Julia’s Journey

A guide to my learning

Category: Humanities (Page 1 of 2)

WWII : Pre-Project + Learning Intentions

By

On October 20, 2025

In Humanities

In this post, I will be talking about an upcoming project we have. We are starting our unit about WW2, so I will be talking about topics that I want to learn more about, as well as making learning goals and sharing my learning intentions for this project.

What I Know

World War II was a major global conflict that ended in significant loss of lives. It officially began on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. A few days later, France and a number of other countries later, declared war on Germany. I have been interested in WWII since I was young, always reading books and talking about it, and I hope in this project I can deepen my knowledge and understanding of this time period.

So, what topics interest me?

The two areas I want to explore the most are number one, D-Day, because it has always interested me, and I find massive organized ambushes like that incredibly cool. Number two would be the holocaust because it was a big thing that took part, and I want to learn the background; the whys, who’s, whats, and where’s.

D-Day

D-Day was an incredibly important day in not just Canadian history, but its also important internationally. On June 6th, 1944, allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy, France to rebel against the Nazis. Thousands of soldiers were lost that day, and their bravery and courage will never be forgotten.  

I have always been incredibly interested in specifically this date in history, as I have read six or seven books about it, and I know a bit about it. I believe it had a major impact on the war, and I want to learn all the little details about it.

Holocaust

The Holocaust was a difficult time period where around six million Jews were killed by the Nazis. Other groups were targeted as well as the Jews, but they were the main target. 

This topic is something I want to learn more about because it is something very important to learn and talk about. None of the things that happened were right, and I want to learn about it because the more you know, the bigger impact you can have on creating change; knowledge is a powerful thing.

Propaganda

The driving question for this upcoming project is “How do stories, media, and propaganda shape how we remember World War II?”

Propaganda can be a positive thing, because it informs the world with current events, and important world problems. It can also be a very bad thing, because it can spread false information to the public.

Learning Goals and Intentions

For this project, my PLP Humanities 10 class and I are going to learn about World War 2, and how we can properly remember it.

A lot of things we hear about WW2 are from other people talking, movies, and what we ourselves WANT to believe. But really, we all need to know the cold, hard, truth, so I really support exploring these topics, even if they cause pain to talk about, or remember.

Communication and Collaboration

My PLP strength I am working on, and will continue to do so is Collaboration and Communication. I could spend hours on a piece of work, or less than half an hour. I need to improve on balancing the time I spend on work. It could be an insane amount of time and I wont get that much done, or I could create something I am really proud of in a few hours. It’s all about balance. ⚖️

In my VMV that I wrote for my PrePol at the beginning of the year, I talked about how my communication and collaboration could improve a lot by really breaking down group work into steps. For example we set a due date for ourselves for step one of the project, and then once that has passed we move onto step two. This could be incredibly useful, especially because it makes sure our work is done on time, and to good quality.

Conclusion

Learning about World War II isn’t just another project – it’s an important part of not only Canada’s history, but the world’s. Throughout this project, I hope to bring my understanding to a new level by further exploring topics like D-Day and the Holocaust. As well as those two areas, I want to examine things I haven’t heard of before, and expand my thoughts and knowledge to new places. I also believe other people’s perspectives on these major events can shape, and change my worldview for the better.

Thank you for reading my post!

Comic Quest – WWI 🪖

By

On June 19, 2025

In Humanities

Have you ever wondered about WWI? What happened? What did it look like?

A Bit of History

WWI was a brutal time in our history. WWI started in 1914 after the assassination of archduke Franz Ferdinand, but nationalism, militarism, and different allies also played a part in the war starting. Austria Hungary launched an attack on Serbia, which then escalated to countries declaring war upon others. Germany, Austria Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire fought against the allies; Britain, France, Russia, and later on Canada and the USA. The allies won the war  in 1918. War was awful; about 40 million soldiers died in total, from both sides of the war. 

How can researching the historical significance of World War I inform and enhance the storytelling in a graphic novel I create?

