Something you may not know about me is that I love to bake. Cookies, cakes, pies, anything you name it! This is why for my 4th quarter benchmark I chose to do a blog on baking. Throughout the course of several months I have been experimenting with different baking techniques so that I could not only bake the things that I love but also learn how to bake new things that I haven't mastered yet or never baked before. Overall, I learned a lot about the things that I baked/created and hopefully other people can learn something from my capstone as well.





My Capstone.

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Works Cited

"30 Techniques To Create An Effective Blog." WPWebHost RSS. N.p., 18 Nov. 2009. Web. 28 Jan. 2013. I used this source to help me with the content of my blog. Things such as formatting, pictures, how much to write, etc. This source gives tips on how to create a blog that is effective and introduces different techniques on how to approach this. I wasn't already aware of some of these things before, so I find this source to be helpful.

Appleton, Rebecca. "What Makes For An Effective Blog Post?" Search Marketing Standard. N.p., 16 May 2010. Web. 30 Jan. 2013. I used this source to help with the content of my blog. It has a little bit more useful information than some of the other sources I've used for this purpose. Some things are repetitive, but overall I this source is very insightful and is helping me get on the right track for when I actually start my blog.

"Cookie Decorating Tips: King Arthur Flour." Cookie Decorating Tips: King Arthur Flour. King Arthur Flour Company, n.d. Web. 30 Jan. 2013. Although this source had a few good tips, it wasn't a very helpful source. It gave cookie decorating tips but only using their products. Before viewing the source I wasn't aware that this was a company giving advice. This caused for the article to be a little biased.

Currah, Alice. "Classic Vanilla Buttercream Frosting." Savory Sweet Life. N.p., 12 Mar. 2010. Web. 28 Jan. 2013. For a couple weeks, I will be working with different icings. One thing I wanted to try was a buttercream icing. This is a potential recipe I could be using for my buttercream icing.

"Decorating Bag Tips." Decorating Tips. Wilton Industries, n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2013. This site just gives me an idea of what kinds of icing bag tips I would need to use in order to ice my cookies and cake a certain way.

"FOOD REVIEW: Sample the Culinary Magic of the next Jamie or Delia." This Is Grimsby. Local World, 9 Mar. 2011. Web. 01 Feb. 2013. Since I will be having people review my food, I wanted to research some key points that I should have people touch on. I found this source to be insightful and has definitely given me some good questions to ask when coming up with my food evaluation form.

Frazier, Christine. "How to Make Your Baking Healthy." No Meat Athlete. No Meat Athlete, n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2013. In my science and society class we talked a lot about how to eat healthier. With this being said, I wanted to think of different things I can use when baking to make what I'm baking better for you, yet still tasty. This website helps with this.

"How to Write a Food Review." Article Base. N.p., 8 July 2010. Web. 01 Feb. 2013. Since I will be having people review my food, I wanted to research some key points that I should have people touch on. I found this source to be insightful and has definitely given me some good questions to ask when coming up with my food evaluation form.

Johnston, Karlynn. "How To: Make The Best Buttercream Icing." The Kitchen Magpie. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Jan. 2013. For my blog I made a batch of cookies. I decided that it would be a good idea to maybe put icing on a few of them. I didn't have any store bought icing, so I came up with the idea of making some myself. This was one of the several recipes that I've found, however I decided to execute this one.

Keyser, Wayne. "Soft, Moist Homebaked Bread That Stays That Way." CHOW. N.p., 24 Dec. 2006. Web. 01 Feb. 2013. I haven't yet used this source, but it will be helpful when I am making my banana bread. It will help me with making my bread more moist which is a problem I have been experiencing in the past.

Murphy, Samantha. "5 Tips to Take Food Photos Good Enough to Eat." Mashable. N.p., 11 Aug. 2012. Web. 31 Jan. 2013. This article gives tips on how to take pictures of foods. This is helpful because when I take pictures of the different things I bake I would like them to come out looking as best as possible. I had no perspective on this before, so now I know of a few different things I can do to visually spruce up the things that I bake.

Nairobi, Kenya. "The Dos and Don'ts of Baking." All Voices. N.p., 27 Apr. 2010. Web. 01 Feb. 2013. Although I consider myself a good baker, I don't really know the ins and outs of baking. This source gives me one person's perspective on what to do and not to do when baking. I found this source to be very insightful because it talked several things that I never really thought of.

O'Neal, Janet. "Fruit Pizza Recipe." Taste of Home. Reiman Media Group, n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2013. I already have a recipe that I use to make fruit pizza. However, I wanted to find an alternate idea for the crust. This source gives me an idea on how to alter my crust to hopefully improve it.

