DESERET NEWS - KSL STERLING SCHOLAR AWARDS

2017 STUDENT ENTRY FORM

Name Of Nominee: Anthony Giorgio

School: Academy for Math Engineering and Science Category: English

Personal Biography
My name is Anthony Giorgio, and I am a senior at the Academy for Math, Engineering & Science. I am an excellent student, a National
Merit scholar commended student, and an excellent writer––but beyond writing, I also engage with the English language by teaching
others, at varying skill levels, how to use and understand it proficiently. I have produced one original screenplay, which is in post-
production, and beginning pre-production on my second. I would like to be a Sterling Scholar because, per week, I often spend enough
time in my subject area to qualify as a part time job, and this is in addition to the time I spend on academics and paid work. I've shown
significant dedication to excellence in the English language, and I'd like the opportunity to be recognized and given the prestige and
authority associated with Sterling Scholar.

American College Testing (ACT) -

English: 36 Math: 33 Reading: 31 Sci./Reasoning: 34 Composite: 34

Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) -

Reading: Mathematics: Writing:

Grade Point Average: 3.997 Class Ranking: 6/105

Supporting Attachment - Transcript

ANTHONY MARK GIORGIO
7591 S. KINGS BRIDGE
DRIVE
WEST JORDAN, UT 84084
(801)352-0652
Student Transcript
SSID: 1051808 AMES (District Level)
Gender: M
ID: 2145 ACDMY FOR MATH ENG & SCI
Birth Date: 4/13/2000
Grade: 12 5715 South 1300 East
Grad Year: 2018 Salt Lake City, UT 84121
(801)278-9460

State Term Grades

Grade
Site Core Code Description Credit 1 2 3 4 5 6
2014-2015 School Year
9 Academy for Math Engr 09040000040 AP Human Geography 0.500 A A
& Sci
9 Academy for Math Engr 02010000060 Art of Engineering 1.000 A A A A
& Sci
9 Academy for Math Engr 15000000008 College Forum *0.250 P P P P
& Sci
9 Academy for Math Engr 32020000240 Computer Tech 0.500 A A
& Sci
9 Academy for Math Engr 08040000010 Earth Science 0.500 A A
& Sci
9 Academy for Math Engr 08040000010 Earth Science 0.500 A A
9 & Sci
Academy for Math Engr 06020000045 English 9 1.000 A A A A
& Sci - Electronic H S
9 USOE 01000000100 Financial Literacy 0.500 A A-
9 Academy for Math Engr 02040300040 Guitar 0.500 A A
9 & Sci
Academy for Math Engr 09040000040 Human Geography H 0.500 A A
& Sci
9 Academy for Math Engr 35020000005 Intro Info Tech 0.500 A A
& Sci
9 Academy for Math Engr 07080000105 Sec. Math 2 H 0.500 A A
9 & Sci
Academy for Math Engr 07080000105 Sec. Math 2 H 0.500 A A
& Sci
9 Academy for Math Engr 03070000031 Spanish 3 1.000 A A A A
& Sci
9 Academy for Math Engr 02010000101 Studio Art 1B 0.500 A A
& Sci School Year Credit: 8.75 School Year GPA: 3.990 * = Not included in GPA
2015-2016 School Year
10 Academy for Math Engr 02010000021 AP Art History 0.500 A A
& Sci
10 Academy for Math Engr 09050000025 AP World History 0.500 A A
& Sci
10 Academy for Math Engr 09050000025 AP World History 0.500 A A
& Sci
10 Academy for Math Engr 02010000020 Art History 0.500 A A
& Sci
10 Academy for Math Engr 08060000010 Astronomy 0.500 A A
& Sci
10 Academy for Math Engr 08020000010 Biology H 0.500 A A
& Sci
10 Academy for Math Engr 08020000010 Biology H 0.500 A A
& Sci
10 Academy for Math Engr 15000000008 College Forum *0.250 P P P P
& Sci
10 Academy for Math Engr 15000000020 Drivers Education (summer) 0.500 A
& Sci
10 Academy for Math Engr 06020000055 English 10 1.000 A A A A
& Sci
10 Academy for Math Engr 06010000080 Humanities 0.500 A A
& Sci
10 Academy for Math Engr 07080000115 Sec. Math 3 H 1.000 A A A A
10 & Sci
Academy for Math Engr 03070000041 Spanish 4 1.000 A A A A
& Sci
10 Academy for Math Engr Teacher Aide *1.000 P P P P
& Sci
10 Academy for Math Engr 25010000010 Teacher Aide *0.250 P
10 & Sci
Academy for Math Engr 02030000002 Theatre 2 1.000 A A A A
& Sci School Year Credit: 10.00 School Year GPA: 4.000 * = Not included in GPA
2016-2017 School Year
11 Academy for Math Engr 07040000001 AP Calculus 1.000 A A A A
& Sci
11 Academy for Math Engr 09070000001 AP Psychology 1.000 A A A A
& Sci
11 Academy for Math Engr 09050000060 AP US History H 0.500 A A
& Sci
11 Academy for Math Engr 09050000060 AP US History H 0.500 A A
& Sci
11 Academy for Math Engr 08030000012 Chemistry H 0.500 A A
& Sci
11 Academy for Math Engr 08030000012 Chemistry H 0.500 A A
& Sci
11 Academy for Math Engr 15000000008 College Forum *0.250 P P P P
& Sci
11 Academy for Math Engr 06020000065 English 11 1.000 A A A A
& Sci
11 Northridge Learning 04050000010 Health *0.500 P P
11 Academy for Math Engr 41000000030 Internship 1.000 A A A A
& Sci
11 Academy for Math Engr 04020000056 Weight Training 0.500 A A
& Sci School Year Credit: 7.25 School Year GPA: 4.000 * = Not included in GPA
2017-2018 School Year
12 Academy for Math Engr 09060000020 AP US Govt. and Citizenship 0.500 A A
& Sci
12 Academy for Math Engr 15000000008 College Forum *0.125 P P
& Sci
12 Academy for Math Engr 08060000020 Physics H 0.500 A A
& Sci
12 Academy for Math Engr 07040013020 U of U College Algebra 1050 0.500 A A
& Sci
12 Academy for Math Engr 06010013080 U of U Race & Gender 2001 0.500 A A
& Sci
12 Academy for Math Engr 06010013116 U of U Writing 1010 0.500 A A
& Sci
12 Academy for Math Engr 04020000056 Weight Training 0.500 A A
& Sci School Year Credit: 3.13 School Year GPA: 4.000 * = Not included in GPA
Transcript Summary Cumulative Credit: 29.13 Cumulative GPA: 3.997 Class Rank: 6 of 105 (ranked 1/18/2018 at
ACDMY FOR MATH ENG & SCI)
Mark/GPA Value: A=4.00 | A-=3.67 | B+=3.33 | B=3.00 | B-=2.67 | C+=2.33 | C=2.00 | C-=1.67 | D+=1.33 | D=1.00 | D-=.67 | F=.00
Citizenship Codes: H=Honor | N=Needs Improvement | S=Satisfactory | U=Unsatisfactory