The graphic novel we made each represents something different from the war. It could be air aces, women in war, front lines, and a few other choices. Each story that our classmates wrote told a story of world war 1, with the reality of battles, death, and struggles. Each graphic novel had a reality about it that was very similar to how it would actually be. 

By researching facts and events in World War I, you could make sure the information was accurate and had the correct timing. By knowing the information, you could really enhance the story by making it seem all very realistic. If the person writing the graphic novel understands the materials, and how life would be, then it could make the story better they know what they are talking about. Doing this, the reader could also try and make connections between the readers and the graphic novel, by words, drawings, or even the sounds. 

Final Project

The final project for this WWI unit was to make a 20 panel graphic novel. I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into… it was hard!! I didn’t expect all those late nights, early mornings and hours working on this graphic novel. 

Planning Documents

Before we could get into drawing these graphic novels, we had to plan for them! We did many panning documents, but I am grateful we did each and every one of them, for they were extremely helpful when it came to start drawing. 

WWI Comic Book

For our comic books, we got to choose our very own category. I chose air aces, because I was interested in how the life was. My soldier was names Charles and he came from Canada. He got placed in a British training camp, then joined the RFC (Royal Flying Corps). He flew in the battle of Passchendaele, in Belgium. I found learning about all these battles, ways of life, and facts very interesting, and I am glad I chose the topic I did.

  • Screenshot

Conclusion

I thoroughly enjoyed this project, and I am glad I got the opportunity to make it. Even though this comic was hard, and it was very stressful to make, I had so much fun, and the feeling when it was finished was super rewarding.

 Thanks for reading!!

In The Name Of The Nation 🇨🇦

By

On May 16, 2025

In Humanities

Did you know the significance of Canada’s history, and how our country came to be? 

Well our country had quite an interesting past, and this recent project we finished in Humanities really has opened my eyes and taught me so much about our history. Each group covered a province and made a decision whether or not to join confederation.

‘How has nationalism’s influence shaped the global structure? Moreover, how has nationalism impacted the establishment of Canada as a nation?’

Prior to learning about nationalism, I didn’t know what it meant and I was confused why it was an important part of our world. I now know that it means people who have the same beliefs, language and religion should have their own government and people in their lives to lead them to have successful and promising lives. It is important for people to make their own choices and have the right to say no, because it makes a difference when you can think for yourself.  

Present and Reflect

The final product details were to make a persuasive video advocating for your territory to either join confederation or remain sovereign. Every member of your group has to be included in the video, and planning, shooting and editing must be visible.

✅ 5-7 Minute Runtime

✅ All Members Present

✅ Scripted Material to be Handed in With Final Video

✅ Clear Determination, Join or Remain Separate?

✅ Incorporation of Historically Accurate Details

✅ Use of Technique to Engage Audience  

Preparing to Film

Before we could film, we needed to have a good plan, script, storyboard and notes. Having these things are so important because if something went wrong filming we all knew our story so well we could adapt quickly. Our story was a difficult one. It really took some time to develop because it was different than a debate or a conference room. We knew it would be challenging to pull this off, but we wanted to complete something hard, because the satisfactory feeling afterwards makes it all worth it.

Here’s an example of the notes we took:

Click Here!

Here’s an example of a part of the storyboard we made:

Confederation of Northwest Territories

Maggie, Marcus and I were given the Northwest Territories to make our persuasive video on. I was especially excited on getting the Northwest Territories because I did not know much about the past, so it was interesting getting to know more about one of our provinces.

Video

The Confederation Cup was the name of my 5-7 minute video I completed with the help of Maggie and Marcus. At the start, we were concerned that it would be hard to show our idea in a way the audience could follow along. Another struggle we had was finding the old hockey clips to use; their weren’t many, and some of the ones we found wouldn’t work at all because of minor details that effected the video in big ways. 

Towards the end of our filming journey, I found that it was less stressful because we got most of our filming done early so we had tons of time to edit and get feedback to improve our video.

