DoaS Project

The Modern Tragedy 
 
Never was the modern tragedy more suited for Willy 
The man hit the road every day but never earned a millie 
Yes there is no doubt Willy was great 
A guy with a character no man could fake 
He loved his boys, both Biff and Happy whole 
He still has dreams of Biff in the Super Bowl 
 
Yet Willy is flawed, all full of hubris 
He misses the truth, he's delusional and oblivious 
Willy is not as successful as he promises 
But he is caught up in the "Corrupt American Dream" and thanks God his sons are built like Adonises 
He got ahead of himself, perhaps he had too much care 
He sure did fill his sons up with hot air 
 
Willy's flaws and the Boston incident led to misfortune 
Biff could not believe his eyes, there was too much absorption 
Biff flees the scene, he simply just goes 
Perhaps Willy is a fake and he doesn't like anybody around who knows 
 
After Boston, it is clear that Willy suffers 
It appears that in between his relationship with Biff is a buffer 
Willy's self-esteem becomes smaller than a mouse 
There is a reason he won't have Linda mending stockings in the house 
Willy is fired from his job, Howard gives him the boot 
I guess it wasn't enough to just say "A man is not a piece of fruit" 
Willy probably wishes he was the one who walked into the jungle and found diamonds 
Because on the road, he was no Dave Singleman 
The woods are burning and Willy's dreams fade 
There is no doubt that "Attention must be paid" 
 
However, Willy is a hero for having a revelation 
He soon finds himself in a tough situation 
Willy goes to get seeds right away 
When planting, he marvels at what his boys would do with 20 K. 
Willy and Biff make up, leading Willy to go for a ride 
When the engine starts, everyone knows he is committing suicide. 
Opposite of Aristotle's proclamation, Willy is just a common man who takes a fall 
Maybe he did have the wrong dreams after all 
Looking at his grave, Linda thrice repeats, "We're free" 
Yes, the life of Willy Loman defines the modern tragedy 

Adam Ashourzadeh

Mr. Daszenski

English 11R

1/13/11

DoaS Project Reflection

“OH MY GOD BOBBY! Get to my house right NOW!” Kristina screeched at a glass breaking tone.

“Dude relax, we’ll get it done. Stop bugging out Kristina,” Bobby answered in his usual relaxed, nonchalant voice

“Alright guys everyone go to Kristina’s house so we can play some video games with her sister and drive her dad’s ill Ferrari,” I said.

“Aright I’m down for that,” Garfinkel answered half asleep (it was about 1:30 PM).

“Be here at 2 o’clock,” Kristina demanded.

“Yes ma’am,” Garfinkel, Bobby and I answered simultaneously.

I guess that’s why we decided to have a girl in our group. If it were just Bobby, Garf, and me we probably wouldn’t have finished the project in time. I probably wouldn’t be writing this reflection and instead I’d be doing my project. At the same time working with Kristina was a bit of a hassle. You know how girls are, just flat out annoying but it’s all right; I worked outside my comfort zone and succeeded in making a nice project productively with a good group.

It took us quite a while to decide what we were going to do for our project. Our idea wasn’t a tough decision; we all agreed on that right away. Modern tragedy seemed to be the right concept to go with. We had a wide variety of project ideas from montages, to long free verse poems. In order to satiate everyone, I brought up the idea of a slideshow with a couple of poems incorporated in it. Everyone agreed with the idea and we finally got going with the project (a couple of weeks after).

We were planning on finishing our project Christmas break, however plans often go astray. We did nothing. Everyone was just way too lazy to get up out of bed and do work. Garf and I were hanging out over the break and I asked him “Yo you wanna start the English project?” Garf, being the lazy man that he is, replied, “I hope you’re kidding. You must be out of your mind. They don’t call it a VACATION for no reason.”

Loman and Sons finally got rolling the weekend following Christmas break. We all met at Kristina’s palace and split the project and gave each person a certain role. Since Bobby is a great poet, we put him responsible for brainstorming and writing a rough draft of a free verse poem on modern tragedy. It was Garf’s job to help Bobby write his free verse and to write a sonnet of his own as well. Kristina and I were going to do the majority of the PowerPoint part of the project.

I am very good with computers including using PowerPoint. One thing that I am not good at with computers is editing pictures. Throughout the PowerPoint we were editing and cropping pictures and making them black and white. I never knew how to use IPhoto or any other photo program. Kristina taught me how to work with it and get comfortable with it. At one point I was getting so frustrated because I didn’t understand how to crop one photo; it got to the point where I seemed like a pernicious animal.