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ANTHONY MARK GIORGIO Student Transcript
Civics Exam Passed
ACT Date Composite English English/Writing Mathematics Reading Science
2/2017 32 35 31 31 31
6/2017 34 36 9 33 31 34
ACT test scores are not official. Official scores must be requested directly from ACT by the student.

(Not official unless signed and sealed)

___________________________________________ ______________________________ ___________________
Signature Title Date
Accredited by the Northwest Accreditation Commission (NWAC) a division of AdvancED
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Supporting Attachment - Letter of Recommendation
January 5, 2018

Dear Sterling Scholar Committee:

It is my privilege to write a letter of recommendation for Anthony Giorgio. Anthony was

a student in my Fall 2017 University of Utah Writing 1010 class and is currently a student in my
Spring 2018 WRTG 2010 class. I teach these university courses at the Academy of Math,
Engineering, and Sciences.
Despite being a high school student, Anthony quickly rose to the challenge of being in
and excelling in a university course. Anthony comes to class each week eager to learn and
always adds to classroom discussions. He approaches each assignment with thoughtful
enthusiasm and a good work ethic—often going above and beyond what is required. His papers
are complex and engaging. I love reading Anthony’s work. In particular, the research paper he
wrote about artificial intelligence and a robot named Erica stands out in my mind as one of the
most fascinating and well-written papers I read last semester.
In class, Anthony is warm and friendly to his fellow students and has a naturally
considerate disposition. He is always looking for ways to help or be involved. In addition to his
ambitious high school class schedule he has participated in many community and extracurricular
activities. Anthony has devoted extensive time to helping other students and giving back to his
community. In addition to being a teacher’s assistant for various classes, Anthony has
volunteered many hours of his time every year to assist his fellow students. In particular, last
year Anthony volunteered 60 hours to tutor immigrant and refugee students in ESL classes.
Anthony’s insatiable love of learning means he always comes to class with an open mind,
ready to discover something new. Anthony’s creativity extends to many different areas, such as
film, visual art, and writing. He has a passionate interest in filmmaking, and has already spent
considerable time creating and working on various film projects independently and with other
students. I’ve also been impressed with his creative work in my writing class, such as a clever
and captivating poem that offered a unique and heartfelt twist on the Frankenstein story.
Anthony strikes me as a well-rounded person and someone who is deeply passionate about any
project he sets his mind to.
I truly believe Anthony could pursue almost any discipline of study he wanted and
succeed. He has a practical mindset and a good work ethic in addition to a strong creative streak.
I have no doubt this flexibility will benefit him in whatever career he pursues. It is a true
pleasure to be Anthony Giorgio’s teacher and I am proud to recommend Anthony for Sterling
Scholar. I firmly believe he is deserving of this honor.

Sincerely,

Erin Rogers
Adjunct Instructor
University of Utah Writing Department

In 20 words or less, list up to six activities, honors and awards relating to your category.
1. Produced my own feature-length screenplay
2. Apprenticed to a published poet through Salt Lake Teens Write
3. Peer Tutored English 10H
4. Helped design curriculum for English 10H Shakespeare unit
5. Have written two feature-length screenplays and over 200 drafts of poetry
6. Published in Salt Lake Teens Write 2017 Anthology

Choose one of the activities, honors or awards, describe it briefly and explain why it was meaningful to you. What did you learn
and what did you accomplish?
I was skeptical of TeensWrite, probably because of my own adolescent arrogance. In my own mind, I was the only one that could teach
me to write. In some form I still believe that, but my mentor, Walt, made me more willing to accept help––from people who also believe
it.
We, the teens, all were sat in a circle with the adults, preparing for an ice-breaker game. I was unenthused. The game was a type of
musical chairs, except the one person that remained standing would state something about him or herself, and everyone that had that
thing in common with the person would stand and search for a chair. The oldest member of the group stood, towering over the rest of us,
wearing a black and white Adidas tracksuit. He said “I’m only 6’7” on Wednesdays,” and of course nobody stood, but I snickered. I
turned to a friend of mine and told him I want the old guy.
As it turned out, the old guy’s name was Walt, and he was selected to be my mentor. I appreciated his absurdist sense of humour, but the
fun was silenced as I sat down for our first meeting.
“Alright, smart guy––write me a poem.”
I balked, but I did what I was good at––I wrote three good couplets. He asked me to write a poem with a theme, so I wrote one, and it
followed an ABABCDCD sort of pattern, with a couple nice couplets at the end and some lovely internal rhyming. He read it. He told me
I must think I’m clever, and he was right. He gave me an assignment for next time, and told me not to let it rhyme.
But that’s what I’m good at! I wrote a poem about things I see in the halls of my high school when I walk around at lunch. The poem
technically would not have qualified as a rhyming poem, per say, as I placed no rhymes at the end of any line, but clung to my internal
rhymes––my music, my assonance and consonance, my dactylic feet. Walt, as I should have expected him to, called B.S. I was all form
and no substance, a skilled technician with nothing real to say. For an hour, he eviscerated my poem, I defended it; me fighting for my
technique in the name of style, and him fighting me, trying to wrest my crutch from my hands. At the end of the lesson, he gave me a
new assignment, and he swore he would quit as a mentor if it didn’t knock his socks off. He told me to write a poem about my father, and
under absolutely no circumstances would it rhyme.
I wrote “No Excuses”, one of the poems included in this portfolio. That was in November of 2016. I have filled six notebooks with
handwritten poetry since then. Walt and I still meet on weekends.

