Content Area Portfolio Project

I)        Speaking/Listening

             A)      8^th Grade Debate

1)      Debate requires incredible listening skills to take notes and comprehend the entirety of a person’s argument while also noting potential weaknesses in said argument. During this time, the lessons emphasized notetaking and analyzing what a persona is saying. Becoming aware of what a person is saying and analyzing their facts has allowed me to better understand what a person is meaning and questioning the accuracy of their statement.

2) Artifact

Affirmative Constructive

            INTRO: “Developing alternative renewable energy resources have benefits that go beyond environmental health; they improve personal health, enhance national security and encourage our nation's economic viability.” This quote From Jim Clyburn is representative of the genuine nature of our resolution. The United States has realized the importance of establishing reliable energy resources other than those currently used. I stand resolved: The development of Energy Resources in the United States takes precedence over the protection of the environment.

            Obs. 1: Definitions

Development: to make available for use

Precedence: the right to precede in rank or importance; priority

Protection: to shield from injury of destruction.

Environment:  external factors surrounding and affecting an organism at any time.
            Obs. 2: America has become dependent on the production of energy resources to the point where the cease of it’s development would cripple the nation, therefore the affirmative value is preservation, because in order to preserve the nation, we must develop energy resources.

            Obs. 3: I ask the judge to weigh the round using Futurism. The consequence of an action will benefit future generations.

Cont. 1The U.S. does not need to relive past crisis caused by our lack of adeptivity. According to “The 1973 Oil Crisis” by Sarah Horton in 1973, when middle-eastern OPEC nations stopped exporting oil and other goods to the U.S. and other countries, gas prices quadrupled, and the United was forced face many major issues because there were very little alternatives to using oil, most of which originally came from those OPEC nations. If new energy resources were developed, and the U.S. became more independent, then when fossils fuels run out, there will be fewer crises than the 1973 example.

Cont. 2: The economy has almost always been shown to depend on energy development. For example Hydraulic Fracturing has created many jobs for people who previously didn’t have a job, but directly mining the natural is only one of the jobs it supports. People depend on natural gas because it is clean and has low carbon content. According to the American Petroleum Institute natural gas “is critical to American manufacturing jobs, to farmers for fertilizer, to households for heating and cooking, to businesses for electricity and fuel for transportation needs, and to society…” This is only the beginning of the economic impacts that energy resource development has, and they are all positive.

Cont. 3: The development of energy resources would be a huge benefit to future generations. By obtaining Energy Resources that will last longer than the current ones, the economy will be more stable and independent. The United States would no longer be crippled when oil-rich nations decide to cut off exports with us, and so the U.S. would be stronger. A considerable amount of the nation’s debt attributes to oil, so without the need to buy it, the debt would decrease from its current position at 15 trillion. I urge you to vote for the affirmative.

Cont. 4: If we increase our knowledge of energy resources, then the nation will be able to fix problems in the environment. We can reach our opponent’s goal (to protect the environment) by expanding on our goal- developing energy resources. Manufacturers are already taking steps to insure that citizens can take control of which energy resources they use. Some are marketing new environment friendly products that have carbon labeling. They show the carbon footprint of each product. Researchers have confirmed that this action will have a meaningful effect on carbon emissions.

             

·         Hydraulic fracturing is a technology used in the United States to help produce more than 7 billion barrels of oil and 600 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. 80% of natural gas wells will require Fracking.

·         Organization for the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

·         Cont. 1 comes from www.envirothonpa.org

·         Cont. 2 comes from API American petroleum institute.

·         Cont. 3 comes from cei.org (competitive enterprise institute)

·         Cont. 4 comes from rff.org (resources for the future)

             B)      My Family’s Way of Communicating

1)     My husband while being introduced to my family, as an outsider, was able to inform me about how my family communicates. My family speaks through interrupting each other to have our say in subjects as we are very bad at letting people have their turn speaking. The act of being made aware of my way of communicating with one group of people can help me be aware of my speaking and interaction with others as it can appear rude or insensitive to others.

2) 

             C)      D&D Playing, especially DMing

1)      As an active player of Dungeons & Dragons, I am aware of importance of listening. The game is based around the idea of listening to the instructions the facilitator/narrator of the game. A player needs to be aware and listen to what the other players are doing. Listening and observing details that can be taken advantage of in the situation the game portrays. As the facilitator/narrator, there is a necessity to listen to everything the players say since you a responsible for responding to whatever the player says. Anything the facilitator/narrator is important to the players, who are also listening intently, as a tool to potentially use in the future. The game is all about communication, primarily listening to what others say to create a communal narrative.

