English
The perspective project
Inspiration
Critical Lenses
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Our original idea came from what we call Critical Lenses, and Stereotypes. In our humanities class, we read pieces of literature and applied the critical lenses as practice, the lenses consisted of; Critical Race Theory, Psychoanalytic Lens, Marxism, Gender Theory, Feminism, and Reader Response. As we learned how to apply these on different pieces, one of our final products was our "Unfair Project". Everyone had a photo taken of their face, and on that we would write Stereotypes that we either fit into or break from based on race, sex, economical background, etc.
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
After good practice of applying the lenses, we progressed into applying in onto our class reading book, In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote. The book is based on the Holcomb County murder of the Clutter family in Kansas. The book was not just on the murder, but the reason and mystery behind the true motive. The killer Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, were and odd case. The motive wasn't very clear, and there could be many different theories on why. We noticed that many of the lenses we learned about, Capote had used in his own writing. I learned how to more closely analyze a book and look in depth to the meanings behind the story.
Writing Process
Blackout Poetry
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Our first writing piece for this project was our Blackout Project. We read the Langston Hughes poem, "Let America Be America Again". It showed the contrast between an African-American man, and a white man, and what they believed "Great America" was. We then had to find an internal poem using the words the poem already had, and blacking out the rest of the paper in an artistic way.
In Cold Blood Essay
For this essay, we had to choose a critical lens to use as a prompt for In Cold Blood. I chose to use the psychoanalytic lens as my guide for the reading and writing. I used the psychoanalytic lens to look deeper into the behaviors of the murderers, Richard and Perry, and see into what kinds of mental disabilities they would be diagnosed with in today's world.
Imaginative Non-Fiction
For this writing activity, we started out doing interviews with a randomly assigned person in our class. The interview was about their childhood and/or memories of their past. Within the stories we had to pick one moment, memory or thing about them and pick it as a "nugget" to write a story about. The story did have to been non- fictional meaning we could have fun with what we wrote about. Many used this project to write a bit more of a silly story to get used to descriptive writing like myself.
Reflection
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This project for me was very fun, because it had more than one finished product. We had writing pieces, art pieces, and actual hands on presentation style which is what I always like to do most. I wish we got more time for actual prepping for exhibition. Also, having money to buy more supplies and stuff I wanted to use for the presentation of the microscope room. All in all, I had a very fun time with this project, even with all the hardships of writing and reading I highly enjoyed it.