Supporting Attachment - Category Description

 Poetry

Table of Contents

1. A Little Brass Lock

2. Her Oldest Child

3. Walt, as I See Him

4. To Rockford & Mr. Ginsberg

5. On the Subject of Syrian Immigration

6. Love-ism

7. Get Over It
A Little Brass Lock

on an old, wood door

glints with the
afternoon sun.

A white door,
yellowed in the
wet, green air.

Cracked paint peels,

the house leans
on a poplar tree out front.

The rocker,
stuck and still
on the porch--

and that little brass lock

shines
like the Mississippi sun.
her oldest child

one day as i worked the counter

at my summer job (i was fifteen),
this woman walked up, about ten years
older than i am now (i am seventeen),
and she had two kids in tow, with at least
one on the way, and she seemed tired.
now i do not fancy myself an artist,
but i had been doodling,
and the little red bird that i drew (for red was the colour
of my only pen) with its wings outstretched
was actually quite good.
and this woman, she
she stopped asking for
what she had been looking for
(by that i mean,
what she had needed my help to find)
and she asked instead
if i liked to draw.
sometimes , i said,
and as though i had asked, she said:

yeah, my husband used to draw.

when he was in high school he drew
this dragon that was, like, pretty cool.

and my heart broke

for this man who used to draw,
and for the woman that fell in love with him
before he stopped. (her oldest child
looked to be about nine)
Walt, as I See Him

6-foot-7 & 73 years old

Moved from Rhode Island to
New York City at 19.
Sang in mafia bars,
sang on broadway,
worked as a bouncer.
Then I imagine
he bummed around,
walked “aul Simon’s
streets of cobblestone
for twenty-odd years. At 50,
he found himself in the words
of “hilip Levine.
Learned poetry in an L.A. furnace
that made grown actors sweat,
crack and cry.

Utah is where he hangs his hat now,

a black ball cap
that sits on the table in front of me.
He sets down a fresh notebook,
hands me a pen,
lectures me on Ezra “ound,
tells me the rules of poetry
and asks me to ignore them.
Write me a line of poetry he says,
so I write a couplet which does not satisfy.
I guess you’re clever he says flatly.
No time to be delicate.
If it doesn’t rhyme, what makes it poetry?
I do not know, because I haven’t read
much of that, and never written it
but I muster I suppose it’s a broth
made from the bones of prose.
I was proud of that.
Maybe you’re right, hell if I know.
He challenges me to write
one good, clean sentence,
and if it means anything,
it’s probably poetry.
To Rockford & Mr. Ginsberg
after Howl by Allen Ginsberg

A howl into the night my dear,

A howl into the forgotten midnight into which many have ventured
A howl for those lost and left there still within,
A howl for those who escaped and forgot,
A howl for they that lived and saw the morning and remembered.

A howl to the naked girl in the street-lamp alley as she tightens her coat to keep out
the wet and dank and the man in the bomber jacket and his cigarette
A howl to the little boy, alone in his kitchen while mother in her pearls
and father in his moustache run from their child’s cries and silence,
to seek the quiet pleasures of the noisy city
A howl from the artists on their stoops, who wait in the weeds while the bonfire
rages around them, the best they can do simply to breathe in the
burning weed
A howl from the book-learners, for every bruise they received
in battles that could not be won by wit
A howl for the bullies, that they may break their damaged minds to trade them in,
for a mirror to look at themselves, their world, and see cracks in
A howl for brothers, sisters, mothers and lovers, dads, custodians and angels
that turn on the headlights and guide our poor, huddled asses
A howl to the dollarless, the dime-store, nickel-plated penniless cashiers
that make enough to pay for gas only,

their only solace and promise

becomes the making and the hearing of their
Howl and cry and moan, sweat, swear and sing
Laugh and fly and endless sight
Howl at the blindness and weight of our futures
The days to come and the fortunes therein have been carried too long on the backs
of politicians, weak and petty
“oking us with sightless insight further toward the edge of thought
Having no choice but to reach out for the carrot and trip over the stick
howling into abyss that smiled back at me as it sobbed within itself
And couldn’t help but see its children
Closing the door on cold and hunger, safely ensconced in poverty: a door
that keeps out cold and hungry abyss,
Until they seep in through the hole left by the brick in the window
Howl to the children and to every stray animal on a sidewalk
And howl in existential dread, hoping against fear and fearing against hope
that the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t just
an oncoming train
That someday you, Overmoe, might just make it, out there in the world
that’s trying so hard to swallow you whole
It’s out and it’s hungry for your money and soul but rhythm and blues won’t do
As you lay back and tan in the green traffic signal glow
reflecting off your dashboard and hear a Howl
split the night cleanly
between the moon, the streetlamps, and fur coats
A piercing, aching, stumbling, wanting howl
from the toddlers and the grown-ups and elderly alike
that have never heard Gabriel’s trumpet,
Or if they have, have only heard it play Taps and melodies in minor keys

Sit there for me, please Overmoe, at that crossroads, and watch that signal for a
minute.
See the devil leaning up against the lamp-post, while Robert Johnson lay dead
on the pavement.
Listen to the howls of despair, and the echoes from cavernous Hell.
Hear their howls, and let your own be the howl of your heart,
the screech of your tires on pavement
and scream out of that crossroads before your green light turns to yellow
god damn it or red.
For in your youth is your one chance to let the green carry you out and over the
blackness, the raging tempest.
Take your fucking chance for everyone who never got it or you’ll never get it
again mon frère,
scream out into the night and stars and ride upon the blindness.
Howl to me across the nothing and I’ll howl back--know that would
and might are weak--and tell you that I ​will​ rejoin you
and dash across that crossroad.
But it will be a while yet,
before I hear their silent cries,
and bring them with me
to let their howls be heard
over despair
before ours
melt into the wind. The same wind that whispers in twigs and branches,
hums through phone lines.
“n the Subject of Syrian Immigration

Her name is Nour.

