Matthew Gagarin

Mentor Visit

14 February 2020

Evidence of Learning #3

My second visit with my mentor consisted of me sitting in on her capstone class once

again. This time, she asked me to prepare four objects that describe me in an anthropological

manner, and that I would participate with her students during her lesson. Personally, I brought a

fountain pen, my favorite book House of Leaves, a bird toy, and a wooden heart that I carved

from construction. My pen stood for how I love to write, as well as ink. I have a background in

creative writing and I wanted to show the more creative side of me. My book showed my passion

for reading. House of Leaves is a very lengthy book, with a very creative way to tell the story.

The way that it tells its story shows my inquisitiveness in learning the real horror of the novel.

My bird toy represented how I am an animal lover, as I grew up surrounded by animals and I still

have lots of pets today. Finally, my wooden heart is my crafty side, as well as my hardworking

capabilities.

The reason I brought these things to the class, I discovered, was that at the end, we would

go around again and share traits about each other. Afterwards, Dr. Eiselt asked if we had certain

traits like empathetic, creative, open minded, hard working, and passionate. She explained that

these traits are what make up a good anthropologist. Looking around the room, many of us

shared these same thing traits. This was an interesting and interactive way to explain common

traits around the room.

While I was there, I also saw some Lego labs. They were these archaeological dig site

builds made out of legos. They had a variety of bones in the 3D model. The purpose of the lab
was to teach students how to map out artifacts in a dig in a tangible and easy manner. I took note

of this because my final project would be something similar to it, as I wanted to have a tangible

model that is interactive yet accurate and informative to show people how real archaeology

works.