II)      Visual Literacy/Visually Representing

             A)      Create Visual Representation of Fahrenheit 451 and Julius Caesar in 10^th Grade

1)      In 10^th grade, my teacher valued the use of visually representing ideas. The two assignments that I remember best where we drew a visual representation of the character Clarisse who seemed otherworldly or angelic in nature. I remember some students drew simple pictures of a girl in a dress, others drew ghosts, someone drew an angel. I remember reading the novel and seeing myself as Clarisse. When I drew her, I created a self-portrait in a white dress. There was not a requirement to be good at art, but to think about the descriptions of a character, both physically and symbolically. The teacher further developed this when she asked us to draw the death of Julius Caesar in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Most created the scene as the play describes it. I remember creating a picture of a sculpture with dozens of holes, blood spewing out like a fountain; a proud, kingly man now lived in a river of his own blood. These assignments encouraged me to think more abstractly about descriptions rather than looking only at a literal image and interpretation.

             B)      Site Reading Sheet Music

1)      Reading sheet music requires the ability to look at images an understand their meaning. One needs to look for small details to determine what notes to play and how to play it. Learning to read sheet music has taught me to notice small details in the pieces I’m looking at with only short glances while still gaining information from many minute details.

2)  

             C)      Teaching Sunday School

1)      I teach primarily children between three to five years old, although I do occasionally teach up to twelve-year-old children. Creating visual representations of stories is crucial to making successful lessons for these children. Learning to create effective visual tools and aids took years of trial and error. Without the visual aids, the kids rarely understood the lessons. By learning to examine other visual aids to improve my own, I’ve grown to further appreciate the use and creation of visual aids.  

2)  

III)     Writing/Composition/Grammar

             A)      Angel Wars and 50 Poems Over a Summer

1)      I wrote my first story in first grade. It wasn’t much, but it began my desire to make stories. In fifth grade, I began writing a story that was over a hundred pages long which I didn’t finish until sixth grade. I still have the story, poorly written with plenty of flaws. The act of writing the story, which began as a handwritten task, improved my knowledge of writing. Although none of my further writing projects were so large, my quality of writing has improved. I just kept practicing. My greatest writing accomplishment occurred last summer when I wrote fifty poems of varying style. The quality of my writing has increased because of this practice and continual work.

2)  

             B)      Learning French in High School

1)      I had never thought much of the structure of the English language until I began studying French in high school. We just speak English without thinking, but my teacher constantly referred to the structure of French to English. Comparing and contrasting sentence structures of different languages has made me more aware of grammatical structure of a piece. 

             C)      Reading and Editing my Father’s Story

1)      My father created a story, and I’ve been his primary editor. I’ve examined his story and have discussed revisions and story development with him. By examining the construction of someone else’s story in depth while also having access to the author who can explain what they are attempting to express, I have better learned the construction of a story and even how to express the desired ideas.

2)  

IV)    Literature/Reading

             A)      Reading to my mom and Reading A Prayer for Owen Meany with my mom

1)      In my later elementary school days and throughout middle school, I would regularly read books to my mother. This act has developed my reading skills. In middle school, my mother and I read through a book “together” (I read faster than her, so I ended up getting far ahead of her). Although I don’t completely remember the assignments that occurred, I remember discussing A Prayer for Owen Meany with my mother. My mother and I would talk in depth about the events and the meaning of the events in the book which was the most complex and in depth conversation that has impacted my way of looking at meaning in a text rather than paying attention to superficial analysis.

2)  A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

             B)      Making Sunday School Curriculum

1)      I’ve taught Sunday school since I was in sixth grade, but it hasn’t been until the past couple years that I’ve begun writing my own curriculum. Making this curriculum involved reading parts of the bible in a more critical and thoughtful manner than I had ever read a book before. I was writing Sunday school curriculum for children twelve years old and younger. I had to read bible stories with the idea of explaining the meaning of the stories to a four-year-old. I began learning to read to find only the most important of details that apply towards a specific idea or lesson.

2)  

             C)      Bible Quizzing

1)      I did bible trivia through a specific church conference. The conference would pick a book of the bible, sometimes more if they were short, and ask various questions about the piece. Rather than creating understanding of a piece of literature, this emphasized learning memorization and retention of what was read. I had to remember what I had read which has helped my reading retention as a whole.