Documentary

How do you creatively and truthfully portray a significant person, group, place, idea, or issue in the community?


During the documentary project we the students were able to pick an intriguing person, group, place, idea, or issue, and gather our own ideas and research (both primary and secondary) to develop a distinct view point on the topic we developed. This would later help us navigate through the world and be more open minded towards different view points. This unit emphasized a narrative-style journalistic approach.

Specifically my documentary project explored the topic of stigma around Schizophrenia. My great aunt, an amazing person, was diagnosed with Schizophrenia in her early twenties. I decided that mental diseases was a topic of interest to me because of my curiosity for the matter and it being labeled as a taboo topic in our modern world. After taking AP Psychology I knew a little of the matter, yet it was not enough. Throughout my project I used my various resources and read an amazing book for my english honors requirement to finally be able to portray with many types of medias what I believe the stigma behind Schizophrenia is and inform people of the topic.

I valued how this project was so open ended. With that aspect even people who had the same topic were able to transfer it into their own. I was able to explore my interests and make the most out of all of my resources.