Happiness and Meaning
Reflection
This was a very open ended project and for this reason I chose to take a path I am slightly less comfortable with for this project. For this project students were tasked to express there personal philosophy concerning happiness and meaning through a written piece and an art piece of there choice. I chose to write a song, I chose this medium because music has brought me joy and meaning for practically my entire life and I have always seen beauty in it. So what better way to express my personal philosophy and happiness than through my music.
Throughout this project my view of intertextuality and its importance in our culture has changed greatly. I have realized more and more what a major role it has played in our history and how very much we have to learn from from our fellow members of the human race. Without the influences from others, the work done by the many generations before us where would we be today. This idea of collaboration between an entire race is amazing to me. The way I chose to express this was in my song, because my music has always had influences from others, from my teachers, from other musicians, from my ears physically taking in new music and turning it into memories. Everything about music is intertextual and there is so much beauty that. In fact I would go as far as to say it is the most intertextual form of communication. I additionally chose to focus on this simple idea because my personal philosophy is not yet fully developed, throughout the research done for this project, there was no one philosophy that spoke to me directly and truly. I loved learning about all the different ways humans out there have and still do make sense of there existence, but honestly I don't feel the need to classify myself under a certain belief or perspective. I am a musician I am a member of the human race, I am intertextual, and I am influenced by all.
More than spark questions in me this project helped me to realize that having a meaning, a specific philosophy that I must follow isn't necessarily required. While I will always search for ways I can help and ways I can share my skills and ideas, and ways I can learn from others, my self identity does not need to complete. It never really needs to be complete. I can continue to learn and change and adapt my entire life and that is what I will do. This project sparked in me a want to learn more and more about all the oh so different cultures out there and how I can be a part of them. I want to experience it all and I am sure that I will in this hopefully long and eventful life I have ahead of me.
This was a very open ended project and for this reason I chose to take a path I am slightly less comfortable with for this project. For this project students were tasked to express there personal philosophy concerning happiness and meaning through a written piece and an art piece of there choice. I chose to write a song, I chose this medium because music has brought me joy and meaning for practically my entire life and I have always seen beauty in it. So what better way to express my personal philosophy and happiness than through my music.
Throughout this project my view of intertextuality and its importance in our culture has changed greatly. I have realized more and more what a major role it has played in our history and how very much we have to learn from from our fellow members of the human race. Without the influences from others, the work done by the many generations before us where would we be today. This idea of collaboration between an entire race is amazing to me. The way I chose to express this was in my song, because my music has always had influences from others, from my teachers, from other musicians, from my ears physically taking in new music and turning it into memories. Everything about music is intertextual and there is so much beauty that. In fact I would go as far as to say it is the most intertextual form of communication. I additionally chose to focus on this simple idea because my personal philosophy is not yet fully developed, throughout the research done for this project, there was no one philosophy that spoke to me directly and truly. I loved learning about all the different ways humans out there have and still do make sense of there existence, but honestly I don't feel the need to classify myself under a certain belief or perspective. I am a musician I am a member of the human race, I am intertextual, and I am influenced by all.
More than spark questions in me this project helped me to realize that having a meaning, a specific philosophy that I must follow isn't necessarily required. While I will always search for ways I can help and ways I can share my skills and ideas, and ways I can learn from others, my self identity does not need to complete. It never really needs to be complete. I can continue to learn and change and adapt my entire life and that is what I will do. This project sparked in me a want to learn more and more about all the oh so different cultures out there and how I can be a part of them. I want to experience it all and I am sure that I will in this hopefully long and eventful life I have ahead of me.
Artist Statement
My Happiness and Meaning Through Music
Emily Williams
All music is intertextual. It is this beautiful collaboration, any song that I write has influences from all the music I have ever heard in my life, and the same goes for every other musician. There is this connection that you feel through music, whether it be playing it or simply listening with friends, it is like nothing else and that is what makes it so special. While it may not be my entire life like it is for some people it will always be special to me, and I would not be the same person without my music. The feeling you get when the perfect song comes on, when you’re playing music with friends and you finally get that song perfectly, there is no feeling like it. I wrote this song to describe my meaning in life and the role music plays in it. Take from it whatever you want, there are endless meanings that can be derived from it. “Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent” said Victor Hugo. The way it will make you feel is different for everyone, there is beauty in that itself. The emotions you feel are yours and yours alone. Mine may be different but there is no right way.
