Windsor vs. United States
By: Andrew Tran
09/06/2017 - 9/22/2017
This project revolved around identifying a Supreme Court Case that was given to us from the 30 or so Supreme Court Cases, identifying the cases also meant explaining the significance that certain case had after it was passed through the Supreme Court. Then came the content, an art piece representing your case had to be made with your thoughts on the summary of the case that you were also supposed to write.
For the beginning of the project, I thought my partner would drag me down and slow me down, but what could I know? My partner for the Court Case was Toby Ryan, someone I have had no previous interaction with, never been in a group with him, not one conversation with him either. The first day of research told me a lot about him, he was trying his best which I liked, but understanding the information given by the website tended to be difficult for him. Other than my first initial time working with him it seemed better, our ideas were in sync and with the short summary I provided my partner could understand what really happened in the case and how it affected things. There were still some flaws in our teamwork, and I think the most noticeable one is our lack of communication, whether it was because of absences or me on my part, but I felt like it was something I think I could’ve worked on.
The learning outcomes that our class uses have been demonstrated in this project in various ways. For our first somewhat major project, brushing up my work ethic was pretty good with hands on creation as well as writing pieces. For collaboration and oral communication, working with Toby and presenting our court case alone at the mini exhibition have definitely improved my skills. Written communication and content are the things that I think I needed to work on in the project, I think better materials would make the art piece look a whole lot better, because the glue I used made the paper scrunch up, so without that it would’ve looked more appealing, and for written communication I think could’ve been better if I put more thought into my opinion on the case.
What we value in our class are 5 traits and they are Grit, Integrity, Respect, Responsibility and Empathy. A demonstration of Grit in this project would be our art piece, originally it was supposed to fit a normal 8.5 in by 11 in standard printer paper size, but my pop up extended that and it went over, so after some revisions we managed to resize it and make it fit. Responsibility and Integrity was shown when Toby was absent, so I emailed him the homework and what we had to do with our current art piece. I’ve gained a new respect for Toby, after working with him for the first time I now know that our partnership isn’t that bad, and for Empathy, an example of it would be putting my shoes into what Edith Windsor had to feel about the injustice that was served to her. Equality can never exist because when we are close someone always finds a way to ruin it, like the unfair tax that was handed out to Edith.
The mini exhibition that was planned went pretty well in my opinion, the people who wanted to learn about the case were given knowledge on our court case. I pulled in a few parents and taught them about the injustice that happened not too long ago, and even was given some in depth thoughts from a parent. Our final products for the exhibition were alright, the glue messed up the pop up, but with the printed version it was easier to explain and show. I offered many contributions and so did Toby, what we brought to the whole group was a well summarized Supreme Court Case and a unique art piece. As for the class learning outcomes and class value, I have to say that for the first time implementing them, it went extremely well. A last thought that I have would be that it was unfortunate that Edith Windsor passed away during the making of the court case, on September 12, 2017.
By: Andrew Tran
09/06/2017 - 9/22/2017
This project revolved around identifying a Supreme Court Case that was given to us from the 30 or so Supreme Court Cases, identifying the cases also meant explaining the significance that certain case had after it was passed through the Supreme Court. Then came the content, an art piece representing your case had to be made with your thoughts on the summary of the case that you were also supposed to write.
For the beginning of the project, I thought my partner would drag me down and slow me down, but what could I know? My partner for the Court Case was Toby Ryan, someone I have had no previous interaction with, never been in a group with him, not one conversation with him either. The first day of research told me a lot about him, he was trying his best which I liked, but understanding the information given by the website tended to be difficult for him. Other than my first initial time working with him it seemed better, our ideas were in sync and with the short summary I provided my partner could understand what really happened in the case and how it affected things. There were still some flaws in our teamwork, and I think the most noticeable one is our lack of communication, whether it was because of absences or me on my part, but I felt like it was something I think I could’ve worked on.
The learning outcomes that our class uses have been demonstrated in this project in various ways. For our first somewhat major project, brushing up my work ethic was pretty good with hands on creation as well as writing pieces. For collaboration and oral communication, working with Toby and presenting our court case alone at the mini exhibition have definitely improved my skills. Written communication and content are the things that I think I needed to work on in the project, I think better materials would make the art piece look a whole lot better, because the glue I used made the paper scrunch up, so without that it would’ve looked more appealing, and for written communication I think could’ve been better if I put more thought into my opinion on the case.
What we value in our class are 5 traits and they are Grit, Integrity, Respect, Responsibility and Empathy. A demonstration of Grit in this project would be our art piece, originally it was supposed to fit a normal 8.5 in by 11 in standard printer paper size, but my pop up extended that and it went over, so after some revisions we managed to resize it and make it fit. Responsibility and Integrity was shown when Toby was absent, so I emailed him the homework and what we had to do with our current art piece. I’ve gained a new respect for Toby, after working with him for the first time I now know that our partnership isn’t that bad, and for Empathy, an example of it would be putting my shoes into what Edith Windsor had to feel about the injustice that was served to her. Equality can never exist because when we are close someone always finds a way to ruin it, like the unfair tax that was handed out to Edith.
The mini exhibition that was planned went pretty well in my opinion, the people who wanted to learn about the case were given knowledge on our court case. I pulled in a few parents and taught them about the injustice that happened not too long ago, and even was given some in depth thoughts from a parent. Our final products for the exhibition were alright, the glue messed up the pop up, but with the printed version it was easier to explain and show. I offered many contributions and so did Toby, what we brought to the whole group was a well summarized Supreme Court Case and a unique art piece. As for the class learning outcomes and class value, I have to say that for the first time implementing them, it went extremely well. A last thought that I have would be that it was unfortunate that Edith Windsor passed away during the making of the court case, on September 12, 2017.