Remote Learning Academic Showcase
COLE GARLAND
"Aaron"
Aaron was a young boy of about ten, and while he was noted among his family for his curiosity and his loose tongue, he was notorious for his mischief. Most famously, he liked to scare his neighbors' chickens. His neighbor, who’s name he had never bothered to learn, had not one piece of evidence it was Aaron, but knew it was him. This was because the lad was very, very meticulous about his prank. He made sure to only scare them when the neighbor was furthest away from the coop, so that he had more time to escape. On one of his frequent scares, he ran away into the woods behind the house because he decided to try his prank in the daytime, and his neighbor was out in front of the house.
However, while he was running, he ran into someone. As Aaron looked up, he saw a tree of a man, with a long, grey beard, and strong arms. “Hello young man!” he boomed. “I’m Mr. Peters!” Aaron took a step back and muttered “I'm not supposed to talk to strangers.” Mr. Peters stood silent, and quickly sat down on a rock because in the forest, there are lots of rocks, leaving Aaron standing with his back to a tree.
“Young man, if I may ask, what’s your name?”
Aaron, becoming less and less afraid and more and more curious, replied “I’m Aaron. I live close by here. Why are you in the woods?” Mr Peters, now drawing out a bottle of water from his pocket, paused and looked up at the trees. “I like to come to the forest when I reflect on my actions. What about you, Aaron?”
At this point, Aaron’s loose tongue got the best of him. “I’m trying to hide from my neighbor. I scared his chickens.”
“That’s not very nice, don’t you think, Aaron? Your neighbor probably doesn't eat all those eggs himself. He might give some away.”
Aaron now became even more loose tongued, “I don’t think so, I’ve never met him, but he rarely leaves the house.” He blabbered on, “and if he does, scaring chickens is fun!”
Mr Peters looked back up at the trees. “Well, that may be so, but, I don’t think that’s nice. You should probably apologise. You seem like the kind of boy who’s very polite.”
Aaron was confused, and questioned. “Why would I apologise? It’s not directly hurting him.”
Mr. Peters stood up, and started walking towards the town. “Well, it’s the honorable thing to do, and if you won’t, you won’t.” Aaron now took his back off of the tree and started walking behind him in the direction of his house.
“Mr. Peters, if I want to apologise, how do I know what to say?”
They started out of the woods, and Mr Peters said, “Start by saying, ‘sorry I scared your chickens.”
They were almost at the houses now, and Aaron wanted help with preparing. He had decided he would apologise, but wanted to practice first. “Mr. Peters!” he said. “Can I practice on you first?”
Mr. Peters stroked his beard in thought, finally saying “Why, yes you can.”
Aaron then started into his apology, making sure it was sincere and he meant it, and finishing with the phrase Mr. Peters had said earlier.
Mr. Peters paused, started walking towards the chicken-coop, and said. “That’s quite alright Aaron, I forgive you. Just don’t scare my chickens again.” He closed the door to the coop and went onto his porch. “And, now that you know my name, come over for eggs and bacon some time, Aaron!”
Analysis of "Aaron"
I wrote this piece on a complete whim. I simply drew from what I enjoyed and what I did not and decided to go from there. I made it so that Mr. Peters was the neighbor, because in my case, the people I've wronged always show me the right thing to do. I also liked it as a plot twist.
I really wanted the reader to consider what the other person you might wrong may feel, even if you don’t know them yet. I also wanted the reader to learn how easy it is to simply be friendly and apologise to others. To this end, I used pretty simple vocabulary.
Honorable; to be deserving of good, to be respected
Reflect; to look back on actions or previous thoughts
Meticulous; to show great attention to detail.
Matthew 5:23-24 So, what if you are offering your gift at the altar and remember that someone has something against you? Leave your gift there and go make peace with that person. Then come and offer your gift.
I chose this verse for the story because I wanted to emphasise on how making amends comes before doing what you expect to do for the day.
