English 1 - Dunn — Slate (skeleton-v3 PHP 8 prototype)

9th Grade English Completes Wilma Theater Residency!

Posted by Alexa Dunn in English 1 - Dunn on Tuesday, May 28, 2013 at 4:43 pm

This Spring, Red and Orange English students had the unique opportunity to take part in The Wilma Theater's Wilmagination artists-in-residency program. Stemming from our creative non-fiction and memoir unit, teaching artists from The Wilma Theater visited our classrooms twice weekly for six weeks. Keeping in line with the 9th Grade Essential Questions surrounding Identity and the Self, we crafted memoir portfolios of our personal writings, focusing on the stories we wanted to show an audience. Some students collaborated on performance pieces while others opted to go it alone and create powerful individual monologues. We had our culminating performance onstage at The Wilma last week. The kids performed for each other, parents, friends and theater personnel and also had a chance to debrief and reflect after the experience. This year marks the fourth year of this amazing partnership!

Macbeth BM Creative

Posted by Javier Peraza in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 11:23 am

For the third quarter benchmark our English 9 teacher had us do a quote analysis write up for Macbeth. This was meant to explore our abilities we learned on quote analysis and to be standardized on it too. Basically, the better the better you soaked up the lessons for the quarter would be the better you do on the project There was a catch though because this write up would only count for 50% of our grade. We also needed to do a creative project!
The creative portion of the project had to reflect on our quotes and our thesis. In my project I really wanted to show the evidence on how my quotes proved my thesis correct. My thesis revolved around the idea that Macbeth had healthy ambition and curiosity his whole life but when his fate was made known it all became quite nefarious. To do that I needed to incorporate every stage of downfall into the creative portion presented by the quotes.
I soon came up with the idea of making a clay Macbeth and quote weights. As the story progressed, each quote weight would be added to Macbeth to show the struggle he endears on his journey. By the final quote Macbeth is no longer able to hold up the weights and therefore falls. This is supposed to show how in the end all of Macbeth's choices finally kill him.

In the beginning the process was tremendously easy and had no challenges or annoyances. I always thought of myself as a pretty creative person and knew myself well enough to see that I could get anything done. It did not all go so good though for when I sat to brainstorm ideas I only found that I was sitting there for thirty minutes with nothing. To figure out what to do I stopped thinking of creative projects and started thinking of things that could be used with my quotes. That is when I came up with my project idea.
It did not get better from there unfortunately. I had to use clay for my project and because of that I went to the store and bought clay. Simple enough but I was terribly wrong. The amount of clay balls I had to create for different combinations of quote weights were in the fifties. There was only one right combination of sized balls where the statue of Macbeth would fall on the last quote and not the others. The process even got more tiresome after cooking the balls and seeing that it didn't work when cooked. Inevitably I had to go buy more clay and do it again. Crafting the Macbeth dolls was a pain for he never stood up on his own which lead to toothpick supports. During the whole thing I was constantly thinking about how this makes sense compared to my written portion of the project. I would stop and plan out everything. Most of the times the plans did not go so well and I had to go back and just plan something different.

It's difficult having good ideas that you really enjoy but having to scrap them because in reality they are terrible. That was something I encountered many times. Surprisingly though a majority of the ideas weren't bad but just out of my capability of doing. Now I usually believe that anyone can do anything but sending Macbeth to the moon was a bit over exaggerated.
I am seriously proud of my dexterity, endurance, and effort. I never gave up and multiple times tried to do better. After hours of tiresome work I did not go for the B but went up and beyond to get the A. I fought my own "furies" and pillaged on through lack of sleep and tired, clay filled hands. In short, it was all kind of amazing.
In thinking about it now I honestly don't know what I would change in this project. If given time then I would have hundreds of answers. If I could change the project maybe I would spend more time on brainstorming and decision making. I want the best ideas possible and the greatest decision made. Although I see perfection as an infinity, making it impossible to reach. You can always approach perfection but when you try to grab it then it will just ran miles away with harder possibilities trailing away. It is this idea though that pushes you to do better each time. Which makes a college student generally better than a high school student, which makes a C student into an A student.

Many things were learned from this experience, which was intended. First, I saw things that I would never even guess that some of my colleagues could achieve. Next, I found out somethings about people that I wouldn't know from not being social with them which will make me more apt to change so. I also learned that even though we all see ourselves as great and invincible, you should never over estimate your abilities. I struggled more than I thought I would but something I did not need to learn was that I amazing and therefore fought through the struggle.
If I could acknowledge anyone it would be Ms. Dunn for teaching me well, my friends for listening to my presentations and presenting fantastic projects themselves, and my family for putting up with all the clay in the house.