Key Points

1. Ruperts Land – Ruperts land was a huge area owned by the Hudson’s Bay Company since 1670, and it covered most of western and northern Canada. Ruperts land was mostly used for fur trading, but had few other purposes as well. The transfer of Rupert’s land became official on July 15, 1870 to the British Crown, then to Canada.

2. NWT Joining Confederation – The NWT joined confederation on July 15, 1870 in an after effect to the transfer of Ruperts Land.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed completing this video with my group members. It was equally challenging and fun which is what made this project great! I feel as though I understand Canada’s history to a better extent now that I have researched and completed our video! 

Lost In London

By

On March 2, 2025

In Humanities

For the past month or so, our class has been working on a project called Rise of the Frankenstuffies. We have started out by learning all about the background to the Industrial Revolution, and then we started our final assignment for the project.

Our iMovie was the final assignment to show our learning progress throughout the project. 

Driving Question

How can we, as writers, weave historical details into our creative storytelling to convey a clear and impactful message?

I think a big part of historical storytelling is making sure the information is accurate, detailed and informative. Connecting the audience to the storytelling and how the story is told is important. When the readers are interested and engaged in the story it makes more of an impact because they care about the problems in the world, and how they can help to fix them. And example is the Covid 19 pandemic. In the past there had been multiple pandemics such as the Plague, the Spanish flu, Smallpox and many more. Covid taught me a lot about how much impact people can have in the world. First responders worked day and night to make sure communities were the safest possible. Every night at 7 everyone in my neighbourhood banged pots and pans together, played instruments and even the bagpipes making noise to show our appreciation to our first responders. Even though we couldn’t come within 6ft of each other, we stuck together and got through the pandemic. Weaving details into storytelling can make an impact on the world to connect people and to bond over things we feel passionately about. 

What is the Industrial Revolution?

The Industrial Revolution happened from 1760-1840. A revolution is ‘a forcible overthrow of a government or social order, in favour of a new system.’ As I learned about revolutions, and Haiti before winter break we had a good start on what a revolution is. Check out my post here.

Within the Industrial Revolution many things happened, such as women starting to work in factories, coal mining and railroad being built. So many things impacted the Industrial Revolution and this project was one to summarize it.

To first get into the swing of things we watched a BBC video and were told to create doodle notes on provided templates. I had a ton of fun creating these notes, as doodling and visually learning help me remember information well.


Urbanization Game

This assignment was designed for us to get a feel for how packed the towns were when new inventions and people were starting to get added. We started out by having few houses and a comfortable town. As the game moved along more things were added. Things escalated quickly as soon as more people arrived. More people means more food, more housing, more roads, more more more. When everything adds up, you can see how crowded places can get, and fast.

Puzzle 

In this puzzle we learned about a specific part of the Industrial Revolution, then filled in the other parts from other classmates who learned about other things. I learned about Transportation, and I found it interesting to compare to today’s transportation. 

Now that we had learned all about the importance of the Industrial Revolution we could start with what it had all lead up to, our Frankenstuffies! We started by cutting up our old stuffies and sewing them together! I had a lot of fun creating mine, I found it oddly relaxing to take them apart and put them back together. With our stuffies complete we had a few more things to do before filming and editing could begin; our hero’s journey and storyboarding. 

Hero’s Journey

This was the part that took the most time because we had to basically write out our entire story, but separated into categories. The categories signified how the story moves on from the beginning to end. Each category represents a part of the story with lots of detail describing the events going on. 



Storyboarding

Storyboarding was so much easier as soon as the Hero’s journey was done. All I had to do was take the information from my Hero’s journey and put it in the storyboard and accompany it with some drawings.

Filming and Editing

I struggled with filming because it was tough to get the stuffy to be straight, not wiggle and cooperate with me. Since I had decided to weave my story through with Madeline’s, we needed to film our stuffies together and have them be in most scenes with each other. It was a complicated process to get filming done, and we needed multiple people to help with holding the stuffies on the green screen someone to film, etc.. Editing was a completely different story. I struggled a bit with iMovie working, because my images were zoomed in too far, and I had to figure out how to zoom out and have the image the correct size. My green screen on top of the image, then was floating, so those images needed to be zoomed in, but not to much or else it would be blurry. Lots and lots of tweaking and changing my movie later, I started to drift closer to my final draft. We all handed in 3 different drafts. Draft one was just to show we had something done.

