Deja Harrison Capstone

This was our cheerleading competition for States in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
This was our cheerleading competition for States in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
This was our cheerleading competition for the Philadelphia Districts competition where we took home 2nd place.
This was our cheerleading competition for the Philadelphia Districts competition where we took home 2nd place.
This was The National College Sign in Day after we performed.
This was The National College Sign in Day after we performed.
Cheerleading Competition where we performed choreography the three of us influenced
Cheerleading Competition where we performed choreography the three of us influenced
The seniors who worked very hard this year to set the bar for next season
The seniors who worked very hard this year to set the bar for next season

“Being a Cheerleader - Is Cheerleading a Sport?” The Official Site - Varsity.Com - We Are Cheerleading, www.varsity.com/event/1262/being-a-cheerleader-sport.


With this source I looked into the age old question that typically comes when hearing about cheerleading. Is cheerleading a sport or not? This article spoke about what it truly means to be a cheerleader and what cheerleaders go through on a day to day basis. It gave a lot of detail about the definition of the word sport and how there is no solid definition for an official sport. According to the article what makes a sport an official sport is it involving some form of physical activity, competing against opponents and acknowledgement of the competition that has a primary purpose such as the super bowl or the world series.


Pennington, Bill. “As Cheerleaders Soar Higher, So Does the Danger.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 30 Mar. 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/03/31/sports/31cheerleader.html


This source helped me highlight the importance of staying safe in cheerleading. Many people believe that cheer is all dance and chants but it is far more complex. We are lifting up girls that are our weight or more so in order to avoid danger we have to take special precaution. This article also talks about how sports like football have armor and cheerleaders do just as much if not more than they do without an armor at all. It is a lot more dangerous for cheerleaders than it is for those of other sports for these reasons. I believe this is why cheerleading is the most dangerous sport.


Mather, Victor. “Great Moments in Cheerleading: Could the Olympics Be Next?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 Dec. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/12/08/sports/great-moments-in-cheerleading-could-the-olympics-be-next.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FCheerleaders&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection.


This source helped me see more of the evolution of cheer. I got to dive into where cheerleading came from and how it has changed over the years. I think this source is important because it represents like an old school way of thinking about cheer. I feel like a lot of people see cheer as more of a hobby just because of how it was represented in the past. I want people to see that cheer is a constant growing and complex sport. I feel as though this source is more of a timeline of the cheerleading spectrum. It really helped me in getting into the history of cheerleading.


Almasy, Steve. “Cheerleaders prep for hours in search of 2½ minutes of perfection.” CNN, Cable News Network, 15 July 2011, www.cnn.com/2011/US/07/15/sports.sweep.allstar.cheerleading/index.html.


This source helped give a more detail explanation of what cheerleaders go through. Practice is very intense and everything that follows it as well. It goes into detail about training and goals in order to succeed in the sport. I feel like it helps explain what cheerleaders strive so hard for. A title and a trophy just like every other sport. It also speaks on the risk in the sports such as injuries that I believe people don’t know enough about. Cheerleaders work just as hard as other athletes if not harder because they compete for a certain amount of time and have to give there all in a 2 to 3 minute window. That one performance is all they have and there is no coming back from it.



BetterBraces.com. “Cheerleading: The Most Dangerous Sport.” ACTIVEkids, Active.com, 2 Mar. 2016, www.activekids.com/cheerleading/articles/cheerleading-the-most-dangerous-sport.


This source goes to further explain the difficulty of the cheerleading as a sport. It speaks more on the stats of injuries for cheer. It helped me see and explain cheerleading and everything that comes with it. It talks about what practices and coaching looks and sounds like. It gives the percentages of injuries as well. It also brings up the good point that when typically thinking about injuries in sports people immediately think of sports like football and basketball. I feel like this source helps me prove the point that cheer is a very complex sport being that they called in the most dangerous in the world.


Morgan, Richard. “Cheerleading has evolved into a billion-Dollar business.” New York Post, New York Post, 24 Apr. 2017, nypost.com/2017/04/24/cheerleading-has-evolved-into-a-billion-dollar-business/.


This article speaks more on the cost of cheerleading and the number of people involved in it. Apparently it is in the midst of becoming an Olympic sport. I find that extremely interesting because the sport is heavily doubted and it is a very difficult sport. I believe that it does become apart of the Olympics it will finally get the recognition it deserves. This source helped me bring up my point that many people are involved in the sport men and women of all different ages. I pulled a lot of quotes about the involvement of people in cheer and some background on where the sport came from.


Cinetic. “American Cheerleader - Official Trailer.” YouTube, YouTube, 9 July 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=caBZRrJT_vw.


This documentary was a very big help in showing and explaining the world of cheerleading. It captures 2 teams preparing to go up against each other for a title. The documentary shows what the sport is all about while also representing all the work that goes into it. I found this source extremely helpful in showing the positives in the sport and accurately portraying what cheerleaders look like. It shows and represents competitive cheerleading and what it’s like to be apart of that and to be in that environment. I think that in my documentary I can incorporate a lot of their ideas about the importance of cheer and how strict everything gets when a competition is involved.


“Cheer Squad.” Netflix, 14 Mar. 2017, www.netflix.com/title/80170845.


This show is another that helped accurately represents the competitive cheer world. The show follows a team in Canada that is known for continuously winning and it follows their journey to multiple competitions. This source helped me alot with really understanding how an all star team works and how much work goes into being on a professional team. From this source I got a lot of ideas on how I want to film my own video. I like the way they set up the show being a lot of videos of interviews and then showing clips of them practicing and competing.


“Bring it on.” Netflix, 1 Jan. 2018, www.netflix.com/title/60001366.


The movie Bring it on is a very good source to me because it captures exactly the opposite of what I am trying to portray in my documentary. It shows the difficulty of the sport and highlights the competition but it still represents a very stereotypical type of cheerleader.  I want my documentary to capture the different aspects of not just cheer but also cheerleaders. This source is kind of what I want to base mhy documentary off I just plan to tell the story of cheer in a better way then the director of this film. I want to show the diversity in the sport.



“Being a Cheerleader - History of Cheerleading.” The Official Site - Varsity.Com - We Are Cheerleading, www.varsity.com/event/1261/being-a-cheerleader-history.


This source really helped me find more information on the history of cheerleading. I got to see where exactly it came from and how it came to be. They spoke on how UCA ( Universal Cheer Association ) and how it started. I think that it really helped me/ figure out where cheer came from and why it’s important. I took a lot of my information from the years everything was established. I hope to use a lot of the dates in my documentary when I’m speaking on the history of cheerleading. I feel like in adding this it will put historical significance in my video.


My capstone focused on the uprising of my competitive cheerleading team. I believe that the cheerleading team which is a combination or SLA Center City and SLA beeber has for too long been cast in the shadows or brushed aside as a non-priority to the school. My team holds first place titles and my girls and I get no recognition for it. The purpose of my capstone was to gain exposure and opportunity for the cheerleading team so that a legacy can be left and the team can thrive without the seniors who are moving on. My goal was to show people the world of competitive cheer and help them realize the significance of the sport. My capstone started in the summertime with small performances, interviews on the news and attending a cheerleading camp that featured teams from all over the country. It lead up until college sign in day where we performed and gained global recognition from the media. In doing all of this with my team I learned the importance of collaboration. Through being on the team together we bonded and I am extremely lucky to have them because they helped me so much in my process. My process included finding events for us to perform at such as our performance at the annual Halloween Fashion Show SLA has, coming up with dances and cheers for the team to perform with, having an abundance of practices and fundraising to get us new uniforms and materials we needed for competitions.

Darlenny Rodriguez Visual Essay


Taming of the Plastics

A compare and contrast of the play “Taming of the Shrew” and the movie “Mean Girls”


Romantic relationships are by far the most difficult to comprehend, despite the time period or parties involved. The play “Taming of the Shrew” and film “Mean Girls”  sheds lights on these complexities. Mean girls follows an extremely mathematically gifted 17-year-old Cady Heron who after being homeschooled her entire life is about to start High School. There she meets three “it” girls named the Plastics whom Cady grows fund of, ultimately mimicking their behavior to gain the attention of one Aaron Samuel. The play Taming of the Shrew follows newlywed Katherine and Petruchio, Petruchio only having married Katherine to receive the dowry from her father. Katherine is a very dominant personality, but so is Petruchio, but over time becomes more submissive to avoid confrontation.  Both the film and the play show this idea of women altering themselves to please a man. The difference in Mean Girls is that this concept is much more frowned upon because of how the idea has evolved.

Petruchio: [to servants.] Go on, and fetch our horses back again.-

Evermore crossed and crossed, nothing but crossed!

Hortensio ,[to Katherine]: Say as he says, or we shall never go.

Katherine: Forward, I pray , since we have come so far, And be it moon, or sun, or what you please. And if you please to call it a rush candle”


(Act 4, Scene 5, Line 9-17)


While on their way to Baptista Minola's house in Padua, Petruchio notes that the moon shines brightly, despite it being midday. Katherine tries to argue this claim, but when Petruchio threatens to turn around and go home, she agrees with him to prevent an argument. She is usually more opinionated and strong willed, being referred to as “fiend of hell” by characters in the play. However, to avoid a bigger issue with her husband, she agrees with his thoughtless comment.


This is much like the math class scene in Mean Girls.





(Screenshot, 0:40:17)


In this scene, Cady has purposely failed a test. When all else attempts of getting Aaron Samuels’ attention fail, Cady has decided to step up her game. When asking for help won't suffice, an extremely keen-at-math Cady fails her math test so that she can request Aaron’s tutelage. This will give her a chance to spend more time with Aaron and relate to him better since he is not so math savy himself. Both Cady and Katherine were very different before meeting their significant other, but once meeting them they alter their personalities for them. Katherine to please her husband and Cady to grab Aarons attention.

“Such duty as the subject owes the prince
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebe

(Act 5, Scene 2, Line 171- 175 )


This quote was apart of Katherine’s grand soliloquy life explanation of a wife's duty to her husband.  She compares husbands and wives to princes and subjects. She goes on to bow down to her Petruchio's feet and fondle them. This is the same Katherine who at the beginning of the novel smacked Petruchio across the face because of a disagreement they had. That smack showed her dominance, but this Katherine is much more submissive to her husband.


This is much like Cady who instead of changing her opinions, changes her physical appearance


(Screenshot, 56:11)


This is where Cady's big change appearance wise is highlighted. She is having a party at her house, where she has invited Aaron Samuels. In this scene she speaks about how Aaron is going to see her all dressed up instead of in the horrible halloween costume she wore in previous scenes in the movie. At the beginning of the film, Cady wore a “bride of frankenstein” costume to a high school halloween party Aaron invited her to but didn't get the memo that in the film,  halloween was an excuse for the women in the film to dress provocatively. Most of the girls showed up in one pieces and bunny ears, while Cady came dressed as the bride of Frankenstein blood and all. That scene really highlighted Candy's personality, while this scene highlights her transformation from bold Cady to trying to impress Aaron Cady. Much like the two distinct scenes about Katherine where she goes from smacking her husband because she disagreed with him to saying that wives are a husband's subject and are to do whatever to please them. The one common thing these two storylines have in common is the motives behind each characters metamorphosis, the men in their lives and their need to please them by altering themselves.



“For I will board  her, though she chide as loud

As thunder when the clouds in autumn crack”

(Act 1, Scene 2 ,Lines 96- 97)


After Hortensio and Gremio, two of Katherine’s sisters’ suitors, go on about Katherines shrew like ways, Petruchio proclaims that he can tame her. He says this as a way to impress the other, because to them the person who is able to change Katherine is manlier. Women changing to please men is praised in this era.