My song has influences from a lot of different genres of music, when I wrote it I basically just sat down and wrote what I felt, I did it in several different sittings which is why there are several shifts in dynamic and key. It doesn’t necessarily flow as well as a professional song, but then again neither does my life. If it had a concistant flow it wouldn’t be representative of who I am and what my meaning is. I am so many different things, there is no one key no one genre that describes myself. That is the beauty of life and of music, the complexity. To me, there is no inherent meaning, there never will be. Life is what it is, I make the most of it by doing what I love and creating new things, by helping others, by interacting, by always working hard, with these things, why would I need a specific meaning. With a life worth living, a life that I have there is nothing more I could need. We live in this beautiful place this beautiful world where things are always changing always moving, how blessed we all are. How truly lucky we are to be graced with this place. This insane miracle that is the human race, I just hope we don’t destroy it.
Emily Williams
All music is intertextual. It is this beautiful collaboration, any song that I write has influences from all the music I have ever heard in my life, and the same goes for every other musician. There is this connection that you feel through music, whether it be playing it or simply listening with friends, it is like nothing else and that is what makes it so special. While it may not be my entire life like it is for some people it will always be special to me, and I would not be the same person without my music. The feeling you get when the perfect song comes on, when you’re playing music with friends and you finally get that song perfectly, there is no feeling like it. I wrote this song to describe my meaning in life and the role music plays in it. Take from it whatever you want, there are endless meanings that can be derived from it. “Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent” said Victor Hugo. The way it will make you feel is different for everyone, there is beauty in that itself. The emotions you feel are yours and yours alone. Mine may be different but there is no right way.
My song has influences from a lot of different genres of music, when I wrote it I basically just sat down and wrote what I felt, I did it in several different sittings which is why there are several shifts in dynamic and key. It doesn’t necessarily flow as well as a professional song, but then again neither does my life. If it had a concistant flow it wouldn’t be representative of who I am and what my meaning is. I am so many different things, there is no one key no one genre that describes myself. That is the beauty of life and of music, the complexity. To me, there is no inherent meaning, there never will be. Life is what it is, I make the most of it by doing what I love and creating new things, by helping others, by interacting, by always working hard, with these things, why would I need a specific meaning. With a life worth living, a life that I have there is nothing more I could need. We live in this beautiful place this beautiful world where things are always changing always moving, how blessed we all are. How truly lucky we are to be graced with this place. This insane miracle that is the human race, I just hope we don’t destroy it.
Voices from the Animas
Project Reflection
In this project students researched the many varying opinions on the Animas River Spill that happened early August of 2015. Students were tasked with interviewing a community member whom they believed had an opinion that would be valuable to document in an archive for future generations. These interviews were then saved as an archive at an organization called storycorps whose sole purpose is to create an un biased oral history of the United States. Throughout this project students such as myself were also given the opportunity to develop their own educated opinion on this controversial issue and to share it through a well written essay. At the end of this project the archive was shared with the public through a school exhibition last Thursday the 8th of October.
Through this project I learned most about the existing history of our river and our town. This really helped me to put the current issue into perspective. This didn’t just simply happen out of the blue, mines in Silverton have been leaking toxic waste for over a hundred years and even before that our river was far from clean. The natural metals in the mountains have been seeping into the river for thousands of years and human interference simply made it worse. And now our lacking of the ability to come to an agreement and actually clean it up is just sad to me. We have all been sitting around forcing the blame on one another and it seems right now that it will be impossible to come to an agreement. This project has helped me come to an understanding of the way the United States, the human race works as a whole and from a first hand account. Humans are so strong minded we need to put the blame on someone no matter what the issue. We need to learn as a species to connect with mother earth and to become a stronger community. To respect each other's opinions and learn how to cooperate and come to agreements. How we are going to do this will be an even bigger issue to solve then our little river spill.
For my interview I decided to record the voices of small children. They are as big of a part of our community as anyone else so why shouldn’t they be a part of the archive as well. Through interviewing small children I gained the new perspective of how open kids are. They didn’t immediately place the blame on a certain group of people. When I asked them about the river spill they simply said someone accidentally broke the mine and now our rivers poisonous and we just want to fix it. If adults could be as mature as these little kids were we would have already solved our little dilemma. However if I could change something about the interview I would change the way I recorded it and I would pass out permission slips to the kids so we could have their names and faces on record. That would have made the sound quality better and the interviews a little more personal. Despite these things over all my interview was a success.
The exhibition was a complete success. Walking around and seeing people engaged in new learning within our community was an amazing experience. Seeing adults, family members, fellow students all so engaged in listening to each other, gaining new perspectives and being so open to new ideas was incredible. It gave me hope for the human race, that a simple little project High School students did can bring so much knowledge to the community. I really wish every city out there had a school like Animals. I wish every kid had the same opportunities and I do, to share with my community to gain knowledge and be able to formulate my own ideas and opinions based off more than just what my parents have told me or what one teacher has told me. Off of experience and deeper learning.