Macbeth Bm Creative Portion

Posted by Desmond O'Donovan in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 11:21 am

My project was the creative portion on a quote analysis of “Macbeth”. My thesis statement was “At first Macbeth was a decent person who wouldn’t kill someone in order to be king, but once he gained power he had to kill more people in order to stay in power, his power caused him to do terrible things he was previously against.” I picked five wrote that were related to that thesis, and analyzed them. For the creative portion of the project I made a poster with the five quotes on it, and added illustrations for each of the scenes that the quotes were from.

For making the poster I first mapped out where I was going to put everything. Then I made rough sketches of each of my drawings in pencil. I finalized them, and added the quotes. I like to draw, so the drawing part of the project was pretty easy. It did take awhile to draw illustrations for all five scenes though. I also had to research Shakespearian clothing, and decide what I wanted each of characters to look like. By doing some research, and allowing a lot of time to be put into this project, I got it done.

I am most proud of the drawings a did, because I thought that they were pretty good, and creative. I also liked my use of symbolism, by using the color red. If I could change anything I would probably add backgrounds to each of the drawings to make it look better. I could also put my thesis statement on the board so that people would know what it is, and could see how the quotes relate to it.

My colleagues had very creative projects. I really enjoyed seeing them . A lot of them had thesis statements that were similar to mine. It was interesting to compare their quote choices for their thesis’s to mine.

I learned that I like to draw for projects, and that my drawings are pretty good. I also enjoy doing it, which makes the project better.

Macbeth Creative Piece Reflection

Posted by Zack Hersh in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 11:19 am

This project is about how Macbeth was a good and sane man until he began chasing power and was king. It shows his character journey and downward spiral, and also tells the story of the play. The creative part is a song parody of the Maroon 5 song "Love Somebody"
I actually got this idea way back when we started reading the play. From there I got the original lyrics from the song and listened to the song a few times to get a feel for the rhythm before writing my own lyrics. The ideas for the lyrics cam pretty easily and worked well, and I recorded on garage band. So overall, my creative process was simple and fun, but took a lot of time and hard work.
The most difficult thing I encountered for the project was actually finding the music to use. In the past when I have done parodies for school, I have found just the instrumentals (karaoke version) on youtube and recorded it on garage band, but finding just the instrumentals for this song was surprisingly difficult. It seemed like this was the only song that didn't just have instrumentals, and all of the karaoke versions still had the original singing in it. I searched around youtube, the web, and various karaoke sites, but could not find the needed music. I looked on iTunes, but they didn't have it either, so I eventually just had to buy the music for a couple of dollars.
Another very challenging aspect of the project was fitting everything I wanted to say into the song, which doesn't have that many lyrics. There are 3 choruses, two 4 line verses, and one 4 line bridge. While the chorus come easily (love somebody became kill somebody), the verses were more challenging because space was limited, there was a lot I wanted to say, and incorporate quotes. I overcame it by shortening lines and using shorter synonyms, and replacing lines with quotes. I also used lyrics in the parts where the original song just has "ohs". I also decided to have extra space by putting some parts into the chorus. While this made the chorus different each time after "kill somebody", it was worth it and helped me overcome the challenge.
I'm very proud of everything in this project. The outcome was much better than I was expecting. I think I wrote/used great lyrics that not only incorporated all five of the quotes, but told the story, supported my thesis, and fit the rhythm of the song. I think the song itself turned out very well (at least as good as I can be singing with laryngitis) and sounded great.
If I were to do something differently, I would record the music and the singing separately, if that's possible (maybe listening to the music on headphones). I played the music while I was singing, so they recorded as one, so I couldn't lower the volume of the music and increase it of the singing which would've been helpful and made it sound better.
From the classes presentations, I learned and had justified how creative our class is. I was very impressed with many of the projects I looked at, and very impressed with the level of creativity and amount of effort. I learned about all the different ways the same story can be interpreted and expressed, and that was really cool.
I learned about myself in this project also. I learned that if I really set my mind to something, I can exceed my own expectations, come out with an impressive result, and lose track of the time while my mind is whirring. I also learned that I'm willing to spend the extra time to take my work to the next level and not settle for good enough.

Here is my song parody.

