A Filmmaker's Reflection

This unit is one of the important units in my class this year because students have the opportunities to make documentaries on issue they want to see and change in the future. I have learned how to care about issues that I thought were not part of my life, but actually have impact on my life. Teen suicide and depression is something dear in my life because it is destroying the future of most teenagers in the world specially in this country. Before I did research from my documentary, I didn't know that this issue was so huge. In my mind only few people think about that and others don't even recognize what impact is played in our life. The good thing is that my school helps us to do something we never did before. Choose something we care about and actually present that to the whole world who could actually take action for each subject. This technology make us proud and believe that everything could be possible. Our hope is that people are actually understanding the fear and the message we try to communicate with the world and help to make this foot mark bigger than no one could never imagine.

We could not do anything by ourselves. We need support, trust and victory for all those issues. We want people to realize that even though we're kids, we actually understand some important things in life that we passionate about and want to make some change. There are a proverb that says, "one for all, all for one". We have to be together, hand to hand with understanding. We, adults of future, are full of energy and pride because we want to build a future better than today. All this encouragement and entainterment because you support us each day in our life and believe that one day we would change the world. "Yes, We Can," Barack Obama.

My Social Issue: Teen Suicide and Dpression

My opening shot would be images or logos of different schools and the commentary would be my voice talking about how teen are different, are indifferent school, however have the same issue. After that, I would show a graph showing how teen suicide and depression have increase over years with a song from Enya (Maybe). And then Students working on the streets.

My Social Issue: Teen Suicide and Depression

In my point of view, this issue is an important issue because according to media.www.theloquitur.com, each year, approximately 5,000 college students die by suicide according to the National Mental Health Association. This means if this among of students die each year, it means that our future is dying with them. Also, according to www.news-releases.uiowa.edu, nearly 13.6 percent of those suicides were committed by people under the age of 25. Moreover, suicide accounted for 13 percent of all deaths for people between the ages of 15 and 24. This is a huge percentage, and how could we bring that down. One of the strong reason to keep more mental health services for students is that more than half of 26,000 students across 70 colleges and universities who completed a survey on suicidal experiences reported having at least one episode of suicidal thinking at some point in their lives, according to psychcentral.com.

This is a story I found on www.sprc.org website, " Marty was a student at a very large East Coast university-the type of place where it was easy for someone to get lost. Attendance was never taken, and no one noticed if a student stopped showing up in a class of 200 or 300 students. The residence assistants in Marty's dorms were graduate students. They cared about their students but had no systematic way of checking up on everyone. Marty started drifting from his friends. He was uncommunicative and withdrawn. He slept late and rarely left his room. When he did appear in the cafeteria or on the street, he looked more than a little frightened and unkempt. Everyone found it easier to avoid him than to confront him. Late one night, Marty tried to kill himself." This kind of situation happen every single day life. Sometimes we avoid people because we think that they're bizarre and we keep away from them. We have to be careful about how we act with everyone. Show a little compassion and avoid that situation. When I read this story is hurt me so deep and abstrusely because sometimes we could make someone ends his or her life without knowing what we're doing.

We're hurting people feelings without knowing instead to approach this person and ask this person if he or she is fine. Thus, we need more mental health services for teenage to avoid this situation. Maybe that this would never happen if Marty's mental health services did a good job in his college. They have to improve their services in schools.

My Social Issue: Teen Suicide and Depression

My documentary would be about teen suicide and depression. What is the cause of this issue? Teen Suicide is the second leading way of death in college that teenage used in the United States mostly because they're far away from home, being lonely, depressed and others. My point to make this documentary is to find ways through what teenage get in this situation and how they could get out of this same situation. The rate of suicide in college has increased 15% over years and how could we get through that issue. One day I would go to college and maybe could be in the same situation like them. So how could I get through this. Are colleges provide enough help to students?