Her round brown eyes smile
when she tells me about
the irretrievable summers of her homeland.
Her notebooks are filled with perfect English,
the margins with hasty Arabic: her private notes.
Cute boys that are her everything––
marriage proposals from mothers.
Her parents are happy to own their new home
(not to rent or make payments with charity)
but they are not yet accustomed
to the cold, wet winters of their new desert.

Her flannel shirt complements her hijab precisely.

She is Syrian. She is lucky:
to be beautiful in a country where that means so much,
to go to school with people that understand, or try to,
to have a jewelled watch which sparkles when she speaks,
to live in a country which is not at war.
Her name is Nour.
Love-ism

I don’t care much for an ism.

There’s been terrism lately,
talk of fashism and racism
––them’s isms that scare me––
but I don’t give two hoots
for liberalism, conservatism, progressivism,
communism or prisms.
No ism ever done anything for me,
not socialism, capitalism or populism, evangelism or buddhism.
Couldn’t even guess what islamism or libertarianism is.
I’m sure there’s an ism I might like,
but I’ve never heard of a
let-the-people-be-free-ism.
I’d like a Dr. King-ism or a Rosa-“arks-ism.
Maybe we need a love-your-neighbor-ism,
or a kind-and-happy-joyful-noise-ism.
I might have heard of human-ism before,
but before we give sympathism
to humanist organisms, they ought to have a dose
of justice-ism.
And once we know the isms that’s good
from this isms that isn’t,
we could all use some
Love-ism.
Get “ver It

The Buddha would have no interest in being a millionaire,

the way a 6,000 year old tree would not impress
a child of eighteen months.
Just like wine to a beer drinker
or Bach to a punk rocker,
your promotion at work
will not impress your cat.
The sky does not need miners,
and mountains do not bow to kings.
Jesus Christ himself
would give terrible I.T. advice;
Shakespeare never saw Tibet.
Supporting Attachment - Category Description
 Essays

Table of Contents:

1. The Sins of Sally’s

Father.............................................................................1-2

​ he
● A thematic essay written for my tenth grade English class about the novel T

House on Mango Street​ by Sandra Cisneros.

2. Erica.............................................................................................................3-6

● A braided creative non-fiction research essay for U of U Writing 1010 about a

topic of my choice. I wrote about Artificial Intelligence.

3. Write My Way Out........................................................................................7-9

● A personal narrative essay for U of U Writing 1010 with “no requirements for

structure”.
 Giorgio 1

Anthony Giorgio
Mr. Bigelow
English 10
2 November 2015

The Sins of Sally’s Father (or Personifying Patriarchy)

In life, the way a person tackles an obstacle says a lot about their character. Likewise, the
way a character tackles objects in a story says a lot about their person. Obstacles in story-telling
not only serve as a way to move the plot and introduce conflict, but they also work to develop
characters. In this way, authors can make statements not only about their characters, but
statements regarding themes in the work. In Sandra Cisneros’ book T ​ he House on Mango Street​,
obstacles are the main way that characters grow, but in some cases, the way a character reacts to
an obstacle can lead them to just such terrible an obstacle. Such is the case with Sally, a character
​ he House on Mango Street​, who tries to escape the tyranny of her abusive father by getting
in T
married, only to find that she is trapped by another man, thus displaying an endless cycle of
Patriarchy with no clear escape.
The obstacle that Sally faces is abusive Patriarchy, in the form of her father; to escape
him she tries escaping his household—to which she returns—in more than one way. Sally’s
father is very strict, and he beats Sally to keep her in accordance with his rules. The first way she
tried to escape was by staying at someone else’s house, but she goes back home as per her
father’s pleas. One day after this, she is caught talking to a boy, and her father “just went crazy,
he just forgot he was her father between the buckle and the belt”(93). Sally, though having
successfully escaped, returns to her father, only to be met with the same violence that she had
known before. Cisneros portrays Sally as the average girl that is produced by this type of
household, and as such she shows that this is the average response; also that it is an ineffective
response because Sally wasn’t strong enough to keep out of her father’s grasp. The moral of this
particular anecdote is that the only women that can break away from abuse are ones that are
strong-willed enough to stand up to, and stay standing, against the Patriarchy. Later, Sally makes
equally as ineffective an escape, by getting married “just like we knew she would, young and not
ready but married just the same… She says she is in love, but I think she did it to escape”(101).
Cisneros shows that marriage was the wrong decision for Sally; Even Sally knows she did it for
the wrong reasons, and tries to cover it up by saying she is in love. Cisneros paints early
marriage as folly, but she shows the logic behind it, though simultaneously highlighting
especially how strained the logic is. Once again Sally is Cisneros’ tool to represent the decisions
of an average girl, and takes the opportunity to discourage young girls like Sally from thinking of
marriage as a way to fix their lives, but rather to take matters into their own hands; showing that
salvation comes from within, not without.
Sally’s reaction to her personal obstacles is very similar to the reactions of other
characters in the book, as it displays a cycle in which a girl cannot truly escape the abusive
patriarchy. Fearing her father’s wrath, everyday Sally rushes directly homeward as soon as
school is dismissed. Esperanza, the main character and narrator of the story, takes notice of this
and asks Sally “why do you always have to go straight home after school?”(82). Sally is trapped
 Giorgio 2

