HOHAM Supers Project
This project was a multiple-subject assignment, but the different components allowed it to be a very free and creative piece. The main piece of curriculum for Humanities was learning about the HOHAMs. The phrase "HOHAM" stands for the Habits of the Heart and Mind, which include concepts such as intellectual curiosity, perspective, connection, and evidence. In Writing Seminar, we were to read the graphic novel V for Vendetta and analyze and comprehend the text. The purpose behind reading the comic was to receive a better understanding of our interpretations of a hero and a villain. Because V's actions were sometimes contradictory in the novel, the reader was sometimes confused on his super status. To connect both supers and the HOHAMs, we created models of either a superhero or a villain that represented one of the HOHAMs through their super power. These supers took the form of a plywood painting of our creation and a short comic as well. My partner and my were assigned the HOHAM perspective to a villain, so we ended up making a character named Grandma Brain Storm. Because our supervillain's power had to be based around perspective, we decided that Grandma BrainStorm's power would be to take over the minds of others, and literally see through their eyes. Once we had our ideas planned out in a drawing, we blew up the picture to fit a larger format, and we then traced it onto a piece of plywood. Once it was copied onto the wood, we cut out the outline of our supervillain with a jigsaw, and added any necessary details to the face, costume, and body structure. We followed up this step by painting our superhero, and the last step was to write a "biosketch" about our super's background, which is basically an overview of their origin and story. Now our supers are hanging up on the ceiling in the commons, soaring overhead for all visitors to see! Our comic was successful, too, and I am very proud of that. All of the many pictures I took for this project are below in the gallery...I hope you enjoy! I have also included my project reflection and Writing Seminar benchmarks.
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HOHAM Supers Project Reflection
The “Supers Project” was definitely a roller coaster, but I believe it was an amazing way to start off my first year at High Tech High North County. This project was not only a great learning experience based on content, but it was also a nice way to get an introduction to high school group work. Since a significant amount of this project was focused around Humanities class, a lot of the material had to do with the Habits of the Heart and Mind, or the “HOHAMs”. The HOHAMs include both academic concepts and interpersonal skills that are helpful to have during group projects and literature assignments. They may even be in the form of life skills! The HOHAMs are self advocacy, intellectual curiosity, integrity, cooperation, unlimited potential, evidence, supposition, perspective, significance and connection. To apply our learning of the HOHAMs to the Supers Project, we were to create either a superhero or a supervillain that had powers that represented one of those concepts. My partner, Isaiah, and I had to make a supervillain with powers that pertained to the habit perspective. Because perspective has to do with point of view, we designed a supervillain called “Grandma BrainStorm”, and her superpower was to take over minds. Once she took over another’s mind, she could see through their eyes and read their thoughts. After we formulated a good idea of what we wanted our supervillain to look like, we had to sketch a drawing of our villain on a four inch by three inch space. We then took that drawing and scaled it to fit a paper that was thirty-two inches by twenty-four inches. The next step was to cut out the silhouette of our character and trace it on the front and back of a piece of plywood. Using a jigsaw, we followed up the tracing process by cutting our figure out of the wood, and later came time to draw in the details, and then to paint. Lastly, we stuck our biosketch–a writing piece similar to the backstory–on to the backside of the wood. Now our projects are complete and hanging in the ninth grade commons, so all visitors can see the supers flying overhead.
In this project, I was really happy about the chemistry Isaiah and I developed throughout the course of the assignment. Because I normally like to be the leader in a group setting and my partner was extremely open-minded about the direction we were going in, we worked really well together. Isaiah was very diligent when needed, and this was definitely the case in physics. He was also skilled with the jigsaw, so we were able to cut out all of the tough edges and corners without a problem. I am still very grateful for that. One thing I am really proud of was how we managed to incorporate a three-dimensional element in our final product. We were originally going to design our superhero, Grandma BrainStorm, with white paint for hair. However, we thought it would be a lot more interesting to the viewer to see more than just plywood, so we created our supervillain’s hair out of stuffing. I think that is what sets our project out from the rest. We used a lot of creativity in our design and took some risks, but it really paid off in the end and I could not be any happier.