This is not the case in Mean Girls



(Screenshot, 50:13)


Cady has been pulled aside by her teacher after she notices she has been failing on purpose to woo Aaron Samuels. She tells her that women do not have to change themselves to please a man and that she shouldn’t dumb herself down for him either. Her view on this is much more disapprovin than that of the suitors towards Katherine changing for petruchio. Cady’s teacher views it as a negative thing that shouldn't be done because she thinks Cady should be herself and not change for a boy. Meanwhile, the suitors would praise Petruchio if Katherine were to become more submissive and subject-like. There is a difference as to how people view this concept because of how a female's role in a relationship has evolved through the years.


In the end, ultimately Cady ends up exiled from her friends who disapprove of her new personality and man pleasing ways. Which reinforced this concepts of how a woman changing herself for a guy is much more frowned upon than Katherine submitting to Petruchio. While this idea is still around because Cady had to dress much more provocatively to get Aaron's samuels to take a liking unto her and Katherine had to submit to make her marriage work. While both plot lines have its differences, the similarities are uncanny.  


Elani Gonzalez-Ortiz Capstone

For my capstone, I hosted a Day of Diversity. The Day of Diversity celebrated all forms of diversity within the School District of Philadelphia. I wanted to host a Day of  Diversity because I believe that the diversity within the school district is very unappreciated and I wanted to celebrate and show the importance of diversity within schools. The actual creation of my capstone was a long process that took me most of the year to thoroughly plan out. There were a series events that went into planning my event. The two biggest essential questions that I constantly come up when I was planning my capstone were ¨what does it take to host a successful event?¨ and ¨what do I want people to get out of this?¨. I hosted my event at Greenfield in the courtyard because I did not want a capstone that people felt like it was a chore to go to. I wanted it outside because it was an activist event with a fun twist. At my actual event, I had a series of fun activities that people were able to participate in, water ice, an open mic, and music! I had a great turn out and I am very happy with how my capstone turned out!
Beginning of my capstone festivities
Beginning of my capstone festivities
people participating
people participating
my mentor and i
my mentor and i
me serving water ice
me serving water ice
engaging in my own activities
engaging in my own activities


Work Cited


When I first came across this source, I first believed it to be not useful. I thought the dates that were presented were too outdated for me to be able to use them. I am able to use the demographics of this school from the past and I can compare them to more recent ones. There is also shows how the demographics have increased and decreased throughout the years in this one particular school. With that being said, this source is in fact useful for my capstone, I am now, with this source, able to use the historical demographics of this school and see if anything has changed.

  • “Main Menu:” The School District of Philadelphia, www.philasd.org/.

I selected this source because this source is the entirety of my capstone. My capstone revolves around the School District of Philadelphia therefore, I need to use the School District of Philadelphia´s website. This source gives me access to all of the School District Schools. It provides the necessary information I need about location, demographics, school population, etc. Though this source provides me with most of the information I need for my capstone it does not provide everything. This source does not provide some information that should be easily accessible and on the website and it is not so I am able to use that as a key part of my capstone.

  • “Your next great diversity job awaits you.” What is Diversity ?, www.diversity.com/page/What-is-Diversity.

I chose this source because it provides a universal definition of what diversity is. This source gave the definition of diversity but not in the way we mostly see it; they provided a definition that did not only have to do with race but with all sorts of differences. They gave the definition of diversity that I am going to use in my capstone. In my capstone I am not only going to speak about diversity in the sense of race but I am going to speak about religion, sex, socioeconomic status, etc. I am going to speak about the diversity in the School District of Philadelphia as a whole.

  • “Pennsylvania School District Demographic Profiles.” Click for info, proximityone.com/pa_sdc.htm.

I chose this source because this source provides information about the demographics about multiple schools in Philadelphia. This source is very useful to my capstone because it provides demographics in a universal sense. They not only provide race demographics but they provide demographics relating to socioeconomic status which is a crucial part of my capstone. Diversity in schools relates to school neighborhoods and school neighborhoods have to do with socioeconomic status. My capstone shows how diversity shifts throughout schools and neighborhoods and this source shows all of that. -

  • “How to Host a Profitable Educational Workshop.” Www.ideafit.com, www.ideafit.com/fitness-library/how-to-host-a-profitable-educational-workshop.

When I first found and read this source, I did not think that i related to my topic at all. This source talks about how to host engaging physical fitness and health workshops. Even though this source speaks about hosting physical fitness and health workshops it still provided the necessary information to host engaging workshops. For my capstone, I am hosting a Day of Action which is just a day filled with workshops. Because my entire event consist of workshops I need to know how to properly host workshops that are educational and engaging.

  • “Data Dive: How Do Demographics Affect Performance at Philadelphia Public High Schools? WHYY, whyy.org/articles/data-dive-how-do-demographics-affect-performance-at-philadelphia-public-high-schoolms/.

When I first found this source I found it immediately interesting. I thought that  something that I need to add to my capstone,. This article speaks about how the demographics of Philadelphia high schools affect student performance. This article just strengthens my capstone idea about how important diversity is and how we need to appreciate it more. The basis of my capstone is celebrating diversity and bring about diversity awareness. I want to show the importance of diversity and this article is a direct source to that; this source directly shows how diversity affects students and their performance in school.

I chose this source because it is a list of the most diverse high schools in Philadelphia. I want to show the correlation between diversity and schools. This source provided  the most diverse high school in Philadelphia, the thing about all of most of these high schools is that they are magnet schools. The rest of the schools are public neighborhood schools. At my capstone I am going to have a panel of speakers that brings up the topic “should we keep magnet schools?” This is important to my capstone because it seems as though the only diverse schools are magnet schools but if we get rid of magnet schools then maybe neighborhood schools would become more diverse.


Christian McCormac Capstone Hull

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1905639A-F554-4067-87FC-BBF38A447650
95572B6C-6422-47A9-8CD6-7B0133CE9DD2
95572B6C-6422-47A9-8CD6-7B0133CE9DD2
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​For my senior capstone, I decided to work with automobile photography in which included working with the photoshop application during my school time, traveling to different auto shows and picking out right sized frames and color schemes. The process of working with Photoshop during school included cutting the Bugatti out of its original picture, and turning the background all black. For the Ferrari I did the same thing but I turned the background into all grass. I've went through my photography portfolio and choose the best automobile that I thought best fit the frame. This also included collecting and recycling picture frames with my dad, all in which we found at house clean outs what belonged to the prior owners of the houses we were “furnish-gutting”. The frames from the houses indeed held family photos, posters, pop culture memorabilia and etc. What was a bit difficult about this part of my project was that I had to decide what frame will best fit the photo that was I going to put in it. What I did was de-framed some of the frames, took the glass out, then decided to repaint all of the picture frames to aesthetically coincide with the pictures that I thought would best fit. I decided to paint some of them and also leave some of them in their natural state that they were in. I then went to staples to get the photos blown up then I had to take them home and put all the pictures into the frames. I had to take postcards and write out an informative description about each car, and where the photos were taken. I also utilized school during school hours and painted the walls on the third floor ballroom all white for my capstone. I had a huge blast doing this project because it's something I'm very passionate about. I want everyone at SLA to see these pictures that i’ve travel to take, ultimately spending countless hours with my brother and father learning about. It would be amazing to see everyone’s face when they look at my capstone and hopefully say “wow!” I’ve learned a lot from doing this capstone, especially about how much planning goes into holding a school event. I learned how much time it takes to make one event happen and how many different people I had to connect with, which also ties into communication skills.

Liv Cooper Capstone

positivity scale
positivity scale
positivity scale
positivity scale
react to compliment or idea
react to compliment or idea
mouth movement during reaction
mouth movement during reaction
Abstract
My initial influence for the topic of this project was a video I came across on Facebook a few years back. It was about a girl who recorded the reactions of her classmates to her complimenting them. Although the basis of my project is the same as her’s, I decided to take it one step further by analyzing and graphing them different aspects of their reactions. Throughout the process I had a bit of trial and error where I realized that if I told some of my peers I was taking a picture rather than taking a video, they would stay still rather than react. On top of that, while analyzing the reactions I attempted to graph three different physical aspects of each person’s reactions; their mouth, their hands, and their eyes and there ended up being too many different motions to categorize them efficiently. Overall, I think that after my trials and errors I came out with a project that I’m happy with and proud of. My favorite part of this entire project was that I got to contribute to my community and hopefully make some people smile and feel happier than they were. It made me feel good to compliment people even if they didn’t seem to appreciate it but also, the people who had overwhelmingly positive responses, I was so happy to have made an impact on them even just for a minute. Through all of this I learned that small things can make a person’s day but also, my opinion on compliments isn’t too different from others’ and that made me feel more secure in my perspective.

Annotated Bibliography
Brice, Makini. “Science Explains Why Compliments Feel so Good.” Medical Daily, 9 Nov. 2012, collegeboard.org/?TST=0d7a6828t82e5tsabbtbedst3f0a382beab1&userName=LUVLIVI9098.
This article talks about the scientific explanation as to why compliments feel good. The brain reacts in the same way as if you were being given money or a social reward. All of these things, receiving compliments, cash and/or a social reward, activate the same part of the brain. They all make people strive to do better. So this made me begin to question why it is that I, possibly as well as many others, have a negative response to compliments if they have this is true. I feel like the group of students I use is a good test group to possibly disprove this explanation of why compliments feel so good.

Coughlin, Sara, et al. “How To Give A Compliment Someone Will Really Take To Heart.” Nice Things To Say - Giving Genuine Compliments, Advice, Refinery29, 7 Dec. 2017, www.refinery29.com/giving-compliments-nice-things-to-say.
The difference between complimenting a stranger and someone who you value more and put them on a higher pedestal. The difference between complimenting someone’s outside and someone’s inside. These differences make all the difference. You can tell anyone that you like their jacket, something they’re impartial to, but complimenting someone’s eyes or something that makes then nique or that they can’t control it enacts something deeper within. It’s just a jacket that 700 other people have but everyone’s eyes look different or their smile. The response for an external compliment could be, “oh I got it as a present for christmas,” or, “I’m borrowing it from a friend.” That aesthetic is something they can control by wearing it or not but somethings you can’t change.

Glover, Shea. “People React to Being Called Beautiful.” Youtube, Shea Glover, 27 May 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW8BDgLpZkI.
This video is the main inspiration for this entire project. I saw it on Facebook a while back and in that moment I decided that’s what I wanted to do. I want to recreate the idea of thi video by complimenting my classmates on camera. Personally I hate compliments. They make me extremely uncomfortable. It is also because of this that I decided to do this for my capstone. Along with the compilation video of my classmates reactions to being complimented, I’ll be adding a statistical component to it. I will be rating their reactions on a scale from 1-10 on how similar I would react. I’ll be doing this to see how unusual my reaction/opinion on compliments is compared to other people my age.

Marano, Hara Estroff. “The Art of the Compliment.” Psychology Today, 1 Mar. 2004.
“Compliments derive from taking notice of praiseworthy situations and efforts. So they are a mark of awareness and consciousness. We need to cultivate awareness of the good developments that are all around us.” While this is true, a possible reasoning behind my negative reaction to compliments is that I dislike that there is a mark of awareness made and it makes me uncomfortable. I can’t say that over time I’ve developed a dislike or I’ve become more comfortable with them over time because I haven’t. Like honestly, I can say that I’ve never seen myself be comfortable with receiving a compliment.