Draft two, my feedback was this:

And eventually, our final draft was handed in! It was done! 

Conclusion

I enjoyed this project because it was a challenge for me. My strengths do not include storytelling / writing, and creating videos. The more of these things I do, the better I become at them, despite how I feel about them. It’s ok to not enjoy something, because you’ll get better the more you work at it. 

I found learning about the Industrial Revolution very interesting to learn about, as it’s something I’ve never learned or heard about it before much. I learned so much about how the world has evolved. The more information I take in about the past, the more puzzle pieces I can stitch together to look at the big picture. 

Thanks for reading, another post coming later this week!

Vive Les Machines À Métaphores❄️ Winter Exhibition

By

On January 13, 2025

In Humanities

Happy New Year!

Over our winter break, I have gotten the chance to reflect on the project we had worked on for several months. To prepare for the chaotic Winter Exhibition, we learned about revolutions and Crane Brintons stages of the revolution, and we read an old book called Animal Farm.

This is my group, and this journey through learning, and the Exhibition we took together was an amazing experience.

Driving Question

What Factors Precipitate ‘Revolution’ and How Have They Shaped the Modern World?

A revolution is ‘a forcible overthrow of a government or social order, in favour of a new system.’

Many factors can impact the beginning of a revolution including government injustice, economic crisis, growing intellectual opposition, and weak rulers. When these instances are ignored, or put lower in the list of priorities, other governments, and/or the people of the kingdom will break down and not function as before.

These factors shape today’s world because each one of them is still happening somewhere today. Government injustice is a name for inequality, where in some countries people don’t have the opportunity, the choice to vote. We are very lucky in Canada to have such amazing lives and not have to worry about starving, or being unsafe.

In the Haitian revolution, the people of Saint Domingue were ignored and enslaved, which meant day after day of endless work in extremely harsh conditions. When the enslaved peoples took a stand, it didn’t bring peace to their world right then and there. They had to fight tough battles, with lots of sacrifices. Although Haiti is still an extremely poor country today, back during the revolution, the brave and inspiring people set an example to fight for your rights and equality today.

Animal Farm

The book we read to kick off this project was called Animal Farm. It was an oldbook, with differentiated opinions, but the ideas and plot of the book hit hard. This book was hard to follow, but when I spent time really trying my best to understand
it, it made me understand the basics of a revolution. When we finished the book, we were assigned the infographic to make. An infographic is a visual chart used to represent information and data. In our case, the stages of revolution displayed in Animal Farm.

Click here to review my notes

The Haitian Revolution

Heading toward the date of the Winter Exhibition, we had to know what we were doing for it! We discovered that we were to make metaphor machines (Rube Goldberg machines) to represent our specific revolution. My group members were:

Ella

Madeline

Milaina

Maya

Chloe

Before we started creating our machines, we learned about our revolution individually so we all knew what we were doing when we got together. I worked very hard to understand the Haitian revolution, and I am very proud of my infographic outcome.

First, to understand a revolution and the stages of it, we focused on Crane Brinton and his stages of a revolution. The 4 stages are the Moderate, Incubation, Crisis, and Recovery. We used the information and notes we made on Cranes theories to create an infographic. Little did we know, more infographics were coming our way! I had trouble understanding Cranes theories at first and translating my knowledge into an infographic, but the help of my teachers and peers made a difference. When I understood what was going on, I could participate in the class conversations, which benefited my learning because I could then apply those topics into my infographics.

This is my individual infographic:

Individual Infographic

After we had completed our individual revolution infographic, and we all understood our revolution, we then created a group infographic with all of our information combined into one very detailed infographic.