Social Issue: Teen Depression

My issue is about depressing teenage. The point is to show what is the cause of the depression (trouble in the family, school...) and how they deal with that everyday. I think that some students have trouble to face obstacles. Some get someone to talk about their issues. Is that help them to deal and face their trouble or it's not really helpful at all? Are there are some of them who get out in that kind of situation.

Social Issue: Teenage Pregnancy

http://www.responsibilityproject.com/blog/post/teen-pregnancy-pact-the-perfect-storm/?src=keyword_s=ggl_K=TeenagePregnancy_C=Parenting_G=GloucesterTeens_Teenage_M=Broad

If this is true or not about those 17 girls at Gloucester High, I think that it's the case, it should not be considered as an issue of teenage pregnancy because they wanted to be pregnant. This story is about a group of girls who wanted to support each other and take step together. 17 girls is a lot, however, I wonder if they think about the responsibilities they would weight on their shoulders to take care of those babies. I don't think that was a smart decision to take in group because they only would be behind of the school, also you would take care of a baby if the family of the mother could not. I don't think that all them would be a great mother. Moreover some of them could not be good to look over two babies at the same time.

I think that I could use this for my project to show how a pact could have some good impact to people.

Reflection on Types of Media

Internet News is unique about this type of media because it's more using by more and more young people. Over years, the percent of people reading internet online have increasing. In my own opinion, I think that internet news is the most important type of media today because most of people have internet at home. Moreover, it's cheaper because we pay each end of month.

Introducing Documentaries

Storm

I think that they had to be inspired by a socking story to make this documentary. They had to make up their characters to make the story alive because in their kind of documentary. it's really difficult to show the real people. In the documentary, most of the video, the image was black and white because of the bully. However at the end the image was in color like killing himself felt relive for him.

I think that the only think I would do differently in this documentary is how billy people felt when the victim killed himself because in some point, this act would affect their life.

This video is more connect to young people because it's what is happened in most of school in this country. I strongly was connected with this story because it's young kids whom played the same role that other kids like them are doing in the real life.

Book Club's Summary, The Color Purple

The Color Purple is a book about two sisters who try to find the way together through the atrocity men abuse toward women. Celie and Nettie have been separated by a man they thought after years was their father. After abusing Celie and had two kids with her, he send her in a marriage she didn't want to. Nettie was force to go to Africa with a missionary family because she had no where to go after being try to be abuse by Celie's husband, Mr. _____. Celie had learned to stay alive by doing everything people around her talk her what to do. Nettie always told her that she had to fight Mr.____ and his children back. Luckily, after everything Celie and Nettie had to confront each day, Nettie found herself with Celie's daughter and son. Over years, Celie finally learned how to stand up for herself. This courage came from the hiding letters of Nettie. Mr.____ had hided those and left Celie believed that her beloved sister died. She raised her voice for the first time and walk away with her head high. She and her sister inherited their house and store from their mother. Their stepfather never told them that the house and the store were for them. I guess he wanted to send them away and took all their will. Celie and Nettie finally lived together with her kids and Nettie's husband surrounding with close family. When I was reading the book , the story of Celie is a little bit connecting with Rihanna 's situation now. Because if the gossip it corrects, it was not the first time Rihanna was beat by Chris Brown. Rihanna stayed with him because maybe she doesn't want to create a scandal and has a choice. However, Celie thought that she didn't have no choice and she didn't have no one to turn to. No shoulder to cry on until she met Shug.

"Even though you have the trees with you. The whole earth. The stars. But look at you. When Shug left, happiness desert." This is a quote from the book. It is really sorrowful that no one loves you and with you anymore. Not because they don't care about you anymore, but because they're not near to you to touch and listen to you. That hurts so much when the ones you love are so far away from you. And don't have anyone to share what you feel. That's how I feel sometimes, because I don't have my beloved cousin to share what I really want to let out. However I'm not that lonely like Celie. I really think that Shug uses her for company because when she found someone she left Celie by herself. I don't think that was the way a close friend should behave to a friend who believe in her and trust her for everything she did.

