Model senate project
Project Description:
In the Animas High School Model Senate Project this year we were given the task of learning what it entails to be a United States Senator, and acting it out accordingly in a real life situation in the form of a 3 day mock senate exhibition. Initially we were all assigned a senator and a committee, I was chosen to be Ron Johnson of WI. Throughout the process, in the beginning we did a lot of research about what the different branches of government are responsible for, this included separation of power and checks and balances between the branches, (Executive, Legislative, Judicial). From there we did more research into the process of real life bills going through the system into becoming a law or being denied or pushed off endlessly in some way. Once we understood the process of a bill becoming a law, we were tested for our proficiency. Following these steps we began to write individual pieces of legislation in our teacher chosen pairs according to our committee's. For example, My senator, Ron Johnson of WI, was chosen to be on the immigration committee, so Jonathan and I wrote our bill about deportation from the US. Once all the pairs in all of the classes had written their bills they were submitted to the experts and higher ranking members of our mock congress and were voted on, out of all of the classes bills there were 3 chosen, one for each topic, (College Debt, Immigration, Climate Change). Once these bills were chosen we moved into the exhibition stages. The first two days of exhibition took place within Animas High, away from the public eye while the bills went throught eh senate committee process which involved ammending the bills to be a better version than they were. Once the bills were voted on if they would make it to the senate floor, we took them to Fort Lewis College for the final evening our our exhibtion. In the final stages, none of our bills passed through the senate floor except for the immigration bill which was vetoed by the mock POTUS. Overall the project was super fun and it helped me learn a lot about how our government actually functions.
my writing goals
- Make my sentences have better natural flow:
- Make better references to the text that are relevant:
- Organize my paragraphs better according to the TEA format:
college essay revision process
In the revision process of my college application essay this year, many things changed between drafts. In my first draft, I had many things about my life as a musician that didn’t necessarily matter to anyone except for me. I realized about ¾ of the way through writing the essay that I was writing about things that nobody would care about, let alone a college admissions representative. I basically had to start over and write about the things about music that developed me as a person and member of society. During the critiques with Lori and my peers I got a lot of good feedback about what to take out and what to add. I needed to add more of how music has shaped me as a thinker and student. I still think that I could have added more about that. For example, I had a lot written about my family’s past in music. I had to get rid of most of that because I realized through feedback that I am the one applying to these colleges, not my family. It was because of this that I was able to shift most of my writing to be more intrinsic and less about the things that don’t matter. To make this happen, I had to decide what was important and what wasn’t. I found that I needed to think as if I were a college admissions rep. I was deciding essentially if I was going to even accept my own college essay. This helped me a ton and it ultimately made me rethink most of my essay. It made me see what was important for my writing and what was just taking up space. Overall, my writing came a long way through the college essay bootcamp and I wish it would have lasted longer!