The Danger of a Single Story Project
Project Reflection
In this humanities project, we wrote short stories that were a responses to both the Ted Talk called The Danger of a Single Story, and the book Things Fall Apart. Leading up to the assignment, we did research about the different countries and cultures in Africa. I read two books, Things Fall Apart, and Purple Hibiscus, the book Purple Hibiscus I read as a challenge extension. The purpose of the challenge extension was so I could develop a deeper understanding of different cultures in Africa.
I learned a lot about how people create single stories about people and cultures they don’t know a lot about. I had never really thought about single stories, and it made me realize that people create them constantly about people they don’t know. Single stories are dangerous because people are not seeing the complete person, or the complete culture, they are only seeing the idea they created for that person or culture. The lasting legacies of imperialism are that it will always affect people. Imperialism never goes away, it stays with people forever, and it is incredibly harmful to people for generations. A strong story has a lot of detail and has a clear theme. I deepened my understanding with my challenge extension because it showed a different time period, and a different perspective than the book we read as a class.
In my story, I am most proud of my improvement from my first draft to my final draft. I worked really hard on refining my story, especially the part I read at exhibition. I wanted to make sure that part was my best possible work, and I feel like I did that. The most challenging thing for me was making my story more detailed, I had a really hard time with it, but I feel like I overcame that challenge. I would like to have spent more time on the story as a whole, I worked really hard on the part that I was reading at exhibition, but I didn’t work as hard on the whole story, and I think it would have been better to do that. “As they all sat down in incredibly uncomfortable wooden chairs at the huge, dark table, a mixture of anxiety and courage coursed through them.” It feel like this part of my story was very well-written, this was from the part that I read at exhibition, and I worked really hard on it, I think it would have been better if I had put this much effort into every part of my story.
I chose to use a blank piece of paper with a pen writing the title to represent how hard it was to write the letter the characters in my story were trying to write. My cover communicates the theme of my story because it represents how hard it can be to do something that scary. I am most proud of the fact that I was able to use Photoshop, I’m not very good at using it, but I feel like I was able to make a good cover. The thing that was most challenging was that I feel like even though I wanted my cover to be simple, I could have used a little more detail. I would have added more detail to my cover, and I would have spent more time on it, I feel like, even though I like it, I could have put more effort into it.
The most important lesson I learned was that it is incredibly important to ask for feedback, and refine my work based on that feedback. I feel like my project got a lot better once I refined, and asked people to give suggestions on how to make my work better.
I learned a lot about how people create single stories about people and cultures they don’t know a lot about. I had never really thought about single stories, and it made me realize that people create them constantly about people they don’t know. Single stories are dangerous because people are not seeing the complete person, or the complete culture, they are only seeing the idea they created for that person or culture. The lasting legacies of imperialism are that it will always affect people. Imperialism never goes away, it stays with people forever, and it is incredibly harmful to people for generations. A strong story has a lot of detail and has a clear theme. I deepened my understanding with my challenge extension because it showed a different time period, and a different perspective than the book we read as a class.
In my story, I am most proud of my improvement from my first draft to my final draft. I worked really hard on refining my story, especially the part I read at exhibition. I wanted to make sure that part was my best possible work, and I feel like I did that. The most challenging thing for me was making my story more detailed, I had a really hard time with it, but I feel like I overcame that challenge. I would like to have spent more time on the story as a whole, I worked really hard on the part that I was reading at exhibition, but I didn’t work as hard on the whole story, and I think it would have been better to do that. “As they all sat down in incredibly uncomfortable wooden chairs at the huge, dark table, a mixture of anxiety and courage coursed through them.” It feel like this part of my story was very well-written, this was from the part that I read at exhibition, and I worked really hard on it, I think it would have been better if I had put this much effort into every part of my story.
I chose to use a blank piece of paper with a pen writing the title to represent how hard it was to write the letter the characters in my story were trying to write. My cover communicates the theme of my story because it represents how hard it can be to do something that scary. I am most proud of the fact that I was able to use Photoshop, I’m not very good at using it, but I feel like I was able to make a good cover. The thing that was most challenging was that I feel like even though I wanted my cover to be simple, I could have used a little more detail. I would have added more detail to my cover, and I would have spent more time on it, I feel like, even though I like it, I could have put more effort into it.
The most important lesson I learned was that it is incredibly important to ask for feedback, and refine my work based on that feedback. I feel like my project got a lot better once I refined, and asked people to give suggestions on how to make my work better.