When I first started 8th Grade, I realized something: we get a lot more work now than what we got in 7th Grade! At first, the workload was small, but it grew over time. Not only that, but the work got harder over time. At first, the work was simplistic, such as answering a question with one sentence, but over time, the work got much more complicated, such as having to answer a simple question with multiple sentences, and then explaining your answer. This was especially the case for U.S. History. For most days, I would go home feeling both physically and mentally tired, and upon coming home, I would work for a few hours a day. Despite all of this work, I had to work harder at staying motivated through my work in order to succeed, and started out with being more motivated by getting though the work I had and then working ahead. Now, when I go home, I still feel tired, but I feel much more focused and enthusiastic to do my homework. This year (especially in U.S. History), I think I’ve grown in Persistence.

            From all the Persistence I’ve grown in, the class I grew the most in is my World History Projects. Although we didn’t get that much work as homework, the projects we did took most of our workload. I can specifically think of two projects that required me to grow in Persistence: the Infographic Project and the Comic Book Project.

            The Infographic Project was a project we started in 1st Quarter. At the time, we were learning about Jamestown and the colonies to the north (Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island). Along with that, we were reading books in Language Arts that took place in the different colonies, so our World History teacher, Mrs. Durkee, and our Language Arts teacher, Ms. Schultz, had us relate our two sources of knowledge through an Infographic. An Infographic is a poster that holds information over a certain subject. Our goal of this project was to compare the information we learned from our books and the information we learned in World History. We had to have five blocks (which is a term for a topic) and have one be about a person, one topic about a place and one topic about an event or topic. Anyway, my first artifact of growth is my Final Infographic. In this artifact, you can see that we put a lot of effort into our work, like making all of the circles be as lined up as possible and putting as much information as we can into the circles. When we first started our Infographic, we kept having problems that would mess up our Infographic, so we would have restart our Infographic every so often. This got worse at the end, which is why I think I grew in Persistence through this project. In the beginning, we were unprepared on what to do for our Infographic, so we just added a lot of information. Our Final Infographic compared the colonists’ society and the Native Americans society, while using excerpts from the book to connect the teachings from the book.

We talked about things like their government, their religion and their leaders. For example, the colonists worshipped in the monotheistic (which means only one God) religion of Christianity, while the Native Americans had their own polytheistic (which means has many gods) religion. When my Infographic group started our Infographic, it started off good. We chose our topics, made a first draft and got feedback from it. We each had different topics, like how I had Tools and Leadership as my topics. We only wrote information for our topic, like how the Native Americans had King Powhatan as their leader. King Powhatan was the Emperor of the Powhatan Empire, which was an alliance of many individual tribes. Each part of the Final Infographic took many steps and drafts to achieve, but it was all pretty easy. It all went well until we started running out of time. So, we started working harder, but the problem was that our Infographic was getting messed up. When I say working harder, I mean going past our limits on our work level, not just doing hard work. Working harder is more along the lines of working beyond what you’re comfortable with doing and focusing on good craftsmanship in order to do well, almost to a point for both where you could get a headache from working so much, while doing hard work is just doing the best you can without going above your limits. When you look at this artifact, you can probably see that most of the writing was in different sizes. The computer program we were using was moving around our words and pictures, so we had to fix it every time we came on to the program. When we got to the last day, we still had a lot to do, so we worked hard throughout the day. At the very end, our Infographic was messed up and our group was tired from working so much, so I decided to finish the project at home before the due date. This is the step where I really grew in Persistence. When I got home, I immediately started working in order to finish the project on time. I felt very tired from working so hard throughout the day, but I decided to keep on going until I finished. I had felt both physically and mentally exhausted at the end of the day, and was about ready to give up, but I kept going because I knew that my group was counting on me to be responsible. If I had given up and just turned in the project while it was still sloppy and messed up, my group would have been very disappointed in me, and I would not let that happen. At the very end, I turned in the project on time with all the stuff we needed to have using Persistence. The best part is that we got a pretty good score on it too. This is why I’ve grown in Persistence in this project. At first, I felt very intimidated by having to finish the project, but I did it anyways to get it over with. Although it took a lot of time, I had finally finished the Infographic Project by staying focused and hard working. So, this artifact shows my growth in Persistence because of how hard I worked to finish the project despite wanting to stop.

