Capstone Project Proposal Draft

Name of student: Cas Zaye

Date: 2/28/2022
Teacher: Ms. Lacroix
Capstone strand I have chosen is Project strand
Proposed title for my project: The Tale of Fiddle Feeling Out of Place.

What is your inquiry question that interests you for further research? It should be a question that
connects with a purpose, passion or personalized area of interest for you. This is a question that
you cannot just google an answer for. Please see examples from your Capstone booklet.
My inquiry question is:

Why is a sense of belonging with peers so important for children?

Rationale/context: Detail your reasons for choosing this inquiry question. Explain WHY you are
choosing to investigate this topic as a major area of focus. How does this area of inquiry connect
to your passion(s), purpose? Why is it of personal interest to you?

I am choosing to investigate this topic because I find psychology in children to be fascinating. I

love learning about the way their brains work because, honestly, children are elusive
creatures. Knowing how they think and why they do certain things can be crucial to teaching
them in ways that work, as well as parenting a child in the best possible way.

Background: What background knowledge/connections/prior learning do you have in this

area of inquiry?

When I was a kid, I was always really lonely and I felt like nobody wanted me around, so I
didn’t exactly have that common sense of belonging, meaning I know how it feels. I also grew
up in a household that wasn’t very nurturing, I mean, I always had a roof over my head and
the bare minimum amount of food to survive but for a lot of my childhood, I felt that I was an
inconvenience. Which, to a child is very damaging to development as it doesn’t allow them to
properly fall back or depend on their peers or even their family.

Career connections: What is your intended career area at this point in time? What
connections does this inquiry question have to your life, academic and/ or career goals?

My intended/dream career is to be an author. I want to tell my story, because I know people

will be able to relate to it. Ultimately, I want to help people. This inquiry question makes me
think of the best way to understand/help those who can’t help themselves, it ties into my goal

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 of wanting to help people in any way I can.

Interdisciplinary and core competencies connections: What subject areas and core
competencies will be connected with your project? Outline and explain the connections.

Personal Awareness & Responsibility

 I can set goals, regulate my emotions and persevere in difficult situations.
This project is going to be difficult, and I know I am going to struggle with finding the
motivation to work on it but I know how important this it is going to be to just push through and
try my best. I also know that this project is going to bring up a lot of hard things for me
because it actively touches on a part of me that I haven’t quite healed from, so I need to make
sure I am paying attention to how I am feeling during the process of this project.
Social Responsibility
 I am aware of my community and environment and work independently and
collaboratively for the benefit of others.
My capstone isn’t for me. It is going to be for the kids that are like me when I was younger, for
the ones who feel like they are problems for their peers. I want nothing more than to assure
them that they do belong, and that no matter what, things will eventually fall into place and
they will realize that it is okay to be different and that they are important.
Critical Thinking
 I can analyze and critique my work and my learning.
Because I am taking something that I have already done, and I am adding to it and
editing/fine tuning, I need to be able to be critical of my story. If I don’t criticize my work, and I
don’t analyze it properly, there is a possibility that I miss a key component and my capstone
does not come out the way I want it to.
Creative Thinking
 I can create new and unique ideas that may provide new perspectives that
influence how people think about topics.
My main goal for my capstone is to create something that inspires people. Those people may
be children, but ultimately they are people regardless. I want said children to gain a new
outlook on the way they perceive themselves and their peers. With that, would come the
inspiration of parents to teach kids about differences as I believe it is so important for anyone
of any age to know.
Communication
 I can engage in deep and meaningful inquiry for a variety of purposes and
audiences.
The main bulk of this project for me is research and development. It will do me so much good
to understand how children's brains work, and the main reason why that sense of belonging is
so important. The actual creation of my project, like the story book part is easy enough for me
but at this time, I lack the understanding of how children develop and I know that will improve
with inquiry and research.
Personal & Cultural Identity
 I understand how to use my strengths and abilities to my advantage and I can
explain how I use them to contribute to my community.
Being a writer is a passion of mine, and I would even say I am relatively good at it. For my

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 capstone, I am using that strength to help out my community on a personal level. I am
allowing a piece of myself and my childhood to be seen by my community in order to offer a
new perspective into how we view belonging and differences. Writing is a vulnerable thing for
me, and being able to use it for a good reason is going to be a very satisfying feeling.

Capstone Presentation medium: select one or more project mediums you wish to use to
present your project. Outline and give details about how you will present your project once
completed. You may use a combination of mediums.
o Electronic portfolio: Prezi or PPT
o Physical portfolio
o Website
o iMovie presentation
o YouTube channel

Electronic Portfolio: I want to present my storybook via PowerPoint. The reason behind this
being that I can illustrate my story without ruining the quality of my story. PowerPoint allows
for many different ideas in terms of illustration, and it creates a clean look. I intend of having
each slide as a page in my book, each of them are going to have the text, as well as a well-
illustrated page.

Description of my Capstone project. Specific Project Details of the Capstone Project: what
will you research, create, study, produce, solve, investigate? What product will be produced
at the end of this project for evaluation. Write a one-page description outlining your
proposal.

For my capstone, I want to create a children’s book. This book is called The Tale of Fiddle
Feeling Out of Place, and it is about a frog named Fiddle. Fiddle feels like because he is
physically different from the other frogs, he doesn’t belong in their community. My main goal
for this capstone is to be able to answer the question as to why a sense of belonging is so
important for children, and I feel like writing a children’s book would resonate enough to help
me better understand their minds. It is also a personal project as well, because it helps me
feel like I am expressing what I went through as a kid, and how I want it to benefit children
who may feel the same way.

Resources/ Technology/Skills: Make an assessment of the resources, technology and

skills you will need to be able to complete this project. What is your plan to be able to
access/learn all of the resources necessary to achieve completion of this project? Detail
your plans.

I will need a computer of some sorts, which could be either a school laptop or my personal
home computer. With that computer, I need access to PowerPoint, which is easily accessible,
as well as the ability to use PowerPoint. This part honestly seems redundant, but all of this is
very important to the process of creating my capstone. I need to find out how to use

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 PowerPoint in terms of being able to illustrate an entire kids story, and that sounds easy
enough, right? Here's to hoping it is easy. Anyways, I intend of trying to teach myself how to
use the animation feature that PowerPoint has to offer as well as I want to learn what the best
way to organize my story would be.

Mentors/Community Connections: What types of mentor(s)/community connections will

you need to help you complete your capstone project? How will your mentor(s) help you?
What is your plan to access the mentorship/community connections necessary for this
project?

I will need to find a mentor that has experience writing a children’s book, as well as one that
has illustrated one. These mentors are going to be a very important part of my learning
process., as they have first-hand experience. I have a feeling they will be able to give me tips
and tricks on how to go about creating the vision I have, as well as they will be able to give me
a different perspective on the process. I may be able to find a mentor via Mrs. Koehler, or Mr.
Leonard as I believe they both have connections to publishers.

Project limitations: What are some project limitations and potential obstacles that you foresee
that might affect progress with your Capstone Project?

I might run into the problem of not being able to find a suitable mentor. For example, a trusted
person that has the qualifications to give me guidance in writing this children’s book.

Other considerations: List and detail any other related information/ considerations about
your project that you feel should be included in your project proposal.

References:

Attach a REFERENCE LIST. Your list should be written using correct APA formatting.
An example is provided on page 21 of your Capstone booklet.

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