Teachers: Jorge Cerna & Dan Allen
Grade & Subject: 11th Grade Humanities & Art
School: High Tech High Media Arts
This project focused around the idea of duality in society. Our theme was centered around how an action, idea, or individual can be perceived as a “hero or villain” based on perception. The class investigated this topic through a historical, literature, civics, and modern day lens. Students also did work in their Art class to be able to show and create various images/ideas through different perspectives. The main goal was to ask students to critically think how society can label or define something as heroic or villainous but often times it really depended on your perspective (bias, background, moral/ethical code, etc) that made you lean one way or the other. Students were asked to write informative writings on canva depicting the heroic and villainous perspective of their groups topic. These writings had to match tile pieces that told the same message and could be connected be their symbolic representation of the event, person, topic, etc that their group picked. The project culminated with the work curated as a living representation of perspective and duality in around our water fountain the school.
Teacher Reflection
It is extremely valuable and important for students to be able to display their work. When students know and understand that what they create will be a “living” model for future students to see there is a lot of ownership and motivation in that. It can be challenging to figure out how to display student work (especially writing) but if it can be thoughtful and serve a purpose (i.e. improve school community) then it will have more meaning for students. Biggest challenge that I had in this project was time (or lack thereof) and trying to get through content without falling behind. Our final product ideation phase felt a bit rushed and I didn’t connect the dots for the students enough for them to understand what was the purpose of what we were learning. The novel we read also didn’t have a big impact on the project and it felt like it didn’t serve any purpose for them understanding our project goals.
—Jorge Cerna
Student Reflection
Overall through all the challenges our group was able to get everything done in time. Our project came out really good. Im proud of my group for pushing through all the challenges. Our tiles, writing pieces, and website turned out better than expected.
—Daira L.
Teachers: Jorge Cerna & Dan Allen
Grade & Subject: 11th Grade Humanities & Art
School: High Tech High Media Arts
This project focused around the idea of duality in society. Our theme was centered around how an action, idea, or individual can be perceived as a “hero or villain” based on perception. The class investigated this topic through a historical, literature, civics, and modern day lens. Students also did work in their Art class to be able to show and create various images/ideas through different perspectives. The main goal was to ask students to critically think how society can label or define something as heroic or villainous but often times it really depended on your perspective (bias, background, moral/ethical code, etc) that made you lean one way or the other. Students were asked to write informative writings on canva depicting the heroic and villainous perspective of their groups topic. These writings had to match tile pieces that told the same message and could be connected be their symbolic representation of the event, person, topic, etc that their group picked. The project culminated with the work curated as a living representation of perspective and duality in around our water fountain the school.
Teacher Reflection
It is extremely valuable and important for students to be able to display their work. When students know and understand that what they create will be a “living” model for future students to see there is a lot of ownership and motivation in that. It can be challenging to figure out how to display student work (especially writing) but if it can be thoughtful and serve a purpose (i.e. improve school community) then it will have more meaning for students. Biggest challenge that I had in this project was time (or lack thereof) and trying to get through content without falling behind. Our final product ideation phase felt a bit rushed and I didn’t connect the dots for the students enough for them to understand what was the purpose of what we were learning. The novel we read also didn’t have a big impact on the project and it felt like it didn’t serve any purpose for them understanding our project goals.
—Jorge Cerna
Student Reflection
Overall through all the challenges our group was able to get everything done in time. Our project came out really good. Im proud of my group for pushing through all the challenges. Our tiles, writing pieces, and website turned out better than expected.
—Daira L.