            The Comic Book Project was a project we started in 2nd Quarter. At the time, we were learning about the American Revolution. Our goal of this project was to show the information we learned about the events of the American Revolution through a certain perspective through a comic book. These four perspectives were Patriots, Loyalists, Women and African Americans. We needed to have three events that took place during the American Revolution: one Before the Revolution, one During the Revolution and one as the Effect of the Revolution. For example, my partner and I did the Battle of Bunker Hill as our During Event. The Battle of Bunker Hill was a battle (that could be considered the first battle of the American Revolution) where a few hundred Patriots fought against about 2000 British soldiers, which significantly increased their morale. Along with that, we had to have an about the authors page and we had to use at least two external information sources. My second artifact of growth is the First Picture of my Before Event. This picture shows the comic book’s main character, Clayton Luke, writing in his journal at the beginning of the Taxes and Acts. In this artifact, you see how detailed I made my drawings in order for the picture to feel complete, like the detail of the tower in the window. This was my group’s way to show the information. Our Before Event was about the Taxes and Acts, specifically the beginning, before the Intolerable Acts. The Intolerable Acts were the Taxes and Acts like the Townshed Act, the Tea Act and the Quartering Act that annoyed the colonists enough to make them riot. This is the part of the project where I think I grew in Persistence. My partner and I wrote about the beginning of the Taxes and Acts: the Revenue Act. The Revenue Act was the act made to lower the taxes of sugars at stores to prevent buying sugar at the Black Market. At the beginning of the creation of our Before Event, I suggested to my partner that I should illustrate the comic book. I had no idea what I was getting into. So, when I started drawing, I realized how much effort it was to draw a single picture, fix any mistakes and outline it in Sharpie. Like I said before, I had to put details into all of my drawings in order for them to feel complete, but I didn’t think it would take as much time. If I didn’t make my drawings as detailed as they needed to be, not only would it be boring and would have bad craftsmanship, but it wouldn’t keep the feel of the story. For example, since we wrote the script first and then we drew the pictures, I had to make sure that the facial expressions of the characters matched with their lines or it wouldn’t look more forced of what they were saying. It took about an hour for each picture. By the end of the first day I was drawing, I felt uncomfortable. I had to make about 25 pictures, and I didn’t want to continue drawing any further. Despite this feeling, I had made a commitment to draw all the pictures and then scan them into our comic book by the end of the weekend. This made me focus more on what I needed to do. By the time that Friday was over, I had felt overwhelmed, and I felt like giving up, but I reached back to my motivation to help me continue. If I had just stopped or had made poor quality drawings, I would have gotten a poor score on the project, and since my grades were already dropping in U.S. History, I would have to work beyond my comfort zone in order to succeed. Also, if I had been lazy, my partner would’ve been disappointed in me, which I did not want. I worked all day on Saturday and Sunday to work on the pictures, and I used any free time I could to finish the pictures. At the very end, I completed making all of the pictures and scanned all of them into the comic book. This is why I’ve grown in Persistence in this project. Similar to my Infographic Project, I felt overwhelmed by the amount of work I had to do, but I got it done by using my time and skills to the best of my advantage. Along with my time and skill, I would also take small breaks to take my mind off of the work I had to do (that and E.L.O. music). Although I had felt physically and mentally tired, I kept going to reach my goal. So, this artifact shows my growth in Persistence because I spent all the time I could to work hard on my project.

            These two reasons are why I think I’ve grown in Persistence during World History. Although I grew in Persistence from almost all of my work at school, I grew the most in my World History Projects. In my Infographic Project, I worked through my lazy and tired ways to finish my group’s project before the time limit, which was especially hard due to the various mistakes that the computer made and in my Comic Book Project, I got all of the work I needed to do done, despite feeling physically and mentally tired. I feel from these projects that I’ll be able to be more prepared for high school and other future endeavors. In school, as more classes appear each year and the homework gets larger each time, having enough Persistence will be good just to get through high school. By the time I can get through high school, my Persistence will be even better than it was in the past, allowing me to handle greater tasks without as much of the uncomfortable feelings of stress, boredom and exhaustion that I get with working on projects for a long amount of time. Along with school, I think that Persistence will also be very important for a future job. When I grow up, I plan to be an animator or an illustrator (which I’ve learned is much harder than I thought it was). In animating or illustrating, you must have a large amount of Persistence to work effectively. I think that’s the case for most jobs, too. Anyway, I think Persistence is what I’ve grown in World History. From all this information, I’m glad that I grew in Persistence during World History this year.