Sidney Jones
Digital Portfolio
Imperialism Monologue
The imperialism monologue was a world history and language arts project. In the imperialism monologue, we had to portray a character that lived as an aggressor or target during a countries time of imperial rule. We created the character based on research. The monologue had to be historically accurate, all details had to be accurate and answer the one of these three questions. How was your character/country ruled, how did they resist and what was the aftermath? Students acted out real events and had to display every emotion their character felt. The time limit was 2-3 minutes. I struggled the most in showing emotion while preforming. When I would practice my monologue for a small group of classmates, my feedback would mostly be about me being monotone.
An artifact I would use to demonstrate this challenge is a video of me reading my monologue. I was reading one of my first drafts. That was also the first time I ever read my full monologue aloud. When I was reading it, I thought I was putting in emotion, but that is not seen in the video. In my head, I thought I already sounded emotional. But then I saw the video, I realized I needed to give more then what I originally thought.
My second artifact would be my first draft of my monologue. My first draft was very short and basic. Having basic lines makes the monologue emotionless, because what I’m saying wouldn't be as impactful. If the monologue is basic, it can leave questions and be more confusing for the audience.
My final artifact would be my final draft. This was built from all of my student and teacher feedback. The added details to the final draft make the monologue more personal, therefore the monologue more impactful to the audience. I added the death of a family member, which is a very emotional time in the character's life. By adding this scene, I had to practice even more so I could show the appropriate emotions. Giving specific details to the audience, such as an occupation and family members, it helps them the circumstances of understand the story.
In the video, all I am doing is reading my script entirely monotone, but I never would have noticed without out the video. While reading, I thought I was giving enough emotion but that was not conveyed in the video. The video allowed me to know what to practice and lead me to a 100% on my monologue performance. The first draft of my monologue is a short basic script. An unemotional monologue may have contributed to my unemotional reading. So continuous revision and feedback of the first draft also lead me to a perfect performance. The final draft of monologue included an emotional event, which allowed me to portray more emotion in my final monologue performance, which is the final reason why I accomplished an ideal monologue performance.