Manning, Margaret. “Want to Feel More Positive? Learn to Give Genuine Compliments.” Happify.com, Happify Daily, www.happify.com/hd/learn-to-give-genuine-compliments/.
This article talks about the positivity expressed with compliments but imagine the exuberance in just everyday normal positivity. That takes it above and beyond can light up people from just being around you. Not only can it bring others up but also you can gain more self confidence from it. It can change your aspirations to something positive or realistic. I think that this is good because for some people it’s hard to be nice but the lasting effects can persuade them to be better and maybe compliments are not their forte so they just exude confidence, positivity and happiness.

McKay, Brett & Kate. “How to Give a Good Compliment.” The Art of Manliness, The Art of Manliness, 27 Nov. 2017, www.artofmanliness.com/2012/12/13/too-seldom-is-heard-an-encouraging-word-why-and-how-to-offer-more-compliments/.
The reason I read this article is because I enjoyed the main focus of why you should give compliments. It encourages you to be more positive and encouraging to other people and it can make you feel good. When recording my clips, I loved seeing the genuine reactions people had because even though I hate receiving compliments, I love giving them. I love seeing people light up when they hear it. It make me feel warm inside and it makes me react the same way that they do. 

McNamara, Brittney. “People React to Women Saying "I Know" to Compliments.” Teen Vogue, 16 May 2017.
I think this article is about empowering women and not just against things that are blatantly objectifying them but also exposing people with bad intentions. For example, a screenshot in the article showed a woman agreeing with a man’s compliment on her hair and it led to him suggesting that her agreement with him could possibly persuade him to like it less to which she responded, “why would the fact that I like my hair too make you like it less? Of course I like my hair, its on my head.” This fuels the idea that women should be grateful for the compliments they receive from men which is wrong especially when masking bad intentions.

Millward, Jon. “Your Noun Looks So Adjective: The Science of Compliments.” Jon Millward, 23 Apr. 2015, http://jonmillward.com/blog/psychological-subtleties/the-anatomy-of-a-compliment-and-art-of-giving-one/
This article talks about the art of forming a compliment that suits the person you wish to compliment. I think that this article makes a  lot of sense and can be helpful but it also encourages the idea of using compliments to gain something from the person you compliment. Anyone can give a compliment but this article, to me, teaches people how to format a compliment to exceed basic flattery. Again, on the topic of cat calling or hitting on someone in general, this could be used to help formulate a compliment that could get you farther than shouting things to people on the street or the cheezy, and sometimes disrespectful, pick up lines.

“The New Era of Positive Psychology.” Performance by Martin Seligman, The New Era of Positive Psychology, TED, 21 July 2008, www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psychology.
Positive psychology is basically the study of human prosperity. It was founded by Martin Seligman in the 1990’s. In this TED Talk, he talks about how positive psychology can help patients within themselves. They can do this by being as concerned with their strengths as they are with their weaknesses, as interested in building building the best things in life as they are repairing the worst, and it should be just as concerned with making the lives of normal people fulfilling, and with genius, with nurturing high talent. I think that this can impact perspectives on compliments because this relates to the idea of thinking more highly of yourself and accepting compliments rather than to feel uncomfortable.

Yahne, Rachael. “The Scary Reason You Can't Accept a Compliment.” The Huffington Post, 21 June 2016, www.huffingtonpost.com/rachael-yahne/the-scary-reason-you-cant_b_10580720.html.
This article does a good job at developing a reason why some people can’t accept compliments. With all the media around us or even the people in our everyday environments sometimes we compare ourselves to them and it makes our self worth go down. Even if there is no direct pressure to become like the people we see, we put it on ourselves. I also think that the analysis behind this reaction is accurate and can help others determine what the best solution for this is. The solution stated in the article is to just see yourself in a better light and think more highly of yourself.

Boys Ultimate Qualifies For States!

The Boys Ultimate team competed in the Philadelphia Regional Championships this weekend, coming in second in the region and qualifying for the State Championships on Memorial Day weekend! 

The two day tournament saw SLA square off on Saturday morning against Strath Haven to start off pool play. The Rockets were looking to avenge a loss at the Philadelphia Invitational, and they came out firing on all cylinders. SLA jumped out to a 5-1 lead against Strath Haven and the Rockets never looked back winning 13-5. Next, SLA got the shutout against Methacton, beating them 13-0. Holy Ghost Prep was next, and they pushed the Rockets hard before finally falling 12-9. Finally, SLA beat long-time rivals Radnor 11-9 in a thrilling game that saw six lead changes before SLA finally took the lead for good at 9-8. 

Sunday morning saw the Rockets take on Haverford High in the semi-finals. Haverford came out strong, taking a 4-1 lead against SLA. But the Rockets turned on the jets and turned up the defense, going on a 12-2 run to win the game 13-6. This set up a rematch against Pennsbury HS. The Rockets had lost two one-point games to Pennsbury earlier this year, and the 25th ranked team in the nation has proven time and again how tough they could. Sunday's game was no exception as Pennsbury came back from a three point deficit to win 11-10. 

Despite the loss, the Rockets go to states with their best finish in the region ever, and they stand with a 27-6 record for the spring season. For the tournament, SLA was led by senior Nate Little with 21 goals and eight blocks and junior Eli Zimmerman with 21 assists. Now, the Rockets take on Masterman on Wednesday, May 9th at 31st and Chestnut for their Senior Night game before gearing up for States! 

Go Rockets!


Expectations and Realizations


Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew sets up conventions and expectations for how women are supposed to act in order to be deemed suitable. In Taming of the Shrew, Katherine's narcissism and argumentative approach makes her "unfit" for marriage because she subverts the traditions of women as "submissive." Similarly in "Clueless," Cher, while attempting to scheme and set up relationships among her friends and family, does not have time for her own love interests. While both women share similarities with regard to social status and their attitude towards men, Katherine's expectations are challenged when she is forced into a marriage whereas Cher's are challenged when she realizes a relationship she tried to force herself away from was actually what she should have pursued. ----  


“I’ll see thee hanged on Sunday First”

"Quote from Play"

(Act II, Scene I, 316)  Katherine


In this quote, Katherine is being forced into marriage by her father, and the madman that wanted to marry her named, Petruchio. Their first encounter was rough and violent with bad first impressions being left on both ends. Even so, when Petruchio went back to talk to her father he had given permission for her to marry him and their wedding would happen on that Sunday. Katherine says she would rather be hung than marrying petruchio, her reason being because of the expectations she has set for herself to not treat others nicely as they have not treated her nicely. It will not benefit her to marry this man based off her first encounter with him and from the expectations she has set. In the movie cher seems to have the same problem of having expectations and if a guy doesn’t live up to them then they aren’t worth her time.

Image result for clueless gifs eww get off me ugh as if

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In the early scenes of “Clueless” Cher is walking on the campus of school with her friend Dionne and Dionne gets dragged away by her boyfriend Murray allowing Cher to walk ahead alone. As she is walking a guy approaches her and she pushes him away saying “Eww, get off of me. Ugh! As If!” Cher wants to keep the highschool boys away from her because they don’t fit her expectation of what a guy should be, look, and act. As she continues to walk once pushing the guy off she says, “ I don’t know why Dionne is going out with a highschool boy. They’re like dogs. You have to clean them, and feed them, and they’re just like these nervous creatures that jump and slobber all over you.” When the boys don’t fit the expectation she has set, they aren’t good enough for her. This shows the expectations she has set for herself that she has grown accustomed to by her status and society. She expects all the boys she dates to be older than her, more mature, and is on her level.


“For me, I’ll not be gone till I please myself. ‘Tis like you’ll prove a jolly surly groom, That take it on you at the first so roundly.”

"Quote from Play"

(Act III, Scene II, 218:220) Katherine


In “The Taming of the Shrew,” Katherine is telling her newlywed husband Petruchio that she will not leave to go to his house directly after their wedding because it does not please her to do what someone else wants her to do. Katherine tells her husband that if he loves her then he will stay and do what she wants. She is selfish and neglects to act accordingly even after she is married to Petruchio when during this time period, women are supposed to be the opposite and obey their husbands. In the movie Clueless, Cher is the same way when it comes to be being selfish, except she uses her selfishness to help others when it benefits her.


Image result for clueless gifs josh tells cher shes selfish


In this scene Cher is driving around with her ex stepbrother, Josh, and is talking about all the volunteering she does. The thing is that the volunteering she does to help others only benefits her like getting her two teachers together so they will soften and give and her and her peers less work and better grades. Josh is a very sarcastic character who knows how Cher is so he expects nothing less even though he knows she could be more. The selfishness of her ways get her what she wants because that’s what she expects from herself and those around her.  


“Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, Thy head, thy sovereign, one that cares for thee” -- “My mind hath been big as one of yours, My heart as great, my reason haply more, To bandy word for word and frown for frown; But now I see our l see our lances are but straws”

"Quote from Play"

(Act V, Scene II, 162:163, 186:189) Katherine


In The Taming of the Shrew, Katherine has now come to a realization and saw expectations of how a woman should truly be and how they should act. She is talking to the other wives of the men about being obedient to their husband because they are their masters and their lives. She was in the` beginning a shrew person who took orders from no one and talked back to those around her. She met Petruchio and he helped her come to the realization that men do so much and deserve to be treated with the utmost respect. Petruchio used a method to get her to listen and believe what he says. Katherine gave in to the pressure and started to listen to what he says realizing that she shouldn’t have so many expectations for herself because it could be a lot worst and women that don’t listen and have many expectations get disappointed. In Clueless, Cher has to also have a realization to get out the habit of making expectations for herself that could disappoint her causing her to not realize what’s right in front of her.

Image result for clueless gifs realization


In this scene of the movie Cher is understanding that she love Josh, who has been there with her from the beginning. She realizes as she is describing him in the scene where she says, “ I mean he’s just like this slug who hangs around the house all the time. And he’s a hideous dancer.. Couldn’t take him anywhere. Why am I stressing? -- This is like, Josh. Then Suddenly.. Oh my god.. I love Josh!” In this statement she states all the things that are wrong with Josh, that would turn her off usually, but then she realizes none of that matters and her expectations for guys was just something that she let run her because of how she carried herself and saw the world. This can be seen in the The taming of the shrew when Katherine realized that women should obey their husbands and not be arrogant and complicated unlike her newfound self.

In conclusion, throughout The taming of the shrew and Clueless, both characters Katherine and Cher make these realizations at the end of the book and the movie. In The taming of the shrew Katherine was a woman who didn’t listen to anyone, had a bad temper, and had these expectations set for her because it was expected due to her status and attitude. Whereas, in Clueless was a girl who had status and made herself believe she was too good for others that weren’t what her expectations sought to be. In the end they both saw different things through their relationships that things aren’t always what they seem to be. In society we put expectations on what relationships should be or who we should be with depending on we stand on the social ladder and the higher up you are the more expectations one tends to have. Therefore, for both of these characters we see growth through their actions and in the end they realize it shouldn’t be that way.



Na'eem Goins Capstone

​For my capstone, I decided to write a art book that incorporated both poetry and photography. At first,  the book was just going to be different poems that I wrote about my everyday life but I got inspired to write about others. I wanted to provide a space for my classmates to vent and talk about issues that affected them internally. Seeing that my classmates all have different stories and survived dire situations only to not tell their testimonies, I created a platform for that. During the school year, I  interviewed seniors at SLA. My goal was to give them a confidential session that allowed them to share life stories that shaped them into who they are today. Struggle that they never fully shared with their own circle of people. My hope was for them to be proud of their past and feel better after talking to me. I recorded the interviews and listen to them every time I got inspired to write a poem. Putting myself into their shoes, I wrote a poem inspired by that person. Then I volunteered for paid surveys at Penn hospital and saved up money to buy a camera. With that camera, I took picture of the people I interviewed in my own minnie photoshoot setups. When I was done with the interviews, I wrote poems about my own struggles and took photographs that symbolize each poem. I summated all of the poems and pictures into a book that is available for sell.

