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Social Identity Mask Essay Reflection
1. Now that you have finished your first project, how is Project Based Learning (PBL) different from or similar to what you have experienced before? Give at least 3 specific ways it is similar or different.
Project Based Learning is very different from how I’ve been learning my entire life. I think that after you learn the concepts, the content is easier to remember if you apply it to something. Whether you’re explaining the concepts to your family, writing an essay, or doing a project, if you apply the content to something in real life, it helps to keeps the information in your brain. Also, it helps to know that the content we’re learning relates to the world. I also found that the teacher actually cares about what work you’re doing. They’re willing to help you to do better work, and will spend time with you individually if you need it. Finally, the general culture of Animas is very helpful. All the teachers and other staff understand the kind of pressure you’re under and want you to succeed.
2. Which habit of heart and mind do you need to work on in your next project to get better at PBL? Show, don’t tell why you need to improve and how that HOHAM will help you.
In my next project, I should concentrate specifically on perseverance. At several points in this project I found myself unwilling to read through my essay again. At this point, I convinced myself that it would be beneficial to read through my essay one more time, but by the end of my project, I still didn’t feel like proofreading anymore. I was confident about my essay when I sent it to Mr. Fisher for feedback, but after I revised, and reorganized my essay, I needed more proofreading. By then, I was tired of my essay and didn’t want to read it one more time. If I focus more on perseverance, I should be able to proofread my essay until it’s perfect.
3. What are you most proud of about your mask? Why?
In my mask, I am most proud of all the sociology concepts I found in all the symbols of my mask. My first draft of my essay was considered “listy” and Mr. Fisher challenged me to think deeply and connect more of my symbols to sociology concepts. It defiantly took some thinking, but I managed to recreate my essay to fit Mr. Fisher’s requirements. Before revisions, my essay was mediocre, but now, I feel like my essay exceeds expectations.
4. Quote the section of your essay that you are most proud of and describe, in detail, why you are proud of it.
“Look at my mask. What do you see? Do you see colors, or maybe some shapes? Look deeper. Now do you see how the concept of the looking-glass self incorporated through the symbols on my mask? I feel like we’re making masks that are showing what we have to hide. The looking-glass self doesn’t just apply to clothes or jewelry, it’s also relevant to how we act, what we say, or what we post on a social networking website. For example, a teenager would think twice before updating their status on Facebook ™ to “Had a great day hanging out with my family!” because someone might think of them as a “goody-goody” or anti social because they were hanging out with their family instead of their friends. Overall, the concept of the looking-glass self-affects our personality as well our everyday life, and it explains why we use masks to represent our social identity categories.” This is my overall explanation of how looking glass self connects to the idea of symbols having double meanings on my mask. If someone were to ask me how I, personally, use the looking glass self, my answer wouldn’t be just about the clothes I wear. Now that I’ve thought deeply about the concept of the looking glass self, I notice that if we’re having a class discussion, I use the looking glass self before I even speak. My generation has grown up being judged, and we feel like if we say something wrong, we’re going to be harshly judged.
5. What do you want to take with you and remember from this project?
The main thing I will take with me from this project would be the concept of the invisible knapsack. The invisible knapsack is one of the main sociology concepts. It describes how agents “carry” around privileges they may not be aware they have. If the social identity category was gender, the male would be considered the agent and the female would be considered the target. The agents would have an invisible knapsack of power, masculinity, and being the head of a household. The men may not know it, but females may want all the power that they have. The invisible knapsack is a very logical concept of sociology, and it’s important that we all know we have privileges others don’t.
Social Identity Mask Essay
The Dilemma Age
What does it mean to be young? Are you young in years or by your maturity level? Maybe it’s both. To some people, the concept of your age being defined by your maturity is offensive, but to others, age is irrelevant. Personally, I believe that your personality defines your maturity, which may result in how old other people may think you are. Due to seniority, teenagers’ perspectives are ignored completely and are denied any input in the world. I have taken this idea and implanted it into my mask.
The Japanese symbol for young is painted in black on both the front and back of my mask. This helps state the sociology category of my mask. An average teenager wouldn’t think twice about this concept. They have lived less than 20 years and are determined to make the best of their childhood. So why do teenagers have such bad attitudes towards adults and their elders? Do they feel pressured by their peers to hate their parents? Or is it something larger than that, something a lot more complex? The joined forces of pressure, capability, love, lack of power, and just wanting to live a “normal” life may push a teenager to make bad decisions due to the pressure they’re under. It’s society’s job to keep an eye out so we can help the next generation of our community thrive and succeed.
