Tpol 2022/23
It’s that time of the year again, time for the Tpols. This year has been filled with, fun, pride, and some frustration. As well as quite a bit of sickness back in October and December. Now let’s look at them and see why I should go to grade 12.
The year started off with some nice projects (Macbeth and The Historical Significance of the Atom Bomb) which I very much enjoyed. They felt very controlled and although I liked them, they didn’t make me as proud as I didn’t have to struggle as much through the process of doing the work. They weren’t as self lead so the goal seemed clear and I could work towards it very efficiently. I could approach these projects with a sense of comfort and optimism rather than the mild fear and anxiety of not knowing what you’re going to do.
I also started this year off a little differently as I had joined a higher level climbing team which meant that I spent a minimum of 12 hours just climbing and more like 17 hours per week altogether, with transportation and sometimes staying late to thoroughly stretch (I’m not very flexible and I want to be more flexible). I was lucky though, as my other three classes didn’t give much homework and I could sometimes use the time in the car (on the two days when I carpooled) to read. (On the other days I would bike).
With this, I had to be better at managing my time. I spent more of my weekends doing homework and spent less time doing less productive things. Especially at the second term when the projects required more work and my other courses also gave me more homework.
As the year rolled around and for the first project of 2023, we had The Coldest War in which we had to make a comic about some thing from the Cold War. Finding my topic was not difficult and I was soon doing research and making preparations to write a comic about the Velvet Revolution. I found this project interesting as I got to do a deep dive into the societal changes that happened with the Czechoslovak Velvet Revolution and how it was to live in the eastern bloc and how it changed after the revolution. With the amount of research I did, I wanted to also give the audience a clear picture of not just the Velvet Revolution but also the causes, consequences, and societal shifts associated with it. This made my comic a little too long and a little heavy on the amount of text, but alltogether, a very nice final product. You can read it here.
Setting Clear Goals
In my next two projects, the solution to the driving question was quite ambiguous and I felt this the most with the Stories of Hope video. At first, I found three big themes which I wanted to showcase. After trying to get an interview, doing research, and talking about it with my family, I realized that my goal was too ambitious so I pivoted and changed the topic to something more realistically achievable. I then made the video and upon reflecting on the video itself I realized that my topic would have tied in a lot better with another topic I might have been able to choose, but at that point it was too late. I still don’t know how I should set the goals to be more clear at the start of the project, especially when you don’t know much about your topics.
I also didn’t set a very clear goal in the School, What is it Good For project where I had a slight idea for what I wanted to do from the start but I couldn’t decide on my artifact until about a week and a half before the Spring Exhibition. This was a case where I had set a goal but not made it clear enough. I also ran into a problem where I couldn’t find any research relating to my point. My solution to these problems killed two birds with one stone where I made my artifact a survey which could also act as proof for my thesis. In the end, I made a good product but it was not very clear to the audience what the point was. I found it interesting how I could see when they understood my point when I talked to them. I think for my next project with the same kind of layout as this, I’ll try to focus more on my point rather than the proof for it.
I think that my projects reveal what I think I should do and show where I make cuts to it to make the final products. I enjoy research and I like to have full picture of the topic in my final product. It’s hard for me to condense the information into fewer words because I don’t want to get rid of any details. This makes taking feedback difficult. I also want to ask you for advice on this, but you might have to combat me on setting them through because getting rid of the information isn’t something I like doing.
Thank you for coming to or reading my Tpol for grade 11.
See you next time.
