Final

Speak Video

(Script and storyboard)

This was an interesting assignment.  Since it was our final, it definitely took a lot of planning, discussion, and individual work, but the final product is pretty cool.  I've always been a pretty independent worker, but do realize the importance of group work and planning to make themes work over all our work as a whole.  This common theme with transitions was actually a lot harder than we expected.  Even though our videos had different topics and subjects, we wanted to show how we speak and communicate with people has changed since we were children and how we've become more confident in doing so.  We tried to show common themes and phrases throughout our videos so that it wasn't just the transitions that were connecting our separate videos.  Phrases like, "when I was young" or "this is how I speak."  We also used photos from our childhood and now to show how we've changed physically, but also how our communication has changed.

Honestly, this was a difficult assignment as a college student, and since we're all BYU students, it wasn't hard to trust my classmates that they'd put in their effort for our final project, but this would be a very complex and time-consuming project for in the secondary school environment.  I would like to try to use some version of this assignment in my classroom, but it would have to be more simple and less time-consuming to justify it for an English class.

Game for Change

http://www.philome.la/koda330/the-dating-game/play

So it might seem kind of silly to choose dating (for girls in Provo) as a social problem to focus on, but it happens to be one of my biggest dilemmas, so it's important to me.  Dating is something that is stressed by our mission presidents, by our church leaders, by BYU, by your parents, by empty weekends.  It's something that all BYU students feel pressure from, but it's a bit different for women than men.

Traditionally, the guy does the asking out.  That's just how it is.  According to many Daily Universe articles, girls might not do the asking out, but they can show interest and to things to get asked out.  But ultimately, the guy still does the asking.  The guy gets to be as judgmental and choosy as they want (because they ask the girl out) and once the girl gets asked out, she does have the choice of accepting or declining.  But not really.  She can say no, but usually that doesn't happen.  Usually she goes on dates with guys she doesn't really want to go out with.  She can say yes or no, but she still doesn't get to pick with whom she actually goes on the date.

So what if the girl asks the guy out?  Well, this is definitely not the norm, but possible.  There is some risk involved because this goes against the social norm, and the guy might assume that you're madly in love with him, so you couldn't wait anymore and just asked him out yourself.  Or, he could be totally cool with it.  The thing is, we live in a culture where the guy asks the girl out, and that's how your dating life will mostly be, even if you ask guys out.  If you do all the asking, that might be weird.

This might be mostly from personal experience, but this is a personal thing.  Dating seems like this trap where girls don't go on dates, or they go on dates with guys they aren't interested in.  I wanted to show this through the choose your own adventure format because you might be "choosing" your adventure, but you're really not.  And when you do, it usually ends with you having a dateless life.  The choices you make as a girl, really come down to saying yes or no, or asking a guy out yourself.  It really doesn't have much choice.

I think this is a really cool idea to use in the classroom. Students have the opportunity to look into a social problem, but instead of just reporting on it, they show it through a more personal medium.  You become part of it, and by creating the project, you have to look at more than just what is in front of you; you have to see it on all levels.  You have to understand the problem and its effects.

http://universe.byu.edu/2014/04/10/1marriage-on-the-mind/
http://universe.byu.edu/2014/02/10/dating-conference-gives-guidance-on-age-old-story/
http://universe.byu.edu/2013/11/05/weekly-five-things-girls-wished-guys-knew1/

Two minute process (A.K.A. making an epic breakfast)

CLICK HERE OR THIS BLOG POST IS SUPER BORING

This was a fun assignment.  I was actually gone all weekend in Goblin Valley, so I had to just shoot some videos whilst camping.  I liked this assignment because you could do it anywhere, about anything.  I thought showing the process of making breakfast might be a little boring without any audio, so I tried to make it interesting in other ways.  Different angles, different characters, and random funny shots of my friend Rachel getting ready for church in the background added another process.  (Ok, so the Rachel part wasn't planned.)  The fact that we shot it in an epic camping site helped. 

I think this would be great to give my students as an assignment.  They have the freedom to record any process that they like, but it has to have a beginning, middle, and end.  You can be pretty creative even when there's no audio, or if you're doing just audio, you discover that you can show a lot more than you expected with only audio or visual.  It's not too time consuming, but does require thought and planning.  Presenting the end product should be enjoyable and because students know that they will be sharing with the entire class, I'd assume they'd put more time and effort into the assignment.

Tiny Story

Little Tommy had never tried liver before and was close to peeing himself he was so excited to take his first bite.

As he leaned in, a pterodactyl swooped right in front of his face, snatching the delicious liver right out from under his nose.

Eventually the tears subsided but the hunger pains did not, and he knew exactly what he had to do: take back what was rightfully his.

With no care for consequence, our protagonist resorted to force, revolutionizing from a simple seeker of justice into a monster.

All hell broke loose and he continued in his monstrous ways for many years until he could control himself.