This is my group infographic:

The Haitian Revolution:

Government Injustice: The people of Haiti, or back then called Saint-Domingue had four groups of people. 1. The big white planters who owned the plantations and all the slaves. 2. The wealthy free people of colour. 3. The poor whites who worked as artisans and labourers. 4. The slaves who made up the majority of the population. Slavery was a big factor because their owners had full control of their lives. Economic Crisis: The slaves weren’t getting paid, despite the extremely long days they worked harvesting sugar. The slaves worked so hard, people would frequently die because of the harsh conditions. The people at the top of the chain had freedom, money, and a risk free life. Military Victory: In August 1791 a massive slave lead war broke out. Among the leaders was Toussaint L’ouvertur, a former African slave. The Spanish, led by Charles IV, had supported the slave revolt and joined up with the slaves against the French. In October, 1793, the British decided to invade Saint-Domingue, and now the French was outnumbered so they decided to free the slaves. To turn the tides of the war, L’ouverture switched to the French side. Luckily for the people of Saint-Domingue, L’ouverture was an able politician and he turned the colony toward independance.

Rule Of The Moderates: As the slaves learned about the current situation with the government they became upset and began to thrash out. The French gave the crops and materials to the slaves, and forced them to work endless days to prepare and harvest the crops, and then the sugar and coffee go back to France. The French make so much profit here, and the slaves get nothing out of it which is why they decide to act out and fight against the French. The slaves were lead into battle by Toussaint L’ouverture along with few others. L’ouverture became an officer in the Spanish military. A while later, L’ouverture decided to switch over to the French side. L’ouverture, with the help of Jacques Dessalines was able to win the civil war after 13 months of hard fighting. L’ouverture was arrested and shipped to France where he died in his prison in 1803.

Civil Or Foreign War: France tried taking all the weapons away from the slaves, but they fought back and won against the French despite the French military having more training and better weapons. The French were exceptionally cruel and executed women and men, and trained man eating dogs from Cuba to kill some fighters. Radical Gain Control: In 1799 Napoleon ceased power in France and had big plans to reconstruct France’s empire. To carry out his plans, Napoleon needed money. He decided to reintroduce slavery into Saint-Domingue to make the money he needed. The Haitians fought back and won which shattered Napoleons dreams of creating his very own empire. Radical Revolution: When the Spanish, British and slaves were all working together, the French were thinking ‘we are not winning this battle,’ so they decided to free the slaves and all would be well. Previously, the slaves had been treated as the French property so it must have been quite a change for the slaves.

Radicals Ejected From Power: On January 1st, 1804, Dessaline, who had defeated the French declared the island of Saint-Domingue independent and reintroducing the name Haiti. The original name of the island had been Haiti before Columbus arrived and changed it. The declaration of independence was a rejection of France to a certain decree, European Racism and Colonialism. Haiti was the second free and independent state in the Americas. War Or Peace: Although Haiti recovered in that time period, nowadays Haiti is still in debt to France. The Haitian independence debt means that Haiti owes France money from what they helped them with in the revolution. Since they are an independent piece of land, they need to pay off the land fees to France as well.

 Conclusion

I really valued this opportunity to work with the amazing group I had, and the chance to learn something really valuable about the Haitian revolution. Of course, our group had its ups and downs, but we pushed through and ended up with our metaphor machine working about 80% of the time, which is a huge success for us.

Thanks for reading!!

The Wilderness Must Be Explored 🥾

By

On June 19, 2024

In Humanities

This year has flown by. I enjoyed every second of it because it was just so much fun. Before I registered it, I was in Oregon having the time of my life! There was so much that happened in this project, and in this post I will be telling the story of how the spring exhibition came to life.

HIKING QUARRY????

As you may know, this project was all about advertising. We hiked the rock as a class, and when we got to the top, our assignment was to ask strangers why they came on the hike. Most said either because they saw it on instagram, or they heard about it from friends or family. After we collected that information, we had to take a picture of the peak for our advertisement we were making. This is the picture I took: 

When we finished our hike, we went home and we tasked with making a first draft of an advertisement for Quarry rock. We all had to make an original catchy slogan to go with our ad. My slogan was ‘Life’s Better At The Top.’  

