Project Description: In this project we’re creating a performance about these questions, inspired by Sherman Alexie’s novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian (ATDPTI). It will include original poetry and short plays, excerpts from the novel, live debate, music, dancing, and more House on Mango Street: To kick off this project we started off by getting into groups and creating a performance based on "The House on Mango Street" book. My group decided to get into a circle and rotate reading off lines. During this process we went through the reading and highlighted specific lines we thought we could add a sound too. Our chapter was called, "Cathy Queen of Cats". One of the lines that we added sound too were, "She lived UPSTAIRS, over there, next door to Joe the baby grabber. For the word UPSTAIRS we imitated that noise by stomping our feet several times.
Dialogical Interview: One of the main parts of this project was creating poems. Each of us were randomly paired up with another person (who'd we be writing the poem about) in our team and were given 40 minutes to find a comfortable spot around campus and begin our interview. We were given a couple of main questions but other than that we could ask anything we'd like. This was a fun activity to really get to know the person and get as much information from them as you can so your prepped with lots of ideas once you begin to write the poem about them.
Critique Session with 8th Graders: After finishing our first draft of our poems we headed over to the middle school where we were paired up with an 8th grader and we critiqued each others work. They were working on essays at the time so us sophomores critiqued that while they critiqued our poems. I did my best to be as specific as possible and I helped rearrange sentences to make the essay flow better overall.
Self Portrait: Our self portraits we our personally taken and selected photos that we chose to go with the poem that was written about us. I took mine while a couple of my friends and I took a trip to Rosarito, Baja California for the weekend. I specifically took it there surround by plants because I love both adventure and traveling and it represented both parts of me.
Belonging Articles: During thisproject we took some time to read different types of articles. One of the articles I chose to read was, "Same Anger, Different Ideologies: Radical Muslism and Neo-Nazi" Copy paste this link into your HTML to find the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/06/world/europe/two-outcomes-similar-paths-radical-muslim-and-neo-nazi.html?_r=0 This article talked about modern day Nazi's. The included stories of people affected by this and mentioned different the all the dangers of this. My favorite quote from this article is, “If we had met 15 years ago we probably would have killed each other,” Mr. Ahmed said. “Now Robert is a friend.” It comes to show how big a difference 15 years can make.
Exhibition Skit: For exhibition our whole team split up into different groups. Each group was a different category of some type of writing piece we did. The group I decided to join was, "We belong to the tribe of". Earlier during the project one of quick write prompts was, "Make of list of what tribes you belong too," Some of my tribes were, tennis players, bookworms, latinas, dragon zodiac and so on. As a group we decided to divide ourselves into threes. The Mexican group, the American group, and the bilingual group. I was part of the bilingual group. Down below is an example of one of lines.
Mexican: I belong to the tribe of Dia de los Muertos. American: I belong to the tribe of Halloween. Bilingual: We belong to the tribe of Spiritual Remembrance
Our purpose was to showcase the differences between the cultures but then show how we connect as one.
Reflection Questions:
How would you answer this project’s essential question, “what tribes do you belong to?”. Has this answer changed since the beginning of the year?
I would say that I belong to the tribe of, tennis players, lazy teenagers, bookworms, latinas, younger sisters, and so much more. At the beginning of this project I would have only been able to write of a couple of tribes that I belong too since I thought I only belonged to very few but since then my perspective has grown and changed. My list of tribes is never ending, I can find many different ways to connect to a group and I know that even the most random thing about you holds a tribe somewhere out there.
What did you learn about “writing for a client” that you want to remember in your next project?
I learned to really try and hold on to those small details because they are really what separate the story from relating to anyone to being personal to you. It also creates a more intriguing and captivating poem for "the client" and audience. Another thing I learned is that it's okay to go back and ask questions. Although it is preferred to get all your information during the interview if your are lost or having "writers block" don't just wing it. Go back to the beginning and you'll find the answer there.
What did you learn about descriptive writing that you want to remember about your next project?
BE SPECIFIC. The more personalized and detailed, the better. Sensory imagery and figurative language also really help the reader create a clear and vivid picture in there mind. Here is any example of a plain sentence and below that is an example of a captivating one.
BEFORE “A guy walks into a bar and orders a drink.”
AFTER “A grizzled prospector stumbled into the dark saloon and demanded a bottle of whiskey.”
The second sentence shows more specificity. The verbs “stumbled” and “demanded” show more about his personality and the condition of his body, as does the adjective “grizzled.” The type of drink he orders and the quantity reveals something about his state of mind and his tastes. This sentence shows rather then tells.
What did you learn about collaboration that you want to remember in your next project?
I learned to make sure that everyone shares the "leadership" role. At first we had one person sort of dictating everything and it ended up not working out. Some people even decided to leave the group after that. The second time we decided to just have everything throw there ideas out and from there we collaborated them as best as we could. This ended up being a much better tactic and we worked together much more efficiently without wasting time.
What’s one moment from this project that you want to remember?
I would like to the remember the moment during exhibition where all out self portraits played together and Nathaniel played the piano. I felt like it was really nice to appreciate every single one since they all have a meaning behind it and it was a nice little closing ceremony to bring everything together and end the night well.