reflections

The goal of this Reflections unit was to answer the question “Who am I?” and to learn more about ourselves. In English, our first assignment was to write our Common App essay. We read the book College Essay Essentials by Ethan Sawyer, the “College Essay Guy”, to fully analyze different types of college essays and decide which route we would choose for our own Common App essay. This unit was extremely helpful because it unloaded a lot of work that I had to do anyway for the college application process but that I could get feedback on from Mr. Greco and time to work in class. We got to dive deeper into who were are as individuals. I valued the Reflections film that we were assigned as well as the mandala that we learned how to create in Digital Media because the requirements were not restricting and we got to work on them by ourselves because they were smaller projects. This allowed me to have full control over the final product which I enjoyed.

MY ESSENCE OBJECTS

In English, we came up with a list of objects that we feel encapsulate who we are. This was one of the exercises that we did from Ethan Sawyer’s College Essay Essentials book as a brainstorm for possible life stories that we could connect with one of the objects on the list. The “Essence Objects List” is a compliation of items that we wear or take with us every day as well as keepsakes and random, nostalgic pieces that hold memories of significant events in our life.

– DJI drone

– tweezers

– hammock

– (not so) white slip-on Vans

– Giants sweatshirt

– sleeping bag

– tomato soup

– collection of Harry Potter books

– disposable cameras

– sunglasses (QUAYs)

– no show socks

– wreath

– reusable water bottle

– old photo of my family at a ball game

– keys

– earbuds

– “oldies” playlist

– bracelet from Florence

– my old art sketchbooks

– the works of Yayoi Kusama

– Canelo, my grandparent’s late dog

– iPhone Xs

The Hunger Games series

– ski helmet

Creating a list allowed me to identify my core values and begin to think about what was most important to me. This reflections unit made me more self-aware and I feel that I now have a deeper understanding of myself that embraces the qualities and traits that make me unique.