Dreamlight (Click for Project Description)
Teacher Reflection: I shall be upfront: I absolutely adored this project. I loved that our students were able to talk to so many people about dreams. Students interviewed senior citizens, an elementary school student, and a community member. In addition, students completed Human Connection tasks daily leading up to exhibition where they talked to friends and families about dreams, risks they've taken, and hopes for the future. We learned a lot from the Lanterns of Love Project last year and so we were able to look at what we achieved last year and push even harder for strong final products. In addition, students worked on parallel and series circuits and were able to integrate movement and light into the lanterns they created. Each student individually created a lantern. In groups, students also worked on an art installation. We created LED lit Dreamcatchers, the UP House with LEDs in the balloons, a tunnel with our students' dreams painted in neon paint, and a large DREAMLIGHT sign that was the focal point of our exhibition evening. The installations were very fun for me to see unfold since students were able to choose what they were creating and how they were creating it. I do plan to do this project again in the future, so I'm still learning step by step. I think that we can come up with a more creative way to display artist statements next time. I also really love the act of gifting the lanterns back to the people who inspired them. Perhaps next year, we could get all of them in one place so we can do one performance and gifting evening for everyone who participated.
Student Reflections:
Ethan R.: I learned from Fahrenheit 451 that some things are worth fighting and dying for. Like Ms Blake who died with her beliefs that books are worth fighting for. I learned from interviewing people that you never know what your get so you just work with what you got. Throughout this project I used humanities thinking to take my interviews and turn them into symbols for the sides of my lanterns.
Kelly M.: Fahrenheit 451 was a really interesting and unique book that I would have probably never read on my own. This book really did give me a new perspective on people. It did get me curious about people and inspired some questions for the person who I got to interview. The human connection tasks also made me curious about humans and made me wonder about what other people had done or just thought about society. I mean every person has their own story to tell. Humanities did help me in a way with this project because it helped me interact with people that I didn't even know, it made wonder more about them and it also made me be more sociable something I'm really not.
Andrew T.: Humanities was a rollercoaster of knowledge. There were so many forms of knowledge that I was exposed to, and I am extremely grateful for that. From all of the books that we read as a class, I have learned that your perspective can be changed through those that influence your life. Juror 8 put his faith in the defendant, Beatrice with her dreams and Montag with his his job. Interviewing doesn’t seem like it should be nerve racking, but if you’re able to have a proper conversation then it’s a breeze. The ability to connect with potential friends is a great skill, and I feel like I’ve been able to grasp some of it. Human connection tasks caught me completely off guard, but if you really think about it, these simple tasks make us more knowledge ,curious as well as makes us more self aware.
Mattia A.: I honestly believe that the final exhibition turned out amazing. In past years when doing exhibitions my teachers always had these big ideas but they would never turn out as planned. This year was the complete opposite. My partner and I’s lantern also turned out beautifully. We had every circuit and motion done and the boxes were both laser cut and painted professionally and tailored for each interviewee.
Fredo G.: The Dreamlight project was my favorite one from this year, for a lot of good reasons. First off, I got to have conversations, with different age groups. First, Aidan, Angela, and my self interviewed an Elementary schooler named Brandon. We discussed many things, such as his favorite cartoons and the people he loved, but what stood out to me most was the dreams he had. He wanted to become a soldier in the military. My group was very good in coming up with things to ask him to keep Brandon engaged. Next, we interviewed a community member. She spoke only Spanish, so it was sort of a challenge to have that conversation. Luckily, my project partner Angela also spoke Spanish, and was very good at translating the things she had to say. She told us her dreams for the community. She wanted her children to succeed and lead good lives. We had some interesting ideas to put as designs on our lanterns. As our third and final interview, we walked over to the senior center near our school with questions we had written up and talked to a kind elderly woman named Irene. We asked our questions, and we got very specific and emotional answers that revealed a lot about her. She was a very religious person who loved her husband very much, and he had only passed away months before. She now writes books about various things, such as Christmas, different modes of transportation, and other things she has interest in. Finally, we got to the building of our lanterns. We learned how to use Adobe Illustrator and make files to laser cut. For each lantern, there was four panels of four different things; math constructions, a quote from each interview, symbol, and a free choice panel. Lastly, we added our circuits that we made for physics class into our lanterns to complete them.What I learned in humanities is how to get more from reading in Fahrenheit 451. From looking at the things the characters do, such as wear seashells (earbuds) all the time, and look at TV, and not read books, is an exaggeration of what people nowadays. The books message is pretty much how people are too connected to the internet, and must receive constant input. To avoid this, Ms. Carol told us a lot of tasks to talk to people and also simply meditate for just 5 and 10 minutes.