The most important lesson I learned through this project was to listen to others. To respect the opinions of others no matter how different they are from my own. They are human beings as well and they deserve respect, and who knows maybe these ideas will make some sense. You never know who might change your opinion, who you might connect with. You simply need to get out there and open yourself up to new experiences and new learning.
In this project students researched the many varying opinions on the Animas River Spill that happened early August of 2015. Students were tasked with interviewing a community member whom they believed had an opinion that would be valuable to document in an archive for future generations. These interviews were then saved as an archive at an organization called storycorps whose sole purpose is to create an un biased oral history of the United States. Throughout this project students such as myself were also given the opportunity to develop their own educated opinion on this controversial issue and to share it through a well written essay. At the end of this project the archive was shared with the public through a school exhibition last Thursday the 8th of October.
Through this project I learned most about the existing history of our river and our town. This really helped me to put the current issue into perspective. This didn’t just simply happen out of the blue, mines in Silverton have been leaking toxic waste for over a hundred years and even before that our river was far from clean. The natural metals in the mountains have been seeping into the river for thousands of years and human interference simply made it worse. And now our lacking of the ability to come to an agreement and actually clean it up is just sad to me. We have all been sitting around forcing the blame on one another and it seems right now that it will be impossible to come to an agreement. This project has helped me come to an understanding of the way the United States, the human race works as a whole and from a first hand account. Humans are so strong minded we need to put the blame on someone no matter what the issue. We need to learn as a species to connect with mother earth and to become a stronger community. To respect each other's opinions and learn how to cooperate and come to agreements. How we are going to do this will be an even bigger issue to solve then our little river spill.
For my interview I decided to record the voices of small children. They are as big of a part of our community as anyone else so why shouldn’t they be a part of the archive as well. Through interviewing small children I gained the new perspective of how open kids are. They didn’t immediately place the blame on a certain group of people. When I asked them about the river spill they simply said someone accidentally broke the mine and now our rivers poisonous and we just want to fix it. If adults could be as mature as these little kids were we would have already solved our little dilemma. However if I could change something about the interview I would change the way I recorded it and I would pass out permission slips to the kids so we could have their names and faces on record. That would have made the sound quality better and the interviews a little more personal. Despite these things over all my interview was a success.
The exhibition was a complete success. Walking around and seeing people engaged in new learning within our community was an amazing experience. Seeing adults, family members, fellow students all so engaged in listening to each other, gaining new perspectives and being so open to new ideas was incredible. It gave me hope for the human race, that a simple little project High School students did can bring so much knowledge to the community. I really wish every city out there had a school like Animals. I wish every kid had the same opportunities and I do, to share with my community to gain knowledge and be able to formulate my own ideas and opinions based off more than just what my parents have told me or what one teacher has told me. Off of experience and deeper learning.
The most important lesson I learned through this project was to listen to others. To respect the opinions of others no matter how different they are from my own. They are human beings as well and they deserve respect, and who knows maybe these ideas will make some sense. You never know who might change your opinion, who you might connect with. You simply need to get out there and open yourself up to new experiences and new learning.
Rhetoric and Ideology Project
Project Reflection
The purpose of this project was to gain an understanding of rhetoric and learn how to use it through different mediums. There were two parts to the project a written and an oral. For these two rhetorical pieces each student chose a controversial topic they were interested in and did research on that topic. I chose to focus on the cost of higher education because I am very passionate about the belief that everyone deserves to get a higher education and our current system makes it nearly impossible for the lower to middle classes. I wrote an op-ed and a speech to attempt to convince people of my views through rhetoric. To do this I appealed to people who most likely didn’t agree with my views by conceding points and focusing on the economic advantages lower cost education would bring.
My project incorporated the art of rhetoric through discovering facts and distributing power. In my op-ed and speech I focus on sharing the facts that not very many people know about where tax dollars for higher education are going. For example in my op-ed I bring up the point, “There is an idea called the 10 25 50 problem happening in the private college industry. What that means is these schools educate 10% of total students, take up 25% of all Pell grant money, and are responsible for 50% of the student loan defaults.” This describes how grant money is being taken advantage of and later in the op-ed I describe how this problem could be resolved. Additionally in these pieces I share the importance of distributing power, creating a free option for education promotes equality and would help to begin the redistribution of wealth. Allowing everyone to have the same options for higher education gives everyone a fair chance to rise from poverty or to stay at the top depending where you are.