Singer, Zoe. "Gluten-Free Recipes and Tips." Epicurious. Condé Nast, n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2013. Another thing I wanted to learn about was gluten free baking. I've never done this before and so I am very interested in experimenting with it. This website gives several tips on this topic.

"Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe ~ Cupcake Project." Cup Cake Project. N.p., 10 June

2008. Web. 01 Feb. 2013. This is another recipe to add for my icings. This involved using fresh fruit which is something that I wanted to incorporate in my capstone: baking with fresh fruit.

Ingredients for Macaroni and Cheese:

 

¼ box of elbow noodles

½ bag Sharp White Cheddar Cheese (shredded)

½ Sharp Yellow Cheddar Cheese (shredded)

¼ stick Velveeta Cheese

1 cup Evaporated Milk

2 Eggs

1 tablespoon Butter

Pinch of salt

 

Directions:

 

1.     Preheat oven to 400 degrees

2.     Boil water with a pinch of salt

3.     Once the water is completely boiled, add noodles and let cook until the noodles are soft.

4.     Microwave the butter until it is completely melted.

5.     In a bowl microwave ½ of evaporated milk and Velveeta cheese together until completely melted.

6.     Stir together the cooked noodles, microwaved Velveeta cheese, microwaved butter, and eggs.

7.     Once the ingredients are well mixed add the yellow and white cheeses. Stir.

8.     Spread the ingredients into a pan.

9.     Put in the oven, and let cook for 15 – 20 minutes. (until edges are a light brown)

 

About the ingredients

 

Cracker barrel white/ yellow sharp cheddar cheese

-       No sugar

-       High calcium

-       High saturated fats

-       Kraft product (made in Kraft factories)

 

Land O’ Lakes Salted Butter

-       100 calories per serving (1 tbsp)

-       All fat

-       Comes from Arden Mills, Minnesota

 

Velveeta Cheese

80 calories per serving

-       High in calcium

-       High in sodium

-       High in saturated fats

-       Kraft Product (made in Kraft factories)

 

Evaporated Milk

-       High in calcium

-       High in sugar

-       87 calories per serving (100 grams)

-       High in carbohydrates

-       Nestle Product (factories in Allentown and in Harrisburg)

 

Eggs

-       High in protein

-       No saturated fat

-       No cholesterol

-       High in riboflavin

-       High in selenium

-       High in sodium

 

Elbow Pasta

-       High in carbohydrates

-       No saturated fats

-       No cholesterol

-       No sodium

-       High in thiamin

-       Barilla product (factory in Bannockburn, Illinois)

 

Overall, this meal isn’t the healthiest thing you could eat. A lot of the ingredients involved have high amounts of sodium, high cholesterol, high amounts of sugar, and high amounts of carbohydrates.  Maybe with different ingredients, this meal could potentially be turned into a meal that won’t kill you over time. I got the recipe for my macaroni and cheese dish from my mom. She doesn’t make this dish often, and now I see why.

In terms of cost, this meal can be considered to be an expensive meal. Before producing the meal, I had to go out and buy all the ingredients used. I ended up spending about 30$ for all the ingredients in total. Since I didn’t every bit of each ingredient, I would say there is enough left to make the small dish about 2 more times which would be equivalent to 1 large pan. That isn’t the best deal. I can think of about 5 other meals that I can buy that would be cheaper than just this dish.

Another downside to this dish is where the ingredients come from. This meal is 100% processed, which isn’t the best thing. The only things that are considered to be “local” or whole foods would be the eggs. Everything else comes from factories, some far and some not too far. However, when you think about things being produced in a factory you have to think of the means of production. With factories come workers, injuries, waste, and pollution. So now not only do I have to think about how this meal is affecting the health of my family, but also how this meal is effecting our environment.

Self Assessment 

The biggest problem that we have in our food system is cost and profit. These people who produce these foods aren't worried about the health of their consumers. They're more concerned with how much of a profit they will make which is why the food system is so screwed up. It's easy to say that we'll stop buying products from these "Big Food" companies, but that is unrealistic. What we need is to find some type of alternative. Food that is bad for you shouldn't be so cheap, and food that is good for you shouldn't be so expensive. Basically, healthy food is a luxury and that shouldn't be the case. I think we need to really think about and research how our food system got like this and then work on a way to reverse it.