After a long day, we all finished our assignments and edited the whole project as a group. Surprisingly, I thought it looked really good (Kristina thought it was terrible, but she’s like that with everything that has to do with school). Bobby’s poem seemed like it was an instant classic, and Garf’s wasn’t that bad either. To be honest I was just glad we were finished.

Overall, I think our project was a success. It gets the point of the modern tragedy across very well. It very thoroughly explains the idea of a modern tragedy and how each aspect of a modern tragedy applies to Willy. The next time I’m asked to work in a group I think I would make a video. Videos always are a lot of fun to make with a group. There’s a lot of room to joke around and editing is very fun as well.

Braylon

Corner of the End Zone

Two Feet In

Teach Me How To Dougie

I Took My Shot

Sprinting up and down the court, step after step after step
Beads of sweat running down my face
The clock ticking down second by second
One minute left in the game
My team down by two
My heart beats to the dribble of the ball
I took my shot
I made it, I stand, and I stand tall
My team swarms in around me
I am a hero

This poem reflects a shot that I made while playing on a travel basketball team. Our last season was last winter and the whole team was together since fourth grade.

DoaS Project

The Life of a Project: Willy after the Boys’ abandonment

Oh, I’d better hurry. I’ve got to get some seeds, right away. Nothing’s planted. I don’t have a thing in the ground! I was fired today, and Biff didn’t have such a great day with Oliver either. He stole his fountain pen for Christ’s sake! I thought I could make it here in New York just as old Dave had done. Oh Dave! How did you do it? I should have left with Ben when I had the chance. This is all because of that damn American Dream.

Yea, the dream gave me confidence and energy. That was what made me articulate. It was my main trade! That was how I gained the respects of Biff and Happy. Because I talked so confidently to them, they looked up to me and followed me. They loved me! Oh what a brilliant idea the American Dream is! It even gave me the tenacity to hold my ground here in the jungle.

But wait, what for? I’m jobless and my children disrespect me. I lost Biff’s trust and the American Dream can do nothing about it. I can’t even take Charley’s job offer because of my American Dream. I’m supposed to be as well off as Charley according to my American Dream, I can’t be taking his offers. The American Dream is a sham!

I was just used up and thrown away like a piece of orange! Now, I can’t be worth just as much as an orange? I’m a man! A human being! I’m Willy Loman! I named you Howard, you were just a baby in your father’s arms and I named you! Oh, how could they do this to me? The people aren’t like they used to be. All these bricks and windows, they’ve changed things. Now every man is for himself! They’ve broken the deposit bottle, my deposit bottle!

I should have known. I should have left with you Ben. You were right, you were right! But it’s too late now. So, instead, I came up with this new idea. Listen Ben, I want you to consider. I want you to advise me. I value your advice. Listen, I came up with this a while ago but I finally made up my mind today. I even gave the waiter at that restaurant all my money. Well not all, thank God I had those spare changes left in my back pocket for the seeds. But anyways, the idea is this. You know that insurance I’ve been paying all my life? Now it’s about time they paid back. At least that deposit bottle isn’t broken. I’m going to do it Ben! What a proposition, ts, ts. Terrific terrific. ‘Cause she’s suffered, Ben, the woman has suffered. You understand me? You gotta consider, now. Don’t answer so quick. Remember. It’s a guaranteed twenty-thousand-dollar proposition. Twenty-thousand-dollars…

DoaS Project Reflection

My experience in this Death of a Salesman Project was a memorable one. Working with two of my close friends, Carly and Nicole, we all really got to express ourselves with literature in different ways than usual. When we first thought of the idea to all write a song together of Willy Loman’s tragic death and the play’s major themes such as capitalism and the American Dream, we never thought our project would turn out as great as it did (trust me).

My role in our group was to get video clips of the different movies made of DoaS, and work with Nicole to merge them all together to make it our own in a way. Carly and I also were in charge of song writing, which I had never really done before, so it was fun challenge. Singing with Carly happened to be one of the funniest experiences of my life. Every time we would start recording on GarageBand, she would start doing opera tones or making funny faces. I can honestly say this project was not a burden, but a creative and even fun, undertaking. Carly was definitely our group’s MVP I would say. Carly has the ability to always be managing many tasks at once and making it look so easy. I would say she was the most experience with using GarageBand and iMovie so she really has the foist (vocab, check) task of having to teach Nicole and I the basics.

