Finals season is upon us, and that can mean different things depending on what classes a student is taking. While some Hellgate students are busy cramming for a five-page test on material covering the whole semester, others are finishing posters, or filming short clips in the hallway for their English classes. It seems as though in recent years at Hellgate more teachers have been assigning finals where students have more creative liberty in their work.
Junior Branden Roach has a few of each kind of final, depending on the class. When asked about what he preferred as far as the format of a final, Roach explained that it really depended on the material of the class. “I think it just depends on what the subject is, like for math I prefer a tested final because a project would be kind of weird,” said Roach
In Roach’s Latin class, after finishing their assigned poem translations of Ovid’s Amores Collection students were tasked with either rehabilitating an old fish tank, or painting a class mural. Roach worked on the fish tank, and enjoyed “having that final goal to look forward to that actually has an outcome where with a test you really only look forward to it being over.”
Junior Janelle Subrayan had a similar opinion to Roach when it came to what she preferred. “It depends on the class, because most of my science and math classes I prefer to have tests on, but for, like, the more creative classes like writing I like to do more creative projects that don’t only involve writing,” said Subrayan. When discussing If creative projects made her more excited to do the final, Subrayan said, “I don’t know, like at the end of the year I just want to get stuff done.”
For seniors who took IB or AP classes, most of their tests were done weeks before the school year was over. Since teachers had to find ways to fill the time left in class, many of them assigned creative “finals” in addition to the actual tests. For example, Ms. Arechaga had her students make posters about something that impacted how they see the world, their generation, their country, and the world as a whole. IB English teachers had their seniors watch an episode of Black Mirror, and then make their own episode with a “global issue” centered around Hellgate.
“I really loved my English final,” said senior Rowan Barrie. “We were given a lot of freedom to do what we wanted which was nice”. Barrie also explained how he felt as though it was easier for him to stay on task while working on something he enjoyed doing. “Doing something creative makes me more motivated to do a good job because I want what I create to be something I’m proud of.”
Though most of the students interviewed were in favor of creative, laid back final projects, It must be acknowledged that not every student feels this way. While interviewing Barrie, he brought up that some students taking IB English were not fans of the creative final, and would have preferred to write another essay instead. This led to a discussion about whether or not teachers should offer a variety of options for their students to choose from for their final. Barrie’s response was in support: “I think that would be great, I know that some students prefer traditional tests and there are times where I don’t like all the creative projects for some of my classes.”
