The Mask Project
Nizhoni Benally
12-6-19 Sellers- 3/4 Mask Reflection For this project we were required to to create a mask that represented our identity and the agents that have shaped it. To prepare our selves for this project, we first had to learn about identity and the factors that play in our lives that make up who we are. Through out this semester, we did an assortment of assignments building up to our finale assignment. We started this assignment by learning about The Ship of Theseus. This ship was kept in a port for a long time and eventually started to rot. so the pieces that were rotting or got damaged were replaced with an identical of the original species, eventually all the original parts were replaced. so the question was, Could this ship still be called The Ship of Theseus? This was meant to kick start our minds into thinking what identity was. Over the semester we continued to do readings and learn about identity from the readings and our teacher. These articles of learning of consisted of; Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, "The Cycle of Socialization" by Bobbie Harro, an assortment of videos on our topics found by Mr. Steven and many presentations made by Mr. Steven. All of these were meant to teach us about identity and Socialization's rules and expectations for us. During this project, I feel that I was able to push myself out of my comfort zone. When it comes to most projects, I prefer to work alone and not interact with any of my other classmates. However, we were writing essays to go along with our masks that were required to be as refined as we could possibly get them. This meant rereading them and getting other people to help refine them. I’m usually uncomfortable with people writing through my writing, nor do I like reading other people’s writing, because I’m usually afraid of what other people will think of my writing and that when I’m editing theirs, I’m not going to edit it properly and lead them down a stray path. I did want to get a good grade for my project, though, so I pushed myself to try a little bit harder to get refinement for my work. I do believe I could have tried harder when I got refinement and help during this project. So while I didn’t really take the the “easy way” through this project, it certainly wasn’t a vary hard and challenging way. I did not use Advocacy in this project either, unfortunately. I have not been one who was good at speaking out my own thoughts or questions. So instead, I try to find answers to my questions or work through my problems on my own, and this was the same for this project. Perseverance is not something I used a lot of in this project, I just followed my instructions and didn’t face very many problems. The only problems I faced was being able to find a way to work on my project out of school and working on my mask when the class didn’t have enough of the color I needed. To fix these problems I worked on my work during lunch or at the Durango Public Library and bringing my own paint. This is how I persevered, but I didn’t do much after this. When it came to refinement, I did alright. We all made multiple drafts of our essays, each one more refined than the last. I’ve been able to refine my work with the help of my classmates and the rubric I was using. I do believe I could have done better at refinement by having more people read through my work, asking fore my teachers help, and rereading it a few more times. My last draft is definitely much more refined and better than my first draft. But the final essay was last minute and I didn’t have time to have people in my class read it through it and I only read through it a few times. As far as refinement goes, I could have done far better than what I’ve done. This project as a whole has helped me grow as student in my creativity and my writing skills. These two skills, I was lacking in when it came to school projects as the traditional schooling system mostly just taught you what they wanted you to learn and then give you a test. Any projects given, you were told what to do and weren’t any fun. During this project, we had more freedom and were able to allow our creativity wonder. So while my work my have not extended much past what was required, the project has improved my skills as a whole. |
Nizhoni Benally
12-5-19 Sellers- 3/4 Social Identity Agents of Socialization are Institutions, or groups of Society, that influence us and pass on expectations of value and “appropriate” behavior. Media, School, Family, Friends, Sports and Religion are the main groups of Agents of Socialization in our lives. Family, religion and friends are the most prominent and strongest agents in my life by teaching me rules and behaviors that have given me my place in society. In Families, Parents are usually the Agents that raise and teach their children in the expectations of society. The article, The Cycle of Socialization, states wonderfully that, “They shape our self-concept and self-perception, the norms and rules we must follow, the roles we are taught to play, our expectation for the future, and our dreams.”(First Socialization 1:2) According to the article, this means that the way we view ourselves, our wants, and the rules we believe we need to follow are based around how our parents taught and raised us. When I was brought into this world, my parents taught me that we all work in our house, we work hard for what we want, we are equals, and family is trustworthy and loyal to each other. These teaching soon became my beliefs for how people should act and be. I have grown to be a person who works hard so that she can get things done and accomplished so she can pave a way for herself in this life as well as plan to always look out and protect her family. I thought these were the same rules and norms to every family in the world, though I would learn that this is not so. The mentors to me in my family are not completely limited to just my parents, however. As I have gone into me teen years, I have spent more time with my brother, and he is another mentor in my family that have taught me and shaped me into who I am. My brother has told me time and time again, that it is my duty to protect my family, especially when my brother or both my father and brother, are away. He has also told me that now I am older and stronger, that it is important for me to take on more of the hard labor work from my parents, so they don’t have to do it and so they don’t hurt themselves. I’ve listen and believe what he says so much that the very thought of not doing what he taught me to do, feels like a bullet to my chest. I was born and raised in my religion, “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints” and I love my church and try to live by their rules and beliefs, but I have always felt target by society for my religion, and sometimes, more so than most other Christian churches. Our society is built upon two groups called Agent and Targets. Agents are higher up in our society and have more power than targets. We are categorized into these two groups based on our gender, race, sexual orientation, economic class, age, religion, and disabilities. We don’t really have a choice as to who we are, but we are still categorized by it. When you have a religion like mine, we fall into the Target area. Though I have not often been out right criticized by the people, I still have had my share of people who have made fun of me in school for it as well as people who have tried to make me question my beliefs. I am sure many, if not all, religions have had this kind of criticism, but I have not heard of very many that people will hate so much as to try to blow up or burn down the church buildings. I also feel indirectly made fun of when people take the Lord or God’s name in vain or make an inappropriate joke about them. These forms of attacks make me feel insecure, doubtful and even frightened for my life in society. I have become more closed off about showing, teaching and sharing my religion as well have become less trustworthy of people because of this injustice that we get. I have become more uncaring, unkind, and a more hateful person because of the hate I sometimes get, even though my church believes we should love our neighbor like we love ourselves as well as forgive them transgression. Friends influence many of us while growing up into adulthood and even still continue to influence us then. When going to places such as school, we tend to want to have friends in order to fit in somewhere. So we may change ourselves or pretend to be someone different from who we are in order to fit in and have a place among a group of people. These changes we do to ourselves eventually can actually, truly, become apart of us and become part of who we are. In Mean Girls we see are main character hanging out with the school’s popular girls. In order for her to fit in with them, she started to change how she acted around them. When she eventually no longer had to hang out with the girls, she continued to still acted like them because she pretended for so long to fit in that she had actually become one of them. Even when she stopped acting like a stuck up jerk like the popular girls, she still dressed similar to how they dressed when they hung out with each other, showing that a part of her was still like them. In elementary school, I hung out with a nice group of girls who where big animal lovers and crazy horse lovers. At that time, I didn’t really like horses or liked any animals other than cats. But I wanted to continue to hang out with these girls and not seem weird, so I pretend to like what they liked and even did research so I could carry myself in a conversation with them and be involved with them. Over time, I developed the same feeling for horses and animals so long as they don’t make trouble. I had developed these feelings and interests as my friend because of how long I hung out with them and wanted to be like them. Our social identity in society is determined by the agents that play in our lives that make us who we are. My social identity has been formed and created by my friends, family and religion through our interaction and the interactions we have had with society. |