Link to book:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12Kv86WcAGw0N3vYaog3OJiYpoHuQY1sAikRZU8wcdJQ/edit?usp=sharing

Bibliography

  • Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. The Noonday Press, 1988. I found this source useful because photography is such a big part of my capstone. Barthes exemplified the distinct different between the object and the image, how standard photography is mainly motionless, and feeling a lense on you while posing. The idea that being ask about your favorite photograph and not being able to pinpoint the image, just the desire body, is a powerful thing. I'm trying to make my audience love not the image but the body that's in it.
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  • Furedi, Frank. Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age. Routledge, 2004. I selected this source for the interview portion of my project. It is very important that I have pre knowledge of certain behaviors the interviewees may have, how to help someone become more vulnerable, and ultimately not make the interews a basic conversation. I want to know more than their friends do. Parts of the book really help me understand the reasons for problems in our internal world be what people perceive as personal issue.

  • King, Carla. How to Self-Publish Your Book: a Practical Guide to Creating and Distributing Your E-Book or Print Book. PBS MediaShift, 2013. This source was very helpful because of how much information it have on publishing a book. Being an independent writer and making my first real book, I needed to find cheap, easy, and quick publishing ideas. This book gave me a lot of publishing resources for e books and physical copies. Since I want to make several physical copies of my book for everyone involve to have, I am definitely revisiting this source on companies and free printing. This source has open my eyes to fundraising because It can be very expensive.

  • Wojcik, Pamela Robertson. Movie Acting, the Film Reader. Routledge, 2004. This book was used for the movie part of my capstone. Since I will be the main actor and havent done anything acting in a year, I needed to refresh my mind. Its a big difference between acting on stage and acting in front of the camera, both require different techniques. This source exemplifies on the meaning of "overacting". It doesn't mean that you turn your performance into theatrical acting. I want to make sure that this film becomes my best performance of highschool.

  • Starr, Ringo. Photograph. Genesis Publications, 2015. This source was helpful for my capstone by providing different photography techniques. Since each poem will be accompanied by photographs, it is very important that I get professional quality photographs. This source taught me a lot about portrait photography. I also learned about making it a comfortable environment for the model, focusing on detail, and capturing emotions. This source also provided photographs as examples of the different techniques. Being a artist, I am always open to learning new ways of taking photographs and helping the model show emotion on the picture instead of treating it like fashion.

  • Nelson-Jones, Richard. Essential Counselling and Therapy Skills: the Skilled Client Model. Sage, 2002. This source helped me with interviewing the participants in my capstone. The interview session is the heart of the poems, pictures, movie, and for me to get to know them. This book talked a lot about how to deal with certain questions, how to keep your composure, and remaining neutral in every situation that is presented. This is very important because I want to have great interview sessions and no dull conversations. I also do not want anyone to feel uncomfortable and instead, build trust with me.

  • Feidelson, Charles. Symbolism and American Literature. The University of Chicago Press, 1965. This source help me by completely explaining the symbolism in literacy and why its accepted to the broader but not so much critics. The book bring in sources from medieval times to politics and how language leave little room for symbolism. My poetry is going to have a symbolic style for the book. Its very important that I use metaphors correctly in the book because I want the reader to question what i'm saying and , later, understand. This source gave me a lot of reasons for the use symbols though it was hard to understand.

  • Goins, Naeem C, and Alexa Lahr. “8 The Book: Interview.” 12 Jan. 2018. This source help me alot because it is one of my interviews for the project. Being one of the participant, Alexa talked a lot about her past traumatic experiences with middle school. She had body issues because of what people said about her. Knowing she was different from a young age, she started accepting herself at a Christian camp. She find outs that she is made in God's image and started to look towards the good in being different. During the interview, it was a little challenge trying to get her to open up but she did. I cant go into detail about everything that was talked about during the interview because it is confidential.

  • Goins, Naeem C, and Samantha Davis. “8 The Book: Interviews.” 12 Jan. 2018. During our interview, Sam was very open to talk about her deep connection with the good times and bad. She first started talking about her social skills being an only child, which both me and her share. Then, skin color became the topic of conversation. As a woman of color, Sam talk to me about the hardships with having a dark complexion. She never felt truly accepted or attractive to the people who share her skin color. She even shed light on people perception of her because of her personality and her family.

  • Goins, Naeem C, and Tatiana V Rivera. “8 The Book: Interviews.” 12 Jan. 2018. This source help me by becoming one of the interviews that inspired a poem in my book. Tatiana came into the interview already comfortable because we had deep conversations before. It seem like she couldn't wait to talk to me about her life and situations, good and bad. She first talk about her contribution to her home. Working under the table jobs, sacrificing her youth to mature quicker for her siblings, and her relationship with her mom. She found her peace when coming to Science Leadership Academy where she found that she had many opportunities. She inspire me to make a heartfelt poem that require me to do a lot of self examining in order to put myself in her shoes.


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Screenshot 2018-05-05 at 6.51.52 PM

Emily Stephens' Capstone

For my Capstone, I held a Faculty vs. Student Volleyball Game Fundraiser. My idea was centered around community, specifically in SLA and creating an event that would not only include students; but teachers, parents, alumni, friends, and more. I saw a lack of activities that parents were invited to and wanted to have the game begin a new tradition. I knew I also wanted to do something that would include volleyball, seeing as I was the captain this past season. I thought holding a game would be most engaging for people to come to, and by having the girl’s team play the staff it included more community members. At my actual event, I had a great turn out of teachers, players, parents, friends, and even some alumni. I held two sets of faculty vs. girls volleyball team, then one set of students who wanted to play on another student team vs. the faculty, and finally the two student team against each other. I had music and a microphone so I was able to announce everyone to make it more exciting. I learned a lot from this experience, especially about how much planning goes into holding a school event. I learned how many people it takes to make one event happen and how many different people I had to connect with, which also ties into time management skills which I gained from this project. Overall I'm very happy with my capstone!


Faculty Team talking about their game plan
Faculty Team talking about their game plan
Me making announcements during the event
Me making announcements during the event
Mr. Lehmann spiking the ball!
Mr. Lehmann spiking the ball!
The girl's team serving
The girl's team serving

Works Cited

Centers For Disease Control, "Make a Difference at Your School" (2013). Chronic Disease. Paper 31. http://digitalcommons.hsc.unt.edu/disease/31

This source is centered around childhood obesity. There are many ways to influence obesity in school settings, like changing school lunch diets and promoting school sports programs and physical activity. Schools need to build a foundation for influencing exercise by

strengthening school sport policies, and fundraising for teams would help encourage joining the programs. The report noted that staff should promote health, involving them in the event would help influence students to become more active which is one of the goals of my event. Overall it would increase opportunities for students to become involved in athletics and school event create exposure. This source is the University of North Texas Health Science Center working with the Center for Disease Control, which is a reliable source because of it’s well known reputation and it’s first hand data from being a government-funded program for citizens.


Dervarics, Chuck, and Eileen O'Brien. “Back to School: How Parent Involvement Affects Student Achievement.” Centerforpubliceducation.org, 30 Aug. 2011, www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Public-education/Parent-Involvement.

This source mainly discusses the different forms of parent involvement. My event incorporates parents to attend the volleyball game, and this source gives me more insight on the importance of parents being more involved in the school community. It is stated that by including parents, it helps with parenting skills, communication with their children, volunteering because events will make them more interested in continuing interest in the community, community collaboration which helps them reach out to the community more, and more aspects of daily life. Parent involvement can create exposure for parents to see children’s interests and could begin new family bonds and bring the community together in new ways. This source is an organization dedicated to speaking about public education and is an initiative for the National School Boards Association.


Herman, Joan L., and Jennie P. Yeh. “Some Effects of Parent Involvement in Schools.” Apr. 1980, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED206963.pdf.

This is an article that discusses a study and some of the impacts of parents becoming more involved in their child’s school community. It discusses how creating strong relationships with parents creates bonds for the future with the child and the school, because if anything happens where the school needs people to stand behind them or advocate for them, the parents are more willing and supportive.Parents are more likely to become more interested in school events if they have positive associations and are welcomed to be active members of the community, which is exactly what my event plans to do. Higher socioeconomic class parents are more involved in school life, and since SLA is a culmination of kids from all different backgrounds, this gives me a good place to do more research on an making an event that would interest many parents. This document is credible because it was partnered with the U.S. Department of Education, a primary source for educational information.


Kuo, Roger S. “A Firsthand Comparison Between Magnet School Life and Public School Life: Academic and Social Aspects.” A Firsthand Comparison Between Magnet School Life and Public School Life: Academic and Social Aspects, Stanford University, 28 July 1999,https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/school_child/firsthand.htm.

SLA’s community is unique by being a city magnet school, meaning we have unique opportunities. This source is a firsthand account of experiencing both the public school and magnet school systems. This source is helpful because it makes me think about different perspectives and aspects that are specialized just to SLA’s community. The author writes about how students in magnet schools seem to be more supportive of each other’s academic success and build off of one another’s accomplishments, something that I see happening at SLA as well and also transfers to outside of school in our community as well. Magnet schools tend to select students based on who they are academically, which I see as accurate, yet magnet schools still tend to be contenders in sports teams and are avid about their team’s accomplishments. This is true for SLA and I hope to continue to build off of that enthusiasm with my volleyball game.


Osterman, Karen F. “Students' Need for Belonging in the School Community.” www.researchgate.net/profile/Karen_Osterman/publication/247662613_Students'_Need_for_Belonging_in_the_School_Community/links/5515a1420cf2b5d6a0eaaae6.pdf.

This book talks about aspects of community and the impact it has on children mentally. Community isn’t present without a sense of belonging and is made of 4 components: membership, influence, integration and fulfillment of needs, and shared emotional connection. It goes in depth on the importance of collaboration and how forming bonds to bring people together, much like we do at SLA and my event would encompass. Interacting with teachers also creates a sense of relatability, more accessible therefor making forming connections easier which shows the benefits of including teachers in my game. This informs me on how important making people feel included is and how to plan my event to include the most people possible and make all community members feel welcome.


Ross, James G., et al. “After Physical Education...Physical Activity Outside of School Physical Education Programs.” ResearchGate, The National Children and Youth Fitness Study, Jan. 1985, www.researchgate.net/profile/James_Ross38/publication/274620295_The_National_Children_and_Youth_Fitness_Study_After_Physical_Education_Physical_Activity_outside_of_School_Physical_Education_Programs/links/5a5fb9340f7e9b964a1dd7b7/The-National-Children-and-Youth-Fitness-Study-After-Physical-Education-Physical-Activity-outside-of-School-Physical-Education-Programs.pdf+.

Since my game involves physical activity, I researched the importance behind encouraging students to be active outside of just a physical education class. This publication speaks on the importance of creating variation with sports and fitness to introduce many different choices for students. I would be doing this with volleyball, seeing as it isn’t the most popular sport in SLA and could create new interest for students and encourage them to be more active. This helps my understanding of what sports do for students and why they matter and how I could make an impact by creating positive connections for a sporting event. This information in this source is based off of a national study surveying actual students and schools to show the impacts of physical education.


RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, Vol. 1, No. 3, The Elementary and Secondary Education Act at Fifty and Beyond (December 2015), pp. 77-94. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7758/rsf.2015.1.3.04.

This journal discusses the role of the government in education. Since SLA and many public schools across the country are underfunded, it creates new challenges for our students. Many programs are struggling to continue due to lack of resources, like the volleyball team. Because there isn’t money, students like myself have to take matters into our own hands to change the situations. This source talks about the racial and socioeconomic gaps as an issue the government hopes to fix, and SLA is an example of a group of students experiencing these issues. This helps me analyze the problems our school faces and why.


Strauss, Valerie. “The Ugly Facts of Life in Philadelphia Public Schools.” The Washington Post, 7 Oct. 2014, www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/10/07/the-ugly-facts-of-life-in-philadelphia-public-schools/?utm_term=.e811fe457d9a.

Up until recently, the school district was run by the State who decided our funding and performed massive budget cuts to hundreds of schools throughout Philadelphia. Teachers make less than teachers in the suburbs and also have to pay for their own health benefits, showing how the cuts are not only taxing on the students, but the teachers as well. We face many setbacks with cut funding for afterschool programs and the arts, which means students and teachers have unfair weight to carry when compared to many other school districts. This source gives me all of the information I need to fully understand our lack of funds and current situation and reminds me of the importance of making my event successful.


The North Carolina High School Bulletin, Vol. 5, No. 1 (JANUARY, 1914), pp. 26-29 Published by: University of North Carolina Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/43822093 Accessed: 26-01-2018 14:41 UTC.

A study was done by the University of North Carolina discussing how the state of North Carolina put more funding into high school sports and it resulted in more interest in sports than ever before. This shows how there is a direct correlation between funding and interest, and my capstone is focused around raising money for the volleyball team which would encourage more students to join the team and make it a stronger program overall. The state also released requirements for the student athletes, like attendance and grade requirements. Not only do students want to join sports, but they must also focus on their grades as well because they can’t be a part of the sports program without improving their academic status.


Wright, Handel Kashope, and Sidonia Alenuma. “Teaching City Kids.” Google Books, https://books.google.com/books?id=YWh8ho9e2qwC&pg=PA211&lpg=PA211&dq=pros+and+cons+of+magnet+schools&source=bl&ots=Tc3IbEXfwV&sig=P_WlppFW6G4Nvf2gs0ghF18lVPk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwit6v-IoPPYAhURON8KHUhDCo04FBDoAQhLMAY#v=onepage&q=pros%20and%20cons%20of%20magnet%20schools&f=false

This book talks about the unique aspects of urban magnet schools and how they are multicultural, multiracial, and high achieving alternative schools. This allows for a fuller educational experience that includes a wider variety of students and people, which includes the SLA community. By reading pieces of this book it helps me understand how important magnet schools are and how vital it is to support the system, giving my event more meaning by hoping to raise money to support our clubs and sports teams. My event is a chance to interest students of all types and across the spectrum to fully bring our community together and support making our magnet school system stronger.


Christopher Jacobs Negative Space Cutout

 A. What is negative space (explain this concept to a fourth grader that has never heard of it)- The space around the subject(s) where you can trade colors as shown in the picture to heighten drawings using silhouettes.

B. Explain how you found negative space in your cut out?- By first identifying the subject of the picture and then I would use the 2 colors to basically do it the opposite away for the other side.

C. Why does it help an artist to see in negative space?- Maybe they could see how the outlines look and see any mistakes.

D. Does seeing in negative space enhance drawings, why or why not?- If done right it will since the 2 colors contradicting catch the human eye naturally.


20180503_180549
20180503_180549

Tariffs a lost for all

The last Thursday March 1st President Donald Trump announced the imposition of tariffs to China in order to reduce the commercial deficit that the US has been carrying for years. With the argument that this would bring the American industry to a splendorous moment of production and with it creating new jobs and work opportunities. Because this tariffs will make decrease the amount of the industry purchased from China and increase the purchase of American made steel industry. However this kind of policies can are not that good and can harm more the US and its general industry that can actually help it.


So as an start The president and it’s administration defend the tariffs appealing that this will bring jobs to the US. ”We must not let our country, companies and workers be taken advantage of any longer. We want free, fair and SMART TRADE!” Donald Trump. However, that might not be as true as it might firstly seem. According to the Trade partnership “We find that the tariffs would result in a net loss of 146,000 U.S. jobs after accounting for positive impacts on U.S. steel and aluminum producers.” As as far as the steels jobs go the study shows that they actually don’t improve this much either. Furthermore, this situation can bring the steel companies to a moment where they have no competence and make the companies powerful enough to fight against Unions and reduce the amount of workers rights in the industry.


Also the numbers show that most of the jobs in America have not been lost by companies going to other countries but by the change of workers in productions change for robots. In fact the numbers proof that the American production numbers are in the highest level in history. Around the 107.000 points stated by the Industrial Production Index (INDROPO). And the technology of robots is unstoppable. However it seems that the industry at least would be benefited by this protectionist policies. But is that right?


As expected China is ready to counter attack by imposing tariffs to many American products. Making many industries tremble “The Chinese government said that tariffs on about $3 billion worth of US imports are going into effect Monday, hitting 128 products ranging from pork, meat and fruit to steel pipes.” And the threatens to the industry do not only stop there as far as the investors are incredibly scared by the huge threat of the trade war and the stocks markets are going down and with it the value of the companies and its abilities of growing increasing the production.


But the problems keep appearing, as china is using this protectionists policies, by the U.S., to make the European and South American allies of the United States to create a fear situation towards the Trump administration and create deals with it’s important economies such as Germany. “Trump’s less than smooth relationships with both China and Germany have helped push the two countries even closer together.” The Diplomat. This suppose a big threat not only to the Americans industries which in a bi way depend on Germany products but also to the American soft power over other countries in fact the Secretary of defense General Mattis explains that “Either you Mr. Trump invest in soft power or I’ll have to invest more in bullets.”


Clearly this comercial war and the protectionists policies of Mr. Trump are making the US economy tremble and this doesn’t have any signs of changins. But no only that the problem is that the actual administration is not being conscious of the harm that they are creating to the country and how this would mean the final of the American hegemony, freedom and democracy values pursued all around the world.


  • The move could spark a trade war with major implications for steelmakers, and the economy. “The Global Steel Industry by the Numbers.” CNNMoney, Cable News Network, money.cnn.com/2018/03/02/news/economy/steel-industry-statistics-us-china-canada/index.html.

  • Lynch, David J., and Damian Paletta. “Trump Announces Steel and Aluminum Tariffs Thursday over Objections from Advisers and Republicans.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 1 Mar. 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/03/01/white-house-planning-major-announcement-thursday-on-steel-and-aluminum-imports/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.55df1bd9e116.

  • “How Many American Jobs Could Be Lost Thanks to Trump's Steel and Aluminum Tariffs.” Fortune, fortune.com/2018/03/06/trump-steel-aluminum-tariffs-cost-jobs/.


  • “Industrial Production Index.” FRED, 17 Apr. 2018, fred.stlouisfed.org/series/INDPRO.


  • Reuters. “China Warns the US Not to Unleash a 'Pandora's Box' of Trade War Ills on the World.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 29 Mar. 2018, www.businessinsider.com/china-warns-the-us-against-pandoras-box-of-trade-war-ills-for-world-2018-3.

  • Tharoor, Shashi. “China and Germany: So Far, Yet So Close.” The Diplomat, The Diplomat, 7 Dec. 2017, thediplomat.com/2017/12/china-and-germany-so-far-yet-so-close/.


LastWeekTonight. “Trump vs. The World: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO).” YouTube, YouTube, 18 Feb. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCjk_NPsIqU.

Why do I consider this my best possible 2fer. I actually spend a lot of time writing it checking alot of sources and counting different experts. I believe that I started really strong and I ended also with a high quality conclusion. This is the 2fer that I'm most proud of by diference.

Taming the Clueless Shrew


Taming the Clueless Shrew


In the Shakespeare play “Taming of the Shrew,” the characters are striking. With plots and ulterior motives the book never gets old. In the book you constantly see themes of class in works. The class of the characters in the book, basically shape the characters plots and schemes that we read. The main characters I will be talking about will be petruchio and Katherine, at times surfacing other characters.  I will be comparing the book to the movie “Clueless.” In this movie the main character Cher goes through great lengths to get her way, and even changes the people and the world around her as she sees it. She is apart of the the upper class and it is obvious in the movie, with her fancy cars and clothes. Cher is always at the top, because of the power she “thinks” she holds. She plays matchmaker in the movie with her teachers in order to get the grade she wants. Through this she tricks and plots on ways to get them together. She also plays fairy godmother, and when you think of the character of a fairy godmother, you think of someone who in a way bestows gifts or happiness to people. Later on in the movie, Cher and her friends accept the new girl in town only if she conforms to their looks and lifestyle. The new girl, Tai is the complete opposite of Cher and her friends, but somehow finds herself suffocated in their world. The theme of social class and power, shape the characters in the book in movie. The power they feel that they hold makes them think that have control over the people around them. Cher and Petruchio show similarities in their motives of getting what they want, no matter what.



I come to wive it wealthily in padua; If wealthily, then happily in Padula.” (Act 1.Scene 2, 75-77)



In this quote, the men are basically talking about having wife. Obviously her wealth plays a big role in their look for one. They could have went courting for any woman they wanted. But, instead it seems as though they specifically was looking for a woman of stature and wealth. In the sentence following, they continue on with their conversation. “Why nothing comes amiss, so money comes withal.” Withal basically means to take into with further consideration. The woman he chooses to wed could be an old woman, an attractive woman, or a “puppet.” As long as she is wealthy. He is very blunt with what he says as well. Not caring about how anybody thinks. Through this you see his materialism and how arrogant he is. He is driven to get what he wants. At this point in the play, he knows nothing about Katherine and her sister. He has no care for the actual meaning of love, but he cares about status and riches. Through this marriage he is going to elevate the status he holds into something bigger and greater.  




In these two screenshots, Cher is basically explaining the plot she has to change Tai’s appearance. Specifically in the second picture she is talking about the group of people that Tai is glancing over at. They are at lunch, and the “stoners” or “airheads” happen to be nice and catch her attention. There is even a boy, that is obvious in the movie that has a crush on her. To put it out there for those who have not seen the movie, Tai is new. Cher and her best friend are explaining that there are levels or a status that is in place at the high school. With them being at the top, she shouldn’t stoop down to the level of the guy who is below them. Further into this scene it was mentioned if she were to date him or hang out with the group to expand friends they wouldn’t dare talk to her. This is similar to the quote in “Taming of the Shrew” because, they are only wanting the wife of a higher social class. From the context of the scene and overall book, even if they were to find a woman they do actually love. Her status would be accounted for. Even if she weren’t as rich as katherine and her family, she’d need to have some sort of wealth. Going back to the gift of “popularity and stature,” Cher thinks of this as her giving back to people or that what she is doing is good. Mainly because that's all that she has. She puts her wealth, and popularity on so high of a platform because without that she would have nothing. I don’t know why Petruchio does want wealth so bad, but it has to be similar to the ideal of Cher, without wealth they'd feel like they were nothing and like they didn’t have nothing.




“Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented
That you shall be my wife, your dowry ‘greed on,
And will you, nill you, I will marry you.
Now Kate, I am a husband for your turn…”


(Act 1, Scene 2, line 280)

In this quote, Petruchio reveals his plot to Katherine. His plot to marry her, and basically that she has no say because of the dowry that was placed by her father. He then says after this, “Will you, nill you and marry you…” When I looked up “nill you…” it means “zero or nothing,” so it was his intent to break her down as he builds himself up. It was clear that at first Katherine was reluctant to doing so, but if she had no choice it was nothing she could really do. Especially if her father told Petruchio that he can marry her. Petruchio also wants to tame Kate, although he doesn’t have the status she holds, before the marriage he still wants that same kind of control.  He calls her a “Wild kate.” and tells her he will in fact tame her, that he was born to do it. Even if she didn’t love him she has no choice but to deal with it because of how everything was set up.




Similar to the scenario in the book, Tai is faced with a difficult decision to make. From the conversations she has with Travis that they have chemistry and in fact are crushing on one another. Cher has already made the decision for her on who she wants her to date. Cher doesn’t want her hanging around the other crowds. Instead she pairs her up with a charismatic, rich stud named Elton. He is arrogant and stuck up and Tai doesn’t like him, but she stays. She goes on dates with him and puts up with his behavior all for the sake of being like Cher and being popular. At first when Tai appears on the screen, she is humble and shy. At this point in the movie she is the complete opposite. Cher is taming her own version of Kate, which is Tai. She is making her into something she is not. Just to do it really, there was no point in the movie where Tai said she wanted it. She really just wanted friends due to her being new at school.Although there is no dowry in place, the pairing up of the two are surely similar to the pair of petruchio and Kate.

"You are come to me in happy time, / . . . for I have some sport in hand / Wherein your cunning can assist me much"

(induction, scene 1, line 86)

In the beginning of the Induction, there is a man named christopher that is basically passed out drunk outside of a bar. A lord passes him and decides that he wants to plot and make a joke out of the situation. He has his servants take Christopher back to his home, so that when he wakes up they can pretend like he is a lord. They dress him up, and make him a banquet to eat. They go as far as dressing up one of their men as a woman, to pretend like he is his wife. Christopher is a beggar, but when presented with the ideal of him being a rich man he went with it. Im sure it was confusing but, deep down you’d have to somewhat know what you were and who you were. My guess is the thought of being someone else, someone with a higher class and riches coaxed him into being something he is not. With this being basically the beginning of the play, you can see that power is a central theme. Relating back to my thesis, these people that hold these high stature  believe that they can do whatever they please. In this case, the lord basically kidnapping this man and making him his play thing. It was all entertainment.







Cher got a C in one of her classes. Which would have brought her average down greatly. So because she thought she could, and because she was so desperate she thought of a plan to get her grade up. In one of the scenes before this she says that there is a “babe drought” in the school, which did not include her and her friend Dione. Everyone else like her step brother didn’t think that it was a great idea to play with people’s emotions or dig her nose into other people’s business. She secretly wrote love letters pretending to be her teachers and even played the “he said, she said situation.” Which made them more friendly with one another. Before it was too late, she got her grade up and the rest of the class reaped the benefits. They got imes to sleep, no homework and much more. Cher basically plotted against the crushes and admirations of the teacher and used them for her own entertainment. This is similar to the Lord and his servants making a joke out of Christopher. If Cher wasn’t as big as she was in her high school and didn’t have the resources she wouldn't have been able to successfully get her grade up. She used her status as an advantage.


James Thomas Capstone

For my Capstone, I decided to write chapter book based on characters that I created in my younger days. These include characters like Speeder, a superhero with the abilities of superspeed, and Chrono, a time traveling agent of T.E.M.P.E.S.T. Throughout the book, these two team up and traverse through multiple alternate dimensions, looking for a villain bent on attaining ultimate power. 
Honestly, writing the story was not the hardest part. I outlined what would happen in each  chapter, which made writing out entire chapters almost a breeze. I did look through books by other authors to observe their strategies and implement them into my own work. The editing process, however, took way longer than I anticipated. It took me three months to write out the entire book, yet it took almost twice as much for it to be edited. I went to Lit Lab in order to get it peer edited twice every week so the book had as little mistakes and inconsistencies as possible. After finishing the edits I needed to make, I had my outside mentor read it over, filtering out mistakes even further. 
Overall, I learned that writing a big piece like this requires a decent amount of forethought and planning. This way, one won’t have too many cases of writer’s block. I also learned that editing takes a lot longer than I thought. Hence, I’ll make sure that I leave enough time to edit whatever I write in the future.
Rift: Rift for Dominance - Chapter 1

Rift: Race for Dominance

Annotated Bibliography


  1. Dahl, Roald. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Reclam, Philipp, 2018.


I also read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when I was in fifth grade. However, I am using it now for a completely different reason from Bridge to Terabithia. While that source helped me with flushing out the background, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory helped me flush out the characters. It had about seven main characters throughout the story, all with different personalities, and kept their dialogue consistent. I used Dahl’s strategy in my own book by writing a short bio for each of the main or recurring characters and writing around those bios, ensuring the consistency of each character.


  1. Google. “Frequent Spots in Philadelphia.” Google Maps, Google, 2018, www.google.com/maps.


My book mainly takes in an alternate version of Philadelphia, named Neo Central. The characters also travel through multiple other versions of Philly, including the one in real life Pennsylvania. So I figured that it would be cool to have some landmarks or popular places that Philadelphians could recognize. These places would also change as the characters travel through dimensions. So I looked on online for some sources that describe popular and frequent spots in Philly. However, I could find no such source. So I decided to research it myself. Using Google Maps, I looked at the part of Philly where this book takes place and found exactly what I was looking for.


  1. Haddix, Margaret Peterson. Sabotaged. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2011.


Sabotaged is the first book in the Missing Series that I read. Ever since, I was intrigued by the books until the final one came out. I was hooked on these books because after every chapter, there was a cliffhanger, leaving me with a sense of emptiness. I wanted to know what happened next, so I kept on reading. I took this strategy used by the author and implemented it into my own book. At the end of each chapter, I am adding a cliffhanger that leads into the next chapter. This will keep readers invested and coming back to the book.


  1. Josh L. “Middle English Grammar.” Learn Middle English online - a brief grammar of Chaucer's English (Basic Middle English lessons), Naivlang, 6 Nov. 2009, www.nativlang.com/middle-english/middle-english-grammar.php.


The hi-tech medieval dimension in the book has several characters that I wanted to speak in a language similar to Shakespearean plays. So I needed to research Middle English in order to learn about that language and be able to write dialogue with it. That is when I found out about Josh. He has researched Middle English for at least 8 years and has shared his findings with the world. He created a website to showcase his knowledge and teach others how to use Middle English correctly and efficiently. Therefore, I used his site to help me write dialogue for Sir Phoenix and random civilians in the book.


  1. McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. Alfred A. Knopf, 2017.


I read The Road in 12th grade. I saw it as a very insightful source, as it showed me that fluff does not have a place in a book. Cormac McCarthy wrote The Road so that every word was important to the story and it got straight to the point, not getting sidetracked by anything. I wanted to use this strategy in my book, as I dislike when a book as useless fluff that has no meaning to the entirety of the plot. Therefore, I made sure that every part, every chapter, every word to the story pertains to the larger plot.


  1. Palacio, R. J. Wonder. Puffin, 2017.


I first read Palacio’s Wonder in seventh grade. I was interested by the author’s use of different fonts and spacing for each character’s narration. It described the characters without necessarily needing to describe the characters. Since I found it so interesting, I wanted to include this strategy in my book. I did not want to give each and every character a different font because I have a lot of characters in my book and it would get very confusing. As there are multiple points where computers or any other technology speak to the heroes, I decided that the tech should have a different font from the humans. This would give the tech a robotic voice and describe the voice of the tech without the voice necessarily being described with words.


  1. Paterson, Katherine. Bridge to Terabithia. Crowell, Thomas, 1977.


I first read the Bridge of Terabithia back when I was in fifth grade. It was a lovely book with a whole lot of imaginative imagery in it, describing practically of detail of the background and scenery. Using words that presented more of an impact to the reader, it instilled in me a sense of wonderment while I visualed the scenes in the book. This strategy used by Paterson is what I implemented in my book. In regards to describing the background and action scenes, I used words that will resonate with readers and provide vivid descriptions in their minds.


  1. TheBookPatch. “Print a Book.” Book Printing and Binding | Online Book Printing | On Demand Printing, TheBookPatch, 2017, www.thebookpatch.com/PrintBook.


This is the site I will use to print my book. It allows me to submit a pdf of the text I want printed and create a cover. Since I already received the cover art from my cousin, I can submit that art to the site and use it as the cover for my book. After approving both the pdf and the entire cover, I can then move on to the printing phase. It cost $4.47 to print a book, which is not too costly compared to other publishing sites. After paying, they will print it within 2 to 3 business days.


  1. Thomas, Timothy. Personal Interview. 17 Nov 2017


Including myself, my book contains characters that are counterparts of my real life friends and family. This meant that if I got their characteristics wrong or portrayed them in a way that they did not like, they would be very annoyed to say the least. So I had to talk with them and figure exactly what they would say in certain situations. This included constant questioning of my brother, Timothy Thomas, as he and the different versions of him make recurring appearances in the book. The questioning did not end with speech patterns, however. I wanted every detail to be as accurate as possible. So I asked them about their height, weight, and other aspects about themselves, making the book as realistic as possible.


  1. WikiHow. “How to Write a Book.” WikiHow, WikiHow, 28 Dec. 2016, www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Book.


When I was first starting this capstone, I wanted some strategies on writing a full book, not just two page essays. I just went on google and searched “How to write a book” and this WikiHow article showed up. It described six strategies the helped me a lot in the long run. The first was buy a notebook to put ideas in. I did not technically do that but I did start a new google doc to do the same thing. The second strategy was to think of ideas for stories. I had no idea at first what I wanted to write about until it clicked when I was writing out ideas. The third strategy was to create an outline, which helped me to write each chapter with detail. The fourth one was writing down every character with meaning to the plot. The fifth was write the outline and the sixth was “edit mercilessly,” which was the greatest strategy of all. The first draft of a book is rarely the one an author settles on, which was very true for me. So in the long run, WikiHow helped me begin writing my book and encouraged me to keep editing where it was necessary.


The Shrew’s Proposal

The two pieces I decided to cross-analyze were Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew and Anna Fletchers The Proposal. In Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew he shows the progression of a forced love, the two main characters Petruchio and Katherine despise each other and go through with a marriage based on outside issues pushing them to go through with it. In Anna Fletchers The Proposal we too are presented with two characters, Margaret and Andrew, that are forced into an engagement and are relying on the promises they gave one another other in order to continue with this fake engagement.


In Shakespeare's play, our two main characters are pushed into their marriage by outside forces, Petruchio wants money and Katherine craves her father's love and acceptance. The fastest way for these characters to obtain their desires is through a sham marriage. In The Proposal their engagement is forced by the female lead, Margaret, she needed our other main character, Andrew to keep the lie, that they are engaged, going in order to keep her job. The only thing that kept Andrew in the deal was a raise and a publishing deal that he made Margaret give to him in exchange for keeping the lie. In both pieces, it is argued that because of the hardships that both parties face while being forced to “love” each other, forced loves are the strongest loves in the end.


The first scene I chose to include from Shakespeare's piece was one of Katherine and Petruchio's first encounters.


Katherine: If I be waspish, best beware my sting.

Petruchio: My remedy is then to pluck it out.

Katherine: Ay, if the fool could find where it lies.

Petruchio: Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail.

Katherine: In his tongue.

Petruchio: Whose tongue?

Katherine: Yours, if you talk of tales, and so farewell.

Petruchio: What, with my tongue in your tail?

