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Category Archives: 2022-2023 v.02
Increasing Accessibility in the Literary Community with the V Form Fellowship: The Aurora Journal
By Sophie Chiang, VI Form
Increasing Accessibility in the Literary Community with the V Form Fellowship: The Aurora Journal
Editor’s Note: This project was made possible with the support of the Class of 1968 V Form Fellowship. At their 25th reunion, the Class of 1968 created a fund to provide grants to V Form students for independent study during the school year or, more commonly, during the summer between V and VI Forms. Their intent in establishing this fund was to reward independent thinking, ingenuity, and planning and to encourage the student in exploring non-traditional fields of inquiry or using non-traditional methods of investigation.
When I created The Aurora Journal (theaurorajournal.org) two summers ago, I just planned to publish my friends’ writing for fun. Literary journals were everywhere–all one had to do was submit their poetry and prose to them and hope their writing would be accepted and published. So never did I imagine that my own Journal would be able to reach thousands of submissions and be featured in news sites and blogs–a testament to the passion of our contributors. But when I first started gaining traction, I knew I wanted to do something more with my platform than just publishing writers. There exists a significant disparity gap in the writing world, in which cisgender, wealthy, educated white males dominate. With the support of the V Form Fellowship and many writer friends, The Aurora Journal has been able to make a positive impact in promoting inclusivity and accessibility in the writing community.
One Viable Option: Examining Composure as a Means of Survival in The Handmaid’s Tale
By Jonathan D. Hernández, V Form
One Viable Option: Examining Composure as a Means of Survival in The Handmaid’s Tale
Student-Submitted Note: For my American Literature class, students were tasked with submitting a creative project of our choosing (such as but not limited to poem, painting, or video) to take an idea, theme, or motif from Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” and remake it or interpret through imaginative means. Along with the artistic project, students were required to write a three-page analysis of the idea used and their multimedia project and how the two relate to each other. For my project, I wrote a poem about composure and how in the novel composure is a means of survival for characters such as Offred, the novel’s protagonist. The poem is written from the perspective of a Gileadean scholar and is meant to act as instructions for each member of the dystopian society. It is a reminder of the duty of each member to compose themselves to conform to the society’s standards. In addition to the written poem (after the essay), there is a physical visual representation to better illustrate the theme of composure and duty.
In her novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood presents a dystopian future where the Republic of Gilead supersedes the United States of America. The new totalitarian state forces its citizens into strict gender roles. Gilead subjugates fecund women to the role of Handmaid, requiring them to serve as surrogates for the Commanders, the Gileadean patriarchs. The new state concurrently pushes sterile women into the roles of Martha, Wife, Econowife, or Aunt. Throughout the novel, the audience interprets life in Gilead through the eyes of Offred, a Handmaid who remembers life before Gilead and lives through the nation’s reconstruction. Before the Ceremony, a “sacred” insemination ritual, Offred describes that “I compose myself. My self is a thing I must now compose, as one composes speech. What I must present is a made thing, not something born” (Attwood 66). While Offred refers to the need to compose herself for the Ceremony, she speaks to the larger issue at hand. She is informing the reader about how in the Republic of Gilead, women must compose their speech, actions, and bodies. They must watch what they say and be mindful to not stray from what is deemed acceptable by Gileadean social norms. Similarly, the poem Composure is centered around the idea of composure in Gilead and is meant to reflect how in Gilead each person is directed to abide by cultural norms in the name of duty. This need for composure, Offred reveals, results from necessity and cultural expectations in the Republic of Gilead.
(more…)Education in Underfunded Zimbabwean Societies
By Charlene Tariro Murima, VI Form
Education in Underfunded Zimbabwean Societies
Editor’s Note: This project was made possible with the support of the Class of 1968 V Form Fellowship. At their 25th reunion, the Class of 1968 created a fund to provide grants to V Form students for independent study during the school year or, more commonly, during the summer between V and VI Forms. Their intent in establishing this fund was to reward independent thinking, ingenuity, and planning and to encourage the student exploring non-traditional fields of inquiry or using non-traditional methods of investigation.
Student-Submitted Note: To encourage a more globally-minded perspective and understanding of diverse educational practices, I received a grant through The Class of 1968 V Form Fellowship and traveled back to Zimbabwe during the summer of 2022. I conducted anonymous and in-person interviews. In these interviews were students and teachers informing me more about the country’s education system.
Student-Submitted Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of abortion and sexual abuse.
Over the summer of 2022, I traveled back to Zimbabwe to work on a documentary called Education in underfunded towns of Zimbabwe such as Dzivaresekwa, Concession, Mazowe, and Kuwadzana with the goal to educate my peers and schoolmates about some of the challenges students in Zimbabwe face. To make this study possible, I received a grant from the St. Mark’s Class of 1968 V Form Fellowship. I was able to visit many schools that lacked government funding or had limited resources, and I conducted anonymous and in-person interviews with students and teachers. I learned that the education system in Zimbabwe encompasses 7 years of primary school and 6 years of secondary school. It runs from January to December. The school year is a total of 3 terms with a one-month break, totaling 40 weeks per year. I asked a few students in person and anonymously online what they thought about the country’s education system and what they hope to change. Recurring themes of sparse resources and perpetual sexual abuse from those meant to educate them surfaced.
