Week 2 reflection

31st July

I was absent for this class so my friend Rhea helped me catch up with the classwork.

Today’s class started with the word ‘Brevity’. It means expressing oneself in minimal words. A Haiku is an example of using brevity as a technique of expression of words.

Next we spoke about Van Der Post and his book ‘The Lost World of the Kalahari’. Post lived with the Bushmen and analyzed their life. Later he wrote his book explaining the life of the African tribe- The Kalahari Tribe. In this book he wrote ‘We need primitive nature, the first man in ourselves, it seems, as the lungs need air and the body food and water.’ We discussed this phrase in class and came to the conclusion that-We constantly keep thinking about futuristic ideas and new innovations but our basic needs are similar to that of the early man; which are air, food, water and shelter. Post has tried to understand why the bushmen have not connected with the rapidly growing technology. In his book, he has written that the reason behind this is that there are two types of hunger-the Little one which is hunger for food; and the Great hunger which is hunger for meaning. Van Der Post has written ‘Man has lost the capacity to Dream‘. This means that in this world of technological advancement, we have stopped chasing our dreams. The book seemed very interesting and I am looking forward to reading this book and understanding more about the difference between the lives of the bushmen and the lives of the city people.

Ma’am brought about a new word in class called ‘Motifs’. Motifs are items that repeat multiple times throughout a text. They help us reveal the theme of the text. We saw a short video which spoke more about these motifs.

I have seen Harry Potter movies but I have never spotted motifs in them. In the video I saw how the dog was used as a motif in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

There were other movies like Lego, Slumdog Millionaire etc. where motifs were used and it went all unnoticed until we learnt about this term called Motifs. In our orientation week we had seen a movie called ‘Mon Oncle’. It is a French movie and the means ‘My Uncle’. We discussed motifs visible in that movie. The movie had a monotonous sound which is a motif. Also the lady in the movie turns on the flow of water from the fountain situated on her garden at the sound of every door bell. This is an example of motif as an action. There were many other examples of motifs in the movie.

Later we read the first few paragraphs of the first chapter of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. The title of the book is based on a boy from the seagull family whose name was Jonathan. We discussed the meaning of the lines we read in class. We were told to read the other paragraphs of part 1 by ourselves and come up with doubts and motifs in the chapter.

Our class was divided into 3 groups. The first group had to write a paraphrase of chapter 1 of the story Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the second group had to make a poem on the same and the third group had to prepare a comic strip. Then the names of all the students in the class were written in chits and we had to choose one chit. This assignment is called ‘Who is your seagull’. We have to click a few candid pictures, by the next class, of the person whose name was written in our piece of paper

 

 

The rough draft

25^th September

In this week’s class we were asked to start with the rough draft of the story book that we had to create. Ma’am called us one by one and reviewed us individually. She could only complete reviewing some people’s draft so the rest of them were asked to email her their work. That was all for the class.

Next week we have a holiday due to Gandhi jayanti so we have to complete our stories and present the final work for the 10^th week review.

 

Reviewing the story

18^th September

This week we started with reviewing with the story, in our groups. We were divided in groups of three and we had to share our stories and then our group members would give us feedback on that. I wasn’t ready with my story but I had the story line ready.

My story was about a pencil, an eraser and a sharpener. There was a pencil who loved writing and her best friend was the eraser who was always there for her to correct her mistakes. He always admired her. Sharpener was pencil’s father. He was the one who always motivated her when she became pointless.

One day an unfortunate incident happened with the pencil and that changed everything. That led to something that no one ever expected.

Ma’am reviewed all our story lines and asked us to make changes where ever she thought it was needed. We were asked to make a story of minimum 750 words over the coming week and also add some drawings and illustrations.

PREPARING THE PROTOTYPES

21^st September

Today in class we were working on our final assignments only. Since everyone was done making their first prototypes, we started to work on our second one and once we were done with that we could start with the final model. After I was done making my two prototypes, I showed them to ma’am and she asked me to make some changes. These changes and mistakes could be kept in mind before making the final model so that the same mistakes aren’t repeated.

I had made my first prototype with Styrofoam, second one I made in class with thermocol and sunboard and I planned on doing my final model with wood. As I was done with my two prototypes, I started with the final model with wood.

I couldn’t complete my final model that day itself so I came to college when I was free and I completed it. I was happy to see the results. I always used to think that it is difficult to work with wood but when I actually used it to make my model; it was very simple and fun.