A goal I have for myself is to try and eat less processed foods. Also, I would like to eat out less. This is hard for me, but I feel that if I can do that now then maybe I can teach the same things to my kids so that they can teach that to their kids and so forth. I can also try and get my friends to have similar goals which maybe one day can make for a healthier future. It seems as if 
each generation is getting more unhealthy and that's solely based off of how much we exercise and what we eat day to day. So if we can change those aspects of our lives, then we will be on our way to a healthier lifestyle. 

After reading The Scarlet Letter and watching Juno the theme that stuck out to me the most was the theme of private vs. public self. I wanted to illustrate this theme in a way where it applied not only to both stories, but also applied to society today. I decided to make a book using poster board and construction paper. I chose to make the border of the book red because it stands out just as the characters did. In both The Scarlet Letter and Juno both of the main characters stood out from the crowd in a significant way, which drew a lot of attention. On the outside of the book I used magazine cutouts to illustrate misconceptions of the 2 characters. I used a lot of judgmental words and words that essentially would make you want to look at the book but not actually open it. Then, when you open the book you see the quote "Never judge a book by it's ..." and several magazine covers. 

In The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the main character, Hester Prynne, was highly criticized by the people who lived in her town. Their judgment was based solely on the “A” that she sported on her chest. Not many took the time to actually get to know Hester, which ended up to taking a toll on her. For a while she lived a lonely life because not many people wanted to get involved with her and what they believed she stood before. This relates to the book because everyone was so focused on her outer appearance that no one wanted to take the time to see what was inside.

Juno also shares a similar storyline. One thing that’s different in this story is that the main character, Juno, had a hard external appearance. She acted as if she didn’t want anyone to know the real her which is why no one actually did. Throughout most of the movie, the one person that wanted to know the real Juno, she drove off until the end. This also relates to the book because I chose to make parts of the book to look forbidden so that people don’t actually open it.

Although I am very proud of how my final product came out, there were a few things that stood in the way of me having a complete project. One problem I encountered while doing this project was determining the size of the actual book. At first I wanted to create a book that was essentially the size of a poster board, but that proved to be unrealistic. If I were to do a book this size, I would have needed a greater amount of magazine cutouts than I had. I chose these cutouts very selectively, so if I were to add more just to fill space I feel that the meaning would no longer be clear. However, I do feel that the quality of the project is being jeopardized because of the size but this was the best way to accurately get my point across. Other than that I really had no other complications. Normally my final product comes out nowhere near the way I envisioned it because of time. However, I did a good job with time management for this project so my final product was not far off from how I saw it to be.

            Even with my project fitting my expectations, if I could do it over I would do some things differently. For instance, instead of using magazine cutouts I would have found another method. I say this because for the most part all the magazines I got cutouts from had common themes. This made it hard for me to add a sense of diversity to my project or a variety of images. Maybe I could have done a drawing or something, which would have required me to generate my own themes, images, and ideas. 

I decided to do my 10 percent project on Electromagnetism. 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2267701/10%25.key

For my "What If" I chose to focus on what life in the United States would be like if Chief Justice Fred Vinson had not died of a heart attack during the Brown V. Board trial. To show life in the US during this time I chose to portray life through the diary of a public high school student from Atlanta Georgia. I envisioned that during this time period, segregation wouldn't be so much of an issue, but things such as jobs and public schools would remain segregated especially in the south. 

What I liked most about this project is how much "imagination" and creativity you have to put into it. For instance, there is no right answer to how you envision life to be like if a key event didn't occur. To see different people's perspectives on some of the same points of divergences is also very interesting. This project causes you to think outside of the box and realize how such small changes in different incidents can drastically change how life is now in the United States. Although this was the most intriguing part of the project, I also found this to be the most challenging as well. Essentially this project is asking us to find a point in history that would change present day life. It's very hard to grasp the concept of a world different than the one that we are so familiar with now. 

I found it interesting how something so unexpected can potentially change the course of history forever. For instance by keeping Justice Fred Vinson alive, the Brown V. Board case was lost. I chose to make this the outcome because while Vinson was still alive the jury was leaning more toward that direction. By making such a subtle change, schools in 2012 (in my opinion) would remain segregated. Of course there would be more cases, complaints, and protests on the topic but I feel like judges would constantly refer back to this trial, similar to how the used the Plessy V. Furgeson case. 

If I could do this project over I would find more ways to get my point of Divergence across, or to make it more clear within the project and not just in the reflection. Another thing I wanted to do was create a documentary of the teenage girl (Liz). However, time was an issue so I just took the potential script and turned it into a firsthand account diary. 

