Dramatic Gestures- Question of the Day (Q.O.D.)

The relationship between gesture and thought is a key concept for all actors and actresses. Gestures are used to convey the thoughts for the audience to understand from the perspective of the actor(s). Actors incorporate gestures into their performances to tell their fellow actors on stage their specific feelings and thoughts for them to correspondingly respond and explain to the audience how a certain situation makes a character feel or how an event can change the entire feel of the performance. Gestures additionally help to support the mood and tone of the play to the audience and highlight the importance of the scene or act. The actor's hand is required and needs to be very conscious of its actions when trying to express a thought or specific emotion. Even a slight mess up or incorrect gestures can come across to the audience as a different emotion and change the entire feel of the play. Therefore, the hand of a character must be very careful and always at watch. 

SSR Book Reflection + Academic Language

Today, during SSR, I decided to read my nonfiction book, called Brainiac. This novel is a compilation of some of the greatest moments of Jeopardy! history for Ken Jennings. A little along the lines of Ken Jennings and his novel that he wrote. Ken Jennings is the highest winning and trivia's undisputed king for Jeopardy! Ken has won over 75 games, played in two years, with over 2, 642 correct answers and more than $2.5 million in winning later. During his college time, Ken Jennings and his college buddy Earl watched various trivia game shows and hoped that in the future, they would be able to reflect on themselves as one of the champions of a trivia game show. After auditioning with hundreds and thousands of people, we can all predict and infer that Ken joined the panel of Jeopardy! In addition to just competing in various trivia shows, Ken believes in investigating various trivia across the world. Ken continues to compete all over the world in college quiz-bowl and goes head-to-head with other fantastic competitors. Jennings, as a person, is remarkable and ponders questions, based philosophically, and the motives in life for people. He analyzes the various emotions and feelings of nostalgia, curiosity, yet the nerdy side to every human being, apparent in the world of trivia. Overall, after finishing more than half the book, with each chapter having trivia questions at the end, this book is simply engaging and full of imagination, yet still informative. 

Poetry Slam Reflection

Looking back at my poetry slam performance, I felt very joyous and extremely proud to be the one to perform the way that I did. Poetry is one of the most under-rated pieces of work in literature. One of the key points of why I truly love English literature to this day is purely based on poetry. Poetry is like dance and singing for me. It is a path that allows me to channel my inner thoughts and feelings to and to be the genius, the creator, the master in my own world. My spoken word poem that I presented is one that is very deep and meaningful and definitely thought-provoking. Throughout highschool, whether it be the small teasing or the "bullying" that happens to all the children around me and including me at times, I really wanted to just express my feelings to stay strong and chose to be the way that you are. It's really not about the people who bully others, but rather the victims who chose to act a certain way. In other words, even if someone tries to influence you, it does not matter at all what they say, but it actually is your choice whether you let that control you or when you decide to make your own decisions. 

"What I think and who I am is ALL up to me. What you think and who you are is up to you." This line comes from my spoken word poem and sums up all that one needs to be a success. Reflecting back on my performance, I feel as if I put my emotion and really conveyed my message across to the class. I feel as if memorizing the poem a bit more would have allowed me to get up and do a few more gestures to enhance the mood of the poem. Additionally, I made one small stutter at the end, but I was able to recover from it. After my performance, the class demanded an encore and really seemed to enjoy my poem. I was glad that the inspiration and motivation from my family, on my mother and brother, as well as my best friends allowed me to create such a beautifully flowing and natural poem. Although the message might be simple, people who experience the difficult situation really understand how hard it is to rebound. Life is filled with various paths, all in different tracks for a train to go on. Your job and your choice are the same thing. Hop on the train which really makes you proud to be and for you to be happy. Ultimately, all that matters is happiness felt by each and every person about themselves.