Ninth Grade English required a diorama. The specifics for this diorama were more along the lines of an architectural floor plan requiring a certain width and height (15"x18") as well as a dramatic artistic flair with examples given in class of spray paint, plastic figures, foam shapes glued in place, coloring, sewing and a not-so-subtle hint that it take at least 3-5 hours to produce. Oh, and as an afterthought, the teacher reminded them to come up with a theme that would represent Romeo and Juliet (but wasn't Romeo and Juliet) such as zombies (yes, that was suggested in class), Cowboys vs. Indians, or Vampires vs. Werewolves.
"Be creative and have fun!"
Justin was dreading this project! He put it off as long as he dared because he couldn't come up with characters that could be (but weren't) Romeo and Juliet and he's not really the crafty sort. Had the requirements included some sort of 3D rendering on the computer, adding music and making a film it would have been right up his alley but "gluing junk together" doesn't even fall on his list of Fun Things To Try When I'm Bored Out of My Mind. When he couldn't put it off any longer and still maintain an A in the class, Justin, Derek and I huddled (almost literally) around the kitchen island determined to come up with a theme. We took our top three ideas and tried to draw out a diorama for each theme and how it could somehow make sense to represent Romeo and Juliet. They all seemed lame to a 14 year old boy but he finally settled on Mario, mostly because we could find characters online that he could print and fold into 3D images required in the specs.
His pencil drawing of a soon-to-be awesome project:
A view of the flat printed characters, soon to be 3D characters, ready to be cut and origamied (too bad if that isn't a word, we used it enough times over a three day span that it now has a place in our family dictionary).
"Mariontague" required no glue or tape, just a sharp exacto knife and a good hour of patience.
It took us 4 episodes of Psych to get our characters cut out and origamied together.
I helped with the cutting, Justin did all the folding.
At times we both felt like we were going cross-eyed and occasionally we cut the wrong spot or made a slit to big but we did it!
Even though Princess Peach fit the Mario theme, she didn't fit the rival part of the Romeo and Juliet story since Mario and Peach are on the same "team" so we went with another Papercraft character, Princess Buttercup, now known as Princess ButterCapulet.
A good backdrop is all this couple needed to bring on a dramatic romance.
Justin, with structural suggestions from Derek, created just that.
On the morning of the Diorama Due Date, Hyrum and I planned to deliver Justin to school. Hyrum kept insisting that I needed to print a Bowser for him and though we were in a hurry I didn't want him to think that Justin was the only one who deserved my attention (though it may have appeared that way for the past three days as I helped, encouraged and cheered Justin on) so I took the time before school to quickly find a Bowser and print it. He carefully cut it out and presented it to Justin to tape onto the castle. He wanted to be helpful "just like Mom and Derek".
Our family efforts paid off. We had many late night hours laughing together and Justin got the "A" he hoped and worked for.
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Speech class was torture! The speeches were stressful but he managed fine. However, he was docked for what he was, or rather, wasn't wearing. He was told to dress "professionally". After putting together the most professional outfit he could from the options offered in the boy closets at our house he headed out for his first speech.
Okay, admittedly, the shoes could have been more professional but his speech was about his first gymnastics competition and for his visual aid he was going to be doing a back flip so he had to keep the shoes realistic. The tie, long sleeve shirt, belt and dress pants were already making a back flip harder than necessary and he didn't want his shoes to slip out from under him. Therefore, he chose the rubber soles instead of the "slippery" dress shoe soles.
He came home completely frustrated after that speech. Because he didn't wear a full suit - with a white shirt AND suit coat - the teacher docked enough points that he only had a B. To add to that she marked him down because he didn't "warn the audience that he was closing the speech". Seriously? When I was in 9th grade speech class I clearly remember our teacher telling us to never say "I'd like to close my speech with..." He was also docked because his visual aid wasn't enough. Are you kidding? Showing his 5 medals and back flip in dress clothes in the small area in front of a classroom on a tile floor wasn't enough? He got a C.
This teacher heard from me (as well as many other parents) by e-mail, addressing the fact that providing a full suit to a young man in the growth spurt years was not within our budget. The closing paragraph began, "I'd like to warn you that I'm closing my email". Not one of my classier moments but I hope she caught how stupid it sounded and how ridiculous the clothing requirements were. Needless to say, the "full suit" requirement was dropped boys and the "full dress, not skirt and shirt" was dropped for the girls.
He quickly learned that he had to impress the teacher visually and through humor and even if the information and his written work was lacking he could get a good grade. By the time he did his persuasive speech on a topic that he drew out of hat he was ready. His topic was "Why Boredom Doesn't Lead To Trouble". The hardest part for him was that he does believe that boredom leads to trouble so he stretched his mind, found ways to make it humorous, used his computer skills to put together a clever power point presentation and he nailed it. So much so that he found out during the 2nd trimester that the teacher used his presentation as a demonstration for her classes.
His final speech was Demonstrative. He and his friend were going to show how to defend themselves from an attacker. Justin chose to be the attacker. Luckily (?), Levi could offer advice on how to dress and talk to make a convincing attacker and even provided the wardrobe for him.
Though he was hesitant, he knew the visual was important so he went with it, hoping he wouldn't get kicked out of school for wearing the "wife beater" tank, bandanna and hat, sagging his pants (not near enough, according to Levi), and appearing as a gang member. He ditched the idea of the tattoos, chunky cross necklace and chains and the skull t-shirt and he did know well enough to take a Nerf gun instead of the something from Derek's weapon collection. Cameron and Justin did a great job on their speech. They did teach and demonstrate but they also had the class laughing, which seems just as important to the teacher as the actual demonstration.
After each speech, and doing extra credit work, he checked his grades and watched his grade grow from that first C graded speech all the way up to a final A for the trimester. At times we wondered if it was really a speech class or a theater class but the required speech class is in the past and he kept his 4.0 which was his ultimate goal.
Speaking of 4.0....amazing! We strongly encourage good grades but it's never been necessary to get on Justin about it. He is a perfectionist on his own, he doesn't need me to add any expectations to that.
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His latest adventure is Driver's Ed. The driving alone may be an adventure but so is getting up at 5:30 each morning for four weeks and surviving such long school days. It took us a few days to get used to the new early schedule but he always had a smile and was cheerful.
It was just the two of us each morning. I was so impressed that he would get himself up and was ready without any nagging. My part was to provide a breakfast that would last long enough until lunch and to drive him to the school. I quite enjoyed our early morning time together. However, once the class was over it was nice for both of us to "sleep in" until 6:30.
P.S. Bret, Daymia and Sierra have taught my kids a whole new level of bargain shopping! I've tried to teach them to look for sales and head first to the clearance rack but together they watch for and warn each other of good deals. The outfit Justin is wearing above is a perfect example of their great skills. The shirt was $3 and the shoes were $6. Booyaah!
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This doesn't fit under the title Freshman Education but let's jump for a second to Senior Year. Derek is trying to finish up his Advisory project. That drawn out four year project that just seems like busy work to many of the teachers and the students. We actually found out that in two years they will be doing away with the Advisory program which means Justin won't have to do it. Erika and Derek claim that it's not fair that Levi and Justin didn't/won't have to suffer the same torture they did.
Anyway, Derek needed to get his community service project in. LeRoy was volunteering his electrical services at Krupp Scout Hollow for some new cabins being built there so he took Derek along. Come to think of it, he took Justin too. I guess this does qualify as Freshman Education.
They experienced the first cold storm of the winter but got the work done with the required pictures taken and hours logged. Now he just needs to get that 3" binder all organized and the paperwork done to finalize Advisory.
