February 10, 2008

'Growing Up in the City'

For Assignment Video 1a, students in the Multicultural Issues class watched a video, "A Teen's Video of Growing Up in the City," about a young African-American teenager and his friends living in a dangerous neighborhood of Chicago. Students responded to six questions about growing up and being educated in such a challenging environment. Angela's response met the target criteria for being articulate, thorough, thoughtful, academic, and well-written. Her example provides the class with the ideal effort in showing what they know and think about responding to the assignment.

January 25, 2008

The Leaning Tree Symbolizes
Life, Nature, and Family.

I am very proud of my multicultural logo not only because is it a beautiful symbol of my cultural motivations, but also because it was painted for me by an extremely talented student of mine. Luckily, when I told this student what the assignment was for this class and asked for her artistic help (I can barely draw a stick figure), she was more than excited to help me.

I collaborated with her for just a few minutes one day after 5th hour about my ideas for an image and why I wanted a "leaning tree" to be my logo; then, like magic, she came to me this week with a gorgeous water-colored piece of artwork. It is perfect. Collaborating with her about my ideas helped me to understand and verbally realize the reasons why I truly think a leaning tree represents my multicultural background, motivations, and ideas.

Obviously, a tree is a universal symbol for many things, such as life, beauty of nature, and family. This trifecta directly represents the important values that I have been instilled with through my heritage and my upbringing. I was raised with an understanding that life, nature, and family are three things one should never take for granted.

The reason I wanted the tree to be leaning is to symbolize the idea that "my multiculturalism" is forever changing and leaning in a new direction. With every book I read, every song I listen to, and every student I meet, my multicultural self is being molded.

Angela McCutcheon

A is for Arkansas.
     Born and raised.

B is for Brothers.
     Who have my eyes and my smile.

C is for Confederate.
     I have ancestors who fought for the Confederacy.

D is for Dallas.
     I naturally inherited a deep love for the Cowboys.

E is for Emotional.
     It's by no means out of the ordinary to see tears and long hugs when we all get together.

F is for Federal.
     I have ancestors who fought for the Union.

G is for Green.
     My mother has successfully passed her "tree-hugger" values on to me.

H is for Hannah.
     Hannah is my best friend and the mother of my godson. She has influenced my culture by helping me develop a healthy and nutritious lifestyle.

I is for Indian.
     My paternal great great grandmother was full-blooded Crow Indian.

J is for John.
     My dad and my best bud.

K is for a "Kiss, a hug, a hit, and some love."
     Our family's traditional goodbye saying.

L is for Love.
     My parents have been divorced since I was five, but still remain best friends and have shown my brothers and I how truly important love is during the hardest of times.

M is for Music.
     Before I can even remember, my dad and uncles were sitting around with their guitars singing and writing songs while I hung on their every word. The McCutcheons are definitely music lovers.

N is for Nature.
     I have a deep love of the outdoors.

O is for Outspoken.
     My mom raised me to always speak my mind.

P is for Plaid.
     The McCutcheons are a part of the Donald clan and we have our own plaid (pretty cool!).

Q is for Questions.
     This assignment prompted me to call and ask my uncle questions about our heritage.

R is for River.
     River is the name of my beautiful dog. Ask anyone.... He's my life.

S is for Sister.
     My mom and little brothers have always called me by this name.

T is for Tired.
     When I'm sleepy, I naturally act grumpy and intolerable. My mom always says "we don't do tired well."

U is for Unconditional.
     I know that no matter what conflicts I face in my life, my brothers will always be by my side.

V is for Very small ears.
     A feature I have inherited from both sides of my family.

W is for Widows peak.
     Another inherited feature.

X is for Wrong.
     This is a symbol our culture has always used to signify the wrong answer and now I have to use it to grade papers.

Y is for Yelling.
     Yelling has always been an accepted form of communication at my house. We're a rowdy bunch.

Z is for Zzzzzzzz
     I need to catch some of these before school tomorrow.

Angela McCutcheon
January 27, 2008