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I remember when I first heard that I was going to be in both of Mr.Block’s English and History classes. “I don’t want my advisor as a teacher for two of my classes this year” I thought to myself. But that was 9 months ago and since then, I’ve learned more in 9 months then I ever thought I would in two years. I’ve learned more about African American History in World History than I did taking the class in my 9th grade year. I learned about current events that I would have never even took the time to learn about because I don’t turn to the news. But why turn to the news when your classroom has all the information that you need inside?  

        Throughout the year, I’ve learned many things. One thing that stuck with me and will continue to throughout  my life is that “Language is not just a form of speaking.” Before English class, I never thought of language as broadly as I do now. Language isn’t just something you only speak. You can express language in many ways. You can express it through art, movement, or even writing. One way I’ve expressed language in a different form is through a online website called Prezi that showcased my project from a novel I read called “Persepolis”. This book taught me a lot about identity and I reflected that through my project. 

         I learned that language can make you see the world differently like looking through a different lens to help one create a better understanding of the world. Viewing this not just from your eyes, but from the eyes of others in the city, country, and the world can help you understand much more about others cultures and their lives. Looking through a different lens made me realize that not everyone had the opportunities and privileges that others may have. Teenagers have to work and can’t even attend school in some country’s because they have to support their families. Looking through my lens showed me that I shouldn’t take things for granted. For every person that has, there is someone who has not. 

         Almost everyday through out the school year, my class wrote journals for English and History. The journals were based off of we were covering in class for that unit and the different projects we did based off these topics. Writing about what we were doing in class gave me a better mind set of what we were learning. Doing journals everyday was something I always looked forward to coming to class. To me, that was the best part of class. Being able to express your opinions in words. A day in English class, we had to write an optimistic version of what is going to happen to the world in the next 50 years. This journal entry made me realize a lot about the world and what it is going to come to. It made me want to make a change so future generations could live better. 

Below is a link to a presentation of qoutes that I've read and heard through out the year in both English and History class. 

(Please copy and paste link)

file:///Users/asharrieff/Desktop/Englsih%20portfolio%20/assets/

player/KeynoteDHTMLPlayer.html#0

Below is an History Journal that stood out to me the most this year.

http://www.scienceleadership.org/blog/History_journal:2

Below is a link to my poetry portfolio.

http://ironpoetry2013.wikispaces.com/Aateeyah+Sharrieff

What is negative space?

Negative space is a picture in black and white showing difference in the lights vs. darks

Explain how you found negative space in 

1. your cut out?, 2. in your still life drawing?

I found it through the different colors in my cut out, I found it in the realness of the still life.

Why does it help an artist to see in negative space?

Because it gives you two views to art.

Does seeing in negative space enhance drawings, why or why not?

Inquiry: Inquiry was used since I didn't really know much about my element. This project for me involved a lot of inquiry. I wondered things like what can I draw for my element and whats the atomic number of it.  

Research: To start this project, we first needed to know about the element that was given to us. Research was used to help find out what things related with our element, so that it could be turned into a piece of art. 

Collaboration: With our friends we helped each other by giving suggestions and better ideas. We worked together to make each of our art piece the best it could be. 

Presentation: Our art piece will be presented on this blog and on the walls of our school, so we tried to make it nice and presentable. My art piece are professionally pictured. 

Reflection: I had a lot of fun doing this project. We didn't just use pencils and papers, lots of cool things were given for us to use. I think my final product is really nice and I like it a lot. 

         “Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” ― Albert Einstein. 

This past school year in English and History, I gained a better understanding about what is currently going on in the world. I learned that there is so much stuff going on around us that we are unaware of. Not only did I learn what’s going on around us, but I also got a better insight on the use of language. Language can be your own unique way of communicating. Whether it’s art, poetry, making up your own words, or just speaking how you grew up speaking, language can be versatile. Overall, I gained a better understanding of what is going on in the world around me. 

One of the things we learned about this year in History was the Renaissance. The Renaissance  involved a lot of art. Artists in the Renaissance used art to express themselves, or to express their admiration of people and places. Art in the renascence was a big form a language for the artists who made them. It was their way of communicating to the community. On one of my Renaissance assignments I wrote, “Artists discovered how to paint in three dimensions, bringing realism to their subjects. They broke away from the religious traditions of the medieval world, and the created new genres of art.” I got this from the research that I did on the Artists in the Renaissance. The artists communicated to the community by catching their eye with new genres of art. Here is one of my Renaissance assignments. This affects the world today because many of these Artists became famous legends. Today, the world is inspired by them because they made a statement saying that, you can speak through art. 

