Social Entrepreneur Project
Reflection
Business Proposal
Educational Autobiography
Vietnam Project
Artists Statement
The truth that I am trying to convey through my art piece is the pointlessness of the war. How the Vietnam war is a dark spot in our history. I chose to write a story because I wanted to challenge myself and do something I was interested in. I find writing to be my way of expressing myself. This story takes place in an alternate future after a third world war, in a fifth grade classroom where students are studying the Vietnam War. This is meant to show how the U.S made a mistake and in my alternate reality they have atoned for it and are now humble. This was meant to show how even though the Vietnam War did not end in a Third World War it was still a mistake that we could have done a better job amending. My story is meant to show a perspective one can have on the war, how we should be thankful for the things that could have happened but didn’t. Grateful for our luck and grateful for our lives.
In order to make a cohesive story I had to spend a lot of time coming up with an alternate future and adding detail to explain it. This required me to make several drafts and get several critiques. At first my story was very jumbled and it made no sense, in order to convey my perspective through this I had to work on my character developments and the ways I could set the scene in the future. The most difficult part of writing this piece was refining the very end. I had to figure out a way to make a conversation between fifth graders convey a very complex truth about this war. After much refinement I believe the story is cohesive, at least it is to me. It conveys my perspective effectively.
What inspired my work, besides my interests in writing, where the books The Things They Carried, and All Quiet on the Western Front, and a short story our teacher read to us by our janitor Dominic. All of these pieces of writing incorporated the idea of what is the point of war. They all reference the confusion inside a soldier, of what their purpose is. I wanted to convey this feeling in a way that was not necessarily a story of war, in a way every person could relate to, just your average kids in school learning about a war. My art piece does what other art piece in our class does, it presents a truth, but not in the same way, in my way, in writing.
The truth that I am trying to convey through my art piece is the pointlessness of the war. How the Vietnam war is a dark spot in our history. I chose to write a story because I wanted to challenge myself and do something I was interested in. I find writing to be my way of expressing myself. This story takes place in an alternate future after a third world war, in a fifth grade classroom where students are studying the Vietnam War. This is meant to show how the U.S made a mistake and in my alternate reality they have atoned for it and are now humble. This was meant to show how even though the Vietnam War did not end in a Third World War it was still a mistake that we could have done a better job amending. My story is meant to show a perspective one can have on the war, how we should be thankful for the things that could have happened but didn’t. Grateful for our luck and grateful for our lives.
In order to make a cohesive story I had to spend a lot of time coming up with an alternate future and adding detail to explain it. This required me to make several drafts and get several critiques. At first my story was very jumbled and it made no sense, in order to convey my perspective through this I had to work on my character developments and the ways I could set the scene in the future. The most difficult part of writing this piece was refining the very end. I had to figure out a way to make a conversation between fifth graders convey a very complex truth about this war. After much refinement I believe the story is cohesive, at least it is to me. It conveys my perspective effectively.
What inspired my work, besides my interests in writing, where the books The Things They Carried, and All Quiet on the Western Front, and a short story our teacher read to us by our janitor Dominic. All of these pieces of writing incorporated the idea of what is the point of war. They all reference the confusion inside a soldier, of what their purpose is. I wanted to convey this feeling in a way that was not necessarily a story of war, in a way every person could relate to, just your average kids in school learning about a war. My art piece does what other art piece in our class does, it presents a truth, but not in the same way, in my way, in writing.
WW1 Creative Historians
Project Reflection
Emily Williams
The initial task for this project was to write a short story taking place in either WW1 or WW2. Each student researched a specific event in one of these wars that they wanted to write their story around. The students then researched the climate of the area their story would take place in and other elements of their choice such as, religion, culture, technology, exc. Then a week was spent writing first drafts of our stories. After this self critiques were performed and later many different peer critiques. Once our stories had adequately critiqued and perfected to the best of our abilities we had an exhibition at which each student read an excerpt of there short story at Maria’s bookshop.