I thought this was a fun and interesting assignment and really let the students' creativity come through.  It was kind of difficult because you could only write one sentence and had to continue the plot through so little text.  It's interesting because you can't rely on your own writing abilities alone, but those of your peers.  Adding peers makes it interesting, but I would have my students do this assignment in class instead of through an email chain. IF this was so hard to do as responsible college student, this would be hard as a high school or middle school student.

Textual Poaching

There are many things I identify with.  I'm half Japanese, I'm a woman, I'm Mormon, I'm an exercise enthusiast (or used to be before the mission), and the list goes on and on.  So why did I choose to identify with the community of glasses wearers?  I don't even wear my glasses 100% of the time; I also identify with lovers of contacts.  But I believe that besides improving eyesight, glasses and contacts serve very different purposes.  And since glasses have much more history and personality, I chose to join with my four-eyed possy for this project. 

My first picture is a collection of photos that show the evolution/history of glasses.  The main objective of a pair of glasses is to improve poor eye sight, and so when they first started to be used, they weren't exactly for fashion.  Different trends came and went which are clear to see through the photos.  The majority of the photos are of celebrities, but in times when glasses weren't much of a fashion statement (late nineties, early thousands) it was harder to find fashion weary people wearing them.  I remember watching the Wedding Planner and thinking it was very strange that a hottie like Matthew Mcconaughey was wearing nerdy glasses.  At that time glasses were nerdy and contacts were definitely preferred.  If glasses were necessary, they made them as indiscreet as possible.  They were pretty small and lacked frames so that they didn't cause attention to themselves.

But these days glasses are very much part of fashion and sometimes the bigger, the bolder--the better.  One's glasses say a lot about you, and that's why I take them seriously enough to base a whole assignment around it.  Glasses may have a lot of history which is why the first picture is kind of like the history or evolution of them, but I wanted to focus on the second picture because it frames what glasses have represented during my lifetime.  When I was younger glasses were geeky and didn't make you look good.  And this is depicted in my "then" photo.  (Sorry to the kid in the photo.  That's what happens when you put photos on the internet.)  But glasses no longer mean nerd or geek.  At first glance (to the eye of someone living in our present) Ryan Gosling looks gooood in his glasses.  And that other kid, looks really...awkward.  But if you look closely, their glasses are very similar.  Today, nerdy glasses are actually chic and attractive.

But besides just a fashion statement, glasses can say a lot about you.  Picking out a new pair of specs was more stressful than I expected. It's like an article of clothing that you wear all the time and in clear view of anyone who looks at you.  I wanted some thicker rimmed glasses because I thought they were cute, but I didn't want to go too extreme or I might be classified as a hipster, or way more artsy than I actually I am.  Glasses can say a lot about you, but it also can be something that people hide behind; it can be something that defines you just by wearing them.  One of my roommates is a very thoughtful person and has been wearing the same $20 glasses for the past four years.  She's on the market for a new pair, but she said something that I thought that was really insightful.  She said, "I just don't want to become my glasses."  Glasses can make such a strong statement, that it can overpower your own personality and let other people make their assumptions about you.

So nowadays, I am a glasses wearer.  I like my glasses because they can hide the fact that I just woke up and didn't put makeup on.  It makes my face look thinner.  It adds personality to my boring outfit.  I like how they make me see better and sometimes, look better.  When I was younger, glasses were embarrassing and defined the wearer as a nerd.  Now they are fun and can define you in many ways, and they might even mark you as a nerd, but that's cool now.  #thankyouhipsters

I think this would be an interesting assignment for my students because not only are media part of our lives now, it was also in the past, but there are differences.  It takes thought to show why you identify with something, but with how things have changed.  

DATE ME

CLICK HERE

I thought it was pretty obvious that my fake match.com profile was more of a commentary/critique of dating websites, but people seem to be pretty interested in me and my Frida Kahlo profile pic.  Which is funny, because maybe they like unibrows and mustaches, or they'll date anything that's breathing.  I might be making more of a criticism of Mormon girls desperate for marriage, but match.com was way too easy of a medium to show desperation.  I know people that have met their spouse through dating websites, but regardless of the results, I'm fairly certain people will look at dating sites as the last resort.  Which is why I made such a pathetically marriage-hungry profile.

6 word memoir

I'm a just good enough student

So this might be a six word memoir, but "I'm a just good enough student" is something I actually say a lot.  And in order to make the visual for this, all I had to do was hand my phone to my roommate and asked her to take a picture of me trying to study.  Obviously I wasn't really sleeping, but that doesn't mean I wasn't resting my eyes a few minutes earlier.

I'm a pretty good student; I go to class, study, participate, and turn things on time.  But at the same time, I do all those things...just good enough.  I work hard, but I could work harder.  I study, but I could study more.  But I don't because I'm a just good enough student.  

I might not give this example as a teacher for my students, but I think this is an assignment that we could have students of any age work on.  This is my third time doing one of these in college, and when I asked my roommate to take my picture for the six word memoir, she said she did the same thing in sixth grade.  It works.