Capstone Blog post #1

A few weeks ago our class started a big project. It’s called capstone. Capstone is when we choose a topic and then choose a specific question about the topicand research about it. We have 3 choices of how to present it. Our choices are to do an ignite, TED talk, or a movie. I was nervous because I didn’t know what to do for my topic.

The first step was to make a topic. I chose to do Hawaiian Culture because it is unique and interesting. But it was too big of a topic so I decided to do something apart from Hawaiian Culture. My choices were Hawaiian myths, Hula Dancing, or Hawaiian traditions. After researching these topics, I ended up choosing Hula dancing because it is more than dancing. It’s also a way the Hawaiians tell storys.

After thinking of our topic we had to make a question to focus on. There were 4 levels of how good the question could be. The best were level 3 and 4. I wanted my question to show how hula dancing has evolved over time. I wanted to talk about more than the dance. I wanted to talk about the instruments, the clothes, and the chants. So I asked my teacher for help and she helped me think of a question. My finla question is, “What factors have had the most impact on the evolution of Hawaiian hula dancing?”. This question is a level 4, it shows how hula has evolved over time, and I can talk more about the dance.

After thinking of our main question we had to come up with sub questions. These sub questions would be questions about our big topic. We had to make 5 sub questions. Siome challenges were making the sub questions fit my topic. Another thing that was hard was trying to make the sub questions different from each other. These are my sub questions, What is hula? Why is hula significant to Hawaiian culture? How do hula kahiko (Ancient Hula) and hula auana (Modern Hula) compare? How did hula spread around Hawaii? And What influenced hula over time?

Overall I am happy about my topic, main question, and sub questions. I am excited to learn more about hula dancing.