Carter D.: During this project , we read Fahrenheit 451 by Rad Bradburry. During this book, we got to get a glimpse of a possible future where nobody socializes anymore. They don't just TALK or read a book. The sit down and talk to screens, or listen to radios in the ears. It, for all-intensive purposes, is a dystopian society. We also interviewed a Senior Citizen, a Community Member, and a 1st grader from the elementary school. We interviewed them on question such as "What do you want to be when you grow up?", "What is something you hope to do before you die?", "How would you like to be remembered?" and "What has been you biggest accomplishment in life?". Using the data we gathered, each group member would construct a lantern that had laser cut pieces of art that related to the person they interviewed. We got to learn a lot about artistic design, as well as learning more about the interviewees.
Ethan R.: I learned from Fahrenheit 451 that some things are worth fighting and dying for. Like Ms Blake who died with her beliefs that books are worth fighting for. I learned from interviewing people that you never know what your get so you just work with what you got. Throughout this project I used humanities thinking to take my interviews and turn them into symbols for the sides of my lanterns.
Kelly M.: Fahrenheit 451 was a really interesting and unique book that I would have probably never read on my own. This book really did give me a new perspective on people. It did get me curious about people and inspired some questions for the person who I got to interview. The human connection tasks also made me curious about humans and made me wonder about what other people had done or just thought about society. I mean every person has their own story to tell. Humanities did help me in a way with this project because it helped me interact with people that I didn't even know, it made wonder more about them and it also made me be more sociable something I'm really not.
Andrew T.: Humanities was a rollercoaster of knowledge. There were so many forms of knowledge that I was exposed to, and I am extremely grateful for that. From all of the books that we read as a class, I have learned that your perspective can be changed through those that influence your life. Juror 8 put his faith in the defendant, Beatrice with her dreams and Montag with his his job. Interviewing doesn’t seem like it should be nerve racking, but if you’re able to have a proper conversation then it’s a breeze. The ability to connect with potential friends is a great skill, and I feel like I’ve been able to grasp some of it. Human connection tasks caught me completely off guard, but if you really think about it, these simple tasks make us more knowledge ,curious as well as makes us more self aware.
Mattia A.: I honestly believe that the final exhibition turned out amazing. In past years when doing exhibitions my teachers always had these big ideas but they would never turn out as planned. This year was the complete opposite. My partner and I’s lantern also turned out beautifully. We had every circuit and motion done and the boxes were both laser cut and painted professionally and tailored for each interviewee.
Fredo G.: The Dreamlight project was my favorite one from this year, for a lot of good reasons. First off, I got to have conversations, with different age groups. First, Aidan, Angela, and my self interviewed an Elementary schooler named Brandon. We discussed many things, such as his favorite cartoons and the people he loved, but what stood out to me most was the dreams he had. He wanted to become a soldier in the military. My group was very good in coming up with things to ask him to keep Brandon engaged. Next, we interviewed a community member. She spoke only Spanish, so it was sort of a challenge to have that conversation. Luckily, my project partner Angela also spoke Spanish, and was very good at translating the things she had to say. She told us her dreams for the community. She wanted her children to succeed and lead good lives. We had some interesting ideas to put as designs on our lanterns. As our third and final interview, we walked over to the senior center near our school with questions we had written up and talked to a kind elderly woman named Irene. We asked our questions, and we got very specific and emotional answers that revealed a lot about her. She was a very religious person who loved her husband very much, and he had only passed away months before. She now writes books about various things, such as Christmas, different modes of transportation, and other things she has interest in. Finally, we got to the building of our lanterns. We learned how to use Adobe Illustrator and make files to laser cut. For each lantern, there was four panels of four different things; math constructions, a quote from each interview, symbol, and a free choice panel. Lastly, we added our circuits that we made for physics class into our lanterns to complete them.What I learned in humanities is how to get more from reading in Fahrenheit 451. From looking at the things the characters do, such as wear seashells (earbuds) all the time, and look at TV, and not read books, is an exaggeration of what people nowadays. The books message is pretty much how people are too connected to the internet, and must receive constant input. To avoid this, Ms. Carol told us a lot of tasks to talk to people and also simply meditate for just 5 and 10 minutes.
Carter D.: During this project , we read Fahrenheit 451 by Rad Bradburry. During this book, we got to get a glimpse of a possible future where nobody socializes anymore. They don't just TALK or read a book. The sit down and talk to screens, or listen to radios in the ears. It, for all-intensive purposes, is a dystopian society. We also interviewed a Senior Citizen, a Community Member, and a 1st grader from the elementary school. We interviewed them on question such as "What do you want to be when you grow up?", "What is something you hope to do before you die?", "How would you like to be remembered?" and "What has been you biggest accomplishment in life?". Using the data we gathered, each group member would construct a lantern that had laser cut pieces of art that related to the person they interviewed. We got to learn a lot about artistic design, as well as learning more about the interviewees.
