has made it much more powerful and interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXc5tXQm0Zg

The Corruption of Macbeth

Posted by Nashay Day in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 10:06 am

For my creative portion of my project, I chose 3 quotes from my thesis, and brought them to life in fashion sketches. Each color, and garment, represents an adjective that I feel Macbeth or Lady Macbeth exhibited at that specific point in time.

I have a weird creative process when sketching fashion designs, I go outside and look for inspiration, I try to close my eyes as least as possible because anything you see can inspire you. When I found inspiration, I then went straight to my pencil, markers, rulers, and, paper, and got right to sketching. I spent 1 day for each sketch because I wrote a a brief dialogue discussing why I chose the colors, and garment options for each quote.

I encountered various difficulties throughout my creative process, I did not have enough time to put forth the quality that I wanted. I wish I could go back and give myself more time and manage the time that I had much more wisely.

I learned from the feedback of my peers, that my sketches could have been better, but my reasoning behind them was phenomenal.

I learned that I can put forth much more effort. If I set intermediate deadlines for myself, I would have been able to bring much more to the table for this creative piece.