eNgLisH 8 rOckS!: 2014

What is Your Life's Blueprint?

Legacy Project 2018

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Read the speech by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Write a short summary of King's overall message.

Answer the following questions:

How is your life significant?
What opportunities do you have that your parents did not?
What are your gifts? How do you share them with the world?
What does King mean by his last sentences:

"Be a bush if you can't be a tree.
If you can't be a highway, just be a trail.
If you can't be a sun, be a star.
For it isn't size that you win or fail.
Be the best of whatever you are."

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"Wear Sunscreen"

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What is Your Legacy?

legacy |ˈlegəsē|

noun ( pl. legacies )

an amount of money or property left to someone in a will.

• a thing handed down by a predecessor: the legacy of centuries of neglect.

As your final project for English, you will be presenting/sharing the best of YOU! Think about where you were when you entered middle school, how you have grown, and where you are now.

The product is wide open; here are some ideas: painting, piece of art, poem, song,video, video clip, slice of flash fiction, blog, performance (dance, piano piece, etc,), cooking, acting, quote, parkour, rap, gymnastics, photography, storyboard.

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Fill out this form by class:

CURRY BRADACH: LEGACY PROJECT SIGN UP

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Legacy Reflection: Compose at least 1/2 page reflecting on your project and what it means to you.

You may answer some of the following questions:

How did you begin _____?
How has _____ helped you grow or change you as a person?
How will you continue _____ in your future?

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Here are some examples:

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University of Texas Commencement Speech

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What would you do if you could design

your own education, and life?

Let's Hear From a Kid: Logan LaPorte

"We teach kids how to earn a living, but why don't we teach kids how to happy and healthy? Why isn't that part of the curriculum?"

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Do You Have A Good Eulogy Resume? Advice From People Over 100.
by James Altucher

I was cleaning out my closet this morning and what I found made me cry.

I found an envelope filled with objects that I had somehow missed when I was throwing stuff out a few months ago. I recognized the handwriting immediately.

It was from someone who had been dead for 15 years. I must have been carrying this around with me everywhere.

It contained all sorts of notes, articles, and objects my grandfather had collected about me over the years.

Whenever I called him he apparently wrote notes in meticulous handwriting about what we spoke about, particularly if I got a good grade on a test or was proud of something.

There's also about 40 baseball cards in there that I had collected when I was eight years old (I could see on the backs of the cards when they were from) that he thought might be worth something (Joe Torre, Pete Rose, etc).

He also saved my very first resume. It was pathetic. "Wrote a program to simulate water flows in the Agronomy Department". What? I can't even remember that job.

"Related Courses" I have "Discrete Structures". Little did I know that I ended up not being very "discreet".

And now, I'm embarrassed to say, under "Interests" I put "Kung Fu". What the hell?

And I had my two addresses. My college address and my "permanent address" which is where my parents lived and I guess I still felt that was "home".

But my grandparents saved it. Maybe I would need the paper version one day to remind me of my many accomplishments at age 21.

I showed the envelope to Claudia. She read every note in there. She said, "they must have loved you" and I guess they did.

Grandparents, no matter how crazy they were in their lives, tend to love grandchildren. I would call them and tell them all my plans ("wants to be Governor after he is President so he can relax" says a note from when I was 12 years old) and they would listen.

Love is a gift that is given. Accepting the love is the gift you can give back. I wonder if I accepted it enough with them.

Nobody at my funeral will bring up "Discrete Structures". And certainly nobody will bring up "Agronomy" or what my permanent address was. And please, God, I confess to lying about the Kung Fu part. Don't hold it against me!

There's the work resume and then there's your eulogy resume, which I hope for me is totally different.

I hope people will say:

He was always incredibly lucky, even when times were hard. And he wasn't afraid to say he was lucky. He didn't think it would jinx him.
He had incredibly low expectations, so this way he could always exceed them and be grateful.
He gave us love and we took it.
He always said, "there's always a good reason and a real reason" because he wanted to help us with the real reasons and not the good reasons.
He told us growth and curiosity is more important than achievements and facts.
He told us to help people.
He made me laugh and now he's making me cry.
I hope my kids say, he never judged us. But I'm afraid I have to work at that.
I hope Claudia says I always put her first, although I think I have to work on that also. (I promise I'll clean out the pantry. Just let me finish!)
I hope my friends say, he was always there for me. But I'm not sure that's true.

I think I have to work on all of these things. A work resume is a snapshot in time with one goal: to get a job.

A eulogy resume is the sum of your experiences, not the sum of your jobs or the things you own.

It's the collection of the thoughts you've left everyone with. Make sure you hand out the right thoughts to the right people.

But this might be a long time from now.

On my resume that I found this morning it says, under "Objective", "to find a creative and challenging position".

I'm still on the lookout for that. The meaning of that changes every day.

I didn't always listen to my grandparents. So now I want to spend more time listening to my elders. They've spent a long time figuring the way through this maze.

Here's some people over the age of 100 who I am sure will have good eulogy resumes. Maybe one day I can be one of them.