For our Civic Engagement unit, my group created a short film based on the GCE value of autonomy. Our goal was to inspire youth to be autonomous despite not getting support from their schools. To do this, we interviewed students in Chicago Public Schools who work hard as artists even though they don’t have good art classes at school. We also had to create a lesson plan that went along with our theme. Throughout the process, we kept a daily journal. The entry I most enjoyed writing was after we had spent a day shooting scenes of the city around downtown Chicago. We got some great footage at Millennium Park and on the CTA, some which made it into our movie and others that didn’t. One scene that didn’t make it into our movie but that was fun to film was when we hung letters spelling out “autonomy” on dumpsters downtown. It was entertaining to see the reactions of  passing people as they tried to figure out why this word was hanging in an alley. It was a small part of our bigger goal to get people thinking about autonomy and how it fits in their life.