Judith Ortiz Cofer says, “The Island travels with you.” What part of your culture, family, or identity do you feel “travels” with you everywhere you go?

 Prompt Response: My voice, as Americans we often perceive ourselves as not having any sort of accent because to us the way we speak is just "normal" but the second we leave the country we realize how different we sound from the rest of the world AND other Americans. I can so easily be pinpointed to exactly where I'm from in the US just from my voice in a way I don't think I could tell from listening to someone's voice within the states.

Summary: We read the passage by Judith Ortiz Cofer and identified stereotypes relating to Latin women within it.

Reflection: I learned alot about stereotypes I had never heard of or was aware of, relating to mostly Middle Eastern cultures and Latin American cultures.

 

Describe something you will never fully understand.

Prompt Response: Other people, tonight I had to deal with something absolutely awful that led to me confronting the fact that some people are just horrible, and you cant really do anything about it. Some people choose willingly to hurt other living beings without any rhyme or reason.

Summary: Today we read out our cultural identity poems to the class

Reflection: I learned alot about how my classmates view their own personal identity, how many of us are American by birth and raised but still carry deep roots from our parents or grandparents heritage.

Cultural identity poster

 

What is the most creative thing you have ever made? Share what it was and explain why it stands out as your best work.

Prompt Response: last year I was at a concert and heard a song about the Russian space dog Laika, it inspired me to make a large acrylic painting titled "For the sake of science" with the portraits of 8 animals who all were victims of various space programs and lost their lives during flight or shortly after. Its my largest piece to date and is hung in a small local art gallery.

Summary: We began writing our identity poems and creating posters.

Reflection: I thought about how much my personal identity relates to Appalachia and ways to express that through words without directly saying im from there.

Think about your biggest questions about existence, purpose, or the world around you. Write a blog post where you share at least two of your most burning questions about life and explain why these questions matter to you.

Prompt Response: My two most burning questions about life are, is the world as we see it how it actually appears objectively? Like how difference species see in completely difference color ranges or can see heat signatures or sound, is there a correct "version" to see the world? Are our brains making up extra colors to fill in the gaps where the world lacks color or do we still lack the ability to see the wider range of colors. My second burning questions is what came before us, not on earth but on planets like mars or venus. Both planets share characteristics with the planet earth and appear to be planets that supported like but experienced a mass extinction event, and I wonder if they had intelligent life like us or any at all.

Summary: Today in class we went over the poem I, Too and analyzed what it was trying to say as a class.

Reflection: I learned to further analyze poetry outside of my prebuilt understanding of it.

 

Describe a time when you felt completely lost.

Prompt Response: When I came to lakeside I had already done a year of high school at a completely separate school. I didn't know really anyone so I was a sophomore that no one knew and I was just regarded as the new kid that was treated like a guinea pig for everyone to ask me a million questions about Tucker and if I was glad to be at Lakeside. For about a month I didn't really speak to anyone until I saw an ad for the lakeside theater club.

Summary: We presented our mask projects in front of the class and explained the meaning behind the symbols we chose.

Reflection: I learned about the beliefs of the people in my class and the cultural makeup of the room.

Analyze how you’ve adapted to the demands of this course over the past week, and evaluate one strength and one challenge you anticipate as we progress, justifying your insights with personal examples.

Prompt Response: One major challenge I know I will face and have faced already is having an issue remembering to do the daily blog posts at the end of every day, we cant really do them in class since completing the class period for the day is a requirement to be able to summarize what we did so it has to be done later in the day but with clubs and theater its hard for me to remember what I have to do once I get home by 6:30/7. But one strength is I know I'm a good writer and reader so when it comes to actual literature it wont be difficult for me to read and analyze everything.

Summary: We completed our cultural identity masks

Reflection: I learned about the writing and presentation element to the mask project.

 

Describe how gender roles or patriarchy influence your identity

 Prompt Response: They influence my ability to receive jobs, be respected in classes, and cause quite a lot of conflict specifically in school. During my first week at lakeside I got into an argument with our principal over me being separated from others in a gym class after I was harassed instead of choosing to punish the group of boys since they are generally favored by our coaches.

Summary: We watched a short film about personal identity and discussed using masks to represent ourselves and began to create our own.

Reflection: I learned about different ways to represent my cultural identity as a Scottish southern American while researching what to put on my mask.

Describe a meaningful family tradition unique to your culture and explain how it mirrors or contrasts with the cultural identity themes of expectations and roles in "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid.

 Prompt Response: I don't have many family traditions, but one we always do is to all meet together at least once a year, southerners generally tend to have pretty big families and im no exception, so we all gather together and cram into one space to catch up. It doesnt have many parallels to the reading "Girl" besides of course the lectures coming from senior relatives since they had a whole year to think of more things to warn us about.

Summary: today we finished writing our 4 response questions and went to have our pictures taken for student ID's.

Reflection: I learned that sometimes when the admins say something is "strictly prohibited" over the intercom it really is more of a request than a demand, and wearing hot pink wigs is very itchy.

Reflect on how your cultural heritage shapes your daily expectations, inspired by "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid.

Prompt Response: My cultural heritage is very shaped by my deep southern roots, stemming from even deeper Scottish roots that form an overall expectation of standing up and being loud when you disagree with something. My family and culture has shaped my role as anti-establishment and bold with the expectations of making the world around me better through debates.

Summary: Today we read through the text "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid and analyzed it as a class and asked questions about how culture shapes us.

Reflection: Today in class it was briefly mentioned that "everyone should have a sense of patriotism and believe their country is the best" I personally extremely disagree with this opinion and view of the world. Patriotism and Nationalism is the #1 cause of all conflicts and wars throughout history. If people were capable of accepting imperfections with themself and the societies we create we would be significantly better at improving the world around us. But we lack that understanding as a whole and instead blindly love our country despite its actions and history. No one should blindly just love their country unless they are fully aware and educated of the history and current events happening that affect the lives of those in and outside their home.

Test 1

 Wow