I strongly recommend this book because even though the situation is afflicted it teaches us so much about the life. Like a proverb that my friend, Maria, like to say, "What go around, come around." That is one of the big theme of this book. No matter what you try to do to destroy a happiness, your happiness should also be destroy because you're not deceive no mercy from anyone. This story tells the life time of two little girls who didn't have no one but each other, but at the end have a lot of friends who love them back surround them. People that actually care about them such as they love and care about them back.

Reader Reponse Journal #18

I Wrote On All Four Walls
By teens speak out violence

Page 39, "..., when you you're younger, there's so much pressure on you to become something, but you already are something then." This passage of the book kept my attention when I was reading the book. This is a situation most young teenage are confronting every single day. I could connect my life with this passage even though the storyteller, Don, has a different life style than me. Everyday, young people try to do their best. I agree with Don when he said that you already are something then. Each of us is someone. We have potential. We just have to explore them more to be more someone in the future.

Character Change

The issues my characters face in particularly women are abuse, inferiority in the society, deception, and games of life. All those issues are still in our society even now. However, it is now women who are the only victims, also men. Women are more strong than before as Sofia in the book.
There is a lot of discrimination and racism. The characters have to find a way to live without annoy any of the white people. Make the own style life.

Reader Response Journal #17

November Blues
By Sharon M. Draper


November is a valiant girl who tries to face the consequences of her mistake. She had a excellent opportunity to give up her baby and had a scholarship to go to Cornell, but she didn't accept by the way because it was the parents of his dead boyfriend who was trying to take her baby away so they could remember their son.
I love this book because it is a mixing issue of youth and grow ups to. In this book, the story about a pregnant young girl who the parents of her dead boyfriend try to take the baby away from her pretending to try to get her in college. This really touches me because I understand the feeling of each person, boyfriend's parent and November. The boyfriend's parent just want someone to remember them their only son. They are so desperate to make their son alive that they took decision even without see the point of view of November, the pregnant girl and the one who has to face the abstruse moment of some students in her school. They don't even want understand her feelings. All they want it just the baby she carries. However, they are not so strong as I thought because the baby born premature and they don't want the baby anymore. The reason is that the baby may have some mental or physical problem in the future. This part of the story hurts me so hard because they left behind the baby they were dying to have just because she may not be normal. What could their son think of them where he is?
In the other hands, November is ready to take care of her baby no matter what. Even though this means that she would work or miss some school day. She doesn't want to give up in despite she doesn't get the idea to be a mom yet. Her mother is a big support for her without forget her friends. I think that November deserves to be with her baby because she would give her all the love a mother could give to her baby.

The Color Purple Evaluation

This book is really a book who could be related to many women life story in the 1900's and even today. The story is so deep and each woman could see a point that could connect with their life because in the story we have different kind of woman, valiant, timorous, decent and delicate women. Any woman could actually connect with the story because it is not only the story of a desperate woman. Every women are abused, but they have different way to confront this problem. Some face men and get as strong as they could. Some run away. Some are just puppet of men. All this to stay alive and off of men abuse. I could feel them when I read and that make me related about the women right because some fight for women and some were just scared to fight. Over the years, women didn't have any right. Life was abstruse for them. I could not connect when them, but I could use their experiences to build mine in the future.

Book Club Author Voice

The voice in my book is sound concerning, low self-esteem and fatigued.
A celebrity whose voice would be most ideal for this novel is Maya Angelou because she is so deep when she read her poems. She has a voice that touches you so deep in your heart and in that instant you could feel what she feels.

My Short Story Intro

Standing in the middle of a warm and the same time cold room, Ben has not comprehended yet which direction his life has been pivoted to. Over three weeks now and what they have been petrified just take place. He tried to see the dark room through the curtain of tears covering his face. What is happening? He thought mutely in the dark and laid on the bed near to him. Thousand of images defiled in front of him as he could just touch it and take his time to analyze the thoughts of everyone in the scene in particularly his mother, brothers and sister.