both literally and figuratively in the story. Sally’s father hardly lets her out of the house, and
Cisneros uses that to bring Sally’s struggle into a more corporeal form, is trapped physically in
the house of her abuser, and that she is trapped psychologically by his abuse. Sally returns home
like clockwork, every day, without question and without fail. Even when she doesn’t go back
home to her father’s house on Mango Street, she moves back into her father’s home, only this
time with her new husband. When she moves in with her husband at their new home, she tells
Esperanza that she “is happy, except sometimes her husband gets angry and once he broke the
door where his foot went through… she sits at home because she is afraid to go outside without
his permission”(101-102). Once again, Sally finds herself trapped, and her solution rendered
ineffective. Sally is Cisneros’ way of warning her readers against marrying young, especially for
the reason of escaping another man. Cisneros additionally demonstrates just how dangerous a
world Sally-the-Average-Girl is forced to live in. Sally finds a man to protect her from her father,
and he treats her the same way her father did, by trapping her and beating her.
Sally is the vessel of Sandra Cisneros’ warning against the cycle of Patriarchy in T ​ he
House on Mango Street​. Cisneros shows that often the method of escape from abuse only
perpetuates abuse, and that breaking the cycle is easier said than done, only to be accomplished
by the strongest of women—which, sadly, Sally was not. Sally’s father drives this point home,
literally as his House on Mango Street is the home and origin of this cyclic escape. Sally
epitomizes the struggle of the average girl, as she tries to escape her father by marrying and
subsequently finding that she is left with the same man and the same situation, but a different
context. Perhaps Sally’s obstacles go beyond showing the nature of her character, but the nature
of humans as a whole to perpetuate the sins of their fathers.
 Giorgio 3

Anthony Giorgio
Erin Rogers
Writing 1010
29 October 2017

Erica

Primarily, I am a writer. In a larger sense, I consider myself an artist. Art has always been
a reflection of the human condition and my unending fascination with humanity bleeds into
everything I create.​ My stories tend to focus on the dualities of personhood––the contradictions
we find within ourselves––and most of my visual portfolio consists of portraiture, trying to
capture the essence of a person in a recreation of their image. Having this love of humankind, on
the largest scale as well as the individual, has turned me into a deeply social and romantic
creature. Scrolling through Twitter one day, I noticed a photo portrait of a lovely young woman:
the type I might consider drawing or painting, and exactly the subject that would catch my
attention. She was incredibly symmetrical, with soft, youthful skin. Her hair gently tousled in the
back, and she gazed past the left side of the frame. I inspected the post, and was surprised to
discover a headline attached to it, as it was actually an article from t​ he New York Times​. I learned
that the young lady’s name is Erica, and she was born in Japan to a man named H ​ iroshi Ishiguro
and his team of researchers. The name of the article is “Do Androids Dream of Being Featured in
Portrait Competitions?”, by Des Shoe. Erica is the android, and this was her portrait.
The first question I had was “could Erica be a person?,” so I got to know Erica a little
better. The Guardian did an extensive video exposé on Erica and her team, mainly focusing on
Dr. Ishiguro and her “architect”, Dr. Glas, in which they discuss their interdisciplinary approach
to creating humanoid androids. In order to create something that approximates human, they must
have a team of computer scientists and programmers, a team of linguists to develop her speech
and conversation software, the engineers to build her frame, and designers to make the silicone
molds for her face(Calugareanu). This video spoke to exactly what drew me to Erica and her
researchers in the first place. Growing up, Dr. Ishiguro wanted to be an oil painter because he,
like me, was captivated by the human form, and with trying to portray humanity. I was
fascinated by Dr. Glas’s description of his job, as he is essentially Erica’s counselor and coach.
To my understanding, he spends some time each day talking with her, exercising her
conversational programming, and taking notes on where she is weak, to pass on to her
programmers. They are working diligently to approximate a person as closely as possible.
Upon further research, I found that is precisely the reason she could never be a person. It
is because they are trying to approximate humanity, rather than create something that is human in
its own right. Nonetheless, Erica and her team made me more curious as to how engineers,
computer scientists, philosophers and futurists were actually addressing that problem at its root,
which is determining what qualifies as human. Concerns around Artificial Intelligence all point
to a reckoning with humanity, or at least with humans, and this is what I find so interesting. I
want to understand AI in order to explore how we incorporate something both familiar and
entirely unprecedented into our understanding of the world. If we are to understand AI, and find
a place for it in our world, we must better understand our own sense of humanity.
 Giorgio 4

We feel that we are experts in what in means to be human––arguably, we as humans are

uniquely positioned to answer this question––but the mere state of being human does not qualify
us outright to define and defend humanity, for we can only experience humanity from a
subjective view, from within the phenomenon itself. Many of the things we pride ourselves on,
and think of as being distinctly human, are things that AI could potentially do much better:
reason as well as intuit, research as well as create, know as well as feel. Researchers feel that all
of those activities lead to one larger qualification: that of consciousness. The most controversial
dilemma in the field of AI, and the closest that scientists and commentators will steer to equating
Artificial Intelligence with humanity, is whether or not to create self-aware, conscious AI.
Erica, for one, is not self-aware, which is one reason I cannot accept her personhood,
despite her appearance. There are plenty of AI that we are more familiar with, such as Siri and
Alexa, that are AI systems without humanoid frames, and we certainly don’t think of them as
people––at least, most of us don’t. Google Deepmind is yet another purely virtual General AI,
and exists in a simulated environment. To understand whether these AI are “human”, we must
first understand if they are conscious, and to do that, we must try to understand what
consciousness is.
Sadly, we are still uncertain as to what exactly we mean when we talk about
consciousness, but researchers are beginning to think it has as much to do with structure as
function. As of 2013, IBM and HRL Laboratories had begun work on a neuron-inspired
computer chip. To the point of the researchers, “​Computers are incredibly inefficient at lots of
tasks that are easy for even the simplest brains, such as recognizing images and navigating in
unfamiliar spaces”, and rather than making computer chips based on calculator programming,
they’ve begun making computer chips that work through similar principles as the mammalian
brain(Simonite). In 2013, clusters of these chips were already performing machine learning in a
way that the computers that run Deepmind are only recently able to accomplish. The more
researchers discover with regards to machine learning, they discover the most effective way to
program for learning is to imitate neural “programming”. Christof Koch, the chief scientific
officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle agrees with this assessment that we
must imitate the structure of consciousness before it can function accordingly. He claims that
there is a distinction to be drawn between a simulation of consciousness, and actual
consciousness; in order to achieve consciousness, AI technicians must not simply program
responses as Ishiguro’s team has done with Erica, they must learn to program the actual
processes which take place in conscious perception and thought(Regalado).
Though we have not incorporated this neural structure into robotic engineering quite yet,
there is still exciting programming being done at places like R ​ ansselaer Polytechnic, where Nao
robots have begun to show a glimmer of self-awareness. In a modern takeoff on the “King’s wise
men” riddle, in which some vicious king forces wise men to guess what colour hat they are
wearing for some odd reason, researchers gave dumbing pills(turned off their speaking
capabilities) to their robots, with one placebo(a dummy switch), to see if the robots could
logically induce which one was given the placebo. One of them took initiative, seeing that
neither of the other two were speaking, and got up to say it didn’t know––but he did, in fact, s​ ay
he didn’t know, at which point he corrected himself, saying he now knew that he was given the
placebo(Pearson). To me, this seemed simple. If I and two other people had been given a
dumbing pill, the logical way to test it would be to have everyone try to speak, and whomever
was successful was obviously given the placebo. This would become far more difficult, however,
 Giorgio 5