The first thing I learned in the sociology unit was the definition of a social norm. A social norm is a rule for behavior. Social norms can affect how someone acts or how someone develops their reputation. For example, in a marriage, men are supposed to go to work and make the money while the women are expected to stay home with the children. Social norms affect how we act everyday. The social norms of this generation are very different from the social norms of “yesteryear”. For example wearing miniskirts or short shorts is easily accepted dress code for summer, but if you wore short shorts when your grandparents were children, it was deemed unacceptable.
Social norms are used to help place people in their social rankings. If someone dresses differently or talks funny, they’re usually bumped to the bottom of the social pyramid. Social norms such as wearing heavy eye makeup or wearing low cut shirts, can adapt your reputation. Teenagers who follow these norms are seen as troublesome or harmful. With the ever-changing social norms, parents can’t keep up with what is acceptable in their lives as well as ours. This results in surprise when they see how teenagers are now dressing and acting.
Social norms shape how we appear to others. Teenagers follow social norms of today, and that result in looking bizarre or inappropriate to adults. To represent this concept, I used the radioactive sign on the outside of my mask. I decided to use this symbol to demonstrate, from the view of an adult, how teenagers are thought of. Several times, I have been riding in the car with my mom, when she makes remarks such as “Look at those sketchy boys…. Do you know them?”. Also, I have been in the car when my mom will mumble something about teenage girls who are dressed what she would think of as inappropriate.
The area in between the yellow sections of the radioactive symbol is painted darkly to show how adults think of teenagers as dangerous. As an example, one time we were in our raft going down the river, and when we passed under the train bridge, we saw two teenage boys drawing graffiti on the bridge. My dad was disappointed and began to yell. Afterwards, my parents told me they were being disrespectful and weren’t setting a good example. Those are the type of teenagers that are crazy, uncontrollable, dangerous, and mysterious, but not all teenagers are like that.
One of the main notions of sociology is called the looking-glass self. This concept states that before we make a decision, we think about how other people will react to that decision. There are three main components of the looking-glass self: imagining how we must appear to others, imagining how others judge us based on our appearances, and developing ourselves through their judgments. For example, if you were getting dressed for work, you might think about what someone would think of the shirt you were going to wear. Is it too dressy, too casual, or maybe even inappropriate for the common work place? If there is even the smallest chance that someone will disapprove of what you’re wearing, you think twice before walking out the door.
To a teenager, the looking-glass self is part of the common routine every morning. A teenage girl will go through several stages of looking-glass self every day. What will my friends, my parents, and/or that boy think of these pants or this dress or this shirt? Is it too risky? They may even think about whether or not what they’re wearing is dress code for school. Teenage boys also go through stages of the looking-glass self every morning, though it’s not nearly as apparent. When buys “use” the looking-glass, they use it in very different situations than most girls. Instead of thinking about how their hair looks, they contemplate how far their jeans are sagging. This is just the beginning of what flies through a teenagers mind every day. Most teenagers “use” the looking-glass self without even noticing it. The media is the main source of socialization for teenagers. Other sources of socialization are family, friends, religion, and school.
Teenagers sometimes will use the looking-glass self negatively as if they are purposely trying to upset adults and elders by dressing or acting inappropriately. Others will act completely opposite and wear clothes they know their parents will approve of.
Look at my mask. What do you see? Do you see colors, or maybe some shapes? Look deeper. Now do you see how the concept of the looking-glass self incorporated through the symbols on my mask? I feel like we’re making masks that are showing what we have to hide. The looking-glass self doesn’t just apply to clothes or jewelry, it’s also relevant to how we act, what we say, or what we post on a social networking website. For example, a teenager would think twice before updating their status on Facebook ™ to “Had a great day hanging out with my family!” because someone might think of them as a “goody-goody” or anti social because they were hanging out with their family instead of their friends. Overall, the concept of the looking-glass self-affects our personality as well our everyday life, and it explains why we use masks to represent our social identity categories.
The looking-glass self is also represented by the words written across the top of the inside of my mask. Live and love. Maybe, we don’t choose who we love anymore. Society chooses whom we’re allowed to love, and who we’re not. Imagine you’re a modern day teenager and someone asks you out. Before you answer you think about who this person is. Is he geeky and short or sporty and tall? What will my best friend think about him? You’re using the looking-glass self in this situation. The same description applies to how we live our lives. Before you invite someone over to your house, you think about the condition that your house is in. As you can see, the looking-glass self applies to everyday life.
