Final Essay

The End of High School

To be human is the need for perfection, throughout English 30-1 in the variety of texts we studied the reoccurring theme of perfection stood out.Though each person’s idea of perfection may vary, what makes us different from other mammals is this need to have everything just so. My final project will reflect on how I attempted to perfect my assignments in English 30-1 touching on each outcome that we covered to receive a high school diploma.

General Outcome 1

1.1Discover Possibilities

Every assignment I completed this year covers this outcome, the thesis statement from my Truth and Bright Water essay and visual were my strongest because I experimented with language, image and structure, as well as explored interpretations. My thesis statement stated “The general argument made by Thomas King in the novel Truth and Bright Water is that idealism may have a profound significance in an individuals life making it difficult for truth and reality to be dealt with.” In the beginning of the writing process my thesis statement was much weaker than the one I stated above, and with editing and experimenting with language and structure I created a thoughtful thesis for my Truth and Bright Water essay. 

1.2 Extend Awareness

The Truth and Bright Water visual project as well as poetry assignment both connected to this outcome in my English 30-1 year. When considering new perspectives the Truth and Bright Water visual projected allowed me to look at a book from an artist perspective. By making a visual instead of just an essay, I had to work a lot harder to find deeper meaning in the book, which I felt expanded my interest and helped me set goals for English. The poetry assignment made me enjoy reading poetry more than I did before. A poem that made me consider new perspectives was “The World is Too Much with Us” by Williams Wordsworth. “‘Getting and spending, we lay waste in our powers;’ is a juxtaposition that when the industrial revolution began people became much greedier,” is a line from my poetry assignment that changed my perspective about materialistic things and the negative affect they can have on ones life. 

General Outcome 2

2.1 Construct meaning from text and context 

All the text we studied connected to this outcome, but Hamlet was the script that took the most work to analyze context and interpret content. I used No Fear Shakespeare to understand this play better. To show my understanding of the play Hamlet I used quotations such as “Fie on’t! O fie! ‘tis an unweeded garden, that grows to seed: things rank and gross in nature.” from Act 1 scene 2 line 135. “Shakespeare advances the point “the dram of evil doth all noble substance of a doubt to his own scandal” (Act I Scene iv l. 36-38) speaking about rot or corruption. If one small piece has become rotten it ruins the whole object. Hamlet had to invoke so much death to remove the rot, and right the wrong Claudius had created,” comes from my essay about the correlation between response to injustice and self respect. These lines show how I used prior knowledge from English 10 and 20 to analyze Shakespeare and discuss subtext. 

2.2 Understand and appreciate textual forms, elements and techniques

The chart’s I created for Truth and Bright Water as well as Hamlet had a section called elements and techniques for each chapter outlining important literary elements used in each book, creating subtext or deeper meanings. These charts also helped me relate the structure of the books to why the books were set up in that form. 

2.3 Respond to a variety of print and non print text

Truth and Bright Water was easiest for us to connect text, self, culture and milieu to because of it being set in a place where most of us have lived our whole life, as well as being a coming of age story. The novel was relatable because everyone must grow up and mature, and this is around the time when most of us are going through these changes. Many of us can connect to the milieu that Tecumseh is experiencing in his life. “Tecumseh was never told the whole truth about his family,” which is true for many of us, because our parents don’t want the truth to hurt us. We connect what we know to create our reality just like Tecumseh “pieced together what he knew to create what appeared to be reality.” 

Verisimilitude is created in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King through dramatic, cinematic and literary elements. “Elijah Wood’s acting created a verisimilitude [to Frodo.]” While watching the movies you know that they are in a made up place, but the sets are so well developed you believe that you could go to Middle Earth on a vacation. 

The poetry assignment that went with Truth and Bright Water allowed me to appreciate the artistry created in certain poems. The poem “Essay on Adam” discusses the topic of mysterious death. This poem is a beautiful way of discussing such an ugly topic. ““Whether the demons work from the inside out or the outside in,” is the true question about corruption.” This line is very effective and makes one question where the corruption comes from. 

General Outcome 3

3.1/3.2 Manage Ideas or Information 

The Lord of The Rings Research project required for us to focus on the assignment. Having to develop a formal report assessing the effectiveness of cinematic, dramatic, and literary elements used to develop a central theme in the film. By watching the special features, the movie and doing extra research I chose the central theme I felt was built by Peter Jackson. I created jot notes about everything that may possibly connect to the question needed to be answered. I then created a chart that I put my notes into to organize and select the information that I wanted to use for my report. With all the jot notes I took I came to the conclusion that the central theme that was created was duality in human nature. From that step I used the internet to find quotes that I wanted to use in my essay, making sure they were from reliable sources. 

General Outcome 4

4.1 Develop and present a variety of print and non print texts

With my Truth and Bright Water visual project I developed content through visual metaphors to Truth and Bright Water such as the “mystery of the baby clothes.” To stay consistent with the context of the book, I used the four colors that are the Blackfoot Colors, as well as the picture of the Prairies and the buffalo. The medium of a visual project added to the clarity and artistry about it. A visual project is interpreted through the viewers eyes so the understanding they interpret from it depends on what they have experienced through their lives. This project can be interpreted as a visual essay, with the general theme of appearance vs reality, which is why I considered many different ideas but used mirrors as my background because they can deceive. 

4.2 Improve thoughtfulness, effectiveness and correctness of communication

This visual project took my almost 3 weeks to complete because I was constantly changing, editing, and tweaking different elements of this project. In order to succeed with this project we had to cover each of the required bullets, and with lots of editing many of my details in my project could cover more than one of these. The chance that we got to present these live, and did not just hand them in helped with my matters of correctness which I struggle with. By presenting this live, my grammar, use of tenses and many other things improved, because I am a lot better at talking than writing. 

General Outcome 5

5.1/5.2 Respect Support and Collaborate with others

Even though sitting in pods was not an assignment, I feel that because we did it everyday it connected to outcome 5 the best. Everyday sitting in a group, we had someone to bounce ideas off of, get help from and learn many things. With the projects such as the charts for Truth and Bright Water  as well as Hamlet, the Lord Of the Rings paper and many other assignments it was helpful to be able to say, does this make sense, or what are you doing for this. We did not copy each others ideas word for word but I feel this gets creativity going in our minds and we could come up with different ideas from what we heard because we started to get deeper. 

English 30-1 focuses on the human condition and the need for perfection in life. This may not have been the theme I focused on in any of my projects, but now that I look back on what we did this year I have discovered this is what it means to be “human.” Other animals just are out there to survive, we are different, not because of what many people think, we have feelings, because animals definitely have feelings. Through the study of Hamlet, Truth and Bright Water, Lord of the Rings, and A Dolls House the struggle to be perfect was alive in all the characters in each story. In everyones life the struggle is real, everyones definition of perfect is different, but we don’t go to school in an institution for 12 years because its joyful, its to prepare us to succeed in life, and aim for our definition of perfect. Throughout English 30, I have worked very hard to perfect my writing, reading and analyzing skills, and will continue to work at it through university to try to become perfect.