For the summer I would really like to recommend The Pretties, which is the sequel to The Uglies. These books by Scott Westerfield are genius in my opinion. I find them to be really intriguing. These books are best for teenage girls tho. They show you that brains are better than beauty.

 ​

a. What went well? 

We were able to find a lot of useful information on the Dead Zones. I learned a lot about it by researching and I feel extremely informed on the topic.

b. What did not? 

Because of the topic we had, we had an extremely hard time trying to find graphics to use. We then got distracted by trying to find graphics and stopped paying attention to the time we had, which caused us to have to drop finding graphics, and just make a creative post with the information we had.

c. What would you do differently next time? 
I would ask for help so that the process of finding graphics would come more smoothly and spend less time on finding information and more time on creating a better info graphic 
d. Specifically comment on the 10 tips for effective infographics -

Be Concise

Be Visual

It is very important that you make the information appealing to the eye. A boring text heavy poster, isn't exactly the way to go.

Be Smarter

Be Transparent

Don't make things hard to understand. People should be able to get the general gist just by your info graphic alone. 

Be Different

Stand out from things that people may have seen before. If it's something that's repetitive then others may not be intrigued to look.

Be Accurate

Make sure the information are facts. Do not lie to innocent people.

Be Attractive

Make the info graphic appealing to the eye. 

Be Varied

Add variety to your info graphic. In other words, don't just stick with one concept! 

Be Gracious

Be Creative

For this quarter in History, we have been expanding on the NHD papers that we worked on the previous quarter. This was done by creating performances, documentaries, and websites. I chose to do a documentary to display my ideas. Here is the link to my project.

I chose to use a keynote because I feel like it's easier to display my ideas in a way that the viewer can understand. It's also very good with showing different visuals, and if presented correctly, can get a lot of attention.

I feel like I still don't know how America as a whole feels about this topic.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2267701/Dinvil%2CSierra_BusinessUnit.key

1) unas 

2) el 

3) un

4) el

5) un

6) un

7) Unos

8) aviones 

9) una

10) un

11) la

12) el

13) unos

14) el

15) una 

16) la 

17) un

18) una 

1) vuestro 

2) mis

3) mi

4) tus

5) mi

6) tu

7) Mi

8)tus 

9) mis 

10) mi

11) Nuestros 

12) mis

13) nuestro

14) mi

15) tus 

16) tu

17) mis 

18) to

1) muchos

2) muy

3) mucho

4) mucho

5) muchos 

6) muy 

7) mucho

8) muy

9) muy

10) muy

11) muy

12) mucha

13) mucho 

14) mucho 

By Sierra Dinvil & Prisilla Nieves 

Letter to the reader:
 This story is written from the point of view from the main character, Adrian. It’s is a collection of her diary entries that captures the story of when she got “Lost in the Past”. This story is also considered to be a sequel to the real series of where she is living in the past and has to find her way home. Therefore, the end of the story is kind of like a cliffhanger. This format was done purposely, not because it was not finished. Enjoy!

 

October 28, 2125

 

“You remind me of your mom when she was your age”

 

The infamous line, but it has no meaning to me. I say this not because I hate my mom, oh god no! I say this because I never met her. It’s weird though, I feel like I knew her my entire life. I love her unconditionally. You see, my mom died while giving birth…to me. Yeah I know, that’s a hard pill to swallow. Whenever someone brings her up I can’t help but be reminded that I’m the reason that she is no longer with us But let’s be honest I am the reason.

Every year around my birthday, my grandparents tell me stories about my mother. It seems like every year I learn more and more about her. Although I love the second hand stories, I want to know what my mom was like firsthand. The idea may seem a little far-fetched, but I’m almost confident that It will be easy.

Everyday after 6^th period, all of the juniors have to go to Time Capsule class. Before we graduate, we must know how to properly operate a time machine. Even though our training just started a few weeks ago, I feel confident in my ability to work the machine. I mean, it’s as hard as it looks!

Tomorrow, after class, I’m going to hide in the coat closet until Mr. Briggs locks up. At about 6:00 the school should be empty, and then I will borrow a time machine. I’m a little nervous… but hopefully nothing goes wrong. Wish me luck!

 

Xoxo Ariel :)

 

November 22, 2025

 

Wow! It’s been a while since I’ve last written in here… Well let me get you updated! I’ve been in the past for about a month, but in the future it would have only been a few hours. My mom and I are best friends. Oh yeah, did I forget to say that I found her?! I went back into the past far enough that her and I are the same age. It’s so cool! But what’s even cooler is that we practically look like twins. I think that’s part of the reason we became so close. She introduced me to her parents today. Yup, my grandparents. They look so much different so they do in the future. They appear to be a lot younger and happier… but I guess that should be obvious.