           (II.i.207–214)


Towards the beginning of Taming of the Shrew, Kate and Petruchio's very first interactions were noticeably passive and slightly flirty. Petruchio is the one to initiate the flirting and eventually declares it his mission to have Kates hand in marriage. There was no sign of love, in the beginning, both characters could barely stand each other but their dynamic was already very flirty considering the circumstances.


This same setup and dynamic is seen with Margaret and Andrew towards the middle of The Proposal.


Margaret Tate: If you touch my ass one more time I will cut your balls off in your sleep, okay?

Andrew Paxton: Yup

Margaret Tate: Alrighty then

Margaret and Andrew had been staying in Andrews’ parent's house for his grandmother’s birthday. His family was under the impression that they were together so when the “couple” had been noticeably distant Andrew takes it upon himself to bring Margaret in for a hug followed by a little pat on her bottom to assure his mother and grandmother, that had been watching their little conversation from the window, that they were still a happy couple.

Since Margaret was Andrew's boss and he disliked her immensely at times he took this as a great opportunity to be in charge, he knew she couldn't openly oppose him in front of his parents or their plan would fail. Even though that was the case Margaret still established her place in their power dynamic but threatening him the way she did and giving him a loving little slap on the side of his face. Watching their relationship shit throughout the movie definitely proved that what they had to go through changed them for the better and brought them together.

In the following scene, Petruchio and Katherine are preparing themselves for company and need to put on their best married couple attitudes. Petruchio makes a point that the moon is shining brightly at the moment. Katherine quite confused points out the fact that it is indeed morning and it is the sun that is shining so bright.


PETRUCHIO: Come on, I' God’s name, once more toward our father’s.

Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!

KATHERINE: The moon? The sun! It is not moonlight now.

PETRUCHIO: I say it is the moon that shines so bright.

KATHERINE: I know it is the sun that shines so bright.

...

HORTENSIO: (to KATHERINE) Say as he says, or we shall never go.

KATHERINE: Forward, I pray, since we have come so far, And be it moon, or sun, or what you please. An if you please to call it a rush candle, Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.

PETRUCHIO: I say it is the moon.

KATHERINE: I know it is the moon.

PETRUCHIO: Nay, then you lie. It is the blessèd sun

KATHERINE: Then God be blessed, it is the blessèd sun. But sun it is not, when you say it is not, And the moon changes even as your mind. What you will have it named, even that it is, And so it shall be so for Katherine.

(V.ii.140–183)


At this point in the play, Katherine and Petruchio know enough about each other to predict one another's behavior and recognize their traits. Katherine who is normally up for a fight when it comes to Petruchio's actions and profound comments does something out f character.

When the time for Katherine to fight back in her and Petruchio's argument another character named Hortensio points something out. He states that they would never leave if she didn't just agree with him, and it clicks for her. Katherine finally recognizes the pattern between the two of them and decides to do something out of character, she gives in. Even though Katherine has never been one to give up a fight she realizes that if she is to keep up this so-called loved in their sham of a marriage Petruchio has to be happy, which also means he has to be right.                                                                                                                                                                                       


A similar sacrifice is shown in a popular scene of The Proposal. Margaret and Andrew have just left their place of work after lying about their engagement in order to keep Margaret's job. Margaret explains the plan and how she wants everything to happen and Andrew reluctantly agrees. Andrew with a serious look on his face asks for his proposal and Margaret baffled declines seeing the action as demeaning, Andrew begins to call off the deal but Margaret stops him. Knowing that Andrew would leave if she didn’t do this action in the middle of the street to please his ego she gets down and proposes.  


Andrew Paxton: We'll tell my family about our engagement when I want and how I want. Now, ask me nicely.

Margaret Tate: Ask you nicely what?

Andrew Paxton: Ask me nicely to marry you... Margaret.

Margaret Tate: What does that mean?

Andrew Paxton: You heard me. On your knee.

Margaret Tate: [she kneels] Fine. Does this work for you?

Andrew Paxton: Oh, I like this. Yeah.

Margaret Tate: Here you go. Will you marry me?

Andrew Paxton: No. Say it like you mean it.

Margaret Tate: Andrew.

Andrew Paxton: Yes, Margaret.

Margaret Tate: Sweet Andrew.

Andrew Paxton: I'm listening.

Margaret Tate: Would you please, with cherries on top, marry me?

Andrew Paxton: Ok. I don't appreciate the sarcasm, but I'll do it. See you at the airport tomorrow.


Margaret being the natural boss that she is has to take a step back and get over herself to save her career. This is the first dynamic change in this couple that eventually brings the two closer. By putting her guard down and allowing him to be “in charge” in this situation she is building the strength and equality in their relationship.



In my last two comparisons, I chose the two strongest character change scenes.



My mind hath been as big as one of yours,

My heart as great, my reason haply more,

To bandy word for word and frown for frown;

But now I see our lances are but straws,

Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,

That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.

Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,

And place your hands below your husband’s foot,

In token of which duty, if he please,

My hand is ready, may it do him ease.

(V.ii.140–183)


Throughout the play we have come to know Katherine as a strong-willed, stubborn independent woman, we have never known her to be submissive. In this scene, Katherine takes it upon herself to address the wives of the other husbands present in the room. After her little speech, she goes over and gives Petruchio a kiss, with everything that went on between the two something must have brought them together. The struggles that they both faced while in the relationship has changed them so much that they have formed their nemesis into a real relationship.


The same thing happens with Andrew in The Proposal but his approach is a little more aggressive. Margaret leaves Andrew at the altar right when everything is about to be put in place and goes back to her job to collect her things and leave… forever. Andrew, realizing that he had fallen in love with her rushes to their place of work and confesses to her, in front of everyone.


Andrew Paxton: Three days ago, I loathed you. I used to dream about you getting hit by a cab. Then we had our little adventure up in Alaska and things started to change. Things changed when we kissed. And when you told me about your tattoo. Even when you checked me out when we were naked. But I didn't realize any of this until I was standing alone... in a barn... wifeless. Now, you could imagine my disappointment when it suddenly dawned on me that the woman I love is about to be kicked out of the country. So Margaret, marry me because I'd like to date you.

In the beginning, Andrew kept his tail between his legs around Margaret, she was very intimidating and he didn't want much to do with her. He later found that the only way to get his point across and actually keep the woman that he loved he had to abandon his normal coward like behavior and stand up to her.

In both The Proposal and Taming of the Shrew, we see two couples that can't stand each other but need each other to succeed in life. In order for their relationship dynamics to work, they have to sacrifice certain strong traits that they are known for. By going through hardships while simultaneously getting rid of parts of themselves they grew closer. The love that these characters had for each other may not have been traditional but it was strong, everything they went through helped them form the love they have for each other at the end of their story.


Arranged Love


Shakespeare’s play The Taming of the Shrew has been accredited by many to be the first romantic comedy in literature. The story is of a group of wealthy Italian men named Lucentio, Hortensio, and Grumio who attempt to court the beautiful daughter of a wealthy man named Baptista. Batista's daughter Bianca is the youngest meaning she can not be courted until his eldest daughter Katherine has wed. So the three men have to think outside the box in order to find ways to get close to her. The play’s purpose is to question whether or not love actually exists in a world where arranged marriage is the only excepted marriage.

The Big Sick is a movie by Kumail Nanjiani in which he both wrote and starred in. The true story is of how Kumail a stand up comedian at the time left his traditional muslim family in Chicago for a white women named Emily Gordon who at the time was very sick due to a lung infection caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria. For a long period of time Kumail hid Emily from his parents so they would bring Pakistani women by the house to meet Kumail. Essentially the women court the man and his family.

The Taming of the Shrew and The Big Sick both revolve around love and whether or not love can be accomplished with an arranged marriage. Kumail struggles in the Big Sick breaking his families traditions to avoid being arranged to marry because he knows he will not find love that way. He also knows his parents also only wanted it as a status symbol to other Pakistani families. In the Taming of the Shrew Kate is forced to marry Petruchio because she has no other options. Her father only wants a man of wealth to take care of his fortune after he has passed. Given this the reader/ viewer can determine if marriage is arranged by parents it benefits the parents instead of the actual couple being married.  

Halfway through the play Lucentio reveals his plan to get closer to Bianca without the hardships of traditionally courting her. “You will be a school master and undertake the teaching of the maid: That's your device.” (Pg.43 Line 195). The plan was Lucentio’s servant Tranio’s brain child. He would step in as Lucentio so the actual Lucentio could get Bianca’s father, Baptista’s blessing. The plan works perfectly. In The Big Sick the situation is flipped as well as the gender roles. Like Bianca, Kumail is the one who is burdened with the weight of his parents judgement, like Baptista Kumail’s parents do not know the significant other exists. There is a point in the movie where Kumail is telling his little brother Naveed about Emily because the two are both less religious than their parents. Naveed is however happily married to a Pakistani woman. Naveed says to his brother, “Listen I understand, you’re in America and you want to see what it’s like, but eventually you have to marry a Pakistani woman.” Both of these examples reflect on how people will go out of their way to break societal normalities for love although it puts a lot of hardship on them. Bianca’s burning desire for Lucentio was so great that she could not even wait to get a chance of marrying Lucention. She was not willing to take the risk of Baptista rejecting him. Bianca was forced to take a shortcut to get what she desired most. Kumail on the other hand was forced to take to long route because he risked losing his parents love, or Emily’s. Both these situations but a great amount of pressure on the son and daughter who were forcing them into said relationship.



 

In the final act of the play Tranio (disguised as Lucentio is making his final plea to Baptista as to why he’s the best husband Baptista could ask for. Baptista: “I must confess your offer is the best and let your father make the assurance she is your own; else you must pardon me. If you should die before him, where's her dower?  Pg. 103 Line 415. In this line we see Baptista accepting Tranio’s offer so long as Bianca is provided with money in the event of Lucentio’s death. In The Big Sick Kumail’s mother is talking to him about how he shouldn’t expect a spark from the woman he will potentially spend the rest of his life with. “There’s not just going to be a magic spark, you have to stay open.” In both of these scenarios the true intentions of both parents, they have skin in the game and they prioritize their success over the happiness of their own children. One could speculate that Kumail’s mother wants him to marry a Pakistani woman because of the respect and honor it brings to the family. Although the family follows Islam she only cares about the nationality he marry’s meaning there is no religious tradition involved. The first and only thing Baptista asked for from the man that would marry his daughter. She in fact had no input on the matter. Baptista wanted to keep his family's socio economic status with the arrangement of the two.

 

 

Romantic love is a powerful force and that fact shines true in both of these pieces of comedic literature. Although many may believe Shakespeare intention of writing the novel was love doesn’t exist the will and grit of Bianca and Lucentio shine true in this play. And who knows the play was written in a time where arranged marriage was the only marriage, so maybe the play challenges that. The Big Sick is infact a challenge to arranged marriage which is institutionalized in so many cultures. It calls it out and say true love should prevail over the wishes and fulfillments of the parents needs. It is for these reasons arranged marriage mainly benefits the children's parents.   


Negative Space Reflection - Andrew Semisch

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What is negative space?

Negative space is a term used to describe the places in a painting, photo, or other types of visual art where there is not the main focus or subject of the piece of art.

Explain how you found negative space in your cut-out.

In the original photo that I had to replicate with my cut-out there was not necessarily one part of the photo that was negative and one part that was positive space. To find negative space what I did was replicate the right half of the photo and then find the negative space of that half.

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

While basing a painting or photo on the idea of negative space might not be for every artist, acknowledging negative space lets artists create pieces that take advantage of the entire frame and have more depth.

