Emilio Zarate

Dr. Preston
English 3
June 8th, 2015
Masterpiece Final Paper
During the beginning of this course, we the students were given a choice as
to whether we would want this class to be a traditional English class or be a part of
Open Source Learning. At that same moment, Dr. Preston showed a large amount of
trust in us. There were a lot of complications, misunderstandings, and even injuries
but with that same trust came really good masterpiece presentations. Throughout
the year I think Ive shown more effort in some areas where it interested me. My
masterpiece presentation shows that effort. Staying up until 3 or 4 in the morning
on the weekend not because I had to finish it, but because I had an idea on how to
make my presentation better. I really believe that I deserved that trust we got from
Dr. Preston.
We read many books and forms of literature this year in class but only a few
caught my interest. Young Goodman Brown was one of them. Books can catch my
attention and get me interested in reading them when the story can foreshadow bit
by bit. I feel like I can understand the story more towards the end. Another books
that we read in class was Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. The overall story/plot
was amazing but I feel like the modern society part of it related a lot to our society
now. Brave New World in a way foretold a society that we may one day live in. There
were some pretty eye opening aspects of the book where modern society was
shown, and I thought that was really cool and interesting. Finally, a book that I
chose which was really interesting to read was Band of Brothers by Stephen E.
Ambrose. My history teacher was talking about this topic on the war against France.
The history on the battle of D-Day on the Normandy beaches intrigued me and I
knew I was going to be studying this when I got to U.S history my junior year.
In preparation for the masterpiece presentations, I knew what it was going to
be on. Skateboarding is my one and only true passion in life, everything else like
sports and hobbies come and go in my life but skateboarding has always stuck with
me. Ive been skateboarding for about 12 years now and this is the only way to
express my feeling or release stress. This masterpiece presentation didnt reconnect
me with skateboarding but it did reassure me that this is what I want to do for the
rest of my life until the day I physically cant do it anymore.
At times humor is found in literature work such as Catcher In The Rye. The
part that made me laugh was the part when Holden is getting the typical lecture by

his history teacher. Holden was basically not paying attention because hes had that
talk before plenty of times. Also I feel like most students at school do the same
thing and everyone can relate to that moment in some way.
A theme I saw in most masterpiece presentations was the power of unity in a
certain passion/drive. Most presentations people came together and collaborated to
make something of value. In Isaiahs presentation when he was cutting hair ion the
middle of the class room, Carlos Guerrero went up there and started cutting hair too
and they shared that moment because barbering brought them together. Thats
how a passion brings people together.
Throughout this course I believe that I have gone through a heros journey. I
faced some tough challenges like reading a book that didnt really interest me and
then I faced smaller challenges like not knowing how to work a blog. The outcome of
this was finding myself and connecting with my passion for skateboarding. That is
my heros journey.