The invisible knapsack is another important sociology concept that describes what privileges agents have and targets do not. Adults have seniority over children in the world and don’t acknowledge it. Their invisible knapsack is filled with activities such as voting or driving that children don’t have the ability to do until they’re in their late teenage years. This makes teenagers feel powerless and insecure. We feel like if we don’t have the rite to vote, drive, or live on our own, we are still under the watchful eye of our parents. We grow out of wanting our parents to lie out our outfits every night and wanting them to make our lunches.
Your never realize how much power adults have over you until you start to develop your own personality. You want to be able to make simple decisions such as what to wear or whom you date, but your parents still want and have power over you. How are we supposed to become actual people when we’re not even allowed to date who we want?
I chose to represent the invisible knapsack through the recycling symbol. To me the recycling symbol represents the invisible knapsack, as it applies to age, because our parents’ generation has already satisfied their elders. If they have already partially saved the environment, possibly through recycling, they don’t have constant pressure to succeed on their shoulders. My generation still has the pressure of success on our shoulders, and we have a long way to go before we invent an alternate energy resource. We have plenty to worry about. As if the pressure of our parents isn’t enough, we’re constantly learning about the condition our world is in during school, which only inspires us to change the world more. The only question is how are we going to do it?
Agent and targets are two different groups in which privileges are distributed unevenly. The agent group is the group that is considered to have the world built for them. Targets, on the other hand, is the group that is considered to have the world built up against them. Agents don’t necessarily “pick” on the targets but sometimes discriminate against them. For example, if the social category we were examining was race, Caucasians would be considered the agents because their race is reflected efficiently through their world (media). On the other hand, a person of a different race may not be able to find a doll that matches their child’s skin tone.
As far as age goes, adults would be considered the agent in this situation because they have rights that teenagers or children lack, such as voting, making independent decisions, and driving. Children can’t experience these rights until their teenage years or later. To express this concept I drew sunrays on the inside of the mask pointing inwards toward the face. The sunrays alone represent the power of my generation through our view. The sun represents immense power because the sun supplies us with warmth and light. Without the sun, none of us would be here now. If my generation is the sun, we are capable of keeping our planet alive and we plan try our hardest to succeed. The symbolism of the sunrays pointing inwards represents the pressure teenagers are under. The agents, or the adults, are pushing us (the targets) to succeed, so we can sculpt our lives to our personal requirements.
Even if it’s for a good cause, the expectations are set too high for targets, and the agents are unaware of how much pressure they’re putting on us. For example, last year at the end of eighth grade, we were working on Rites of Passage, an astronomy project, an essay in language arts, and studying for a final in math. When I got home one night and looked at my planner, I was suddenly overwhelmed by how much work I had to do in a short amount of time. Despite all the work I had to do, my parents were still putting pressure on me and expecting me to do well on all of my projects. I was too overloaded with work.
Agent and target groups are also represented through the symbol in the middle of the word on the forehead of my mask. It most likely looks like a comma to you, but it is the Chinese symbol for capability. In some cases, agents don’t realize that targets are capable of great accomplishments and they develop an unfit image of the target group. Other agents may see targets in a completely opposite way. They see the target group as almighty and capable. These people don’t want to be let down. This perspective connects back to the sunrays because this view only results in more pressure on the teenagers.
Sociology concepts such as the looking-glass self, the invisible knapsack, and social norms are fascinating to learn about. You never would have thought that the world would have so many invisible rules about society. Now that you’ve learned about these concepts, you may be able to see the world from a different view, and possibly even adjust your lifestyle.
Maybe people are young in years, and not in their personality. Through this project, I have learned how much the world is biased against teenagers. As a teenager, you never know what you might find when you turn a corner, and you learn to just roll with it. Life will throw punches at you, but if you gain enough knowledge, you can learn to hit back.
What does it mean to be young? Are you young in years or by your maturity level? Maybe it’s both. To some people, the concept of your age being defined by your maturity is offensive, but to others, age is irrelevant. Personally, I believe that your personality defines your maturity, which may result in how old other people may think you are. Due to seniority, teenagers’ perspectives are ignored completely and are denied any input in the world. I have taken this idea and implanted it into my mask.