I connected with this project and this topic because I am starting my college search and I am beginning to worry about how I am going to pay for my education. Additionally I have done a lot of traveling and have dual citizenship in a country where higher education is free and I have seen the benefits this has. I wanted to share this with the people in America because I think it would greatly help every part of our society. Learning what is being done to fix this situation and researching the possibilities of what can be done has been a very interesting process. Because this is a topic I am very interested in getting to share my end results was a great experience, I really wanted to share what I had learned with my peers and everyone in this country.
The most difficult part of this project was figuring out how to organize all of the new information I had gained into a convincing and engaging piece. I rewrote my op-ed four separate times because I had learned so much about the topic and I realized how many different ways I could appeal to an audience and how complex my issue really was. It was difficult to make the points that I was wanting to make in such a short op-ed and speech. There were a lot of things about this topic that I wanted to share but simply couldn’t because of the lack of time and space in my speech and op-ed. If I were to redo this project I think I would try to include a little more emotion and try to appeal to my audience in a more sympathetic way.
I have learned how to recognize rhetoric in my everyday life as an American and how to find information from every angle and understand every point of view. I have discovered that through my life, being raised by a European and a strongly liberal American, I have emerged as a somewhat socialist liberal person who values equality and wants to create equal opportunities for everyone. I have learned that I am very biased towards the left side and have a hard time listening and sympathizing with the views of the right. In seeing this flaw I will try to improve myself in gaining an understanding of both sides of every issue and coming into things with an open mind. This project has taught me how to seek out accurate information and look at things outside of my personal bias. I hope to continue viewing issues through this newly gained lense and help others to do the same.
The purpose of this project was to gain an understanding of rhetoric and learn how to use it through different mediums. There were two parts to the project a written and an oral. For these two rhetorical pieces each student chose a controversial topic they were interested in and did research on that topic. I chose to focus on the cost of higher education because I am very passionate about the belief that everyone deserves to get a higher education and our current system makes it nearly impossible for the lower to middle classes. I wrote an op-ed and a speech to attempt to convince people of my views through rhetoric. To do this I appealed to people who most likely didn’t agree with my views by conceding points and focusing on the economic advantages lower cost education would bring.
My project incorporated the art of rhetoric through discovering facts and distributing power. In my op-ed and speech I focus on sharing the facts that not very many people know about where tax dollars for higher education are going. For example in my op-ed I bring up the point, “There is an idea called the 10 25 50 problem happening in the private college industry. What that means is these schools educate 10% of total students, take up 25% of all Pell grant money, and are responsible for 50% of the student loan defaults.” This describes how grant money is being taken advantage of and later in the op-ed I describe how this problem could be resolved. Additionally in these pieces I share the importance of distributing power, creating a free option for education promotes equality and would help to begin the redistribution of wealth. Allowing everyone to have the same options for higher education gives everyone a fair chance to rise from poverty or to stay at the top depending where you are.
I connected with this project and this topic because I am starting my college search and I am beginning to worry about how I am going to pay for my education. Additionally I have done a lot of traveling and have dual citizenship in a country where higher education is free and I have seen the benefits this has. I wanted to share this with the people in America because I think it would greatly help every part of our society. Learning what is being done to fix this situation and researching the possibilities of what can be done has been a very interesting process. Because this is a topic I am very interested in getting to share my end results was a great experience, I really wanted to share what I had learned with my peers and everyone in this country.
The most difficult part of this project was figuring out how to organize all of the new information I had gained into a convincing and engaging piece. I rewrote my op-ed four separate times because I had learned so much about the topic and I realized how many different ways I could appeal to an audience and how complex my issue really was. It was difficult to make the points that I was wanting to make in such a short op-ed and speech. There were a lot of things about this topic that I wanted to share but simply couldn’t because of the lack of time and space in my speech and op-ed. If I were to redo this project I think I would try to include a little more emotion and try to appeal to my audience in a more sympathetic way.
I have learned how to recognize rhetoric in my everyday life as an American and how to find information from every angle and understand every point of view. I have discovered that through my life, being raised by a European and a strongly liberal American, I have emerged as a somewhat socialist liberal person who values equality and wants to create equal opportunities for everyone. I have learned that I am very biased towards the left side and have a hard time listening and sympathizing with the views of the right. In seeing this flaw I will try to improve myself in gaining an understanding of both sides of every issue and coming into things with an open mind. This project has taught me how to seek out accurate information and look at things outside of my personal bias. I hope to continue viewing issues through this newly gained lense and help others to do the same.
