For my capstone I created a documentary about the Philadelphia free library system, showcasing both the flaws, and immense triumphs in the different branches across our city. Filmed mostly on a canon camcorder, I visited multiple different branches of the Philadelphia free library and talked to librarians and staff, as well as people in my life who have heavily influenced my love for reading and the library system. I view this project as an ode to the libraries, which I’ve spent thousands of hours in throughout my almost 18 years living in Philadelphia. As well as a culmination of some of the most, in my opinion, important SLA core values. Inquiry, research, and presentation.

LINK TO DOCUMENTARY https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nnakWMlHshougB7_V57DtzFGFGy0WnfJ/view?usp=sharing

LINK TO BIBLIOGRAPHY https://docs.google.com/document/d/186oG9fsn1RwEQ0AxXeZND2PT7sXhOzm4QqRgZETgVtw/edit

I chose to create a late 1940s era monopoly board with quotes from the book scattered throughout and a clock in the middle. The book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, By Ken Kesey is set in the 1960s, but I assumed that the psychiatric facility would not have the most up to date, or new board games, which is why I used a 1940s Monopoly board for my inspiration. The clock in the middle showcases squiggly hands both pointing to the three on the clock to illustrate the ways in which our narrator, Chief Bromden, often gets lost in time. Like on pg. 103, when Chief states, “There’s long spells- three days, years- when you can’t see a thing.” I wanted to show Chiefs loss of time because I think that it is very significant to a question our class has posed a few times in various discussions: how reliable is Chief Bromden’s narration? From the very beginning of the story we are questioning if what we are being told is the truth of what has happened, or it’s just Chief telling us what he believes he saw, early on in the book he addresses this, “It’s still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.”(8) This leaves the reader questioning whether or not we can trust Bromden’s narration throughout the rest of this story. On my Monopoly board I scattered different references to the story throughout the classic Monopoly squares. I color coded these squares to group different topics that are related to some of the main characters together. I used the color green on the “Work Farm” and “Casino” squares because both of these squares are relevant to the character, McMurphy. On each corner of the board I included a main reference included throughout the book that has been mentioned more than once. The Nurses Station, the Shock Shop, and the Broom Closet. All of these locations are essential to the facility, and have been mentioned in multiple scenes throughout the story. In the fourth corner I replaced the class Monopoly “Go” square with a “Do NOT Go” square. I chose to include this because a lot of the characters within this story seem to be trapped in the psych ward, with no choice to leave, and no life waiting outside for them even if they did. I chose to include squares that are present within the actual game Monopoly because I wanted to signify our narrator’s constant fight between the real world and the world within his head. It is clear that Bromden is constantly trying to differentiate between the psych ward and his present, and his past memories. This creates a confusing plot and leaves me wondering sometimes if what Bromden is describing actually happened, or if we are just inside of his head. I wanted to create the same kind of confusion on my board which is why I mixed in Baltic and Mediterranean avenues with the Columbia River Dam.

I drew a picture of the Polaroid of Offred’s daughter, that Serena Joy shows her. I chose to write this because I think when Offred saw this picture it was a turning point in the story. When Offred sees this picture she can tell her daughter has forgotten her, “A shadow of a shadow, as dead mothers become. You can see it in her eyes: I am not there.” (Pg. 228) Before this point Offred has often lived in her memories, of herself and her daughter, her mother, Luke, and Moira. She was given no closure, and has no idea what happened to her family so she is able to create different realities in her head and live inside of those memories. When Offred sees this photo of her daughter, and realizes that she has been forgotten, in her mind she has nothing more to live for. The tone of her narration changes after this moment. She seems like a shell of herself, and begins to take risks she wouldn’t have previously done. The way she tells her story is like she’s removed herself from it. Removed her emotions, memories, and care. Before this moment Offred had little bits of hope. She dreamed of the day when she might reunite with Luke and her daughter. Or lived in the past when they were still with her. When she loses this hope, like many people, she loses her sense of self. Within the drawing I used primarily red paint, and left Offred’s daughter’s face blank. Throughout the story a main theme I noticed the author using was the mention of the color red. In more obvious cases this is the color of the handmaid’s clothes. But the author includes smaller references to the color throughout. Like how Offred describes the summer heat as “red radiation.” I think the author includes this term to show how the color red signifies the discomfort and danger, ever so present around the handmaids. I used mostly the color red in my drawing to represent similar feelings, and to show how prevalent the color is throughout the book. I left Offred’s daughter’s face blank because although Offred often recounts memories of her daughter, she never describes what she looks like. I think this is because it would be too painful for Offred to really think about what she lost, so she keeps these feelings of mystery around her daughter to shield herself from pain. Serena Joy shows Offred this picture as a part of a bribe to get Offred to conceive a child with Nick instead of the Commander. As I was reading I wondered if Serena Joy knew that when Offred saw this picture she would be driven to take more risks, as the thing she was living for, her daughter, had moved on without her. I also wondered if Serena Joy knew the pain she caused Offred by showing her this picture. And by extension, if she did this on purpose because of the disdain she seemed to hold for handmaids throughout the entire story. I think that showing Offred the picture did more harm than good, and served as a major turning point in this story.

