Well now it’s the end of my grade 9 year and I have a lot to show for it. Not only at school but also in sports, social life and collections. However this post will be focusing on the school stuff. 

This year we did many projects in humanities. The topics of which ranging from environmental studies to World War One. But the ones that show my growth as a leaner the most are working with words and Revolutions on trial. These projects showed my growth as a leaner by far more than the others mainly in one area, Public Speaking. In grade 8 and the beginning on grade 9 I was more or less quiet in class. I wouldn’t raise my hand that often or participate in class discussions. But once working with words came around I was forced to come out of my shell and share my poetry with the world during our coffee house presentation. 

The person that I have to thank for this is Ms Willemse. She read my poetry and told me that I should present one by myself during the coffee house presentation because she found it to be very good. I don’t know if she knows this but that is the thing that gave me the confidence in all my other projects that followed to be more impactful and speak my mind. Especially in the revolutions on trial project. 

For this I took a lead roll in forming ideas, planning, making sure everyone was contributing and I also was always trying to go above and beyond in ways that I could. Like for example, I took on more than one acting roll, I revised out affidavit 3 times to make it perfect and I always made sure everyone stayed included in the decision making process. So with that confidence that Ms Willemse gave me I was able to work harder, more and better alone and in groups. 

There are still some areas of improvement for my work though. 

For example, 

I have some bad work habits like I sometimes put the harder things off for last, and I don’t always go above and beyond the call of action when I could be. 

For my next three years of PLP I will try my best to do so because my grades stat to matter for university in grade 10, 11 and 12. 

I also still need to work on my writing skills in different areas like blog posts, and the best way to do that would be to read books more often.

Maker grade 9 has been my favourite PLP class so far in high school. We learned about things that I already had a big passion for like movie making, self improvement and team work, and I feel like I’ve done some exceptional work. The two biggest projects that we did were Vibrant video/you first film (I’m putting them together) and Destination Imagination. 

These two projects demonstrate my growth as a learner in many ways not only one. First In Destination Imagination I learned a lot about team work, speaking my mind, working smart and hard, and that I work better under pressure. DI this year also made my ability to adapt to certain situations a lot better since last year it was a movie we had to make and this year it was a skit. But back to the other things, in DI this year I really learned how to properly work as a team. This was shown in many ways like when we were building things we would split up the work evenly and by our expertise. For example Sabrina would usually be put as the lead painter since she’s a great painter, when Fraser would the lead writer since he’s a great writer. 

Compared to last year I contributed a lot more in the decision making process because I was no longer afraid to speak my mind, and overall I think that made out DI Presentation better. You know that old saying “work smart not hard”? Well I found a better way of working, smart and hard. I would try to do this everyday in DI but it showed the most In our instant challenge the say of the presentation. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say anything about it yet but I came up with some cool ideas right away and explained it to my teammates. There are some things that I could have done better that I have to improve on. For example I would sometimes be late to class which I can improve pretty easily. But the thing that I have to improve on the most is not being a boss hog in instant challenges, that may be the reason that we didn’t get a great score. So just some bad habits that I have to stop doing.

Then vibrant video/ my first film was my actual favourite project that I’ve ever done in my high school career. I’ve already said all these things in my vibrant video post but I loved it so much because it included some of my favourite things Filming, Acting, Editing and Directing. We did many things that I had never done before, like making silent movies and movies that included special effects.

Like the other projects that Ive been talking about, I grew as a learner in many ways. First I improved my writing skills while writing scripts, log lines and screenplays. Also my ability to envision things before they’re in front of me. For example, when we were instructed to make a movie including special effects I immediately came up with a cool storyline that was dramatic, comedic and sad. Of course it also included special effects. Then after we learned everything we needed to about films, we were instructed to make one, but not any kind, a Documentary. To read more about the documentary go here (insert link here).

But making the documentary really heightened my ability to make changes on the fly. Also like I said before I gained the ability to work good under pressure from DI and I had to do that because we only had a month to plan out, shoot, edit and make music for the documentary. 

There are also some things that I definitely could have improved on. 

For example, I could have had a better interviewee and even maybe more interviews. Also maybe not add a silent film to a documentary thats about some dark stuff.

 But overall I got some positive reviews on it by my peers especially the grade 8s that I showed. 

One habit that I have to work on is making less drafts because I think the movie was better in my 3rd draft than in the 5th and final one. 

But I am very happy with the final result.

Scimatics is different from the other PLP classes in many ways. Up until this year there was only one teacher, we do workbook and textbook pages like non PLP classes, and we follow the same guidelines in every project. But sometimes the projects can be a bit more interesting and maybe more fun in some ways. 

But I definitely have grew as a learner in the past year in scimatics, and the projects that show the most growth are “Game of Exponent Laws” and “Metaphor Machines”.

Game of Exponent Laws was the first project of the year for scimatics and it was very fun. To read more about the project go to my blog post about it. But the first sign of growth as a learner that I saw was that I was participating a lot more in class then I was before. I would raise my hand 75% more than in grade 8 and it felt good. The reason being because the project was bout something that I was really good at in grade 7. But it seemed like I was the smartest person in the class for 2 months which really upped my confidence to speak more in class compared to the year prior. But also I was putting a lot more work into the each milestone and stepping stone and collaborating with my partner luca a lot better than last year. Also I would revise my final product more than once compared to last year.

There are of course still some things that I need to improve on.

For example, even though I would put a lot of work into the milestones and stepping stones, I would still procrastinate a lot. 

Then some habits that I have to work on are of course not procrastinating, than also not being a boss hog as much.

The next project titled “Metaphor Machines” saw me improve on all those things that I was saying before. The project was about us making a Rube Goldberg Machine in a group of four and while doing that I saw a lot of improvement on some of my bad habits and things to work on. 

For example, I would revise my work even more to make it as good as possible, I started procrastinating less and being on task more, and I was also not as much of a boss hog. 

After that project there happened, I became an excellent learner,. However, I should still work on procrastination when at home and putting a bit more effort into my blogposts. 

To wrap up this post and Tpol, Im just gonna show you the facts,

At the beginning of the year I would only participate a bit in class, I would procrastinate a lot, my work wasn’t as good as it could be, and my writing skills were horrible. 

Now at the end of the year, I participate a lot more in class (sometimes too much), I procrastinate a lot less, my work is becoming much better, and my writing skills a also much better.