Face2face.

For the elective term of my Junior year I decided to join the If These Walls could Talk course. This class lets us explore the history of murals,and the different techniques used to create them. The first 2 units were there to prepare us for the 3rd final action project, which was to actually create a mural. We were put into groups of 5, which meant that our diverse ideas had to come together to create one. At the end, my group members and I agreed to make collaged faces that feature the different facial features of students at GCE. The background would be stenciled mandala flowers filled in with spray paint, along with silver and white block print. Before agreeing on this, sometimes we wouldn't all be able to agree on an idea, which created a challenge. We got through that with some good communication. I'm proud of how hard I worked when it came to actually putting the mural together, even going to the length of coming in on a weekend to work on it. I hope you enjoy reading my artist statement below, along with my personal reflection video!



Artist statement
 The purpose of my group mural is to highlight the unity within the student body.We did that by creating collages that feature the many different facial features of students at GCE. We created stencils of mandala flowers and block-prints to create a background. On top of the stenciled flowers and block-printed pattern, we wheatpasted the collaged faces we created. The faces are in black and white, so we added color by spray painting the stencils in red, gold, black, and white. The block print done in white and silver creates a wallpaper-like backdrop. Before we started, the walls by the staircase were a very boring green. After our transformation you’ll come face2face with some weird looking faces that’ll get you to wonder for a bit. You’ll also be amazed by the stenciled mandala flowers. It was an interesting journey as we worked through all this. There were a couple changes as we were working, but we knew they had to be done in order for us to be totally happy about our art. For the first 2 days of working on this mural, I was the artistic director. It was my job to critique and watch over whatever any other of the members of my group were working on. The 2nd job I had was being the mule. It was my job to get whatever materials my group needed. My 3rd job was being a documentarian. I was the one taking pictures of the progress of our work. I didn’t really enjoy being the artistic director because that was my job for the first day, and there really wasn’t anything that I was able to critique. I enjoyed working as the mule the most because I was quick on my feet, allowing me to stay energized while working on the mural. Although mostly everything ran smoothly during the creation of the mural, I would have liked to change one thing. It would be for everyone to be a little more open to other people’s ideas. That was the one thing that was holding the group back and created some temporary bad energy within us. It was a bit of a drag to work on a mural with a bad mood, but once that energy was removed, it was way more enjoyable. We got to that point by understanding everyone’s idea and listening to what each member had to say.
Personal reflection of the proccess script
In the If These Walls could Talk course, we studied the history of murals and the different techniques used to create them. For the final action project, the class was put into groups to create a mural that is going to take up some space in the new building. My group and I worked hard to create weird yet interesting looking collaged faces. Once we got into the space we’d be working in, the real fun started. To me, the most exciting part was collaging the faces. I had many laughs as I mixed everyone’s diverse facial features. We did all the not so fun parts like scrubbing and taping the walls off in the new space first, and then we were able to paint. The painting part was very relaxing. Once all that was done, the cool part had finally came. We were able to spray paint the flower stencils on the wall, along with stamping the block prints. Once the first stencil was spray painted, I got the boost of confidence we needed because we knew it was going to come out looking very cool. It was my first time spray painting and I enjoyed it very much, I also found it to be relaxing.

Take a look into our class!

For the elective term of my Junior year I decided to join the Book Bound course. The purpose of the course was to give us a chance to explore different reading material, along with our relationship with it. We also dove into how literature plays a huge role in our education. Personally, I was very excited to start this course, because I enjoy reading very much. I was even more excited when I found out we were going to be reading The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I had some mixed feelings about it by the end, but it definitely made me feel some different types of emotions, which is what a good book is supposed to do. I learned that point as we analyzed the canon. The canon is a compile of books that are thought of as important and inspiring. The first time it was mentioned in class was the first time I have ever heard of it, and I think it’s an interesting concept. For the action project, we were assigned to gather up a portfolio with 4 of our best assignments that we completed for this class. We were asked to revise them and make sure that we were confident about putting those 4 on our public blog. During this course, we were also asked to envision what an ideal library would look like for us. I love being comfortable when reading, so I would for sure add a hammock, and a few chill stations at the library. Although I would add that, I would of course add what a library actually needs , which is why we went to another high school library to get a better understanding of what we need. We also went to Open Books, a super fun, cool looking book store. I enjoyed the decor because it portrayed a fun, creative environment, which is why I consider that FE my favorite. My favorite assignment for Book Bound was creating a literary journal with 2 other classmates. I enjoyed it the most because we were able to write about whatever we wanted to, which gave us more freedom, which let us have more fun with it.