Our group worked extremely together overall, we all took on a major task that needed to be accomplished and there was no major procrastinating or problems in the end. Our inspiration for this video and song write we performed was really a group idea we came up with up, having the intentions of making a modern day music video of Willy Loman’s tragic death. In the end, it was more technical than we thought it would be so we stuck to songwriting and video editing.

The major ideas conveyed in our project were Willy’s delusion of the American Dream and his pernicious ways and habits. We thought it was really interesting how Willy all his life had really been nothing but a cheater, always lying to himself and the people around him. In our song, we sing how Willy finally comes to terms with the cheating man, and dishonorable role model (he once was a real role model to Biff) he is. “I found the truth, When I realized my true income, Suicide is my only way out”. We wrote this line because it really portrays Willy’s desperateness at the end of the play. We wanted to show everyone how sad and hopeless Willy was at the end of his life. He had to end it.

Like I said before, working with GarageBand and iMovie was really the biggest challenge for us I think. We had to work outside our comfort zones and play around with it a little to really understand the program and see how much you could do with it. I really learned so much (seriously, I had never opened GarageBand before) with voice editing and effects you could use with such simple dialogue or sounds. I really enjoyed using this programs and will definitely be more open to using them in the future. Another fear, you could say, I overcame for this project was singing in front of the class. I mean, I already get florid every time a teacher called on me, how was I supposed to sing in front of my class? Talk about, stage fright. Anticipating the reactions of our fellow classmates and Mr. D of course, was one of the scariest aspects of our project. Lets face it, we don’t have a career in singing and it was quite embarrassing hearing our tone-deaf voices screeching for everyone to hear. I really had to learn to be comfortable and just laugh at it. (I hope it wasn’t too painful in the end).

This was a really enjoyable and educational way to reflect on one of the greatest pieces of history in American history. I am glad our class got the chance to read Death of a Salesman and really try to perceive life through Willy Loman’s eyes. I had a great time.

Reflection on DoaS project

Ben Nahmani

As soon as we got the project Taylor, Brian, and I immediately started blurting out ideas. When we finally settled in on one idea. We began to work on it. Our first idea was to rewrite key parts of the play when Willy is shown to be suffering, but instead make it so that everything is the exact opposite. Where Willy is jealous of Charlie, we would make it that Charlie would be jealous of Willy. Where Bernard was outsmarting Biff, we would make it that biff was more intelligent then Bernard was. We began writing down all of our ideas, when we came up with an even better one.

We decided to write about what would happen (in our heads) in Death of a Salesman if the Loman family received the life insurance check in the mail after Willy’s death. We wanted to make it so that they get the $20,000 and really change their lives around. We wanted biff and happy to open up their sporting goods store and be able to show it off the everyone. We wanted biff and happy to make both of their parents proud…

My role in the group was to help write the script with everyone and play the part of Biff when we act it out in class. I would like to say I was the MVP because I felt as though I came up with most of the ideas but I have to hand it to Taylor, because she was writing all of them down and even went the extra mile and typed it all up edited and re-edited it printed it all out and had a smile on her face the whole way through.

Although I wasn’t the MVP, I was still the “group leader” in that I was the glue between Taylor and Brian. I kept us on track and made sure we got all of our work done. We were inspired by Mr. Daszenski as well the exceptional way he pronounces vocabulary words. Words such as “gauche” (pronounced gosh). It’s easy to say I learned the meaning of this word as well as others because I would inculcate them to myself with flash cards I made.

I think our project is a perfect success because it came out exactly as I had hoped. It shows a continuation of a story… a happy ending with humor as well as Mr. Daszenski who plays Willy (for a line but a really important one). Next time I would work on our project even more then we already did because I feel as though it could have been even better or at least longer.

I will be working out of my comfort zone by acting in front on the class because as outgoing as I may be I still have some serious stage fright. I think that I will be fin acting out in front of the class because I am used to the kids in the class and they all have t come up and present as well. I hope it won’t be too much of a challenge because I haven’t done the hard part o my assignment but I am sure it will all be fine…

Good Bye

The smile I have on my face
is not a smile
A drop of water running down my cheek
I don't know whether if it's a tear or a flake of snow.
Just walking step by step,
wandering around in my past
on the street that we used to walk as a pair.
Now that I'm walking on it by myself,
I realize the emptiness
where you used to be.
The pain I'm having right now
is not from the scars you gave me
but from me sewing those scars in my heart
where you used to be.
I'm putting the memories of you in the falling snow
so that they can melt away when the spring comes.
Till then I will smile
but now...
I am walking on this street
where we used to be
-Joseph Rhee