Here are the original lyrics with my lyrics:

I know your inside, you're feeling so hollow
Macbeth was the worthy Thane of Glamis
And it's a hard pill for you to swallow
“For brave Macbeth- well he deserves that name”
But if I fall for you, I'll never recover
But now he’s Thane of Cawdor, and next in line for King
If I fall for you, I'll never be the same
Once he began chasing power, he wouldn’t be the same

I really wanna love somebody
I really want to kill somebody
I really wanna dance the night away
I really want to take their life away
I know we're only half way there
We could be king and queen, so come on
But you can take me all the way, you can tak e me all the way
Let’s do it today, Let’s do it today
I really wanna touch somebody
I really want to end somebody
I think about you every single day
King Duncan’s standing in our way
I know we're only half way there
If we kill him we’ll have it all
But you can take me all the way, you can take me all the way
So let’s kill him today, let’s kill him today

You're such a hard act for me to follow
So Macbeth, he killed King Duncan
Love me today don't leave me tomorrow, yeah
But had a hard time getting over it, yeah
But if I fall for you, I'll never recover
“Methought I heard a voice cry, sleep no more
If I fall for you, I'll never be the same
“Macbeth does murder sleep!”, and became King next day

I really wanna love somebody
I really want to kill somebody
I really wanna dance the night away
I really want to take their life away
I know we're only half way there
In order to keep my power I’ll
But you can take me all the way, you can take me all the way
Do this every day, do this ever day
I really wanna touch somebody
I really want to keep on killing
I think about you every single day
“Returning would be as tedious as go oe’r”
I know we're only half way there
Because of that I won’t stop here
But you can take me all the way, you can take me all the way
I’ll be killing every day, killing every day
Whoa, whoa, whoa oh oh oh
He’s becoming, he’s becoming, he’s becoming a tyrant
Whoa, whoa, whoa oh oh oh
He’s going, he’s going, he’s going mad

I don't know where to start, I'm just a little lost
Soon an uprising begins, led by Malcolm and Macduff
I wanna feel like we never gonna ever stop
Against “this tyrant whose sole name blsiters our tongues”
I don't know what to do, I'm right in front of you
The walls are closing in, Macbeth’s not not panicking
Asking you to stay, you should stay, stay with me tonight, yeah
“Direness, like to my thoughts cannot once start, me!”

I really wanna love somebody
I really want to kill somebody
I really wanna dance the night away
Anybody who is in my way
I know we're only half way there
Everyone is after me
But you can take me all the way, you can take me all the way
But I’m not dying today, not dying today
I really wanna touch somebody
I really want to keep my power
I think about you every single day
I don’t want it to go away
I know we're only half way there
But Macduff is coming for me and
But you can take me all the way, you can take me all the way
On this world I might not stay, on this world I might not stay
Whoa, whoa, whoa oh oh oh
Macduff is, getting near, adding to Macbeth’s despair
Whoa, whoa, whoa oh oh oh
The final, battle ensues, and Macbeth will lose

You can take me all the way, you can take me all the way
His tyranny ended today, his madness ended today

Macbeth Creative Benchmark

Posted by Amelia Stuart in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 11:17 am

This project is all about finding Macbeth's transition from loyal, dedicated lord to a cold blooded murderer in different songs.

  What was your process like in crafting the creative portion of this project?
I put a lot of work into this project, finding the songs, then taking them apart and piecing them to fit my thesis. Sometimes it was easy, and sometimes it was really difficult, there were times when I would get distracted and watch some TV or talk to my friends, but when i came back my mind was fresh and I was able to get the work done.

     What difficulties did you encounter in doing this project? How did you overcome them?
The main difficulty I had was probably picking what I would do, I had the idea of trees and grass, really connecting to nature and his growth. However I didn’t have time to get to the store, so instead of going at six-o'clock on a Saturday and staying up all night to finish it, I told myself I would spend Sunday working on it. Unfortunately I work on Sunday’s, from 10-12 I figured I would do it in the afternoon. Little did I know there was a meeting that many parents were going to, so I stayed until three watching their kids. When I got home I did thorough thinking, I didn’t think it was rational to go at 4 and work on it for about 4 hours then do the rest of my homework. I decided on a soundtrack because I’m good at working stories into music.
      What are you most proud of in this project?
I’m proud of all of I guess, it wasn’t what I really wanted to do, but I think I did a good job and worked very hard on it. I’m proud of my final product because I honestly thought that I wouldn’t have anything, so I’m glad I’ve brought something in not only thats good, but something that I like. I don’t love it, there are some improvements that should be done, but i think I gave it my best and the final product may not look like I put work into it, but I did, and I think I did my best
      What would you change/do differently if given the chance?
Time- Management. Thats something I really, really, really, need to work on.
      What did you learn from your colleagues' presentations/projects?
That they all did really good projects and put time into them, I also learned that some of my classmates have secret talents. I had no idea Des could draw, I thought he was all running, but it turns out he is crazy good!
      What did you learn about yourself as a result of doing this project?
That I need to manage my time more, and work with Ms. Dunn/ Sasha for guidance and not do it all myself.

