Skip to main content

2021-2022 Portfolio + Log + Attendance

Image
By
Elijah blowing out the candles on his 18th birthday!

This year was Elijah's "12th grade" and final year of home education. It has been a more relaxed year of tying up loose ends despite still living through a global pandemic! E only had one more credit for English and some yearly Health, Safety, & P.E. to check off in order to graduate. Below are the descriptions of subjects that Elijah focused on this year, the credits given, and the materials and resources accessed (not an exhaustive listing).

Elijah Uriel Parham July 1st, 2021 - June 2nd, 2022 (12th Grade)
1.0 English: Thematic Film Study and Analysis 
.25 Health: Health, Safety, and Physical Education
1.25 Total Credits

Elijah playing with Hazel and alphabet blocks.
English: Thematic Film Study and Analysis – 1 credit
This thematic course introduces the basics of film analysis, cinematic formal elements, techniques, genre, and narrative structure and will help develop the skills to recognise, analyse, discuss, describe, and enjoy film as an art and entertainment form. This course focuses on film as an intellectual and visual puzzle to be discovered like a piece of literature by studying and analysing how films create meaning and tell important stories as they shape cultural values and reflect political and social contexts. Additional topics include developments in the use of cinematic technique, structural and ideological attributes of cinema, the idea of film as literature, changing notions of cinematic realism and its alternatives, and synthesis (making connections between self and society, and between texts and society).
One of a few puzzles Elijah worked on this year.

Thematic List of Films Included:
Questions of Fate & Control:  
1. 12 Monkeys & La Jetée  
2. Bladerunner  
3. The Game (Fincher)  
Deities & Demigods:  
4. Akira  
5. Last Temptation of Christ  
6. Defending Your Life  
Relentless Pursuits:  
7. Tombstone  
8. Night of the Living Dead  
9. Night of the Hunter  
Lost New York:  
10. Do the Right Thing  
11. Paris is Burning  
12. Beat Street  
On Seeing & Perception:  
13. The Thin Blue Line (Morris)    
14. Rear Window  
15. Clue
Office Satires:  
16. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying  
17. The Hudsucker Proxy  
18. Office Space  
Wars, Both Cultural & Personal:  
19. I Am Not Your Negro  
20. Sneakers  
21. Toys
Screenshot of part of Elijah's film analysis worksheet for Hudsucker Proxy

All film analysis sheets can be found here

Some of the resources and materials relating to this topic include:

Books/Magazines
Random House Webster's Pocket Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation (Random House)
Reading various books to Hazel (toddler sibling)
National Geographic Magazine
Babel: The Language Magazine
Flagmaster (Vexillology Journal)

Web Series/YouTube Channels/Podcasts
Jan Misali (Conlang Critic series)
NativLang (language history)
EmperorTigerstar (history critique)
Biblaridion (linguistics/conlangs/xenobiology/worldbuilding)
Stuff Made Here (engineering/inventions)
Trash Taste After Dark (anime/Japanese culture)
Elijah and Hazel building with Mario LEGO

Netflix/Movies/TV
Stargate SG1 (series)
Battlestar Galactica (series)
House MD (series)
Thor Ragnarok
Shang-Chi: Legend of the Ten Rings
Eternals
Sonic
Sonic 2

Websites/General Research
IMDb pages for each movie in the Thematic Film Study
Wikipedia pages for each movie in the Thematic Film Study


Other Resources
Reddit Communities: /linguistics; /translator; /conlangs; /magictcg
wikipedia.com
twitter.com
youtube.com

Definitions/Etymology List 
plasma, carraig, carreg, inspector, spectre, jacuzzi, specter, deposit, depot, dye, die, palladium, Pallas, caraway, owl, bug, locomotive, favor, orange/naranja, grisly, grizzly, gris, gruesome, solo/solo-, calculate, touché, acorn, squirrel, hyperbola, hyperbole, piranha, carabiner, cockamamie, lollipop, loli phaba, repertoire, Xenarthra, lupus, wolf, marzipan, coconut, cacao, cocoa, coca, ductile, calamity
Elijah playing the game Ouisi with their grandma Joan, sibling Hazel, & parent William
Health, Safety, & Physical Education – .25 credit
Theory and practice in developing healthy life-long habits regarding nutrition, exercise, sexuality, sexual health, drug and alcohol use, digital and internet safety, fire safety, and basic first aid. Some of the resources and materials relating to this topic include:
Elijah decorating gingerbread cookies.

Books/Magazines
Reading to Hazel (younger sibling)
Eating Well Magazine

Websites/General Research
CrashCourse: The Importance of Safety 

Other Experiences
Childcare/Domestic Skills
Cooking for family
Altering recipes
Elijah swordfighting with Hazel
Attendance Statement:
In accordance with the Pennsylvania Home Education Law, I attest that "a minimum of one hundred eighty (180) days of instruction OR nine hundred (990) hours of instruction per year at the secondary level" have occurred this year for Elijah.
Super buddies & siblings Elijah and Hazel on Elijah's 18th birthday


Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

2018-2022 High School Transcript + Course Descriptions

By
 While Elijah has not decided whether or not he wants to go to college, it seemed like a good idea to go ahead and make one for them as it can still be useful for employment. I know from the experience that many colleges and even some employers like to have course descriptions for the credits given to unschooled/homeschooled students and a portfolio to get a better idea of what they have learned and the kind of adventures they have lived. Here is Elijah's high school transcript. When it came time to write course names it was not too difficult since Elijah mainly had wanted to engage with some more traditional subjects, but it is not too difficult to take a survey of what a homeschooler has been doing and translate it into a more traditional subject/course for the purpose of creating a transcript. When I began thinking about course descriptions, I talked to several people who had already graduated unschoolers are the best advice I kept hearing was to not reinvent the wheel. The numb...
Read more

Portfolio Summary 2017-2018

By
This year Elijah's main focus again was on Linguistics. He spent the vast majority of the year immersed in the world of languages, writing systems, and phonetics. Language Arts: Elijah reads online articles on a regular basis for information and pleasure. He enjoys writing emails, grocery lists, and determining phonologies and pronominal morphologies using Lexilogos.com. He is adept at finding information via online wikis, Internet and Google searches, encyclopedias, and the library catalogue. This year Elijah continue to focus on linguistics, constructed languages, writing systems, and foreign languages. He was mentored by both armchair and professional linguists via online conversations on the web forum Reddit.  E reading to his sibling. E reading to his sibling. E reviewing commas and "its" vs "it's" Mathematics: Elijah continued to practice and gain skills in addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, ...
Read more

Not Back To School (September 1st - September 8th, 2013)

By
So, it might seem as though we have dropped off the face of the Earth or that we "took a Summer Break", but neither is the case. Before I go any farther, I never intended for this blog to be editorial or contemplative, just archival, but I feel like I want, nay, need to say some things. One of my friends, a mother of a toddler, who is considering home/unschooling her child and who was homeschooled herself, asked me the other day, "So, do you, like, give E a break during the Summer or is it just all the time?" I believe I've quoted her fairly well (or at least the general idea of what she said). I know (and some of you know) that people who ask questions like this have not really grasped the concept of unschooling, but that's okay: I love my friend. I just said, "No, we just do our thing, living life, all of the time." What I *do* mind isn't innocent questions from friends, but keeping track of what we do. It's no secret that I abhor a...
Read more