Oh yeah, she told me about her boyfriend today. I’m surprised that it isn’t my dad. I wanted to ask her about him but if there is 1 thing I learned in Time Capsule class, it’s do NOT temper with the past. I must follow the rules, especially since my existence depends on it. But I gotta go! I’ll try to keep you posted!

 

Xoxo Ariel J

 

November 25, 2025

 

A few days have passed, and a lot has changed! Where do I start? The other day I met my dad at my mom’s school. He looked nothing like how he does in the future. Anyways, the whole time we were at school she was saying such horrible things about my dad. At first it funny until I started making jokes about how one day she would end up marrying him. She seem utterly disgusted by the thought, and kept repeating that no one would marry a man so dumb. I snapped. I didn’t know what else to do. I blurted out that she would marry “a man so dumb”. I told her I was from the future. I told her I was her daughter. I told her about her death. I told her everything. I was a victim of word vomit. We learned about this in Time Capsule class. Some people can’t handle what they see in the past and as a result, they blurt out the future. It never ends well after that.

            My mom… Catherine she thought I was crazy. She left. She left me there and continued to scream insults at me. I thought she’d understand. I forgot that people from the past cant fathom the things that happen in the future. Immediately after I went back to where my time capsule was… or where it should have been. It was gone! It had self-destructed. I knew this because right where the time capsule used to be was nothing but rubble from the time capsule. I panicked! Then I thought about it… I had altered the future, my future. I remembered back to when we had learned about the cons of going to the past. One of these was that there was always a possibility you wouldn’t make it back because of something you might have said. The time capsule would be the first thing to go. Without a time capsule, I wont be able to get home and no one knows where I am. Back home it hasn’t even been an entire day yet… No one would know to come looking for me. And if they did, they wouldn’t even know where to start. I was trapped, and my only friend… my own mother thought that I was looney. A weirdo. I don’t know what to do, I haven’t completed that chapter in time capsule class. I was lost in the past. 

Don't be a fool..

¿Porque? 

Los imigrantes de Florida trabajan muy duro  (quizas mas duro que el Americano). Pero los trabajadores ganan 50¢ for 30 libras de tomates. Muchos son obligados a trabajar, con menos del salario minimo . Es in-humano!! 

¿Porque Trader Joe’s?

Trader Joe’s contratan a los trabajadores y los trata mal. 

¿Como podemos ayudar? 

Paren de comprar tomates de Trader Joes.

Ayuden a la protestar.

¡Mostren apoyo!

¡Manden letras al central de Trader Joe’s!

Why? 

The migrant workers in Florida work EXTREMELY hard (maybe even harder than your average American). However, they only make 50¢ for every 32 pounds of tomatoes. They are often threatened and forced to work but do NOT receive minimum wage. Thats in-humane!! 

Why Trader Joe’s

Trader Joe’s are the ones who are hiring these migrant workers and treating them so poorly.

How Can We Help?: 

STOP buying tomatoes from Trader Joe’s!!

Help protest! 

Show your support!

Send letters to Trader Joe’s Headquarters! 

I plan on putting a pamphlet together that focus' on migrate workers in general and then get more specific about the trader joes scenario. I would then discuss how buying trader Joe's tomatoes are not helping the situation at all and why boycotting is effective. 

Today I went to my local church and interviewed a lady names Stacy Henderson 

For this project we had to create a song in spanish that answered the question "Where am I from". We did this by first writing a song and then recorded it on a program called garage band, and then imported it. 

From this project I learned how to work garage more efficiently and learned a lot more about conjugated verbs.

I'm proud of my overall song, I think it's really good. I worked really hard on it, and hopefully you can tell. 


If I could do this project over I would try and  figure out how to make my vocals louder.


Note: when listening to the song, make sure you use both headphones or else you wont hear it. :)

Me Encanta Aqui 

Chorus 

Mi familia viviamos en jersey
Luego nos mudamos en philly
ahora me encanta, me ancanta aqui

Verse 1

Soy de x10
Si, me llamo es Sierra
Yo Soy filadelfia 
Pero mi mama es de haiti 
ella dijo que
no le gusta aqui.

