10TH GRADE:
With Critical Thinking, I've always been effective with written papers. Written assignments are my biggest strength as I always have so much to say about topics I'm genuinely interested about and want to delve in. I personally felt like my writing stayed the same over the years, but that isn't true. Even though my passion in writing my thoughts and opinions might be the same, the execution of how I write has grown over the years. As you notice here, in my 10th Grade Year: Freshman Year, my writing has grown over the past year and so in which I executed a great paper in decent requirements. Here you notice a double spacing as most teachers require them for easier corrections along with students praising them for their filler of space on paper. But the twist here is: rather than having this be an English paper, this example is actually a Spanish written essay. Honestly one of my favorite and rarest opportunity for a formulated essay on opinion outside of English Class during my whole school career. I chose this paper as an example of critical thinking specifically because it delves into the retrospective of the American Dream and how it's dealt towards people outside of the country. This conversation and analyses delves from the artistic indie move of El Norte when a brother and sister are forced out of their home with hopes of starting a new life in modern America. I chose this specifically because I mainly believe the American Dream is one of the biggest challenge in any american citizen, and a hoax to some. With a failing perception of the American Dream, I grew to despise it and realized how unnecessary it was as the rules were so unfair, and that's what I talk about in this paper.
11TH GRADE:
Going into the 11th Grade Year: Junior Year, I decided to go with two papers. A research paper (flashback to the Effective Communication presentation) and a regular English essay. I chose my research paper as it was about the only research paper that I've put good amounts of effort towards, as I tackle on the issues of community uproar against police brutality and prejudice. I say this is how far I've ever taken a research paper. I chose this because I felt that I introduced the issue on my paper very well, along with giving sources and giving a careful analysis along with a criticized response. The other paper is a regular English essay that also involved the American Dream in the gilded age setting of the Great Gatsby. In this paper, I analyze and describe how the enriching lifestyle of American Wealth brings a sense of emptiness to even the Great Gatsby and that the possibility of his love between him and Daisy was unattainable from a following of social standards required from women. That and the mindset Gatsby had when he thought money could give him everything he ever wanted, thinking he'd be satisfied and safe.
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12TH GRADE:
Here, in my 12th Grade Senior Year, I also decided to use two examples. One example showcases a presentation I took upon to study Fascism. I chose this specifically for Critical thinking as I had to do research on a highly controversial political belief. Fascism usually ends in examples of dictatorship rulers, issues of racism, and high nationalism. So really, I had to approach the research without biases from history rulers of this certain movement (The most known fascist was Hitler). I also had to present the movement in unbiased terms which was a bit time consuming, but still pretty informative and "effective." The next piece of Critical Thinking is my analysis paper in English class for the classical movie/playwrite: Raisin in the Sun. Raisin in the Sun was a special and moving character based movie, as it dealt with the struggles and oppression of economic and social opportunities in a low income black family. In this paper, I had to take an approach of analyzing the movie in terms of different perspectives in a critical analysis. This meant taking almost every aspect of the story and placing it in each respective category in terms of critical analysis. So in this paper, I explained an analysis in three groups of worth: Functionalist, Fruedian, and Marxist perspective criticisms.
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