Another form of language is poetry. One of our units this year in English was a poetry unit, and in this unit we had to create different types of poetry. Throughout this unit I got to communicate my thoughts and feelings into poetry. Actually poetry is one of the ways that I communicate my feelings, and also just writing. They are forms of my language because I’m free to write them however I please. I can say what I want, and not have to worry about what people may think. Here is one of my lines of poetry, “My heart was calmly waiting for me recognize what was right in front of my eyes...”. You can read more here. At the end of the unit we had a poetry festival where everyone shared their poems. Each poem was different because everyone had their own way of writing, and that’s what makes poetry a universal language. Another example is English journal #21 where I wrote about my opinion on having a mask. Society doesn't always allow us to speak freely, so we use art to speak for us. 

We also had language unit in English. In this unit we had to write a language autobiography about our own language. In my autobiography I talked about how I purposely make an effort to have perfect grammar, because I don’t want to be judged by society. Of course I still make mistakes, but I purposely correct myself. In my autobiography, I stated, “I let the use of grammar control me so much, that when I say something incorrectly I automatically feel ashamed. I get embarrassed and I come down even harder on myself. At other times I’m afraid to speak up because I’m afraid of how I will sound, that I may not sound right, or that I won’t make sense.” I came to the realization that language is whatever you want it to be, not what society wants it to be. This year in English helped me realize that one of the ways the world defines you is by how you speak. 

Another assignment we did in English was a descriptive essay. In my essay I described my experience going house hunting. My mom and I had never moved, so it was pretty new going house hunting. Moving involved adjusting to our surroundings, and we didn’t know where we were going to move. We had to step out of our comfort zone anyway, and take a leap. Since we were ready for whatever we would come across, it was easier for us to embrace moving. Now, because we did step out of our comfort zone, we moved, and adjusted to our surroundings just fine. To embrace change in this world, you have to take a leap.  

In conclusion, my knowledge and understanding has definitely expanded in History, and English. I’m very much aware of what’s going in the world that I was never aware of before. I’ve learned so much about current events in the world, past events, and things that happened in history that affect us today. I’m very grateful that I’ve learned what I’ve learned this year. Many of the things that I’ve learned, I will continue to carry with me. Like Dr. Seuss said, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” I know that carrying the things I’ve learned with me will open many doors for me to go many places. 

For my senior project, I decided to do a fashion show, to allowed the SLA community to be apart of it by designing their clothing and showing some skills they have. At first, I did not know where to start. I was confused on how exactly I wanted my capstone to be. Finally, I decided that I wanted each designer to create something that is already made into something new. I wanted the designers to also choose who they want as their models, and what designs they want their models to have. Everyone is not perfect, some people wants to do something once in a lifetime, but they cannot because no one has given them a chance. I felt as though having anyone in my show and as my designer was fine with me. It is hard to be something you want in life when there is no one out there who is willing to help you or give you a chance. Even though I may not be the best at speaking or writing, SLA choose to give me a chance as a student, which made me who I am today. Everything I have learned, I learned it from my SLA family. Therefore, everyone has a passion for something but may not be good at it, so I was actually looking for people like that. Also, I did not want any discrimination towards anyone, so I did not do any tryouts or pick and choose people. As the week went by, I changed up a few things because I came up with new ideas, I needed the SLA community to help me donate clothes, shoes etc., or anything they did not want. The next week, I more and more about how exactly am I going to do this in so little time. I watched Youtube fashion shows and read more articles on how to create clothing, for example cutting sewing and even styles that I thought were cute. After weeks of researching, I found 5 designers who were interested in being a part of my capstone. I told them exactly how I was confused on what to do exactly but I will soon figure things out. So with the help of the SLA community, I was able to get two big bins of clothes and other things. I showed my designer some ideas I learned from researching, and how I wanted them to present their designs. 

  Each week I changed my capstone, or just made it better with some new ideas. Since I wanted it to be a creating new styles from old style I asked my SLA community to help me by donating clothes they did not want. After, I asked the designers to choose five models to model their clothing. Also, they should sketch out their designs for me. Afterwards, I let the designers buy fabrics and colors for their designer, some of them wanted to sew new clothing but did not in the end. Since it was all about the designers, I then thought of a new idea again. I decided to have five themes for the fashion show since there were five designers. Each designer made two outfits per model. As the process went on, a lot of things changed. Some people were not coming during the week to work on their clothing. Some of them were not able to sew with the sewing machine. Also, one of my of my designers dropped out. At first I wanted to freak out and cry, however I did not because I learned that it would not solve the problem and the show was in a week. So, I decided to create a theme to fill in for the designer that dropped out. I asked a teacher to teach me how to sew. I learned how to sew and dip dye in two to three days time, then I helped some of the designers who needed more time on sewing. Along with this, I asked some of friends from CHAD high school to come in to help because they were the experts at it. The week for the show, I taught the models how to walk, asked the camera crew to record for the show and got the DJ, makeup, performers, all that I needed. Overall, at the end of the day, my show went well, because everyone that I asked to help me did their part, and I made sure everything was set up correctly. A lot of the people in the SLA community helped the show to be great, so without my designers and them, the show would not have happened. 