neither I nor my compatriots had mouths, and if all of our voices sounded identical. Even if that
were the case, I would recognise, after making the decision to speak, that I was actually speaking
or not speaking. This cognizance of my own action gives a limited view of my own
self-awareness, just as it gave the researchers a view of the Nao robot’s limited self-awareness.
In fact, the robot then produced a mathematical proof to show the induction logic that would be
applied to the Wise Men puzzle, as well as the mathematical logic that lead him to recognise its
own voice. Discussing this robot in terms of its self-awareness, I’m almost more inclined to call
it a “him” than I am to call Erica a “her”.
Seeing that this is currently the most advanced level of consciousness an AI can achieve,
it is easy to feel superior to robots, and dismiss Erica and the Nao robot as expensive parlor
tricks, as being only fancy machines. I truly feel I understand what it is to be human, and that I
have a claim to personhood that these AIs do not. Not only do I think, therefore I am––but I feel,
therefore I am... human. I feel that I am superior to robots, and that I should enjoy the legal
benefits of personhood, more so than an automated car manufacturing machine. I think this bias
is important to accept and process, because assuming AI ever becomes sentient, it may be
difficult to outgrow that mindset and realise that a machine may be my equal. But how do we
begin to treat something without flesh and blood as though it is of our kind? I hesitate to think
that we can even discuss robots in accurate terms––we simply lack the vocabulary. As Dr. Glas
says of Erica “we’re anthropomorphising the robot and placing those [names on the robot].
Really, a robot is––it’s not a person––it’s, maybe it’s not a machine. Maybe it’s a new
ontological category that we don’t really have the words to describe yet”(Calugareanu). If
androids are truly “other”, then how do we treat them humanely––does “humane” become a
racist term?
Depending on how we interact with these machines, we could see AI takeover, mass
unemployment, peaceful coexistence(maybe), or it could be that none of these happens, if AI
does not progress as quickly as predicted or sanctions are passed to halt its development.
Prominent figures like Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk are already warning of the Pandora’s
Box that AI represents, with Musk stating that General AI represents an existential threat to
civilisation, and he knows this because he’s been exposed to “very cutting edge AI”(Vincent).
Many AI researchers feel that he is crying wolf, seeing that the most advanced AI we have can
barely teach itself to walk or have a concept of self, but Musk feels that these “dumb” AIs will
lead to the dangerous, Super-Intelligent AIs like HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. While
this is, of course, a valid concern, will it stop us from seeing benign or even benevolent AI as our
equals, as sentient, as people, or even as being useful? We must balance our biases with logic,
and perhaps Musk is doing just that, balancing his bias in favor of AI with logical judgement that
it could very likely become dangerous, very quickly.
The more I read about Artificial Intelligence, the more ambivalent I become. I hope they
can be created responsibly, because the prospect of new entity which may transcend notion of
humanity and give us a wider view of commonality with sentient, thinking, emotive beings, as
AI are likely to become. However, I do not believe Erica falls into this category. She is not a
person, and I do not think she ever will be. I do not think Ishiguro’s team will create a sentient
and autonomous AI. I do, however, think that their work will inspire the team of researchers and
engineers that can create the first sentient AI. Artificial Intelligence will never be human, even if
we place it in a humanoid frame, but I believe we will learn they are something new, different,
perhaps better. As we reckon with our own humanity, perhaps a refined definition of who and
 Giorgio 6

what we are will only perpetuate more questions about who, or what, is entitled to that status of
human.

Works Cited
2001: A Space Odyssey.​ Dir. Stanley Kubrick, written by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 1968. Film.
Erica: Manmade​. Dir. Ilinca Calugareanu. T
​ he Guardian​ 2017. Film.
Pearson, Jordan. “Watch These Cute Robots Struggle to Become Self-Aware.” V ​ ice
Motherboard ​2015. Online.
Regalado, Antonio. “What It Will Take for Computers to Be Conscious.” M ​ IT Technology
Review​ 2014. Online.
Shoe, Des. “Do Androids Dream of Being Featured in Portrait Competitions?” N ​ ew York Times
2017. Online.
​ IT Technology Review​ 2013. Online.
Simonite, Tom. “Thinking in Silicon.” M
Vincent, James. “Elon Musk says we need to regulate AI before it becomes a danger to
​ he Verge​ 2017. Online.
humanity.” T
 Giorgio 7

Anthony Giorgio
Erin Rogers
Writing 1010
17 September 2017

Write My Way Out

“Would you want to be a writer?” s​ he asks her son. He is only eight or nine, unsure how to
respond. He looks back to her, furrowing his brow in question.
“When you grow up, I mean.”
They are watching ​the West Wing​, her favourite show, and the boy had asked her why the
characters talk so fast. He would grow up to learn that it is an Aaron Sorkin hallmark to write an
hour of dialogue for 43 minutes of TV, but for now he only asked because he notices how
different it is from other shows they watch.
She explains to the boy​:
“Well, that’s the way this writer writes. TV shows have to be written down before they’re
made, and when the people on the show talk faster than on other shows, or when the
stories are more exciting or more unique, it’s because of how the writer wrote it. Writers
create the backbone for every episode of TV, the skeleton of every movie, the body of
every book.”
“And all writers do is make words?” T ​ he boy asks timidly​.
“Yes,”​ she says​, “but ‘I have a dream’ is words. ‘Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of
Happiness’, ‘We the People’, ‘To be or not to be’, and ‘All you need is love’ are words.
‘Let there be light’ and ‘Love thy neighbour’ are words.”
The boy, one that would grow up to be me, sat back and wondered how his mom got so smart.
Maybe it has something to do with the big, red, leather book on the shelf that says “​Dictionary of
Cultural Literacy​”. He wonders what those words mean, and who wrote them.

