This so far has been the most exciting project yet, mostly because we got to learn, study, and research all about Star Wars and what makes it so popular all over the world. We spent the last month and a bit learning different techniques to help us understand deeper meaning within the Star Wars universe. Our final product was part of a short story that we wrote, as well as an object from our story that had importance. Here are some of my experiences and things I learned on the way.

To start the project we had to understand some background knowledge on Star Wars and on story telling, as our main project was to write a short story. We learned that most if not all stories follow similar events, better known as a story spine, and within this spine are the crucial events that keep readers wanting to know more. This part was very helpful for me because I know I am not the strongest writer but now that I understand what needs to be in the story, it is easier for me to plan out what I need to write. 

Another part of this project was the short stories that we would read every week, each had a different type of story telling technique that was highlighted within the story like point of view, plot, theme, and others like that. Each time we finished a story we would have to record these important aspects in our “ Short Story Review Chart” so we could use them for future reference. Each time I read a story, I found that my understanding of each part ( plot, theme, point of view) seemed to get better and better, and I could use this knowledge in my own short story that I would later write.

Adding on to that we also recorded our progress in an app called explain everything which then allowed us to create a video of what we had done and our process of getting there here is the video.

Moving on to our groups and planning for the exhibition. Our entire class was split into four groups of seven each, the best part was that each group was a different planet from Star Wars. ( Endor, Tatooine, Hoth, and the Death Star) Our group chose Tatooine because as a whole we  liked the planet and had some ideas for our story and exhibition. My group members were Thomas , Grace , Holly , Fin , Owen , Matthew , and of course my self. Now that we had our group we could start planning our story and who would do what part, it was important that everyone knew which part they would be filling and what they needed to do. Unfortunately this very important part of the exhibition fell right at the same time that I was in California for a field hockey tournament against the USA, so I did miss out on some of the ideas and information being discussed in class, but I did get a little through text, so I had a slight idea of what was going on.

When I got back I had to start on a rough draft of my part of the story, I had did not know much about what others had done so I just started to write the story how I imagined it should be. We eventually read our individual story drafts to our group members and this was everyone’s chance to give feedback to each other, I got some very good advice that I think helped my story take shape after many more drafts.

Moving on to the next part of the exhibition which would be the object as mentioned before. I was somewhat confused at first when hearing about the object that each one of us would have to create, but I then learned that it wasn’t as complex as I thought, all it had to be was something that was from our stories and it had to have meaning, both in the story and to ourselves. In my part of the story a huge part is when our main character sends a holographic message to the podracer host letting them know that he will be joining the race, so I created a small hologram which displayed the message he sent. The building process for this was challenging but nothing I couldn’t do. I definitely had to try some new things in order to make the hologram because for one I had never made anything like this, and two I had to test different materials, apps, and equipment to see what would be the most efficient. I saw this as a test of new skills but at the same time I was figuring out little things that I could do to improve  my own version.

Now for the exhibition, the main event. We had everything ready to go except for the fact that we had to wait until two hours before exhibition start time because we had the hall as our presentation space and we couldn’t set up until everyone was out of school. This was personally very stressful and I think some others as well did not like waiting, but there was nothing we could do. When the time came my group work very hard and quickly to set everything up in time and I have to say that I was very impressed on the amount we got done in such short time. In the end it looked really great and everyone was ready to show their projects when the time came.

The two hours that we presented our projects went really fast, I talked to so many different people about my project and was really happy with the look of the final product.

To wrap up this post I will be mentioning the awesome ending to our Star Wars unit which of course was going to the new movie the day it came out. We had about 90% of the theatre booked by the PLP grades which left about 12 or more random people to suffer in the tsunami of PLP kids ( we weren’t that bad). This was the best exhibition that I have participated in so far and I can’t wait for the next ones.

That’s all for now.