The Japanese symbol for young is painted in black on both the front and back of my mask. This helps state the sociology category of my mask. An average teenager wouldn’t think twice about this concept. They have lived less than 20 years and are determined to make the best of their childhood. So why do teenagers have such bad attitudes towards adults and their elders? Do they feel pressured by their peers to hate their parents? Or is it something larger than that, something a lot more complex? The joined forces of pressure, capability, love, lack of power, and just wanting to live a “normal” life may push a teenager to make bad decisions due to the pressure they’re under. It’s society’s job to keep an eye out so we can help the next generation of our community thrive and succeed.
The first thing I learned in the sociology unit was the definition of a social norm. A social norm is a rule for behavior. Social norms can affect how someone acts or how someone develops their reputation. For example, in a marriage, men are supposed to go to work and make the money while the women are expected to stay home with the children. Social norms affect how we act everyday. The social norms of this generation are very different from the social norms of “yesteryear”. For example wearing miniskirts or short shorts is easily accepted dress code for summer, but if you wore short shorts when your grandparents were children, it was deemed unacceptable.
Social norms are used to help place people in their social rankings. If someone dresses differently or talks funny, they’re usually bumped to the bottom of the social pyramid. Social norms such as wearing heavy eye makeup or wearing low cut shirts, can adapt your reputation. Teenagers who follow these norms are seen as troublesome or harmful. With the ever-changing social norms, parents can’t keep up with what is acceptable in their lives as well as ours. This results in surprise when they see how teenagers are now dressing and acting.
Social norms shape how we appear to others. Teenagers follow social norms of today, and that result in looking bizarre or inappropriate to adults. To represent this concept, I used the radioactive sign on the outside of my mask. I decided to use this symbol to demonstrate, from the view of an adult, how teenagers are thought of. Several times, I have been riding in the car with my mom, when she makes remarks such as “Look at those sketchy boys…. Do you know them?”. Also, I have been in the car when my mom will mumble something about teenage girls who are dressed what she would think of as inappropriate.
The area in between the yellow sections of the radioactive symbol is painted darkly to show how adults think of teenagers as dangerous. As an example, one time we were in our raft going down the river, and when we passed under the train bridge, we saw two teenage boys drawing graffiti on the bridge. My dad was disappointed and began to yell. Afterwards, my parents told me they were being disrespectful and weren’t setting a good example. Those are the type of teenagers that are crazy, uncontrollable, dangerous, and mysterious, but not all teenagers are like that.
One of the main notions of sociology is called the looking-glass self. This concept states that before we make a decision, we think about how other people will react to that decision. There are three main components of the looking-glass self: imagining how we must appear to others, imagining how others judge us based on our appearances, and developing ourselves through their judgments. For example, if you were getting dressed for work, you might think about what someone would think of the shirt you were going to wear. Is it too dressy, too casual, or maybe even inappropriate for the common work place? If there is even the smallest chance that someone will disapprove of what you’re wearing, you think twice before walking out the door.
To a teenager, the looking-glass self is part of the common routine every morning. A teenage girl will go through several stages of looking-glass self every day. What will my friends, my parents, and/or that boy think of these pants or this dress or this shirt? Is it too risky? They may even think about whether or not what they’re wearing is dress code for school. Teenage boys also go through stages of the looking-glass self every morning, though it’s not nearly as apparent. When buys “use” the looking-glass, they use it in very different situations than most girls. Instead of thinking about how their hair looks, they contemplate how far their jeans are sagging. This is just the beginning of what flies through a teenagers mind every day. Most teenagers “use” the looking-glass self without even noticing it. The media is the main source of socialization for teenagers. Other sources of socialization are family, friends, religion, and school.
Teenagers sometimes will use the looking-glass self negatively as if they are purposely trying to upset adults and elders by dressing or acting inappropriately. Others will act completely opposite and wear clothes they know their parents will approve of.
Look at my mask. What do you see? Do you see colors, or maybe some shapes? Look deeper. Now do you see how the concept of the looking-glass self incorporated through the symbols on my mask? I feel like we’re making masks that are showing what we have to hide. The looking-glass self doesn’t just apply to clothes or jewelry, it’s also relevant to how we act, what we say, or what we post on a social networking website. For example, a teenager would think twice before updating their status on Facebook ™ to “Had a great day hanging out with my family!” because someone might think of them as a “goody-goody” or anti social because they were hanging out with their family instead of their friends. Overall, the concept of the looking-glass self-affects our personality as well our everyday life, and it explains why we use masks to represent our social identity categories.