In my previous post titled “Why beauty standards are stupid” I talked about my research about toxic beauty standards and how they affect people everyday. More recently I conducted interviews with fellow classmates asking them more personal questions about how beauty standards affect them. In this post I will be talking about my experiences with my research, interviews, and overall how this project affected me and how I plan to bring change to the world. One of the biggest challenges about my topic is beauty standards are something that are ingrained so deeply in our society. Specifically something I feel our society almost revolves around, social media. For many people, especially people my age and a little older social media is a big part of our lives. Sometimes it is the first thing you check when you wake up, and the last thing you check before you go to bed. But social media is toxic. And when something you spend so much time on is toxic, bad things happen. In my last post I talked about how toxic beauty standards are often pushed onto people on social media platforms like instagram and tik tok. A term I have used in my previous post is “The perfect lifestyle.” And what I mean by that is on social media platforms so called instagram models will post about their perfect body, and perfect lifestyle. Which often negatively affects the people viewing it. Teenagers are especially affected by this because they will look at one of these posts and wonder why their body or life doesn’t look like the so-called perfection on their screen. When conducting my interviews I asked two of my classmates whether or not they feel beauty standards would exist without social media, both had very different answers to this. Aylin Echandy stated that she thinks beauty standards wouldn’t be as “Big or impactful” without social media. While Caleb Park said “Yes, beauty standards have existed since the beginning of written history.” Both of these answers made a lot of sense to me and believe that they both have a lot of truth to them. After conducting my own research I learned that beauty standards have been around forever, but have they always been toxic? Or was social media the thing that made them that way? For my actual agent of change I did two things. The first one I have already talked about a little bit. I conducted interviews with a couple of classmates and out of those interviews made a podcast. The second thing, shown down below is a piece of artwork I created. View my podcast here

The artwork I created for my project.

I used quotes from my interviews and then at the bottom asked the question I have been asking myself throughout this process, is social media the problem? I then drew a picture which I think captures the way beauty standards can make people feel. The podcast was my first idea. I thought that interviews were a really solid way to conduct research on people who have had a first hand experience with beauty standards and social media. I also thought that making a podcast could be a really cool way to show others how people, just like them, feel about this issue. Actually conducting these interviews and making the podcast were much harder than I originally thought. I had to identify people to interview, set up time that worked for both of us, conduct the actual interview and then edit it into a podcast. I had originally planned to interview 4 or 5 people. But only ended up being able to do two interviews. After all of this I still question whether or not I actually made or am making a change. Will people listen to my podcast and feel moved? Will people relate to my visual? Is that what change is? In the end I like to think I made a change. I hope the people I interviewed, and the people who listen to my podcast, reflect on my questions and feel better about themselves because of it. I really hope that I made a change, even if it’s a small one. Annotated bibliography

“Body shape is something that a majority of women struggle with, as many believe their size is too big, too curvy, or even too skinny.” (The catalyst.) This is a quote I took from an article in a high school newspaper. It touches on what I believe to be a huge issue in our society. Toxic beauty standards. In our society we’ve set an unrealistic standard for ourselves. We look at highly edited pictures of so called “instagram models” and believe that is what we should look like. Young children look into the mirror and wonder if there’s something wrong with them, and wonder why they don’t look like the models they see on TV. All over the world people try to change their appearance because they’ve come to the belief that they don’t fit into the standard. The toxic, unrealistic standards that are portrayed everywhere.

An image showing how [body dysmorphia] (https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Freverehealth.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fdysmorphic.png&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Freverehealth.com%2Flive-better%2Fwhat-is-body-dysmorphic-disorder%2F&tbnid=xRMohUBVSX_lvM&vet=12ahUKEwj5u47t78zvAhUiAN8KHfdsCUgQMygGegUIARDiAQ..i&docid=HwhjpIwyzQE8nM&w=701&h=701&q=body%20dysmorphia&ved=2ahUKEwj5u47t78zvAhUiAN8KHfdsCUgQMygGegUIARDiAQ) can look.