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

I think that when viewing art, seeing in negative space is beneficial for the same reasons as my answer to the previous question. You get more out of the piece and see more with what you're presented.

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The Benefits of Writing and Fine Arts

Most education programs in the developed world promote writing over art. This is a given. Above the kindergarten level, educators and parents take for granted that mastering language arts is indispensable in a competitive world, whereas fine arts are deprioritized as extracurricular. In a typical American school, students are required four years of English or literature as core subjects to graduate compared to no requirements at all in fine arts. However, upon in-depth research, the ostensible differences between the two subjects dissipates. In reality, fine arts and writing actually boast the same psychological benefits because both activities promote creativity and decrease stress. 

While school can be strict and regimented, Creativity is the elusive gem that most educators try to refine in their students. Instead of relying on one prescribed way to develop creativity, research has discovered that a short session of making art can be as effective as creative writing. In the articles, The Modification of Sentence Structure and Its Relationship To Subjective Judgements of Creativity in Writing[3] and Educational Research: The Art of Problem Solving[4], investigators utilized a pretest/posttest design to quantify the increase of creative ability in children after writing and making art, respectively. In the writing study, fifth graders were asked to respond to writing prompts, whereas in the art study fifty graders engaged in sketching tasks. The children were assessed on their creativity and problem-solving abilities before and after the exercise. The results showed that the children were more likely to answer questions that stumped them in the pretest after both the writing and the art exercise. Both fine arts and writing contribute to psychological well-being from a creative standpoint. One of the greatest benefits that both creative mediums possess is their stress relieving abilities. An article by the Huffington post explains how artistic expression can relieve stress and anxiety by temporarily distancing the artist from their problems.[5] A similar phenomena can be found in journal writing. An article from Harvard Health demonstrates the positive impacts that writing with emotions can have on one’s stress and experience of trauma.[6] Subjects mainly experienced a reduction in stress and anxiety. Frequently, both emotional writing and art are proposed as valid antidotes to excessive stress. This proposition is rarely disputed among the general public, yet it is not reflected in the American education. The psychological similarity between the two creative medium is only the tip of the iceberg when one examines the uncanny neurological equivalence of the two creative outlets. The fact that the visual parts of the brain are activated while drawing may seem obvious. It may be less apparent that the same “visual and image processing” in the “parieto-frontal-temporal network”[7] are engaged during writing tasks. In a study entitled fMRI study testing the Neural Correlates of Creative Writing, Shah et al. reported that writing activates parts of the right side of the brain. This improves specific memory and cognitive abilities in a person. Another study focusing on the brain differences of artists versus non artists discovered that fine artists also tend to have a “stronger right-brain presence.”[8] Furthermore, artists showed to handle a larger “cognitive load,” have better “storage and controlled attention in the memory tasks,” and can better cope with “dual tasks.”[9] This means the regular production of art exercises the brain in such a way that one’s memory, cognitive speed, and integration ability are improved just like writing was shown to do in Shah et al. Art and writing affect a subject’s neurological functions in similar ways. So what caused a shift away from the arts in education? The reason can be traced to the federal No Child Left Behind and Common Core programs, which prioritized science and math over other subjects. In LA County, for example, 1/3 of the arts teachers were let go between 2008 and 2012[1], and for half of K-5 students, art was cut all together.[2] How can a program that’s supposedly trying to make education better, do such a terrible job keeping something as strong as art? It is obvious that art is seen as something beneath other activities such as writing even though they are so similar. An programs like the No Child Left Behind and Common Core are what continue to push our culture in the ignorant direction of ignoring art. Despite these paired benefits of writing and fine arts, writing continues to be a core subject in schools and art is often pushed to the sidelines. Casual endeavors into writing and fine arts can result in a significant boost in creativity and problem solving abilities for all ages. Both subjects are effective stress relievers, and repeated practice of either creative medium results in similar brain activations and modifications. Given these facts, fine arts should be given a greater focus in schools and deserves the same respect as language arts.

Works Cited Staff, EdSource. “Effort to revive arts programs in schools gains momentum.” EdSource, edsource.org/2014/effort-to-revive-arts-programs-in-schools-gains-momentum/63507. Accessed 24 Sept. 2017. “Let’s get rid of Art Education in schools.” Danny Gregory, 5 Oct. 2016, dannygregorysblog.com/2016/04/15/lets-get-rid-of-art-education-in-schools/. Accessed 24 Sept. 2017. Maloney, Karen Blase, and B. L. Hopkins. “THE MODIFICATION OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO SUBJECTIVE JUDGEMENTS OF CREATIVITY IN WRITING.” Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 27 Feb. 2013, onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1901/jaba.1973.6-425/full. Accessed 24 Sept. 2017. “Educational research: The art of problem solving.” ArtsEdSearch, www.artsedsearch.org/summaries/educational-research-the-art-of-problem-solving. Accessed 24 Sept. 2017. Frank, Priscilla. “Study Says Making Art Reduces Stress, Even If You Kind Of Suck At It.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 16 June 2016, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/study-says-making-art-reduces-stress_us_576183ece4b09c926cfdccac. Accessed 24 Sept. 2017. Publishing, Harvard Health. “Writing about emotions may ease stress and trauma.” Harvard Health, www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/writing-about-emotions-may-ease-stress-and-trauma. Accessed 24 Sept. 2017. Shah, Carolin, et al. “Neural correlates of creative writing: An fMRI Study.” Human Brain Mapping, Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company, 8 Dec. 2011, onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hbm.21493/full. Accessed 24 Sept. 2017. Bhattacharya, Joydeep, and Hellmuth Petsche. “Drawing on mind’s canvas: Differences in cortical integration patterns between artists and non‐artists.” Human Brain Mapping, Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company, 25 Apr. 2005, onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hbm.20104/full. Accessed 24 Sept. 2017. “Sensitivity of human EEG alpha band desynchronization to different working memory components and increasing levels of memory load.” Neuroscience Letters, Elsevier, 5 Nov. 2003, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304394003011352. Accessed 24 Sept. 2017.

Why Bully?

In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the author tells the story of a group of boys who find themselves stranded on an island and have to learn to defend for themselves. During their time on this island the boys had went through a lot of changes emotionally, physically, and mentally. What am I wondering about is how does the influence of bullying people affect our world today? For some, people might bully people because when they're feeling sad, angry, confused, etc and they need to take it out on someone or something and don’t notice that doing this could be hurting someone. People will bully other people just to see the person at the struggle to get through the day.

The book starts off with Ralph and Piggy  stranded on an island wondering where the rest of the people that was with them go. Ralph and Piggy blows into a conch  when suddenly all of this boys come running out the forest. Later on the boys had a voted Ralph as the leader of the group and a lot of the boys didn’t like that. The boys main objective is trying to escape the island.  In Chapter 2 there is a lot of tension within the civilization between Piggy and Jack. Piggy tries to stay his ideas of what they should do but Jack keeps on hurt piggy’s feelings. Piggy says “ There ain’t nothing we can do. We ought to be more careful. I’m scared----” (45). Jack then yells at him and says “You’re always scared. Yah----Fatty!”(45). What the reader can see is that Piggy is feeling intimidated by Jack because Jack yells at him and keeps on talking about his wait. Also, what the reader can tell is that Jack doesn’t care about Piggy’s feels because he talks about his wait and doesn’t think that piggy can’t say or do say anything because of his weight.


Later on in the book we meet this boy named Roger. Roger is a bad influence on the boys because in chapter four it says “Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life.  Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law. Roger's arm was conditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him and was in ruins”(87).What the author was showing how roger was bullying one of the littluns because he was throwing rocks at them. But he miss every time he threw one.


What is bullying? Bullying is an “aggressive behavior among school aged children.” There are three types of bulking which is verbal, physically, and social. Bully happens all across the world and it really needs to stop. Like for example in Lord of the Flies when Jack is calling piggy names he is verbally bulking piggy because it is hurt piggy’s feelings. Also, it is very disrespectful and Jack thinks that it is all fun and games. Another example of bulking in the book is when nobody listens to piggy because they don’t care about his ideas on anything there just pushing him to the side. One example of physical bullying is when Roger is fighting piggy and “accidentally” push pigg off a cliff that caused piggy to die. So, this is an issue in the world today and it needs to be stopped.


In my essay I was trying to show how bullying can be really harmful to people. Also this was explaining some of the reason why William Golding put this in the Lord of the Flies book to make this an awareness  it’s around the world.



Golding, Williams. Lord of the Flies. New York: Penguin, 2006.


“What Is Bullying.” StopBullying.gov, www.stopbullying.gov/what-is-bullying/index.html



MP1 Art Blog and Artist's Statement

  1. Tell your reader what printmaking is and why it is important.

Printmaking is the activity or occupation of making pictures or designs by printing them from specially prepared plates or blocks. Printmaking is important because of the use of there unique techniques.

  1. Use the research about printmaking you did last class. Explain to the reader why the invention of printmaking was revolutionary and why it is so important.

The invention of printmaking was revolutionary because it was a art form, that made many artists famous and it became a way for artists to produce multiple copies.

  1. Find a print that interests you. Download a copy of the print, upload the print with credits to your blog.

Image result for printmaking designs

  1. Tell why you find the print artistically interesting.To properly tell about the print you chose.

This print interests me artistically behind I am thinking of it in multiple views. I see this print as someone reaching for success or for help. When I think of it as someone asking for help I vision abuse and they are getting beating, the victim is just reaching out.

5. Use - I notice... I wonder… What if… to explain how you think about the work of art.

I notice that that the hand has marks all over it. When I see these marks I wonder if the artist made it in a sketchy way or in a way to see that it been through a lot of physical pain. What if the hand was painted solid, meaning all black. Will it tell a different story and having me wondering other things.


Printmaking-Lincoln Murray

Printmaking is the method of printing an image or scriptures into a block of material. Printmaking dates all the way back to the 1st century. Printmaking revolutionized information spread because it allowed people to mass distribute images, scriptures, currency, or artwork. The 3 main processes of printmaking is: lithography, relief printing, and intaglio printing. 
by : Stephen Alcorn
by : Stephen Alcorn
This print was made by Stephen Alcorn. I found this on google and like how complex it is. I enjoy the color scheme and how it is used to show racial unity. I notice that this print has lines going to the center of the image, possibly used to emphasize the handshake. I wonder why the choice of a printed frame was used instead of a regular frame. What if the frame is used to show the importance of the image, possibly relating it to a family portrait that would be hung on a wall which many people value.

Negative/positive space cut out - Cameryn Roach

1. Negative space is just the area that surrounds the main focus or object in a drawing or painting. 
2. I found the negative space in my cut out by looking to see what part of my image should go on the left or the right to complete the image. 
3. It helps an artist to see in negative space so that it could expand the way they think of art and it could influence how their own artwork comes out. 
4. Seeing in negative space does enhance drawings because, for example, even though your goal might be to make a house it gives the viewers a different way of viewing the house. 
Screenshot 2018-04-29 at 4.35.25 PM
Screenshot 2018-04-29 at 4.35.25 PM

Hasciya Austin// Negative space cut-out

20180427_170819-01-1
 A. What is negative space (explain this concept to a fourth grader that has never heard of it)

Negative space is the opposite of positive space while positve space is th e main focus of the image, negative space is the background oof the image.

B. Explain how you found negative space in your cut out?

I found the negative space by putting the backgroud of the yellow onto the read, and seeing that red is more prominate color, I knew that it was the negative space.

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

It helps define the boundaries of the image, which allows the artists to find balance withing the image

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

Yes, It gives more of a 3D effect, which  I think is nice to look at