Jennifer will discuss how emotion and perception have impacted her experiences in high school choir over the past 4 years. She chose to focus on choir because singing has been an important part of her life and a great stress reliever. Through choir, she has learned that with practice and hard work, you can improve and achieve memorable performances, just as studying hard can help you succeed in academics. Her perception of her own performances differs from how the audience sees them. Emotions also influence her singing - she must feel connected to the music and learn to channel nerves into focus rather than letting them cause mistakes.

1. Jennifer Purgill
Senior Seminar P.3
Senior Seminar Presentation Script
Question: Can you introduce yourself?
Hi, my name is Jennifer Purgill and I am seventeen years old. I have attended ISB since my
freshman year of high school. I am an American and I moved to Thailand at the age of 14; before
moving here I had lived in Fredericksburg, Virginia my whole life. After high school, I will be
attending James Madison University. Today, I will be talking about the different ways of
knowing and how they have affected my learning experiences
Question: What are the four ways of knowing?
The four ways of knowing are perception, reason, language, and emotion. Perception can be
defined as how each person views the world and their interpretation of those views. Every single
person’s perception is different; no two people view an object or an idea exactly the same way.
Reason is our logical way of thinking, there is inductive and deductive reasoning. Inductive
reasoning is when people make generalizations from one specific example and deductive
reasoning is taking a general idea and forming a specific one from it. Language is an arbitrary,
symbolic system that names feelings, experiences, ideas, objects, events, groups, people and
other phenomena. We use it as a way to communicate with one another. It is rule-governed,
intended, creative, and open-minded. Emotion usually consists of various internal feelings and
external forms of behavior and it can vary in intensity.These feelings can affect how we act or
what we say.
Question: What will you be talking about today?
In this presentation, I will be explaining how two of the four ways of knowing have affected a
specific learning experience I have had in high school. I will be talking about both emotion and
perception and their effect on me as a choir student over the past 4 years of high school.
Question: Why did you choose the example that you chose?
I chose to talk about choir because I had started to develop an interest in singing since the 6th
grade, and this interest has grown since entering high school. Singing has been an important part
of my life and I hope to continue doing it for many years to come. Singing is a great outlet for
stress whether school related or just in general. Choir is not only an individual type of activity. It
creates a strong bond between the people that you sing with, creating many new friendships and
memories with people you may not have otherwise known. Although this is true, it is in some
ways individual and it has taught me a lot about myself not only as a person but as a student.

2. Question: What does the example say about you personally or as a student?
I believe that choosing to talk about choir personally says that I value music as an important
aspect of my life and that I have learned a lot from it regardless of some people not considering it
something “academic”.
Question: In reflecting on choir, what impact does what you have studied in class have on
your learning experiences?
What we learn in class is that practice makes perfect, or the best that you can do. This is a lesson
that can be applied to anything you do. As long as you practice and try your hardest, there is
nothing else you can do, and you should be proud of what you accomplish. At performances,
choir students perform at their hardest and hopefully their many hours of practice pay off and
result in a memorable performance that leaves the audience wanting more. If you work hard,
then your end result should be worth it to you. Practice is important, whether it be in choir
singing or in math class doing your homework problems so you can do well on a test.
Question: How have emotion and perception connected to your experiences as a choir
student?
Perception also plays a large part in singing. When performing, you have a completely different
perception of yourself than the audience has of you. If you make a mistake, you may have a
negative perception of yourself and the situation and become embarrassed, which ties in with
emotion as well, but the audience has no way of knowing that you made a mistake unless you
make it obvious. You may develop a negative perception of yourself after making a mistake but
the audience’s perception of you is unchanged.
Emotion also is a huge factor when performing for choir. In order to be able to properly sing a
song and perform it well, you must connect emotionally to the music. Without an emotional
connection, the song is lifeless and it is almost impossible for you to really enjoy what you are
singing. Nervousness is an emotion which can also inhibit or enable your singing ability
depending on how you use it. If you are nervous, it can affect the way you sing, causing your
voice to crack or to have shortness of breath. On the other hand, it can cause you to focus better
and if you use the energy built up from the nervousness you can project your sound better. The
Yerkes-Dodson Law is an empirical relationship between arousal and performance. This law
states that performance increases with physiological or mental excitement, but only up to a point.
When levels of arousal/excitement become too high, performance decreases. According to this
law, you can use your nervousness and excitement to help your performance, but if you become
too over-excited then you may have more mistakes when performing. This lesson of properly
using your emotions to your benefit can be applied to more situations rather than only in singing.
When preparing for a test, you should use your nervousness to motivate you to study and do
better so that you will be less nervous, and able to receive a better grade on the test. According to

3. the James-Lange theory, emotions are physical in nature. This type of performance situation is an
example of the James-Lange theory because my emotions can have a physical effect on my body.
This is why it is necessary for you to properly control your emotions and use them to your
benefit rather than allow them to inhibit your abilities.