January 2sd. Ben always thought that this day is a very special and precious day to cherish in family. He knew that since he was born. However, this year has taught him the opposite of things. An Obscure day he would like to never remember in his life, but still he would live with this abstruse day until he leaves this world and go to meet him again to a world there are not gloomy but sunshine shining everyday. Even on his twelve years on this world, this event never ever grazed his mind even for a second. A day that his father would just evaporate in the nature without say bye and never come back. Of course he saw him again for the last time before he went to sleep forever in a bed not as usual. His father was just laid there, white as snowman and never said anything even open his eyes to see people he was there for him. Ben wondered why his father was in that state and also wondered why his cheeks were wet.

The Color Purple Resder Response Journal #4

I have intuition that "The Color Purple" is a book that is connected to thousand of black people living in Georgia to 1910 through 1940. This period was a period that black people didn't have not right and were sometimes ashamed of where they were and what white folks were doing to them. They had lived in a despair life of maltreats of people that thought they were qualified to be the higher race over all the races. This period was a difficult time for the African-American, however, those people had pride to vanquish all the abstruseness put on their way.

Sometimes I think that the author, The Color Purple, had been so hash to men when she wrote this book. However, I could understand what she felt when she was writing this book. Because time has changed back then and back then most of women, black or white, had suffered the matrimonial abuses and ferocity of men. Most of women didn't have the gift to stand up for themselves as Celie. And the consequences have been several to women that they began the puppet.

Celie is a brave girl. I hope she would keep this up. However, she has to stand up for herself. Fight for her rights not only as woman, but also as human being. Her father and her husband don't any right, any responsibility to treat women that way. I would like to read the day she would give some hot coffee to drink.

The Color Purple Resder Response Journal #3

Celie has to fight back against the unacceptable way her husband and his children is made her live. Kate, her sister's husband, and Nettie, her sister, always say the same time, "You have to fight them back". I intensely agree with both of them because she is an obeisance and decent girl. Moreover, she didn't even deserve that pervert called her husband. She has to fight back. Say that enough is enough. How come an magnificent girl like her has to go through and live with abstruse monster every time even when she is so hospitality girl.

The Color Purple Reader Response Journal #2

Celie is very a strong girl because even though she is the same situation as her sister, she wants to protect her as good as she could. She is more over energy of hope because she writes the dairy by starting by "Dear God". I feel depress for her because she is been rapped by her own father. The first day I read that, it made me so irritated that I could not believe what she was telling. Celie doesn't have a good education, however, she has a intense envy to learn. I almost cry when the woman who wanted to help her and her sister to learn came over her house and just walk away because of her physical appearance. There are a proverb that say, "Don't judge people by their appearance". And that what the woman did without even try to know the girl better. Instead of the educated woman she is, she should not behave like that because she is looking same as someone who never see words in her life.

However, I am ecstatic so Celie because she finally see her girl. And she really likes her even though she is the fruit of a nightmare.

The Color Purple Reader Response Journal

The Color Purple
By Alice Walker

Based on the summary in this book, I could say that this book is about two girls who feel connected because of the same life experience. The image on the cover show two little girls playing together. I could infer that the two girls are very closed friends.

Alice Walker Poetic Style

Alice Walker started to read poems in 1952 through 2005. Three historical events she had been lived through are the Civil right Movement, the Independence Day, and Vietnam War.

Walker has a plenty poetic style. She wrote short poem contain few words but it is actually really deep and reveal the life of anyone in this earth. When you read through her poem, I can picture what she means with each word she wrote down. I think that she is very good in this poetic style because she lived through difficult obstacles. Her eyes problems and the war in her life is the cause of her deep and depressive poems because perhaps she never knew and witnessed so many violence.

Even though her poetic style is short, her words are very depth and relating in this world.