For my Macbeth Soundtrack Click Here (songs are on the document)

Text Based Macbeth game (Macbeth Creative Project)

Posted by Tobi Hahn in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 11:09 am

For my creative project, I wanted to show the development of Macbeth's character through the quotes, and also how Macbeth justified his actions. I ended up making a text based game that showed the quote and a decision that Macbeth had to make. If you chose the wrong answer, it would tell you why it was the wrong answer for Macbeth. My process while making this game was at first making a code template for the decisions. Next, I added the quotes and the decisions. I then added the responses. A difficulty I encountered while making the game was that at first, my code would not run. I looked at documentation for a while and ended up finding the answer. I am proud of being able to engage an audience while showing Macbeth's character. If I was given the chance to do something differently, I would add more interactivity to the game, and multiple endings. I learned from my classmates presentations that you can incorporate the quotes and characters of Macbeth into a wide range of projects, from videos to sculptures to board games. I learned that I should take more time to look over my code while debugging it, as I spent a very long time finding a simple mistake.

You can play my game by downloading this .zip file, then unzipping it and opening the app inside. It requires internet the first time you launch it.

Friedman; Creative Macbeth

Posted by Michelle Friedman in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 11:06 am

This creative project is an extension of an analytical essay assignment. This project shows Lady Macbeth’s transformation from a ruthless woman to a frail lady is both beautiful and pathetic.

The process of crafting this project started with an extensive period of brainstorming. It took nearly 3 weeks to come up with a pleasing idea for a project. The idea for news articles came from the fact that this story is very two-sided. After some planning on what the articles would be on, and how the quotes would be included, it was fairly easy to start writing. From there is was simple.

The greatest difficulty, by far, was just getting everything done. The initial plan was to have many more articles that there are now, however due to lack of time, that number was reduced. The struggle was completing everything.

I am most proud of the contrast between the news sources. One article does not stand out to me in particular, however their relationships are very interesting and I am proud of them.

If I had the chance, I would start this project much sooner and create a legitimate news website and paper for the articles. However, due to limited time, this was not possible.

I did not get to see any of the other projects because I was sick; so, sadly, I did not get to learn from my peers like I would have hoped. However, I learned something about myself. That is that I am not very excited about writing. I thought I might be, but I'm not.

This is a collection of news articles from two news sources- "Scotland's Best" and "Scottish Times". "Scotland's Best" is more positive towards Macbeth and what he does; whereas, the other is against his beliefs.

Macbeth Creative Piece (Yam)

Posted by Brandon Yam in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 11:06 am

This is the creative piece for my Macbeth benchmark. My creative piece shows and proves my thesis and the character's journey throughout the story. My thesis was: Although Macbeth was a crooked man at the start of the play, he became more deeply corrupted later on to the point of no return.
The task of actually making my creative piece was pretty hard. Yes, it looks pretty simple, but getting the materials was a pain. I needed red clay for the hearts for the coffin and I didn't have anything. I had to look all over my house to see what I could use as a replacement. In the end, after two whole days of searching, I found little miniature hearts that I could use. Once I found them I was able to make the actual coffins, put the "corruption" inside the hearts, and make any changes to tidy it up.
I am most proud of the project as a whole. I liked how I recycled most of the materials I used in this project. For example, the box I got from a supermarket, there were strudels in there, the "flowers" are just pieces of paper nobody was using.
If I was given the chance to make any changes to my project, I'd most likely change the signs in front of the coffins. When I came up to present, the signs weren't holding up too well. Sometimes it would fall over and other times it would just tilt to the side.
I learned quite a lot from my classmate's projects. For example, August's project taught me about the show Breaking Bad and how it is very similar to Macbeth. This was a unique take on the creative piece because nobody that I saw had anything like it. I also learned that the project itself isn't everything. As a presenter, you must be able to talk about your project clearly and make sure your audience is engaged. I see it as a 50/50 thing. What I mean is 50% of the project is the project itself, while the other 50% is the presenter.
Something that I learned about myself is that I'm not bad at public speaking and keeping my audience engaged. I have presented many projects here at SLA where public speaking was involved, but nothing like how I had to present this project. With this project, I had my peers come to me and I was able to talk to them individually instead of as a whole class. This allowed me to feel a little more comfortable and confident. I had friendly little chats while explaining my project and threw in some comedy here and there.

