This I Believe Sophomore Semester Project

This I Believe: Sophomore World Literature Final Project

As you have seen, or will soon see, all of the novels we read have a philosophy at its core, whether it is the religion and spirituality of Pi, Peekay’s The Power of One, Santiago’s belief in following dreams, Bauby’s belief in the power of the mind and spirit to overcome adversity, or Siddartha’s enlightenment. As we study these novels and philosophies, you will also develop your own personal philosophy, and present it as our capstone project for the semester.

We are going to use National Public Radio’s “This I Believe” as our model and prompt. “This I Believe” is a weekly radio broadcast where “Americans from all walks of life share the personal philosophies and core values that guide their daily lives.” In class and on your own, you will explore NPR’s website, and listen to and read several of these essays, as we will model our project on theirs. You can get a start by going to NPR.org and searching their webpage for “This I Believe.” There are tips on writing your essay that will help you in this process.

Our project will have three phases.

Phase 1: Begin to develop and define your own personal philosophy. You should be able to state it in a sentence, but you should also avoid clichés. You should use the philosophies in our novels as well as the philosophies of people you respect (those you know and those you only know of; those living and those dead) to help you craft your own. Part of the project is acknowledging your influences, just as Peekay acknowledges the influence of Doc, Nanny, Geel Piet, and Hoppie, and just as Pi was influenced by the Mr. Kumars, his priest, his pandit, his imam, and Richard Parker. Take notes in your notebook as your thinking evolves on a separate piece of paper. It will be collected. Use class assignments and discussions to help you with this.

Phase 2: Craft an essay that fits the parameters of NPR’s “This I Believe” submission guidelines and submit your essay to NPR. I will set a due date for this. The guidelines can be found on NPR’s website. You must agree to their conditions in order to participate. You will also submit a paper copy of the same essay to me for a grade. The essay should be submitted to NPR before 1/7/08, and is due to me on or before1/7/08. I will take the essay any time after 12/17/07. Submitting the essay is worth 50 points; the essay itself is worth 100.

Phase 3: Present your personal philosophy to the class in a roughly 4-minute presentation, which we will begin on 1/8/08. Your presentation must have the following elements:
• You will read your completed, best copy of your essay to the class, the one you submitted to NPR and to me.
• In the background, you will have a photo essay on a slide show that shows pictures while you read. Burn this on a disk or bring it on a jump drive, or email it to yourself. You can do this either here at school in the lab or at home. These might be personal photos, or pictures you find or scan from elsewhere, including artwork. Start this collection now.
• If you don’t have the know-how or capability to do an electronic photo essay like this, you can go “old school” by bringing in photos and figuring out how to display them in another way, guiding your audience through them as you read your essay.
• You don’t need to have a ton of photos because your photos should be coordinated with your essay. In other words, the visuals you provide should be in sync with the words you read.
• Your presentation will be worth 100 points and includes your reading of the essay as well as the photo essay.

Good luck, and see me if you have any questions.