When I was brainstorming what I wanted to focus on for my you and the world project I thought about issues that matter to me and things that affect me personally. One of the biggest that came to mind was toxic beauty standards, and specifically how they’re portrayed on social media. Beauty standards are something that have been around forever. While conducting research for this project I found a blog post that listed Standards for women’s bodies from 1292 B.C to today. It described the traits that were most desired and expected from women in each time period, it was this article that gave me new meaning to the term, “Toxic beauty standards.” Why is it that the so-called standard of beauty changes all the time? Why does our society constantly change what our bodies should look like, and why do so many people fall into the trap of thinking that they aren’t beautiful because they don’t fit into the standards that are constantly shifting?

Something that’s most definitely not talked about enough is how beauty standards directly affect people. Especially young girls and teenagers. Unrealistic beauty standards are shown all over the place, social media apps fill their explore pages with instagram models showing off their “Perfect lifestyle.”

“Instagram model” who often shows off her so called [perfect lifestyle] (https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fneoreach.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F06%2FTop-10-Models-on-Instagram.jpeg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fneoreach.com%2Ftop-instagram-models%2F&tbnid=dRW8k9Pprye0SM&vet=12ahUKEwjotaPa98zvAhXHBt8KHZ49AVUQMyguegUIARCcAg..i&docid=4i56BqQ3cr5PoM&w=1393&h=900&q=instagram%20model&ved=2ahUKEwjotaPa98zvAhXHBt8KHZ49AVUQMyguegUIARCcAg)

Magazines print the newest it model on their front pages.

Models posing for a [Vogue] (https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.etonline.com%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fstyles%2Fvideo_1920x1080%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2017-02%2F1280_kendall_gigi_ashley_vogue_020817.jpg%3Fitok%3D-baLoriu&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.etonline.com%2Fnews%2F209818_kendall_jenner_gigi_hadid_and_ashley_graham_slay_the_cover_of_vogue_stunning_group_photo&tbnid=xtPRkBwKAlYIHM&vet=12ahUKEwiulK7g-MzvAhUGT98KHYaFDtIQMygBegUIARCkAQ..i&docid=yRJhO07Rf3iYgM&w=1920&h=1080&q=gigi%20hadid%20kendall%20jenner%20vogue%20cover&ved=2ahUKEwiulK7g-MzvAhUGT98KHYaFDtIQMygBegUIARCkAQ) photo shoot

In our society it’s hard to live without constantly comparing yourself to the people around you. This constant comparing and doubting yourself can lead to a lot more serious issues and can take a large toll on your mental health. One of these side effects is developing an eating disorder. According to the alliance for eating disorder awareness, around 30 million Americans have experienced a clinical eating disorder in their lifetime. And an article by Jessica Defino for Hello giggles stated that “Studies prove that beauty standards directly contribute to anxiety and depression. They can trigger body dysmorphia and disordered eating. They can fuel low self-esteem, self-harm, and even suicide. All of these conditions have risen in recent years, and all of them are unequivocally connected to beauty standards.”

Infographic showing different [stats] (https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fthebodyimagecenter.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2013%2F09%2FNEDAW1-730x1024.png&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fthebodyimagecenter.com%2Feducation-awareness%2Feating-disorder-statistics%2F&tbnid=N5c06vymT4GxWM&vet=12ahUKEwjf6YGs-czvAhWJdN8KHfNVBgoQMygCegUIARCCAQ..i&docid=8cipRVgBTa9MIM&w=730&h=1024&q=how%20many%20people%20have%20eating%20disorders&ved=2ahUKEwjf6YGs-czvAhWJdN8KHfNVBgoQMygCegUIARCCAQ) about eating disorders

This quote really ties it all together. The effect beauty standards have on people across the world. They’re terrible for our mental health, can lead to serious medical conditions, and drastically lower self esteem. We must reflect on this as a society. Why do we constantly promote an unrealistic standard when we can just focus on celebrating the beauty each individual person has? And why have we decided that a certain set of traits is the standard for beauty?

By Trinity, Dinajda, Elijah, Winston, and Kara.

On Todays episode we began with a summary on the book, reflection about the ending and then went into our award ceremony. We presented 5 awards to various scenes and characters.

We hope your enjoy

Todays Episode: https://drive.google.com/file/d/14IZsgUgejTYp5W_lgf3RyQGfHor6Cy6B/view?usp=sharing

By Winston, Kara, Trinity, Elijah, and Dinajda

On todays episode about Wild by Cheryl Strayed we had interviews With 2 hosts (Winston, and Trinity), Cheryl (Kara) , Greg (Elijah), And Paul (Dinajda). The hosts asked different questions to each character to give the listeners a unique in look on our book.

