Nolan Menchaca
Story Book
STEM Foundations
Making Storybooks for 5th-6th Graders
I have grown in craftsmanship in STEM foundations. I now spend a lot more time on a project because when I rush, my work looks sloppy and you can tell I didn’t spend a lot of time on the work. We are working on craftsmanship in world history because we are researching a person for a breakfast meal and we are supposed to be like the person we are researching and Mr. Pant is giving us a lot of time to researcher and prepare so our character has craftsmanship.
A project that supported this growth was that storybook project. For this project we were working with a partner to make a storybook that was for 5th and 6th graders. We had to include a wellness topic from the effective communications that could teach the reader in an age appropriate way. The storybook had to have at least 8 spreads which means 8 pages that have a picture or text on each side when you flip pages. When we finished making the book we sent them to an organization of our choice.
An artifact that shows my growth is my final draft of an illustration from the storybook project. This shows growth in craftsmanship because in my first draft of this illustration, there were lines that were bolder then other lines and there were places that were more shaded than others. What we did to help this was, we used the same pencil because there were different styles of pencils because one can have a thicker lead which makes the marks darker. We used the same pencil for the border so it would be the same shade. What we did for the shading was, Ms. WA gave us a tortillian which is paper that is rolled up very tightly and we use that to shade and we shaded in only one direction so it was equal.
Another artifact that shows my growth is the cover for my storybook. This shows my growth because my first draft of this was unbalanced because the characters were all on one side of the page and the title was in the top right corner so it was very unbalanced. We got a critique from our classmates that they could tell us what they would change and how to make it better. One of the comments we got was about centering the images to make the cover more balanced and the title to be in the middle of the page.
This will help me in the future because craftsmanship is when your work is neat and nice so the work that I do in the future would be the best that I could so it could help me get better grades or jobs. I need to work on taking my time when I have it because if I rush through a project my craftsmanship will not be very good.