Of all of the elements we learned about in class I think I did historical content the best. I did a lot of research for this project and it came naturally to me to include what I had learned even while writing the first draft of my paper. This was also partially accountable to my interests in music, I did a lot of research on the music of the time and enjoyed writing about it. Music of different time periods is something that is very interesting to me. This line of my story especially encompasses my use of incorporating my historical research, “Jazz music was a way of life for the kids not a pastime as many nonmusicians presumed. But then came the war and along with it the banning of all thing fun, as Moritz had then thought of it. It was time for the reckless musician to grow up. Moritz had a mother two older brothers and a younger sister. The family was fairly well off for the time being. Moritz’s late father had been of importance back in his day. His two brothers were sent off to the war years ago but at the time, he was too young. By the time Moritz was 18 and could be drafter one of the brothers was dead and the Nazis showed pity on his little old mother. Moritz was left the only son in the family to live his life in Germany away from the war for now. Everyone had high hopes for the talented musician. To everyone's surprise he had grown up from that reckless young lad and had turned into a sophisticated man. He left to go to the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Cologne one of the best music school in Germany. Done with his studies and ready for the world, he auditioned for a real symphony.” This section of my story gives reader a little bit of background knowledge on my main character, Moritz. It also gives the reader some insight on what music looked like for kids before WW2 and what Hitler did to the culture. This section shows a very good example of how you can incorporate historical content into the construction of a round character.
The element that was the hardest for me while writing this story was creating an interesting plot line. This project tested my skills in writing something exciting. I had a very hard time creating conflict and excitement in my story, while I knew what I wanted my story to be about it was much harder actually executing my plans. I overcame this weakness by refining my climax many times and getting lots of peer critiques on this section in particular. I also spent a long time refining my resolution. It was very hard for me to add detail as the story went on. The first page of my story was very descriptive and the rest of my story was slightly lacking in description. I felt like as the story went on it got harder and harder to add detail and make my story easy to follow. I just wanted to get done with it. I think I could have done an even better job refining the plot than I did and on future project I will need to get over my laziness in order to create the best end product I am capable of.
One of the biggest revisions I did on my story was on the climax. When I first wrote it it was very bland and did not describe how truly awful a bombing is. To paint the picture a little better I added a whole other part where a side character dies. This would make the reader realize the situation my character was in and engage them more in the story. Another major edit I made was also towards the end of my story, before the very last paragraph I added a new paragraph completely made up of description to better describe what the scene looked like. This paragraph described the view of the city after the bombing from the eyes of a bystander. It makes the resolution of the conflict in the story more understandable and easier to picture for the reader.
Emily Williams
The initial task for this project was to write a short story taking place in either WW1 or WW2. Each student researched a specific event in one of these wars that they wanted to write their story around. The students then researched the climate of the area their story would take place in and other elements of their choice such as, religion, culture, technology, exc. Then a week was spent writing first drafts of our stories. After this self critiques were performed and later many different peer critiques. Once our stories had adequately critiqued and perfected to the best of our abilities we had an exhibition at which each student read an excerpt of there short story at Maria’s bookshop.
Of all of the elements we learned about in class I think I did historical content the best. I did a lot of research for this project and it came naturally to me to include what I had learned even while writing the first draft of my paper. This was also partially accountable to my interests in music, I did a lot of research on the music of the time and enjoyed writing about it. Music of different time periods is something that is very interesting to me. This line of my story especially encompasses my use of incorporating my historical research, “Jazz music was a way of life for the kids not a pastime as many nonmusicians presumed. But then came the war and along with it the banning of all thing fun, as Moritz had then thought of it. It was time for the reckless musician to grow up. Moritz had a mother two older brothers and a younger sister. The family was fairly well off for the time being. Moritz’s late father had been of importance back in his day. His two brothers were sent off to the war years ago but at the time, he was too young. By the time Moritz was 18 and could be drafter one of the brothers was dead and the Nazis showed pity on his little old mother. Moritz was left the only son in the family to live his life in Germany away from the war for now. Everyone had high hopes for the talented musician. To everyone's surprise he had grown up from that reckless young lad and had turned into a sophisticated man. He left to go to the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Cologne one of the best music school in Germany. Done with his studies and ready for the world, he auditioned for a real symphony.” This section of my story gives reader a little bit of background knowledge on my main character, Moritz. It also gives the reader some insight on what music looked like for kids before WW2 and what Hitler did to the culture. This section shows a very good example of how you can incorporate historical content into the construction of a round character.