My favorite part of this project was how much freedom we received in our planning process of our villain. Even though we were assigned our super’s role as either a hero or a villain and a HOHAM to go with it, we were given a lot of say in what they looked like. This also included their super power, which was based off of the habit we were assigned to. The aspect of being able to be creative in this project allowed us to individualize our super and make it our own. Over the few weeks that we worked on our super, the Habit of Heart and Mind I believe I used well was cooperation. As I mentioned earlier, my partner and I worked efficiently from the first day, and we managed to avoid disagreement until the end. This concerned our decision-making skills because we both had similar ideas. If one of us had a strong opinion or a gut feeling about something like a paint color or an accessory, we would usually be thinking along the same lines.
While the project was successful as a whole, Isaiah and I had some hiccups along the way. A large example of this was workload balance. There would be quite a few times when I would be doing work and my partner was not contributing. He was engaging in conversation with other groups–which was okay at some points when I felt as if he needed a break from the work–but there would be stretches where I would be the only one on-task. In the future, a solution would be to set up a calendar that displayed the aspects of the project we would each be focusing on. If we were to have had a schedule that had designated specific tasks to each partner, we would have been a more well-oiled machine. Although the final product of our super looks great, I think I am slightly disappointed with the paint color on the backside of the wood. It is a mixture between black and purple, and this was mostly because of the misuse of paint by our team. Because of the limited resources, we had to blend the two colors, and this was not in the original plan. To make sure this issue does not come up in the future, students should make sure to save their paint palettes and to clean up after themselves so no paint is wasted or mistreated in any way.
The aspect of this project I disliked most was the stress of trying to cut our plywood. I had to wait in line for a jigsaw for about forty-five minutes one day, and when I finally was ready to cut my wood there was only ten minutes left in the class period. Having gone through the waiting process and using patience as a key to my calm state of mind, I can grow from the experience by using that same attitude in future stressful situations. The HOHAM I feel I could have used in a more effective manner is perspective. While Isaiah and I worked very well together, I really wanted him to see my thought process when making choices, and I feel that I could have asked him for his input a little more. Since I took the role as the leader for the project, he agreed with a lot of my decisions and I listened to what he had to say, but I think he had some great ideas that could have been executed more efficiently.
Our work improved so much from our first draft, thanks to a lot of great critique from peers. At first, our design included a basic costume and we were planning to paint the hair. However, we received feedback to incorporate our HOHAM somewhere in the costume, and to maybe add a three-dimensional component to the hair. To make those revisions, we added the word “perspective” to Grandma BrainStorm’s belt to help the viewer understand the HOHAM we were modeling our super after, and we eventually glued stuffing to where the hair was. We also touched up the edges of our supervillain with the jigsaw, and cut out the excess portions of plywood that were unnecessary to the appearance of our project. To sum up the revision process, our work changed from a piece of plywood with a basic sketch and two edges cut out to a completely refined supervillain with a lot of detail. These changes showed the relentless pursuit Isaiah and I had for perfection, and that we were willing to take multiple risks. Peer critique was a very important part of this project, because if our first draft had stayed the same throughout the project, I guarantee you I would not be nearly as happy with the final outcome as I am now. Feedback helped with the creation of ideas as well, because I could see the techniques that other groups were using and I could be inspired to take similar steps with my own project.
