Pieces from Other Classes

Overview

For this part of my portfolio, I want to reflect on assignments from other classes that have either been shaped or have shaped my work in grade 12 English. 

Piece One: Cliché Revisions

Below is an assignment I had in Writer's Craft (online course) that was designed to teach the class about avoiding clichés in our work. Essentially what we had to do was take a paragraph (given by the teacher), highlight all the clichés, and change them in order to create a "richer" piece of writing. This assignment helped shape my work in ENG4U because it made me aware of how clichés can detract from a piece, thus when I had to write for an assignment, I was better equipped to avoid using clichés in my work. 

Piece Two: "Mantracker- Miyax Edition" Video 
The wacky video below, made in 2013, is one of the first videos that I had to make/edit for a class. Through watching this piece, I am able to compare it to the Hamlet video reflect on what I have learned about video projects over the years. For example, in sixth grade, I didn't consider the option of taking a video from multiple angles, whereas in the Hamlet video, the final version was shot from many angles. Another difference is the sound quality. In the old video, you can barely hear in some scene, whereas (for the most part) the Hamlet video has very clear audio. Not that the Hamlet video is by any stretch of the imagination perfect, however it is significantly better than the piece below.

Piece Three: The Beginning of the United Nations History Note
Recently in history class, we took a note about the history of the United Nations. During this note, I was distracted by two aspects of the orignial declaration of rights document. The first was where it said that the document was called the "Universal Declaration of Rights of Man". This bothered me because the phrasology left room for women to be excluded from the rights listed in the document. The second was part where it said that the declaration included "equal rights for men and women in marraige". What I don't understand aboout this right is why they don't simply guaruntee equality for men and woman- period (or better yet the rights of all gender identities). At the end of the note, we learned that these phrases have since been changed. This relates to ENG4U as far as feminist literary theory, which was studied in the first unit. In this unit, we looked at pieces to identify parts of the text that addressed the issue of gender equality. Through this process, I became more aware of how the phrasing of literature can have certain implications for human rights, and why it is so important to identify them. This unit shaped the way I viewed the history note, and many other texts I have encountered since that process.