I grew up to be an academic kid, at least that’s probably what everybody meant when
they said I was smart. However, neither smarts nor academics showed up in my grades during
elementary school, because I lacked focus––I was interested in too much. Before my academic
tendencies fell into place in middle school, I think adults called me smart because I was a
smooth-talker. I have always been articulate, speaking both with vocabulary and clarity that
outpaced my peers, and I tended to talk more with adults than with kids my own age. I had long
forgotten and disregarded my mother’s assertions on what it means to write when H ​ amilton: An
American Musical​ came out in 2015––during my sophomore year of high school. On the surface,
it is the story of our nation’s first secretary of the treasury, sensational for the fact that it was
written mostly in rap––but really, it was about a boy, plucked from an island, plucked from
poverty and given a fighting chance because of how masterfully he wielded a pen. As I listened,
it awoke something long lost in me, hearing:
“the world is gonna know your name,
what’s your name, man?
 Giorgio 8

Alexander Hamilton.
My name is Alexander Hamilton.
And there’s a million things I haven’t done,
but just you wait,
just you wait​”.

I listened to it again and again, hearing about every shot he didn’t throw away, when he “put a
pencil to his temple, connected it to his brain...” I heard and saw myself. Until this musical came
out, most people did not know how integral writing was to Hamilton’s life: the man escaped
poverty by writing essays and poetry. He was easily the most prolific writer of any of the
founding fathers, and also a bit of an impassioned hothead. I had never appreciated rap, and my
view of poetry had been limited to dead white men and Emily Dickinson, but H ​ amilton​ exposed
me to the spirit of ambition that underlies all rap music, and showed me the true power of
language. The show truly welcomed me into the worlds of hip-hop––as well as poetry.
I broke my first essay during my sophomore year. It was about patriarchy in t​ he House on
Mango Street​, and it was good enough that my teacher said his rubric didn’t do it justice. I began
to take pride in my ability to communicate, to articulate my thoughts with such ease. Now that I
had learned the proper way to write an essay, they were easy, almost fun. This smooth-talker
started to talk less, and instead I picked up a pen, and I studied.
I read e e cummings, awed by the messy, sumptuous life reflected in his spring-messy
compound words. I began writing occasionally, in rhyme and meter; half the time I imitated the
classics, writing in iambs and couplets, half the time I tried my hardest to write sixteen bars like
Biggie or Nas. It was my junior year that I was introduced to my mentor, Walt Hunter, a man of
a more Bukowski sensibility.
He told me to forget every rule I knew of,
everything my writing teachers had taught me. He told me
that poetry is truth, and only the words
necessary to show truth--no more,
no less.

I have written nearly every day since, now that it is a challenge.

It’s who I am.
Truth is so fleeting lately, I take comfort in finding it,
exposing it,
refining my language
until it is o​ nly ​the truth.

In one moment, very recently, I discovered

both what my writing
and a particular person
meant to me.
This person had suffered a rough day,
she said she didn’t want to talk about it.
I told her if she changed her mind,
I’d be up writing and
 Giorgio 9

“feel free to interrupt”.

I realised that until then,

I had never,
ever
let anybody interrupt my writing.

My writing
is sacred, which means
she must also be.
List up to six activities, honors and awards that relate to the leadership qualifications.
1. Peer Mentored AMES Freshman House 3 years consecutively
2. Directed and produced an independent feature film
3. Student Delegate to the Red Cross Leadership Development Camp 2017
4. Peer Tutored English 10H
5. Captain of AMES Cinematography Club

Choose one of the activities, honors or awards that relate to the leadership qualification and describe it briefly.
During my sophomore year of high school, as well as the summer thereafter, I worked with friends to direct and produce a full-length
feature film, based on a screenplay that I co-wrote with my best friend, Austin Overmoe.
I began writing screenplays when I was in 7th grade, and having been raised on some of the best movies and television ever produced
(The West Wing and Parenthood, later Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Godfather, etc.), I wanted to make movies from a very young age.
Freshman year, I met Austin and got my chance, as he was the first person I met that shared my ambition as well as my tenacity to do
what we set our minds to. We had a great partnership, but neither of us had done video production, neither of us had managed a large
group of people (around 30 teenagers to co-ordinate on any given day), and neither of us had any idea what responsibilities directing or
producing entailed. Suffice it to say, there was a steep learning curve.
If I had ever directed anything at all before that point, I would have had some directing style to rely on. As it was, I had to invent a
routine as I was falling into it, and each victory was quickly eclipsed by some new challenge: having to recruit actors, making myself
available to the actors, deciding how best to tell my actors they can’t continue to be late for their call-times, recruiting new actors after I
mishandle a situation and one quits, so on and so on.
Directing without a safety-net taught me not only how to lead, but what leadership is. I figured that leading people was a matter of getting
people to do something for you, and the way to do that, in my experience, was to ask them nicely or offer them something in return:
salesmen, essentially. I think this is the prevailing view of leadership, which is why politicians, our would-be leaders, seem more like
salesmen than agents of change. As Dr. King put it, “A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus”––to
me, not a convincer, but a show-er and a do-er, a winner of hearts and minds. Directing taught me that good leadership is like good
writing: one must show, rather than tell. Just as action is preferable to description, leading by example has power, whereas demands have
only authority, which is unreliable because it can be earned, or it can be given without being earned. I could not command, as I was as
new to production as every single other person, so I did not even have authority. I had to lead from the trenches, as it were, constantly
proving that I was not asking more of them than what I was already giving. I carry these lessons with me in almost every interaction I
have: the ways to earn respect and to set an example.