The element that was the hardest for me while writing this story was creating an interesting plot line. This project tested my skills in writing something exciting. I had a very hard time creating conflict and excitement in my story, while I knew what I wanted my story to be about it was much harder actually executing my plans. I overcame this weakness by refining my climax many times and getting lots of peer critiques on this section in particular. I also spent a long time refining my resolution. It was very hard for me to add detail as the story went on. The first page of my story was very descriptive and the rest of my story was slightly lacking in description. I felt like as the story went on it got harder and harder to add detail and make my story easy to follow. I just wanted to get done with it. I think I could have done an even better job refining the plot than I did and on future project I will need to get over my laziness in order to create the best end product I am capable of.
One of the biggest revisions I did on my story was on the climax. When I first wrote it it was very bland and did not describe how truly awful a bombing is. To paint the picture a little better I added a whole other part where a side character dies. This would make the reader realize the situation my character was in and engage them more in the story. Another major edit I made was also towards the end of my story, before the very last paragraph I added a new paragraph completely made up of description to better describe what the scene looked like. This paragraph described the view of the city after the bombing from the eyes of a bystander. It makes the resolution of the conflict in the story more understandable and easier to picture for the reader.
Slaughter House 5 Seminar Reflection
An idea that came up in the Slaughterhouse 5 seminar that I found interesting was the idea and the question “Are you Billy Pilgrim.” I thought this was the most confusing question we had in the seminar and the easiest question to interpret in many different ways. It seems to me that every participant in the seminar had a slightly different opinion of what the question was asking and what the answer to this was. TJ and several other students in our class interpreted the question as asking if we, every person in this world, have some Billy Pilgrim-esk traits. And the answer to this question that was decided was yes every person does share traits with Billy Pilgrim. I on the other hand interpreted this question slightly differently I thought the question was asking are we all Billy Pilgrims. Are we all the same person in a way, all destined to follow the paths that have already been decided for us. I kind of connected this question to the previous question, “Do we have free will?” To answer the question in the way I understood it I would say yes we are all Billy Pilgrim. This is of course built off of the ideas in Slaughterhouse 5 not my own personal opinion. According to Kurt Vonnegut we are all Billy Pilgrim.
I have a very strong opinion on the question “Did Billy really get kidnapped by aliens and travel in time?” While most people in our class would say no he did not get kidnapped and argue that the Tralfamadorians where a figment of Billys imagination created as a coping mechanism, I believe Billy really did travel in time. Although Billy did show signs of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder throughout the book the are also many clues that hint towards the belief that Billy did infact travel in time. For example many times in the book Billy is said to travel forward in time from his current point, WW2 Dresden Germany, and he would often look at a newspaper or something that stated real facts of things that actually happened in the future. Billy would have no way of knowing these events would be taking place after the war and therefore had to be traveling in time. When discussing this question I also had to keep in mind that this book is classified as science fiction. In a science fiction book the author can be just as farfetched as wants to be. His main character who is a prisoner of war in Dresden can also be a time traveler who visits extraterrestrial planets. There are many different opinions and answers to this question and I am in no way saying my opinion is the right one, there is no right answer to this question which is most likely why our seminar was such a lively discussion. Every opinion is a right opinion including the one I just shared.
