This exhibition was all about the Renaissance. It was a Renaissance fair and every student was a different character from the Renaissance. We created final products such as Renaissance games, art pieces and writing pieces written from our character's perspective. For this exhibition my character was Sandro Botticelli, a well known Renaissance painter who created works such as, "Birth of Venus" and "Primavera". The following is a short reflection about how I did and what I enjoyed during the course of this project.
The most enjoyable thing in English was the creative writing. I think it was fun because we got to pretend we were another person and we had to write from their perspective. With the writing piece we were able to create what we imagined someone from the Renaissance was like. The most fun part in History was learning the dance. This is because it was very interactive and just fun. It wasn’t a very hard dance, it was more like a walk, but we got to choose our partners and just have fun for a little bit. I think it was also really fun because everyone was into it and participating and there wasn’t anyone who was acting like they were too cool for it. My favorite thing in math was the game. I worked with two friends to create Game of Goose. This was fun because it was hands on and we got to play with the parents during exhibition. The games were fun to make because we used our own creativity to make a game board that is inspired by the Renaissance game boards. The Renaissance art piece was the most enjoyable part of art. We got to choose an art piece/artist that was either during the Renaissance or was inspired by the Renaissance. When we chose something, we either recreated an art piece or made an art piece inspired by the painting/artist we chose. I thought this was really engaging because we had so much freedom and we were able to show our own creativity.
On a scale of 1 to 10 of difficulty level, I would rate this project a 4. I think the most challenging part of this project was probably just setting up for exhibition. I feel like our guild had a harder time setting up because we had the biggest space which made sense since we had the most people, but not everyone was helping out, so we didn’t have all hands on deck. It was about 5-7 people really putting 100% effort to set up our space, but in the end I was proud of the space we made. It would have helped if it was a little more organized, which I know is hard during exhibition, but that probably would have held more people responsible.
In English my final product was two letters written by Sandro Botticelli, addressed to Lorenzo De'Medici and Fra Filipo Lippi. I received critique on my writing piece from my peers, it was helpful because it provided new eyes on my papers and they were able to point out the little mistakes that I missed. I am proud of my written piece because I put effort into it and I think they came out really well. I was able to use the information I learned about my character, Botticelli, and make a realistic timeline throughout my letters. I was also able to put the emotions I imagined he felt into the letters. I am most proud of my written piece because it was something that I could use to show the knowledge I had gained about Botticelli throughout this project. It was also a fun process writing and producing a final draft because the writing came partly from imagination and partly from information I learned. The final product was fun because I stained the papers to make them look more authentic and old.
I am happy with how I did at exhibition because I was able to talk to a lot of parents and other students. I spoke confidently and let them know about the information I learned throughout this project. During exhibition I was professional and stayed where I needed to be during my shifts and I didn’t disturb other students when I wasn’t on shift. My group and I did a good job presenting our Renaissance game and we played the game with some parents and had fun while doing it. I was able to interact with guests in a knowledgeable manner. When I was asked questions about our project I answered confidently and gave them facts about the things they were asking. I knew my space well so I was also able to answer a lot of questions about the area I was in. If I didn’t know an answer to a question I would direct the guest to someone who may be able to give them a more thorough answer.
If I could change something about this project I would probably just have given the students more opportunities about how what they wanted to learn about or how they wanted the exhibition to be. Even though we had some input, I feel like we were given a pretty clear path and we had to follow it. Also I would have had more tangible products at exhibition, rather than just the writing piece. We also had the math game and art piece, but not everyone in the exhibition were required to have those and show them. Either more tangible products or one big tangible product.
I do feel confident that I understand the lasting impact. I know now that the Renaissance gave us things like, roads, aqueducts, and a new view on art itself. People like Botticelli, Michelangelo, Donatello and more were part of the Renaissance. It was a rebirth of ancient Greek and Roman ideas, advances in science, literature and more were made during the Renaissance. While I do feel confident, I think we could have learned more, in history especially. We mostly took page after page of notes in that class and never really went over them or went more into depth. Overall I do know why the Renaissance was important, but it just seemed like we were learning the same thing in each class, just from a different source.