Semester Stress: Honors English wraps up semester long projects

Sara Gabriele/Staff Writer

Each student in Judy Timmins’ sophomore honors English class is given an assignment at the start of second semester to create an in-depth, semester-long project. The doors are left wide open, with the only restrictions being that they must create a 10-12 minute presentation, have a mentor and be able to relate their project in some way to English. Students may chose almost any topic and create a final product of their choice.

Nate Hua: Traditional Chinese cooking

I chose to learn how to cook traditional Chinese food. My mentor was my dad, who actually used to be a head chef at a Chinese restaurant. I learned how to make eight traditional dishes, such as tomatoes cooked with eggs and Chinese roasted pork ribs. For my final project, I chose to create a Powerpoint cookbook that included the procedure, the ingredients, utensils, pictures, etc. I also wrote a paper about the history and origination of Chinese food.

It’s definitely something I wanted to learn before I got to college so I wouldn’t be eating McD’s and Pizza Hut every day. Also, Chinese food is a huge part of Chinese culture, and it’s something I wanted to learn and keep with me and apply for the rest of my life.

Ryan Giaruso: Flying

For my project, I chose to pursue learning to fly. I took lessons from Mel Hemann from Livingston Aviation at the Waterloo Airport. Mel took me from first flight, to my first solo on my 16th birthday, and beyond over the course of the spring. I used my family’s recently purchased Piper Pacer for lessons. It is a classic 1949 airplane and led me to another piece of my project, which was using the skills and knowledge Mel had given me to write a manual for how to fly and maintain the airplane. The airplane itself didn’t come with one, and we have had mixed results finding copies of the information, so writing my own was a simple solution. I am now building up solo time and continuing instruction with Mel, and I have no intention of stopping any time soon.

I was able to take a tremendous amount from my experiences. This isn’t just a school project for me, it’s an addicting passion. I look forward to being able to continue flying well into the future in all types of aircraft.

Rhydian Talbot: Poetry and Photography

I chose to to write a poem almost every day and take photos to go along with them. I thought it would be interesting to chronicle the second half of my sophomore year through poems. For my final project, I ended up making a combined photobook — pictures on one side and poems on the other. By the end of the project, it made me look at the world in a more poetic way because you have to phrase things differently in order to get the right emotion across. The most difficult part of this project was not getting discouraged if I had a bad day with poems, because it would get me in the wrong state of mind and be hard to shake off.

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