I personally connected the experience Billy had in chapter 9 laying in bed next to a prestigiose American doctor listening to what he had to say to my experiences having different opinions than others. Being raised in a very democratic and liberal family and learning from an early age that the world is a very large place with many different valuable opinion, I was often confused when many of my friends did not share these views on life. I have noticed in my short 15 years on earth that people are very close minded, particularly in America, many people do not realize that there are millions of people suffering in the world and that someone else might not share the same views as yourself. Slaughterhouse 5 gives an example of this when the prestigiose doctor is talking about the bombing of Dresden, he seems to believe he knows everything there is to know about the bombing and no one should know better than him. Until Billy tells him he was in Dresden when the firebombing occurred. The doctor is taken aback by this, he did not believe anyone could have more knowledge about anything than a scholar such as himself let alone a man who he thought to be scum. I thought this was a very important lesson that everyone should learn in their lives, you never know how someone else might feel and who you might be able to gain important knowledge from no matter what their class or race.
The only connections I can find between Slaughterhouse 5 and AQotWF is the portrayal of the horror of war. Although the authors have very different writing method there main objectives are to explain to the unknowing public what a war is like. The books both give very graphic explanations of war and the effects of was, Slaughterhouse 5 in a more abstract way, AQotWF in a very realistic way.
I have a very strong opinion on the question “Did Billy really get kidnapped by aliens and travel in time?” While most people in our class would say no he did not get kidnapped and argue that the Tralfamadorians where a figment of Billys imagination created as a coping mechanism, I believe Billy really did travel in time. Although Billy did show signs of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder throughout the book the are also many clues that hint towards the belief that Billy did infact travel in time. For example many times in the book Billy is said to travel forward in time from his current point, WW2 Dresden Germany, and he would often look at a newspaper or something that stated real facts of things that actually happened in the future. Billy would have no way of knowing these events would be taking place after the war and therefore had to be traveling in time. When discussing this question I also had to keep in mind that this book is classified as science fiction. In a science fiction book the author can be just as farfetched as wants to be. His main character who is a prisoner of war in Dresden can also be a time traveler who visits extraterrestrial planets. There are many different opinions and answers to this question and I am in no way saying my opinion is the right one, there is no right answer to this question which is most likely why our seminar was such a lively discussion. Every opinion is a right opinion including the one I just shared.
I personally connected the experience Billy had in chapter 9 laying in bed next to a prestigiose American doctor listening to what he had to say to my experiences having different opinions than others. Being raised in a very democratic and liberal family and learning from an early age that the world is a very large place with many different valuable opinion, I was often confused when many of my friends did not share these views on life. I have noticed in my short 15 years on earth that people are very close minded, particularly in America, many people do not realize that there are millions of people suffering in the world and that someone else might not share the same views as yourself. Slaughterhouse 5 gives an example of this when the prestigiose doctor is talking about the bombing of Dresden, he seems to believe he knows everything there is to know about the bombing and no one should know better than him. Until Billy tells him he was in Dresden when the firebombing occurred. The doctor is taken aback by this, he did not believe anyone could have more knowledge about anything than a scholar such as himself let alone a man who he thought to be scum. I thought this was a very important lesson that everyone should learn in their lives, you never know how someone else might feel and who you might be able to gain important knowledge from no matter what their class or race.
The only connections I can find between Slaughterhouse 5 and AQotWF is the portrayal of the horror of war. Although the authors have very different writing method there main objectives are to explain to the unknowing public what a war is like. The books both give very graphic explanations of war and the effects of was, Slaughterhouse 5 in a more abstract way, AQotWF in a very realistic way.
All Quiet on the Western Front
Reflections
One of the main ideas that was discussed in our All Quiet on the Western Front seminar was brotherhood between the soldiers. This is a story of a simple soldier and his comrades and their experiences fighting in WW1. The soldiers try to distance themselves as much as possible when in the war but it is human nature to make connections, and so the soldiers become friends they rely on each other everyday. Paul in particular has a group of 7 companions they are all close friends, brothers and the story tells of how one after the other all 7 drop dead until Paul is the only one left. One thing we focussed on a bit in this seminar was how big of an effect Paul’s friend have on him and how after his last remaining and closest friend Kat is killed Paul is destroyed as well. He is a different man without his friends. He feels like without them there is nothing to live for.