I was slightly skeptical about this project after we chose partners, but I now know I should not have worried about it at the beginning. My partner was very helpful when he was on-task, and was able to accomplish a lot. We breezed through the decision-making process without any bumps in the road, and that is most likely what kept us content with our partnership during the whole project. On the other hand, we could have figured out a way to split up the tasks we had to complete, because I sometimes felt as if I was doing more work than I should have been. In this respect, I feel that I was a responsible and helpful group member because I stayed busy whenever I could, and sometimes took on more than I thought was possible. I was a leader in creating our product, and I think Isaiah appreciated that. While I put a lot of effort into making our project the best it could be, I think I could have been more proactive in getting my partner involved. I have a tendency to take control sometimes, so while he was not working on anything I was putting a lot of effort into the assignment at hand. Overall, I think the main concept I take away from this group project is that of balance. Sometimes the workload can be uneven, so if it is equally distributed, my partner and I or my group can work more efficiently and run more smoothly in the future.
I used to think that critique was not very helpful to the development of a project, and that decision-making was difficult under pressure. Then I saw that feedback from peers can be very beneficial to the final product if changes are applied, and that patience and a calm mindset can contribute to making good choices. Now I see the difference in drafts of a project once revisions are made, and that the result of releasing stress from the daily environment is a professional project that leaves you satisfied at the end of it all.
The “Supers Project” was definitely a roller coaster, but I believe it was an amazing way to start off my first year at High Tech High North County. This project was not only a great learning experience based on content, but it was also a nice way to get an introduction to high school group work. Since a significant amount of this project was focused around Humanities class, a lot of the material had to do with the Habits of the Heart and Mind, or the “HOHAMs”. The HOHAMs include both academic concepts and interpersonal skills that are helpful to have during group projects and literature assignments. They may even be in the form of life skills! The HOHAMs are self advocacy, intellectual curiosity, integrity, cooperation, unlimited potential, evidence, supposition, perspective, significance and connection. To apply our learning of the HOHAMs to the Supers Project, we were to create either a superhero or a supervillain that had powers that represented one of those concepts. My partner, Isaiah, and I had to make a supervillain with powers that pertained to the habit perspective. Because perspective has to do with point of view, we designed a supervillain called “Grandma BrainStorm”, and her superpower was to take over minds. Once she took over another’s mind, she could see through their eyes and read their thoughts. After we formulated a good idea of what we wanted our supervillain to look like, we had to sketch a drawing of our villain on a four inch by three inch space. We then took that drawing and scaled it to fit a paper that was thirty-two inches by twenty-four inches. The next step was to cut out the silhouette of our character and trace it on the front and back of a piece of plywood. Using a jigsaw, we followed up the tracing process by cutting our figure out of the wood, and later came time to draw in the details, and then to paint. Lastly, we stuck our biosketch–a writing piece similar to the backstory–on to the backside of the wood. Now our projects are complete and hanging in the ninth grade commons, so all visitors can see the supers flying overhead.
In this project, I was really happy about the chemistry Isaiah and I developed throughout the course of the assignment. Because I normally like to be the leader in a group setting and my partner was extremely open-minded about the direction we were going in, we worked really well together. Isaiah was very diligent when needed, and this was definitely the case in physics. He was also skilled with the jigsaw, so we were able to cut out all of the tough edges and corners without a problem. I am still very grateful for that. One thing I am really proud of was how we managed to incorporate a three-dimensional element in our final product. We were originally going to design our superhero, Grandma BrainStorm, with white paint for hair. However, we thought it would be a lot more interesting to the viewer to see more than just plywood, so we created our supervillain’s hair out of stuffing. I think that is what sets our project out from the rest. We used a lot of creativity in our design and took some risks, but it really paid off in the end and I could not be any happier.
My favorite part of this project was how much freedom we received in our planning process of our villain. Even though we were assigned our super’s role as either a hero or a villain and a HOHAM to go with it, we were given a lot of say in what they looked like. This also included their super power, which was based off of the habit we were assigned to. The aspect of being able to be creative in this project allowed us to individualize our super and make it our own. Over the few weeks that we worked on our super, the Habit of Heart and Mind I believe I used well was cooperation. As I mentioned earlier, my partner and I worked efficiently from the first day, and we managed to avoid disagreement until the end. This concerned our decision-making skills because we both had similar ideas. If one of us had a strong opinion or a gut feeling about something like a paint color or an accessory, we would usually be thinking along the same lines.