I am most proud of myself, I really had no idea how to start at first but I just know I needed to start, so as weeks went by, I came up with more and more ideas for the designers and i never depended on anything. I always have a back up for just in case. I learned a lot of things threw out this process, I never knew anything about sewing clothes or cutting patterns for the clothes before sewing the clothes. I also learn that teamwork is the most valuable thing you need to a fashion show. But if I had the chance to do it all over again, I would start earlier on plaining things, instead of waiting, I would work with the models for a long time instead of waiting the week of the show. SLA is a better place because I allowed some of my following SLA students to show their talents or got the chance to do something they always wanted to do but never got the chance to do it. Maybe, it change some people lives, some of them may want to become a model or have more confident in performing now. Also, the diversity I made the show to have, everyone felt comfortable with what they was representing, each styles represents something and I feel really good that I was able to make some people feel confident of what they do.

Clip 1 22:20 - 23:50

Educacion

Durante el clip los soldados toman los niños de sus escuela. Este es un violación de educación derecho. Los niños son solo doce y estando fuerza luchar en la guerra. En la militaria no el cosa sola ellos enseñar los niños es como disparar un arma de fuego. Los niños no tienen escuela media y estando tomado hacen soldados.

Clip 2 de 56:50-57:10

Tortura

Clip 3 de 58:20-59:50

Libertad de pensamiento y libertad de reunión pacíficas

Durante esto clip la sacerdote es predicación a todo de la gente sobre la guerra. Este es un ejemplo de defendiendo  libertad de pensamiento y reunión pacíficas. Como la sacerdote habló mas gentes juntaron escuchar. La sacerdote fuera haciendo mal nunca por expresando su pensamiento así los soldados no pudieron interviene.

This is the last quarter of Advanced Art, and we continued to finish up on drawingspace.com. I learned so much from the site, and my drawing skills have improved. I started with Section H, which was focusing more on face, lips, and the human body. But drawing these helped me with shading and make things in 3D look more realistic. I applied all the things I learned this quarter and improved on my drawings. My favorite drawing from this section is the kid that looks as if he is running, I applied all the skills I learned into this one photo for sure.

The next and last section I focused on was section I. This was a difficult, yet very interesting section, this section tied in all of the new things I know about drawing. I expressed my creativity through my number 2 pencil creating some of the best pictures I ever drew. One of my favorite pictures from this section is the turtle, I shaded, sketched, and made sure it looked real as possible. 

Once I finished that, I remade a art project I did a while back. I copied another artist photo, on a huge paper. I believed my skills and art talents improved, so re drawing this seemed like such a great idea. Once I finished I told my self my hardwork payed off, my art skills improved and now I call my self a true artist. Look below for the final picture, good bye readers.

Review by Todd Samuels

This children’s novel starts out in a dystopic place. It is a fictional story. Though it is first seen as a utopia by the reader initially. The story follows the main character named Jonas, Jonas is 12 years old. In this fictional society Jonas lives in the society converted to a practice called “Sameness”. The society elects Jonas to be in the position of “Receiver Of Memory”. 

This is a custom in their society that when you turned 12 you were given the job you would have for the rest of their life. For Jonas this meant he was to remember the past ways of all the times before the practice of “Sameness”. He then meets the previous receiver The “Giver”. Jonas initially is confused at the knowledge that is being presented to him. Jonas realizes that his society is deprived of so much information but if they were to find out about what was going on outside of their little world it could cause major chaos. The people in his community are only happy because they do not know a better life. Jonas questions whether to stay with his community or to leave an to see what else is out there for him to explore.  

He asks The Giver to come with him, they both decide that the time for change was now. Jonas had been curious to know what more of the terms in their society meant like “release”. You might just think the normal definition ‘letting go of something’. The something is this society was being lethally injected upon your will. Even having twins was not legal, the smaller twin was literally thrown away. Jonas knew that this had to change. With his new found interest in the outside elements of affection and wanting change Jonas becomes attached to a child that is in the Nurturing Center which is set to be “released” the second day. He, The “Giver” and the child devise a plan to escape. They do escape and get the where was described to be a land called “Elsewhere”.

I do like this book the story constantly kept me engaged in what was going to happen next. This story was somewhat like the hunger games in a sense with the rather extreme measures that were taken in the story. I do not think that there were any in fact weaknesses in this story it is apparent that it was a well thought out plot which is meant to confuse the reader initially until the reality of the story is revealed. I would definitely change the killing of children, babies I do not think that aspect was necessary although it was a major part of the story the reader will not realize until the end though.

Yes I would recommend this book to other people, it isn’t just your average “Cinderella story” there is substance to the reading which keeps you wanting more in my opinion. The author initially draws the reader in with radical customs things that you wouldn’t expect as a first time reader of this story which drew me in as well. The story is well written; and there are three other stories that are a part of the series making four books in total. This is a great reading for all ages.