Quotes: Quote referenced in Winston’s first questions-(pg.189)

Todays episode: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YLwuH0KTLp-r6EHG13wJ2FKc20Rgvw4C/view?usp=sharing

Winston, Elijah, Kara, Trinity, Dinajda

On todays episode we continued to reflect on our book, Wild by Cheryl Strayed. Our task was to choose a couple songs that we think related to the themes/events in the book. We chose three songs, Cover me up, Looking for you, and all by myself. We talked about why we chose these songs and then went into depth about some of our feelings on the most recent chapters we read.

page numbers Kara’s quote: Pg. 53 Trinity’s quote: Pg. 30

Song links ( this is the only one I could find) cover me up- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaUCDqWzy1k

Todays Episode: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1J7Ll73b4Pn4lj1sjoyS5DmqbhhJVP5ZL/view?usp=sharing

By Winston, Kara, Elijah, Trinity, and Dinajda

• On todays episode we talked about the first two parts, chapter 1-6 of our book Wild by Cheryl Strayed. We spent a lot of time discussing our thoughts on the book and then moved on to analysis of a few quotes (page numbers below) Then we talked about our predictions about the book and that’s it. We hope you enjoy our 1st episode! We had a lot of fun making it!

• 1st quote we shared (Winston) pg. 111

• 2nd quote we shared (Kara) pg. 97

Todays episode: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rS4hxFKopkZxlJZAaf0CHfuDXmB5T_4u/view?usp=sharing

The way Trevor Noah talked about his family and how important they were to him is something that I took inspiration from while writing my story. Throughout his whole story he talks about how much his mother loved him, like in chapter 6 when Trevor writes, “It was discipline in the form of love.” And again much later in the book he writes, “But it doesn’t always work, because you’re giving the kid tough love when maybe he just needs love.” (pg. 161) Although there is more background and depth behind these quotes they both have one thing in common, love. I think that closely relates to the culture of family. “That you can love a person you hate ,or hate a person you love.”(pg. 188) I think this quote holds a lot of truth when talking about any family. Nothing is perfect and sometimes it is hard to love them but in the end loving your family no matter what is so important. In Trevor Noah’s own vignettes he explored a sense of not knowing where he belonged even in his family, which is a truly hard feeling. I think an example of this in the book is when his grandmother hits his cousins and not him because he was half white, and again when he said, “I was an anomaly wherever we lived.”(pg. 84) Struggling to belong is a hard thing to go through and Trevor Noah explored this feeling a lot in his book which helped influence how I wrote my vignette. A huge thing Trevor Noah used in his vignettes to reach the reader was humor. Humor is never something I’ve really used in my writing, but one thing I did try to do like Trevor Noah was use lots of description. While reading his story it was almost like you were in the moment because of the way he described things. I took a lot of inspiration from this and I wanted my story to be something that people would read and feel like they were part of the moment while it happened. The culture of one’s family is a very complex thing to describe. I tried to add in little details, moments that may not seem important but would end up contributing to the reader being able to understand and get insight on how my family works. One of the main themes of our unit was Identity, and specifically what influences our identity. A huge thing that influences my identity is my family which is why I chose to write this specific story. My family makes me who I am, every part of my identity has been somehow shaped by my family. That is why I think that family is so important, they are constantly shaping and reshaping us. Family and identity seamlessly fit together, and I wanted to show that by writing this story a story of a normal night with my family.

Creating this piece was such an amazing experience and a great way for me personally to reflect on this crazy year. My first step was to read through a journal I had kept, starting January 1st 2020 and writing in it everyday since. I decided on entries that I thought really reflected my 2020, entries from the day George Floyd was murdered by the minneapolis police, or the day I found out school shut down because of the Coronavirus, or starting high school online, and the last time I hugged a friend before quarantine. I took pictures of all of these entries and with my dads help printed them out, along with a few news headlines that I had found that I thought tied the journal entries together. After I had glued down my journal entries, in a format similar to a timeline of 2020 and added the news headlines I began to annotate my entries, seeing if any predictions I had were correct, and answering questions my past self had about the future, or really describing some of the things I had been feeling at the time I wrote the entry. The final piece I added to the board was an old mask of mine, with one of the straps connected to a headline I had written on my poster board, “new normal” because wearing a mask is the new normal, it’s something that I never leave the house without, so while certain things have gone back to the way they were before the pandemic a lot will never be the same. Being a teenager during this year was so hard in many ways. And I think that my project does a very good job of showing both the good, the bad, and all of my other feelings as a teenager in 2020. Keeping a journal this year was something that really helped me get through some of the bad times and emotions I was having. So I think to use some of those journal entries as the center point of my project really relates well to theme of being a teenager in 2020. During this year a lot has changed and I have had to adjust to a new normal of life, doing this project was such a good way to show all of my feelings and thoughts about this year, and to illustrate the good and bad.