I included my first reading experience storyboard as one of the 4 assignments. The purpose of this was to illustrate our memory of learning how to read. This was assigned during the first week of the course, which focused on our personal relationship with books and reading. I picked this one because it was fun being able to show people my first encounter of doing what I love the most now. In the storyboard, I included the story of my mom encouraging me to read. I included the basic exercise she would assign me to do when it came to practicing. I also added how it was a bit of a struggle for me because I get discouraged easily. The biggest challenge for me was trying to remember everything about my first experience, but with the help of my mom’s memory, I was able to compile some pretty great flashbacks. To get this assignment ready for my blog I had to look back at some at and revise some of my work. Once I looked at it, I realized that I was missing one important part of my journey, which was the ongoing encouragement from my mom. I also made sure to fix any grammar or spelling mistakes. I’m proud of how I was able to add some humor into is because it was actually a pretty fun, confusing, funny journey.

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In this course we studied how many people are functionally illiterate in the world, and the number is actually overwhelming. I’m adding the flier I created to promote reading and how it really helps you out when it comes to grades and overall cognitive function. I chose this one because I included some very good facts that do prove that reading makes you smarter and improves academic success, so it’s mindblowing knowing there are still people out in the world who can’t read for a number of circumstances. I wanted to make my poster visually appealing, and since I’m not the best at art, I decided to go about this digitally. Along with interesting facts, I also included some cool pictures that will maybe bring more attention to the poster. I want people to read it and finally see how important reading is for the brain. When I started, I had a hard time deciding which topic to pick to promote reading, but after pondering I decided to go with a simple yet factual one. I had to look over my poster many times to make revisions, because I knew many people were going to be looking at it. I fixed spelling mistakes and even took out a whole paragraph because it was just the same information being repeated. I’m proud that I spent quite some time researching facts, and that I took time to make it visually appealing.

During the beginning of this course, we learned about literary journals and magazines. The class looked at how there were different types of journals including those published digitally. For this assignment, the class was put into small groups to create a digital literary journal about whatever topic we wanted. I worked with MF and TS, and it was good because we all shared the same interest. We were able to agree upon making the topic of our journal be about the supernatural. We compiled scary poems we wrote ourselves, along with some art we created. While gathering all this, we learned about the overall layout of a literary journal. One thing that a literary journal requires is external submission. For me, it was challenging to get one and it took some time to find a person to agree to create some material that could work. I went over this magazine a bunch of times, trying to find and fix mistakes, and I did make tiny revisions but no significant ones. I’m proud that my group members and I divided up the work equally. We also did pretty good when it came to communication and were there for each other when we needed feedback. I hope you enjoy going through our spooky pages!
As I stated before, this course looked a lot into the literary canon and the requirements that need to be reached in order for a book to gain a spot in it. For this specific assignment, we were asked to choose a book that we believe deserves a spot in the canon. We were asked to create a slideshow including information about the author, a summary of the book, and reasons why this book would be a good fit for the canon. I decided to pick the book, The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold. I chose this assignment because I really enjoyed breaking down the book in order to show proof as to why I believe it’s good enough for the canon. This is the one assignment that didn’t present me any challenges, and I think it’s because I love this book very much, so I enjoyed telling others about it. I did make sure, though, that I looked over this slideshow many times because of the large amount of writing it included. I read this book at a pretty young age, so I’m proud that I was still able to remember details about it. I’m also proud of how I presented my information because by the end, many people agreed with the idea of it being good enough to be in the canon. I hope you enjoy my slideshow below!

Describing my day in Italian.

For my health and wellness class, I decided to take Italian again because I think the history and language of Italy is beautiful. For the final project, we were asked to create a video of us either describing a recipe, our day, or a painting in Italian. I decided to create a video laying out my day. I added pictures and did a voice over to make it come to life. It was kind of a challenge to bring about the sentences, but with a look back to my binder, I was easily able to compile some up. I hope you enjoy hearing about my day below!