Lady Macbeth poem

Posted by Angelica Owens in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 11:05 am

For my creative piece of Macbeth I did a poem about Lady Macbeth's character journey through out the whole story. It shows how before the death of Duncan she was the man in the relationship but after Duncan died she became very cautious and she wanted it to go away. To craft it, I thought it would be a little bit easier to write it since I am a poet but it was not as easy as I thought. Even though I am a poet to create a poem is not always easy to do but I already had an idea of what to put in it. The difficulties during making this poem was that I had to figure out to word it. I am most proud of the whole poem because it was hard but I still did a good job creating this. If I did this project over I would have definitely created something else more creative like an art piece or a sculpture out of clay. What I learned from looking at my peers projects were that they are really creative and are good at something. What I learned about myself during this project were that to try something different even if my specialty is poetry because I may be good at something else.

Macbeth Creative Portion

Posted by Michaela Prell in English 1 - Dunn on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 9:09 am

This creative project was inspired by the quote, “My hands are of the same color, but I shame to wear a heart so white” (Act 2 Scene 2, lines 76-77) Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth this after the two of them kill King Duncan. What she means buy this is that she has no problem getting her hands dirty from the blood of others if it means she will gain power. This also means that she is glad she does not have a pure white heart like her husband. This sculpture also represents the evolution of Lady Macbeth’s character. At first she is similar to the bloody hand. She is willing to do anything to get what she wants. She then starts to regret what she has done. At this point she wishes that she had a pure white heart, instead of bloody hands.
The sculpture is made out of two things, air dry clay, and this material I found the recipe for called “paper mache clay”. I started by sculpting the hand and the heart and then waited for them to dry. After the heart dried I painted it white with acrylic paint and glued the quote to it. At this point the hand was not fully dry, but it was dry enough to paint, so I painted it with oil paint. It turned out that using oil paint was a mistake because it did not dry fast enough and was still wet when I brought it into school. My main issue was with my materials not drying as fast as I thought they would. If I were to do this again i would either use materials that dry dafter, or allowed myself more time, so that they could dry properly.
I learned a lot from my colleagues about how they interpreted Macbeth similarly to me, and differently from me. In this project, I am most proud of the hand that I made, because I think it looks very realistic. The hand is the right size for a parson, and the colors (especially of the blood) seem just right. From doing this creative project, I realized how much I enjoy making things with my hands. I knew that I like giving my hands something to do, but this allowed me to take that, and make something with it.

Macbeth Benchmark

Posted by Claudia Bonitatibus in English 1 - Dunn on Monday, April 8, 2013 at 8:53 pm

Description a)

Art not without ambition, but without the illness that should attend it:

the snake (which represents cunning) is still in the cage. This means that he is still loyal and can restrain himself from taking action

No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red:

The snake is out of the cage and rising up to the crown. The door to the cage was opened when he killed the man who he had sworn loyalty to. From here the action only escalates. This quote is also displayed in how the paint starts off green at the bottom and slowly turns red. I chose to do this because the green represents peace and safety, but just like in the play the green is contaminated by the red (which stands for danger).

To be thus is nothing, But to be safely thus:

The snake has almost reached the crown. At this point Macbeth reveals that he will do anything to maintain his powerful position, even if that does mean harming more than one life.

When our actions do not, our fears do make us traitors:

The snake is now at the crown and is beginning to coil itself around it. This represents how protective he is of his power, he has gone through much bloodshed and the cunning has already taken full control at this point there is no shame in killing for his own cause. He became a traitor long ago and now feels no guilt.

Those he commands move only in command, nothing in love:

The snake has a firm grip on the crown and is in position to attack anything that threatens him. At this point in the play Macbeth doesn’t even care about being loved and admired, he gave up on that in the very beginning. He destroyed all respect for him when he killed one who was only good to him and Macbeth knows that. Now he is prepared for battle and he will stop at nothing.

It took a bit of plan on how I wanted to display my ideas on paper. I knew from the beginning what the basic idea was but it I had to keep adjusting it to see how to involve the quotes. In the end I set it up like a timeline. Adding the quotes confused me in the beginning because I did not want then to distract from the painting itself. I turned it into a timeline so that it was easy to see the different stages. I am proud of how I involved symbolism that displays Macbeth's conscious well. For example how the green is contaminated by red. Green representing safety and growth, red representing bloodshed and danger. If I had a chance to change it I would simply spend more time working on it because I would like to touch up certain aspects of it. Maybe even try using multiple mediums . I learned many different styles of presentation. I learned the importance of not being to concise, yet being engaging at the same time. making sure to clearly explain the connection between your project and your papers thesis is extremely important.In my presentation I felt confident in what I was saying. I was proud of my work and I believe that that showed in how I was able to explain the choices I made. Usually I am not as confident in work because I am not as enthusiastic about it. I am glad that I chose a project that interested me.

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