While the project was successful as a whole, Isaiah and I had some hiccups along the way. A large example of this was workload balance. There would be quite a few times when I would be doing work and my partner was not contributing. He was engaging in conversation with other groups–which was okay at some points when I felt as if he needed a break from the work–but there would be stretches where I would be the only one on-task. In the future, a solution would be to set up a calendar that displayed the aspects of the project we would each be focusing on. If we were to have had a schedule that had designated specific tasks to each partner, we would have been a more well-oiled machine. Although the final product of our super looks great, I think I am slightly disappointed with the paint color on the backside of the wood. It is a mixture between black and purple, and this was mostly because of the misuse of paint by our team. Because of the limited resources, we had to blend the two colors, and this was not in the original plan. To make sure this issue does not come up in the future, students should make sure to save their paint palettes and to clean up after themselves so no paint is wasted or mistreated in any way.
The aspect of this project I disliked most was the stress of trying to cut our plywood. I had to wait in line for a jigsaw for about forty-five minutes one day, and when I finally was ready to cut my wood there was only ten minutes left in the class period. Having gone through the waiting process and using patience as a key to my calm state of mind, I can grow from the experience by using that same attitude in future stressful situations. The HOHAM I feel I could have used in a more effective manner is perspective. While Isaiah and I worked very well together, I really wanted him to see my thought process when making choices, and I feel that I could have asked him for his input a little more. Since I took the role as the leader for the project, he agreed with a lot of my decisions and I listened to what he had to say, but I think he had some great ideas that could have been executed more efficiently.
Our work improved so much from our first draft, thanks to a lot of great critique from peers. At first, our design included a basic costume and we were planning to paint the hair. However, we received feedback to incorporate our HOHAM somewhere in the costume, and to maybe add a three-dimensional component to the hair. To make those revisions, we added the word “perspective” to Grandma BrainStorm’s belt to help the viewer understand the HOHAM we were modeling our super after, and we eventually glued stuffing to where the hair was. We also touched up the edges of our supervillain with the jigsaw, and cut out the excess portions of plywood that were unnecessary to the appearance of our project. To sum up the revision process, our work changed from a piece of plywood with a basic sketch and two edges cut out to a completely refined supervillain with a lot of detail. These changes showed the relentless pursuit Isaiah and I had for perfection, and that we were willing to take multiple risks. Peer critique was a very important part of this project, because if our first draft had stayed the same throughout the project, I guarantee you I would not be nearly as happy with the final outcome as I am now. Feedback helped with the creation of ideas as well, because I could see the techniques that other groups were using and I could be inspired to take similar steps with my own project.
I was slightly skeptical about this project after we chose partners, but I now know I should not have worried about it at the beginning. My partner was very helpful when he was on-task, and was able to accomplish a lot. We breezed through the decision-making process without any bumps in the road, and that is most likely what kept us content with our partnership during the whole project. On the other hand, we could have figured out a way to split up the tasks we had to complete, because I sometimes felt as if I was doing more work than I should have been. In this respect, I feel that I was a responsible and helpful group member because I stayed busy whenever I could, and sometimes took on more than I thought was possible. I was a leader in creating our product, and I think Isaiah appreciated that. While I put a lot of effort into making our project the best it could be, I think I could have been more proactive in getting my partner involved. I have a tendency to take control sometimes, so while he was not working on anything I was putting a lot of effort into the assignment at hand. Overall, I think the main concept I take away from this group project is that of balance. Sometimes the workload can be uneven, so if it is equally distributed, my partner and I or my group can work more efficiently and run more smoothly in the future.
I used to think that critique was not very helpful to the development of a project, and that decision-making was difficult under pressure. Then I saw that feedback from peers can be very beneficial to the final product if changes are applied, and that patience and a calm mindset can contribute to making good choices. Now I see the difference in drafts of a project once revisions are made, and that the result of releasing stress from the daily environment is a professional project that leaves you satisfied at the end of it all.