This is my first draft of my Oregon ad. My feedback was that it was ‘missing something.’ I thought for a while, and came up with an ad that looked like this. 

This is my first draft

This is my second draft

I had added pictures of us along the hike, although my teacher and peers then thought it looked too crowded, which I agreed with. I pondered about how I should make it more eye catching when it hit me. I changed the shape! Everyone thought my ad looked so much better  in this format.

This is my final draft

I think this advertisement hit the right spot. It has contrasting colours, a catchy slogan, and some other photos to get a viewers eye. If I were to revise this once more, I think I would make the letters of my slogan a thicker solid font, so it has more of an effect on being bold. Other than that small change, I think that this ad was a good start to my journey of creating ads!!

OREGON

I won’t put too much information in this section, because we did so many fun things and learned about the coolest things. If you want to read more about our field study along the Oregon coast, then you can flip through my adventure book! 

In our adventure books, we added information about the places we went, videos of us trying new foods, zip lining, and having the time of our lives! I found it a bit challenging to keep up with all the places we went because every new place had a new page.

EXHIBITION TIME

As soon as we arrived back home from Oregon all focus turned to the Spring Exhibition. We were all put into groups around 5-6, and were assigned a theme. My group consisted of; Madeline, Ella, Cece, Griffin, Marcus, and me! We were all tasked with making individual ads with a consistent font, theme, and layout. This is mine: 

We also all had a colour pallet that we were sticking too. It was mostly dark forest greens, and deep blues to go along with natures colours. I think our colours really represented Oregon well because I saw a lot of those colours while I was in and along the Oregon coast. After everyone had a 👌 in Showbie, we got the go ahead to start building our stations and our merch. Our merch was created by different people in our group, and all the articles of clothing, or water bottles had ‘Oregon’ somewhere on them. Our group slogan we created was ‘Oregon, discover your potential.’ Here are some examples of our merch my group and I designed together:

GROUPS

Within our group of 6, we decided to focus on 3 main attractions we stopped at. Because our theme is discovery and learning, we chose the Tillamook Creamery, Fort Stevens, and the Yaquina Head Tide Pools. Ella and Cece were responsible for the Tillamook station and they chose to make a milk the cow diagram and a diagram of how the cheese gets made. Griffin and Marcus built a cannon and had information to go along with it, and Madeline and I created a touch pool, where all the sea animals could be touched and felt in the pool (they were all fake). I think our stations were a huge success and everyone really enjoyed them. 

After putting so much of our time into making our ads and our station a success we were done! All that was left to do was clean up. I think that our entire Spring Exhibition presentation was a success, and I loved that my group and I worked so well together in this project. 

SO, HOW DOES LANGUAGE INSPIRE ADVENTURE?

This was our driving question for this project and here’s my answer to it. 

Language can inspire adventure because it can be verbally communicated to excite someone into wanting to do something or it can be something that is written such as an advertisement. As we have been working on creating and designing our very own ads, I have learnt the principals for using colour, font, and other things to make my ad stand out and be unique and original to me.  I think a slogan is a great way to use words and make a person want to be involved with whatever the ad is saying or telling you to go. Adventure can be a fun way of getting out of your comfort zone and becoming a new version of yourself. I think language can be used in a fun and creative way to persuade someone to go on an adventure. Language plays a massive role in inspiring someone to do something or go somewhere.

THANK YOU FOR READING

Thank you so much for reading my post all about our Oregon trip and the Spring Exhibition. This is my final post I will be making in grade 8, so here I come grade 9, and good bye grade 8! ☀️

Time to tPOL!!!

By

On June 18, 2024

In Humanities, Maker, Science

Statement of Learning

“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

I have grown and changed so much throughout grade 8, and overall I loved my first year at seycove. PLP was a new program for me. Despite hearing some things from Charlie, I didn’t know too much about how it worked, the learning we were going to be doing, and how I would like it. I am really enjoying my time in High School and PLP, and for now it is a perfect fit for me. 