I am most happy with the piece itself, as I am very critical of my writing when I am writing prose. I’m not very unhappy with the piece at all.
JULIA HUSTON
Introduction to Portfolio
I choose to research the topic of beauty. The reason I chose this topic is because I see the importance of highlighting the understanding of our inner beauty making up the character of who we are. Being true to one's inner beauty teaches people how to stay away from being defined by what society made beauty to be understood as. My slogan for the portfolio is “Stupid Standards” and after researching and writing about beauty, I learned how confidence can greatly alter the image of beauty that one considers about themself. People must remember that everyone is made in the image of God and we are perfectly made by Him and He made us full of beauty. I also learned that there is more to beauty than appearance, which is the first idea that comes to mind with this topic.
I hope that my readers will learn from my portfolio that regardless of what we look like, we are viewed beautifully in God's eyes. Beauty is part of being true to who we are and standards attempt to take who we really are away from us. It makes people change what they love to do because they feel they have to fit in and that is not how beauty should be. People should learn that it is the right thing to find beauty in something other than glam and looks and that it should be found in who one is as a person. Now that the portfolio is done, it really supplied me with more understanding of who I am and what I live for. I am truly blessed to be given the opportunity to work on this project and do the research on beauty.
My design for this project was to show beauty through the decoration. For the cover of my book, I broke CD’s into small pieces to resemble a mirror like cover, this book was its own symbol of beauty being changed by society. What were once perfectly fine CD’s, became crushed and shattered into pieces completely broken apart. The CD’s represent us being totally functioning and perfectly made by God, but destroyed by society. The world full of sin changes who we are and how we feel about our self image.
"Imagine"
Winds flow to the west as the sky is at dawn.
The birds chirping like there is no fire burning in the soul.
Her eyes hold the light of the world in them, yet they will
Always have the darkness inside that never leaves.
The perfect petals of the flower seem to have no flaw, but the flower
Could tell you it feels the need to fall.
Its brokenness goes unseen to any persons eye, but inside its lovely petals
Holds its brokenness aside.
Its fearful heart ponders what others may think of it,
But to anyone else it seems like the newest blossom growing.
Analysis of "Imagine"
My motivation for this piece was about being insecure and having that feeling inside is a constant idea in my head and easily controls my life any given day. Writing this was effortless because the words just came together on the paper because it was my thoughts pouring out onto the page. Feeling confident with beauty seems like such an easy thing to do, but when the image of beauty in the world becomes particular, believing in yourself becomes the hardest thing to handle.
The word choice in the piece was created with the imagery of an open field with flowers. I pictured these flowers comparing themselves even if they all look the same because they are able to find even the smallest most insignificant details about themselves to then become insecure about. I used certains words like darkness or brokenness because they convey the idea of how deeply our minds can alter into this broken world without beauty. The word choice adds the effect of isolation to the flower which represents the people that are feeling this shutting out of the world around them.
The spiritual application is about how we should not be anxious about anything because God has everything under control in every person's life and He made life for us to not feel the need to worry. We forget this and decide to attempt solving things on our own which brings unnecessary stress in our lives. Beauty is one of the things that should not be a factor of stress in life, but the expectations that are made by society change what we believe. A verse that represents this would be Philippians 4:6 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”
The part of this poem I am most satisfied with would be my theme which was my representation about how something as beautiful and imperfect looking as a flower feels alone, is questioning its physical appearance, and its beauty. In lines 5-8 the writing came into a rhyme scheme which was for a lyrical aspect that I believe is beautiful and fit for the idea of this poem.
For my poem “Imagine,” I was not pleased with the ending because I did not know whether or not people would comprehend the idea of the heart of the flower being the heart of me. Part of the poem mentions fear and I did not love it because I could not figure the emotions I wanted to have for its feelings.
Burning: very keenly or deeply felt; intense
Flaw: a mark, fault, or other imperfection that mars a substance or object.
Ponders: think about (something) carefully