Detailed Response
Most of our seminar was based off the question what is the truth of war? There were many different opinions of what the truth of war was and one thing that I found very interesting was the idea of, is there one truth of war or is it different for each person. In the seminar we mostly discussed what Paul’s truth of war was which could have been different from a Frenchmans truth of war. We decided that Paul really realized what war is to him throughout chapter 9. In this chapter Paul ends up killing a French soldier hands on, with a knife. After committing this violent murder Paul realizes what he has done, what every soldier does every day he is fighting on the front line, killed an innocent man. “Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us,” said Paul shortly after the man took his last breath in the book All Quiet on the Western Front. Paul does not want to kill but there is nothing he can do he will either kill or be killed. That is his truth of war.
Connections
About a week ago I was with my grandmother who is German and she saw me reading All Quiet on the Western Front she recognized the book and started recounting stories of WW1 to me. She told me that her father had two brothers both older who were drafted to fight in WW1, my great grandfather was one year too young to be drafted into this war. Both of his brothers were killed in the war and my great grandfather and his sister were left to take care of their mother. The younger of the two sons wrote often to his family and my grandmother still has many of the letters he wrote including the last letter he wrote before dieing. In the letter he said he was going on a very important patrol in the next week. He never came back from that patrol and his body was never found. Because the family had already lost two sons when WW2 came around the army gave the last son a special pass allowing him to not fight on the front and my grandma told me we are very fortunate they did this because otherwise he would have probably died as well. All of this information about my families history was very new to me and I connected a lot of it back to All Quiet on the Western Front so many families lost members in this war including my own. It made me think of how many more relatives I would have today if those two sons hadn’t died, how many more people there would be today.
Stephen’s Choice Question:
My name is Gerard Duval and I am dieing. I lay now bleeding out in a shell hole there are three wounds in my chest and I know at this moment there is nothing I can do. Across from me there is a German soldier, the enemy he has done this to me the bastard he is the one to blame. I would like nothing more right now than to slit his dirty throat, but I can’t I am dieing. I try to scream curse him for what he has done but nothing will come out I feel the blood in my lungs preventing me from breathing, a weird gurgling emerges and I know it is me making that noise. It seems like an eternity that I wait dieing hoping the man will just take me out of my misery, but he doesn’t. He seems to be in shock from what I can tell although the pain in my chest is making it nearly impossible to see strait. But ah yes he is moving once again and coming towards me, suddenly the need to be put out of my misery, to die leaves me and fear is all I can feel. As the German soldier creeps towards me I feel the need to fight back I cringe try and get away from the mad but I am entirely at his mercy. “Ich bin ihren freunt,” said the soldier in German I could not understand him “Ich will dir helfen, comrade,” said the man as he gets closer. Now he is upon me I prepare to meet my end he takes out the knife I cringe I do not want to die. Then I look into his eyes and see not hate, but rather I see the same fear that I am sure is in my eyes at this moment. He does not stab me he dresses my wounds he bandages my chest what is he doing? I am grateful for his kindness but I can still feel the blood running nothing can save me now. I wait to die next to my murderer and yet I feel no more despise at him he is just like me a man one of us had to die for that is the way of war and I guess I am glad it is me.
Challenge Extension:Choose one of the themes you annotated in your book. In one paragraph, discuss what the theme is, and how it is developed over the course of the book.
One of the main themes I saw in the book was the theme of brotherhood. Throughout the story Paul and his companions grow close to one another and form a brotherhood that is unbreakable. This book is a telling of the journey of 7 men in a treacherous war. It allows you to grow close to the characters and then kills them off one by one until only one of the 7 brothers remains and then still that one brother is taken from this world in the last few pages. The 7 brothers are closer than they would ever be with their families. A story of the creation and the falling of a group of friends of brothers.
One of the main ideas that was discussed in our All Quiet on the Western Front seminar was brotherhood between the soldiers. This is a story of a simple soldier and his comrades and their experiences fighting in WW1. The soldiers try to distance themselves as much as possible when in the war but it is human nature to make connections, and so the soldiers become friends they rely on each other everyday. Paul in particular has a group of 7 companions they are all close friends, brothers and the story tells of how one after the other all 7 drop dead until Paul is the only one left. One thing we focussed on a bit in this seminar was how big of an effect Paul’s friend have on him and how after his last remaining and closest friend Kat is killed Paul is destroyed as well. He is a different man without his friends. He feels like without them there is nothing to live for.