Soy de, soy de, cuidado 
Pero me gusta en philly
Con mi mama, hermano, y mi papi
Me Encanta, Me encanta
Me encanta estar aqui
Mi mama se mundo, se mundo
si, si, asi

Chorus 

Mi familia viviamos en jersey
Luego nos mudamos en philly
ahora me encanta, me ancanta aqui
Es frio en el vierno
El verano..
Es mucho..
Calor..
Es por eso que, mi encanta aqui.

Click here for our immigration project.

What surprised me most about the information my group found on immigration is just the overall trend of the immigration rate. I had no clue that the amount of people coming into the country was so inconsistent. By learning this information I feel more conscience about how the things that are going on around us effects everybody. However, it was obvious that during war the immigration rate would go down because America would want to keep a tighter leash on who can come in and out our country.

I feel like if the economy continues to worsen the immigration rate will go down. Either people will choose not to come to America or the government will be more strict about who's coming in.

As a group we decided that we wanted to create a graph similar to the one Ms. Laufenberg had given us, but instead we wanted it to be more visual. We chose to get pictures that best depicted the different circumstances that the world, more specifically America, was going through at the time. We feel like it gets the message across about what happened, and what the immigration rate was that decade in comparison to the years before and after. 

The most challenging part about the group work was the technology issues we had. For a period of time, several people in our group had tech related issues. This delayed the process slightly considering that most groups had 3 functioning computers to work on, and our group had one for a short period of time. It also harder to get work done when someone in the group doesn't participate or put in as much effort as the other members in the group. Aside from that the group work went pretty well.

If I were to do this project over I would probably try and find an even better way to represent the information that we found. I feel like the way we chose was pretty basic, and could have been a tad more creative. 

Soy de ..

Soy de ..

Soy de filadelfia 

que es donde yo vivo

pero yo so Haiti 

que es mi casa 

My refrain is supposed to show that I live in Philadelphia, but my heart is in Haiti.
I'm happy that I have a refrain that flows together.
I think that I would like to make it longer..
It was difficult to find things that flow together and would fit well in a song.

My project is an online book that I designed containing my life story. The thing I like most is the pages and the pictures that they have on them. Overall the book is really nice. If I would have done thins project differently, I would have used more pictures. 

Here's the link to my online story book, enjoy :)
Enjoy :))))

Week 1 - Sculptures

 

I looked up how to make a marine biome. In order to do this I just had to look up different animals and other objects that were found in the biome. Although you can't see it very well, the hardest part was gluing the sand to the shoebox and making it appear rippled like waves. 

Week 2 - Photoshopped Pictures ​



The first picture was a picture that I tried to photoshop. It didn't come out very well and I spent too much time just trying to perfectly cut myself out. The second photo I used flickr instead of photoshop. I find flickr easier to use, and easier for me to color contrast.

Week 3 - Copy a famous Artist 

  

This was a picture that I found online. The different textures of the picture is was really intrigued me into trying to remake it. However one problem i had was trying to find the correct materials to try and remake the photo. In the end I couldn't find what to use, so I just used chalk pastels, but It didn't come out correctly.

Week 4 - Bike Drawing 

 
Line Drawing 


Negative Space


Shading 

My bike drawings was the hardest part. I had a hard time trying to draw the bike and an even harder time drying to make them fit the requirements. I think my best bike drawing was the one where I used shading. This is mostly because that is one of my strongest skills, so that is the one I'm best at.

Week 5 - Outside Drawing 



This is the picture that I am most proud of this quarter. We had to draw a scene from outside and on that week I was sick, so I just googled a picture. It was a picture of a tree in the sunset. I used oil pastels and created a really nice blend of several different colors. This is my favorite piece of the year. :)

Week 1 - Hand Drawing 



This first assignment was one of the hardest ones. This is mostly because this is our first assignment in which we focused on "drawing what we see" and shading. We had to draw a picture of our hand exactly how we saw it. It was harder than I thought because of all of the markings on on my hand, creases, and all the shading that I never noticed. It was challenging but I think I did an exceptional job on it.

Week 2 - Self Portrait (8x11/Pencil)



For this assignment we had to hold out a mirror and draw ourselves exactly the way we saw it. I also found this assignment to be challenging. I feel like you never really know how intricate and uniquely designed your face is until you try to duplicate it. However, I feel like this is the assignment I did the poorest on. Although I tried my hardest to draw what I saw, it didn't come out the way that I expected it. But, I did the best the could within the amount of time given.