Social Media & Privacy: Why Should We Care?
By Anika Sukthankar, VI Form
Social Media & Privacy: Why Should We Care?
Editor’s Note: This project was made possible with the support of the Thomas H. Kean ’53 Fellowship. At their 25th Reunion in 1987, the Class of 1962 established the Thomas H. Kean ’53 Fellowship Program to honor Tom Kean, their teacher, advisor, mentor, and friend. The purpose of this fellowship is to enable students to explore important public policy topics and to embark upon exemplary lives of public service in the spirit of Governor Kean.
Student-Submitted Note: As part of the Kean Fellowship, I took a college-level course called STS 1101: Science, Technology, and Politics. We studied several scientific controversies to further explore the relationship shared between technology and politics, and understood the societal implications. My deliverable was to write a LEO article on what I have found and researched.
“Behavioral advertising generates profits by turning users into products, their activity into assets, their communities into targets, and social media platforms into weapons of mass manipulation.”
-Rohit Chopra in his 2019 dissent against Facebook
As technology evolves and becomes an integral part of our society, the controversies surrounding its proper use and associated governmental policies have become increasingly complicated. We are building complex socio-technical systems that seem to guide our very behaviors and thinking. From the addictive nature of social media to privacy concerns, governmental policies seem to be lagging technological advancements. Events, such as the Capitol hearings, have made this topic of great interest.
Social media has become incredibly popular in recent years, with over 400 million new users joining these platforms annually. Despite this popularity, the majority of users are uncomfortable with the collection of personal data and believe that the government needs to do more to regulate the tech companies. Rebuilding trust between users and the social media companies will take a triumvirate of public awareness, self-regulation by the social media companies themselves, and government regulations.
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Amyklaion Excavation
By Frank S. Ruperto, VI Form
Amyklaion Excavation
Editor’s Note: This project was made possible with the support of the Class of 1968 V Form Fellowship. At their 25th reunion, the Class of 1968 created a fund to provide grants to V Form students for independent study during the school year or, more commonly, during the summer between V and VI Forms. Their intent in establishing this fund was to reward independent thinking, ingenuity, and planning and to encourage the student in exploring non-traditional fields of inquiry or using non-traditional methods of investigation.
My experience at the Amyklaion Excavation program in Sparta, Greece, this past summer enabled me to bring the Classics to life. The Hellenic Education and Research Center offered the program, which consisted of an excavation, archaeological method and practice, on-site documentation and cataloging of artifacts, and Greek epigraphy.
Amkylaion is located in the southeastern Peloponnese region of Ancient Greece. The site was a ritualistic temple to Apollo and Hyacinthus. Our group sectioned it off into steps for the purposes of excavating and recording our findings in an organized manner. Some of the participants would work on a five-meter wall, using a pickaxe to loosen up the dirt. They would rummage through the loose dirt, shoveling the dirt off the wall. The person sifting through the dirt would separate out any artifacts. Others in our group would clean the newly discovered pieces, using only water and a toothbrush, before separating each piece into different sections by time period, which was determined based on both color and design. These artifacts would eventually go to the laboratory to be marked and recorded. By studying artifacts that were part of daily ancient Greek life, I strengthened my knowledge of Greek culture and my understanding of the ancient world.
Figure 1: Sorting Artifacts Based Off Time Period
(more…)Teens without Screens
By Ryan Krantz, VI Form
Teens without Screens
Editor’s Note: This project was made possible with the support of the Class of 1968 V Form Fellowship. At their 25th reunion, the Class of 1968 created a fund to provide grants to V Form students for independent study during the school year or, more commonly, during the summer between V and VI Forms. Their intent in establishing this fund was to reward independent thinking, ingenuity, and planning and to encourage the student exploring non-traditional fields of inquiry or using non-traditional methods of investigation.
Student-Submitted Note: I was awarded this grant to take a surfing road trip down the East Coast, without my phone.
In a world where humans are becoming increasingly dependent on electronic devices in all aspects of our lives, adolescents are particularly susceptible to screen addiction. The average American teenager spends over seven hours a day on screens, which accounts for about 40% of our conscious realities. My friends and I realized that we too, are victims of the “screenager” epidemic, and we wanted to know what our lives would be like if we didn’t have phones. In the winter of my junior year, I received a grant from the Class of 1968 V Form Fellowship at St. Marks to take a road trip along the east coast without my phone. My two best friends Conor Sullivan and Toby Zeidenberg agreed to come along on the road trip, and so on August 11, 2022, we left our phones, computers, and all other screens behind and hit the road.
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