Detailed Response
Most of our seminar was based off the question what is the truth of war? There were many different opinions of what the truth of war was and one thing that I found very interesting was the idea of, is there one truth of war or is it different for each person. In the seminar we mostly discussed what Paul’s truth of war was which could have been different from a Frenchmans truth of war. We decided that Paul really realized what war is to him throughout chapter 9. In this chapter Paul ends up killing a French soldier hands on, with a knife. After committing this violent murder Paul realizes what he has done, what every soldier does every day he is fighting on the front line, killed an innocent man. “Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us,” said Paul shortly after the man took his last breath in the book All Quiet on the Western Front. Paul does not want to kill but there is nothing he can do he will either kill or be killed. That is his truth of war.
Connections
About a week ago I was with my grandmother who is German and she saw me reading All Quiet on the Western Front she recognized the book and started recounting stories of WW1 to me. She told me that her father had two brothers both older who were drafted to fight in WW1, my great grandfather was one year too young to be drafted into this war. Both of his brothers were killed in the war and my great grandfather and his sister were left to take care of their mother. The younger of the two sons wrote often to his family and my grandmother still has many of the letters he wrote including the last letter he wrote before dieing. In the letter he said he was going on a very important patrol in the next week. He never came back from that patrol and his body was never found. Because the family had already lost two sons when WW2 came around the army gave the last son a special pass allowing him to not fight on the front and my grandma told me we are very fortunate they did this because otherwise he would have probably died as well. All of this information about my families history was very new to me and I connected a lot of it back to All Quiet on the Western Front so many families lost members in this war including my own. It made me think of how many more relatives I would have today if those two sons hadn’t died, how many more people there would be today.
Stephen’s Choice Question:
My name is Gerard Duval and I am dieing. I lay now bleeding out in a shell hole there are three wounds in my chest and I know at this moment there is nothing I can do. Across from me there is a German soldier, the enemy he has done this to me the bastard he is the one to blame. I would like nothing more right now than to slit his dirty throat, but I can’t I am dieing. I try to scream curse him for what he has done but nothing will come out I feel the blood in my lungs preventing me from breathing, a weird gurgling emerges and I know it is me making that noise. It seems like an eternity that I wait dieing hoping the man will just take me out of my misery, but he doesn’t. He seems to be in shock from what I can tell although the pain in my chest is making it nearly impossible to see strait. But ah yes he is moving once again and coming towards me, suddenly the need to be put out of my misery, to die leaves me and fear is all I can feel. As the German soldier creeps towards me I feel the need to fight back I cringe try and get away from the mad but I am entirely at his mercy. “Ich bin ihren freunt,” said the soldier in German I could not understand him “Ich will dir helfen, comrade,” said the man as he gets closer. Now he is upon me I prepare to meet my end he takes out the knife I cringe I do not want to die. Then I look into his eyes and see not hate, but rather I see the same fear that I am sure is in my eyes at this moment. He does not stab me he dresses my wounds he bandages my chest what is he doing? I am grateful for his kindness but I can still feel the blood running nothing can save me now. I wait to die next to my murderer and yet I feel no more despise at him he is just like me a man one of us had to die for that is the way of war and I guess I am glad it is me.
Challenge Extension:Choose one of the themes you annotated in your book. In one paragraph, discuss what the theme is, and how it is developed over the course of the book.
One of the main themes I saw in the book was the theme of brotherhood. Throughout the story Paul and his companions grow close to one another and form a brotherhood that is unbreakable. This book is a telling of the journey of 7 men in a treacherous war. It allows you to grow close to the characters and then kills them off one by one until only one of the 7 brothers remains and then still that one brother is taken from this world in the last few pages. The 7 brothers are closer than they would ever be with their families. A story of the creation and the falling of a group of friends of brothers.