Week 3 - Self Portrait (24x36)

(Lack of Picture Excused By Ms. Hull)

For this week we had to draw another self portrait but larger. This was even harder than the previous week, because not only did you need to draw everything you saw but you had to enlarge it. By doing this I realized that I'm not the best at drawing self-portraits but I would like to work on it. However, when I was finished this picture before I photographed it, someone threw it out. Fortunately Ms. Hull gave me the ok to not have the picture up.

Week 4 - Full Body 

This week we had to pick a partner and draw them the best we could. This was also very hard because I not only had to focus on the details of my partners face but I also had to focus on the details of his clothes, stance, ect. This one took the most time, and I chose to do this in pencil because I discovered that's what I work best with.


 

Week 5 – Still Life

 The still life drawing was one of the most interesting ones to draw. This is because everyone is looking at the same image but interprets it in their own way. The charcoal however is new to me and very hard to use. I hadn’t practiced how to shade or anything like that so I used it as if it were a pencil. I probably could have used this utensil better, but I have improved on it.

 

Week 6 – Bottle (8x11 Pencil)

 

The clear bottle pencil drawing was my favorite assignment of the quarter. By doing this drawing I discovered talents that I didn’t know that I had. I found out that I actually can shade, well when I use pencil. I feel like I did an exceptional job making the picture of the bottle come to life and look real/3D.

 

Week 7 – Bottle (26x34 Charcoal)

 

In this drawing I just tried to duplicate my last drawing (pencil bottle) but it was harder than I thought. I tried to do the same shading I did in the pencil drawing but it didn’t work out as well. In the end my overall drawing wasn’t as strong as it could have been.

Week 8 - Presentation 
Partner : Taahir Henry 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2205990/Art%20Presentation_Thenry_SDinvil.key

Doing this project I learned that procrastination is really bad. When you procrastinate you get less done and your final project won't be the best that it could be. Even though I feel like in some areas I could have done better, overall I'm proud of my project. If I were to do this project over however, I would use my class time more effectively since we were given several class periods to do it. I liked this project because it helped me learn my vocab words by applying it into a short story.

In this podcast I interviewed my cousin Brandon Carter about his cell phone being taken away from him. He talks about the toll it took on him and his social life, and why parents everywhere should make rules regarding cell phones very clear. Enjoy!

Music - Jingle Bell Rock (Instrumental), Happy Ending (Avril Lavigne), Happy Ending (Guitar Solo)

 

Sierra Dinvil

Gold English

January 6, 2011

Language Essay

 

“And what would you like to order?” the waitress asked as she patiently stood over our table.  

“Can I have a Chicken Quesadilla with –“ I paused, taking my eyes from the Menu to look at her.   She looked back at me with a puzzled look on her face, holding her hand up to her ear, and leaning further in towards the table.  

“She’ll take a chicken quesadilla with no guacamole sauce,” my dad said quickly before I could even repeat myself.

“You need to learn to speak up,” my dad said sternly.   The waitress, and everyone else let out a quick giggle, but I didn’t find anything funny.   As she continued to take my table’s order, I thought about what my dad said.   This isn’t the first time that he’s told me this.    It actually happens every time we go out to eat, or any time we’re out in public.   I used to think that this was a simply a problem that I had in restaurants, but I eventually realized this problem occurred everywhere.

After we left the restaurant, I became more self-conscious of my speech.   When I got home, I went straight to my room to practice making my voice projection louder.   After about an hour I stopped, and was very proud of the progress I thought I was making.   I then started to go downstairs to talk to my mom.

“Do you know where my navy blue pants are?” I asked as I slowly began to walk down the steps.

“What?” she yelled back at me.

“My jeans! Do you know where my jeans are?” I said with an attitude.   It made me a little upset that she couldn’t hear me the first time.

“I can’t hear you,” she yelled back again.

“Either walk all the way downstairs or talk louder!”  I couldn’t believe it.   All that time I wasted in front of a mirror and still showed no signs of progress.   I went back to my room and sat on my bed.   I couldn’t understand how even when I yelled my voice wasn’t loud enough.   Richard Rodriguez once said, “Linguistic difficulties have no serious consequences” insinuating that even if you have a hard time with your speech it is unlikely that you will be penalized for it. My life at the time was proof against his theory.