Supporting Attachment - Leadership Description

Directing:
Learning
Leadership
Leadership means collaboration...

“When WE can’t run, WE will walk.

When WE can’t walk, WE will crawl.
If YOU can’t crawl,
I will drag you to the finish line.”
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
~ Austin Overmoe
My Creative Influences
When the decision was made to make a movie with Austin: 05/28/2015
Fundraising:
12/2015 (Austin
on far left,
Anthony in
bottom right)
First Shoot: 01/23/2016 (Austin Overmoe, left; Anthony Giorgio, right)
Behind-The-Scenes Photos: 2016
Behind-The-Scenes: 2016 (Anthony, center)
Dividing Assets
before Austin leaves
for College:
09/16/2016
(Anthony, left; Austin,
right)
2-year Anniversary of the Start of Production, Date: 05/28/2017
The Final Shoot,
Date: 07/14/2017
List up to six activities, honors or awards that relate to the qualifications for Community Service and/or Citizenship.
1. Volunteering my time as peer tutor to ESL students at Cottonwood
2. Video production for interfaith event at the Khadeeja Mosque
3. Strong in school-level student activism

Choose one of the activities, honors or awards that relate to the Community Service/ Citizenship qualification and describe it briefly.
It was shortly after the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States that I decided I ought to get involved with the refugee community that I saw every day at school, but
had never engaged with. I felt that my fellow students, their lives and the lives of their families being politicised every night on the evening news, could use another ally––at least a
friend, or someone they could talk to. I spoke with Mr. Yuri Perez, the Cottonwood teacher in charge of ESL After School Tutoring. He told me to come to the library after school
every day I could manage it, to introduce myself to everyone and ask if they needed help. He told me to speak good english to them, even if I knew their language: I would be tempted
to help them by not making them speak english, and they would be inclined to let me. If nobody needed help, I was to pick a seat at an empty table and wait. If I waited long enough,
somebody would see me doing nothing, and ask if I could help them.
Most days, I helped with math, sometimes with the actual principles, sometimes just helping them comprehend the word problems. Many of them learned the necessary math in their
home countries, and could do the word problems if they were translated. Other days I helped them navigate their online assignments, learning how to use the requested programs at
the same time as I taught them. Some days I helped them print essays, or loaned a calculator. Other days I bonded with Haitian underclassmen who listened to the Beatles, and sang
different lyrics for the french part of “Michelle” because, he claimed, “mine sound better, you wouldn’t understand.” Many days, I listened to stories family hardships, bullying, and
Post-Traumatic Stress. I would allow the students to vent until they could focus enough to work on biology, math, or what-have-you, some that were a week late because they didn’t
understand it or didn’t feel comfortable enough to ask for help.
Every B-Day until the end of the school year, I spent 90 minutes in the Cottonwood library, trying to help, just a little. To be a tutor where I needed to be, a friend when I could be.
Admittedly, the service section of my portfolio is light, but this experience changed me. It taught me how to look through the eyes of strangers in strange lands, and to be grateful for
the things I took for granted. Tutoring for the ESL classes was an exercise in patient, persistent work, as well as deliberate kindness and service.

Describe two or three unique things about yourself and relate them to your category. If possible, include challenges you have overcome and describe any distinctive
experiences that have affected you.
Easily, the most unique thing about me is my pursuit of the art of film-making, unique because I started production on my first feature film when I was 15 years old. However, rather
than discuss that more, I’d rather discuss my unorthodox discovery
I enrolled in the Academy for Math, Engineering & Science for my freshman year of high school because my parents and I had decided I would be an engineer. There was, and is, a
strong demand for engineers in the workforce, and engineering is the sort of job that could keep me out of debt, and get them out of theirs.
AMES places emphasis on rigorous academics with a strong Math/Science bent, of course––most importantly, though, they stress critical thinking, integrity, self-discovery and
individuality. AMES taught me initially what my work directing reinforced: that authority is worthless without the power and example to support it. I began to question the norms of
society, the things I had always been taught to value, and re-evaluate them for myself. I was given room to grow, and discovered the value that I placed on the written and spoken
word, and the thorough lack of interest I had in pursuing engineering.
When I discovered I had a passion for writing, it shook me. An engineer could make plenty of money, a writer could at best make some witty remarks about bourgeoisie engineers. I
had heard of few wealthy writers, even fewer happy ones. Of course, for those reasons, my parents were also skeptical of my newfound passion. Even so, they have come to support
and encourage me as best they can.

How do you think your involvement in this category will enrich your life?
"I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live."
– Françoise Sagan

The world moves faster now than it ever has. By current estimates, the sum of all human knowledge is doubling roughly every year, as opposed to doubling every 25 years as it did
before World War II, and doubling every century until 1900. It seems that in a matter of months, a cutting-edge consumer technology becomes obsolete, with whole industries slowly
dissolving into history.
Beyond that, my generation has grown up in the aftermath of the Housing Market Crash in 2008, under economic stress and generational anxiety that can only be compared to the
generation that grew up after the Great Depression. I have grown up in the age of social media and the 24-hour news cycle, and constant connectivity that induces panic attacks when
people can’t connect to wifi.
I, personally, cannot adapt to this world as well as my peers do, or pretend to. The body was not designed for our modern life, our minds not adapted to our modern stressors. In order
to keep myself sane, I must write. It is not a hobby or a wish––it’s not even something I always enjoy. It is a necessity, because I feel that without the daily introspection that writing
forces me to practice, it would be too easy to lose myself, and all sense of myself. In this way, I will live badly if I do not write. If I did not experience my world directly, without
being fed it through a screen, I would write badly. Writing does not enrich my life––to me, it is an essential function of living.
 Other Attachments and Links
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