The looking-glass self is also represented by the words written across the top of the inside of my mask. Live and love. Maybe, we don’t choose who we love anymore. Society chooses whom we’re allowed to love, and who we’re not. Imagine you’re a modern day teenager and someone asks you out. Before you answer you think about who this person is. Is he geeky and short or sporty and tall? What will my best friend think about him? You’re using the looking-glass self in this situation. The same description applies to how we live our lives. Before you invite someone over to your house, you think about the condition that your house is in. As you can see, the looking-glass self applies to everyday life.
The invisible knapsack is another important sociology concept that describes what privileges agents have and targets do not. Adults have seniority over children in the world and don’t acknowledge it. Their invisible knapsack is filled with activities such as voting or driving that children don’t have the ability to do until they’re in their late teenage years. This makes teenagers feel powerless and insecure. We feel like if we don’t have the rite to vote, drive, or live on our own, we are still under the watchful eye of our parents. We grow out of wanting our parents to lie out our outfits every night and wanting them to make our lunches.
Your never realize how much power adults have over you until you start to develop your own personality. You want to be able to make simple decisions such as what to wear or whom you date, but your parents still want and have power over you. How are we supposed to become actual people when we’re not even allowed to date who we want?
I chose to represent the invisible knapsack through the recycling symbol. To me the recycling symbol represents the invisible knapsack, as it applies to age, because our parents’ generation has already satisfied their elders. If they have already partially saved the environment, possibly through recycling, they don’t have constant pressure to succeed on their shoulders. My generation still has the pressure of success on our shoulders, and we have a long way to go before we invent an alternate energy resource. We have plenty to worry about. As if the pressure of our parents isn’t enough, we’re constantly learning about the condition our world is in during school, which only inspires us to change the world more. The only question is how are we going to do it?
Agent and targets are two different groups in which privileges are distributed unevenly. The agent group is the group that is considered to have the world built for them. Targets, on the other hand, is the group that is considered to have the world built up against them. Agents don’t necessarily “pick” on the targets but sometimes discriminate against them. For example, if the social category we were examining was race, Caucasians would be considered the agents because their race is reflected efficiently through their world (media). On the other hand, a person of a different race may not be able to find a doll that matches their child’s skin tone.
As far as age goes, adults would be considered the agent in this situation because they have rights that teenagers or children lack, such as voting, making independent decisions, and driving. Children can’t experience these rights until their teenage years or later. To express this concept I drew sunrays on the inside of the mask pointing inwards toward the face. The sunrays alone represent the power of my generation through our view. The sun represents immense power because the sun supplies us with warmth and light. Without the sun, none of us would be here now. If my generation is the sun, we are capable of keeping our planet alive and we plan try our hardest to succeed. The symbolism of the sunrays pointing inwards represents the pressure teenagers are under. The agents, or the adults, are pushing us (the targets) to succeed, so we can sculpt our lives to our personal requirements.
Even if it’s for a good cause, the expectations are set too high for targets, and the agents are unaware of how much pressure they’re putting on us. For example, last year at the end of eighth grade, we were working on Rites of Passage, an astronomy project, an essay in language arts, and studying for a final in math. When I got home one night and looked at my planner, I was suddenly overwhelmed by how much work I had to do in a short amount of time. Despite all the work I had to do, my parents were still putting pressure on me and expecting me to do well on all of my projects. I was too overloaded with work.
Agent and target groups are also represented through the symbol in the middle of the word on the forehead of my mask. It most likely looks like a comma to you, but it is the Chinese symbol for capability. In some cases, agents don’t realize that targets are capable of great accomplishments and they develop an unfit image of the target group. Other agents may see targets in a completely opposite way. They see the target group as almighty and capable. These people don’t want to be let down. This perspective connects back to the sunrays because this view only results in more pressure on the teenagers.
Sociology concepts such as the looking-glass self, the invisible knapsack, and social norms are fascinating to learn about. You never would have thought that the world would have so many invisible rules about society. Now that you’ve learned about these concepts, you may be able to see the world from a different view, and possibly even adjust your lifestyle.
Maybe people are young in years, and not in their personality. Through this project, I have learned how much the world is biased against teenagers. As a teenager, you never know what you might find when you turn a corner, and you learn to just roll with it. Life will throw punches at you, but if you gain enough knowledge, you can learn to hit back.