I had been dealing with this problem for years, and couldn’t figure out an effective way to fix it.   As a result of being so self-conscience of my speech I refrained from speaking in public.   I started to think about this effected not only my personal but life but my school life as well.   I began to think back to my latest report card.   Teachers would constantly give me B’s and C’s in the participation portion of my grade because I would hardly ever contribute to classroom discussions.   However, whenever I did grow the courage to raise my hand to answer a question or contribute to the class, they would ask me to repeat myself or cut me off mid-sentence to tell me to talk louder.   I hated that.   It started to become annoyed after a while, which made me stop participating altogether.   Another result of my poor projection was that I would receive low scores when presenting something orally.   Oral presentations were the one part of school I hated the most.   As soon as I would start presenting, I could immediately tell no one could hear anything I was saying.   Some would look at me with puzzled faces, some would break off into conversation, and others would just find something else to do.   Throughout the presentation I would constantly try to raise my voice but I would never have any luck.   This caused me to think further into my future, would people not listen to me because I couldn’t speak loud enough?   Would they be able to respect me and take me seriously?   No one really listens to someone who has a soft voice.  

So much power is given to the force behind a voice.   It’s lets people know that your serious about what your saying, and they need to listen.   Have you ever heard of some one robbing a bank saying, ”Excuse me… but can you give me all your money” in a soft voice?    I don’t think anyone would take him seriously and a few people may even laugh at him, but If he came busting through the door yelling

“GIVE ME ALL YOUR MONEY!” then he would get more of the response he was looking for, he would be taken seriously.  

Knowing this, I also want the ability to put meaningful force not only behind what I say, but how I say.   I want people to take me seriously, and not to ask me to repeat myself several times before they can clearly hear me.   Projection is a skill, and a lot more then how you speak.   Since then, I have been working on my voice projection, making sure that everyone can hear what I have to say.   I’ve found a way to put power behind my voice and I wont give up until I have perfected the skill.

 

            

For the second marking period we had the option to create whatever kind of artwork we wanted. Personally I liked this. It gave me the freedom to do some of the things I'm particularly good at without really any limitations. This is different from the last marking period because we were basically given an idea that we had to work with opposed to what were doing this quarter. Looking at some of the projects that are already posted you can see how versatile our projects are from comics to sketches. This marking period is personally my favorite.
For my artwork I chose to expand on a skill that I previously learned in my Freshman year. As a freshman I learned how to print a drawing on a linoleum block, and also carve the drawing out to resemble a stamp. I chose to sketch out an "S" because it's the first letter of my name. I wanted to make sure it was something more challenging and time consuming to sketch so I chose to draw a fancy looking "S" with a lot of detail. I then painted over the linoleum and printed on sheets of paper to make 1 collage of different colors. 
If I were to do this project differently I would definitely be more consistent and work on using my time more wisely. However I am proud of the work I am putting up, but I know that if my time was used more efficiently I probably would have had more prints to chose from. Another problem I experienced was not using the same kind of paper for each of my prints which effected the quality of my artwork when I was picking prints to choose from. A lot of them were on different textured construction papers and wouldn't give my art work the effect I wanted them to have.
Overall I am really proud of the piece I produced, and I hope that you like it too.

Sketch:

 

Outline on Linoleum: 



(It's backwards on purpose)

Marks for cuts:



Final Cut:




Final Pieces:

file:///Users/sdinvil/Dropbox/Public/Q1_ESP2_BM_Dinvil/Movie.html

For this quarter we focused on making art out of recycled material. I particularly liked this unit because the fact that were using things that could potentially harm the earth. I feel like its good way to get people to start recycling by doing more then just tossing the recycled materials into the recycling bin.

For my project I wanted to make an entire picture out of using only recycled materials. I feel like that is the most effective way to show other options of saving our environment. I used materials such as newspaper, plastic bags, bottle caps, and pipe cleaners. At first I wanted to make an entire scene out of the recycled materials but I then decided that it would be better If I made a single object that represented the environment completely out recycled materials.


This is my first draft. I wanted to make a scene out of cotton balls, newspapers, and bottle caps. After a while I decided that this wasn't going to work because the outcome wouldn't look like it took me all marking period to do. I then moved on to my next idea.


My next idea was to make a cardboard recycling bin with the recycle logo on it. While doing this project however I experienced several problems. After I finished cutting out the pieces that were supposed to be glued onto the boxes, I couldn't a good enough box. I then decided that this project was no longer any good and once again moved on to my next idea.


My final idea was making a flower out of recycled material. I particularly liked this one because it represents a small piece of the environment. I chose to make the leaves out of newspaper and plastic. And to make the middle of the flower by using a bottle cap. The stem potentially would be made out of green pipe cleaners. This project fits for because its made completely out of recycled materials. Also because I like to cut and paste which is how most of this project is done. I painted over the plastic to give the petals some color and then glued plastic bag over it to be able to see that this project is actually recycled.




BOTTLE CAP PROJECT :