In my mPOL I set goals for myself and reflected on my learning plan, and in my tPOL post I will be talking about my year in grade 8 as a whole, talking about a few selected success behaviours and setting some goals and things I hope to achieve in grade 9!

RESILIENCE

In the category Agency, I chose Resilience. An example of resilience would be working through DI (destination Imagination). DI was an interesting experience.  I’ve done DI before, where we got first place, but this was nothing like doing it before. When I got my group, I was thinking ok, we can do this, but oh boy was I ever wrong. We did our plans, and got our story sorted out, but we still had a script to write, costumes to make and find, and props to build. We dedicated 2 pro D days to making our props which turned out really well! The only problem was the DI competition was a week away, and we needed to practice and figure out the other small details. We ended up spending long days at school, and the weekend memorizing lines. I think the competition went relatively well, although if we had more time I think our story could’ve evolved and been a little better. Over the course of finishing our performance I got frustrated a couple times. Yes, sometimes I like things to be done my way, but that isn’t always the answer. I think that when I get frustrated I tell myself things that need to get done, rather than making and doing unnecessary things that aren’t very helpful to my group. I need to focus on bouncing back and spreading out the work so that everyone can be successful in my group. For me, showing resilience is being flexible with my peers, listening to their ideas and communicating my thoughts openly. In the end, DI went ok. If my group used our time better and bounced ideas off each other earlier I believe we could have done better. You can read about my first DI experience here.

ENGAGEMENT 

The next success behaviour I am going to talk about is engagement. Compared to the beginning of the year, I have gotten so much better at class discussions and participating. At the beginning of the year, I felt like I knew what to say and that it was at least somewhat right, but I didn’t want to mess up or say the wrong thing, so I didn’t say anything at all. This was a huge mistake because as I spoke up more, and became more confident with my ideas and thoughts, I got more things correct, or it was a good idea. Now when a question is asked, most of the time, I can shoot my hand up and present my idea, and be confident in myself. Of course, my thoughts aren’t always right, and I have gotten better at accepting that. Sometimes I’m thinking along the right lines, but it just doesn’t quite fit, or sometimes I am 100% on the wrong track, and need to rethink everything. Being wrong and correcting your answer to make it right shows learning because you can show what you learned by explaining why your answer is wrong. I can show my engagement through my blog posts and even in my mPOLS and tPOLS! Here are some examples of my blog posts:

Consequences of Colonization

All About AR Maker

All About Atoms

COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION 

For my third and final success behaviour I chose communication and collaboration. 

With teachers: I have become so much better at communicating with my teachers openly. As I learned about my teachers, and got to know them, I became aware that I am not wrong to ask questions. Asking questions shows you are engaged and aware of what’s happening around you. I ask my teachers questions in person and on iMessage, whenever I need help because its not wrong to need help.

With peers: In group projects, I feel as if I am a trusted and responsible group member. I will do my part in the project, and accept and give feedback. I think I demonstrated this best at the End Of The World project, where my group was sometimes off task, and needed some reminders to hop back on and stay as engaged as possible. 

With Technology: I believe I am responsible with my iPad in class, and I am always doing what is expected of me. I stay on task, and do my best to get my work done in class. I had some trouble in the earlier stages of the year, when messages would become distracting, but now I can block those out, put on DND (do not disturb) and focus on the task at hand.

SCIENCE

I learned so much in Science this year that was all new. Last year we didn’t get to do fun experiments where we could involve our hands and be creative in new ways. Where as this year we get to balance doing fun experiments with learning cool information to then using that information and making our projects with it. The project we just finished doing was called Small But Mighty, and in this project we were taught all about cells in our bodies which we demonstrated through our immune system character cards. I was really proud of how I took the feedback I got on my field journal and made it better. I struggled the most with making my observations precise and accurate. 

Another project we completed in science was our scratch video game. This game was another example of how I showed resilience. I found it very frustrating that scratch kept glitching and game deleted several times, but I kept at it and eventually I got it. Coding is something I can continue to work on, and the more I do it the better I will get at it.

HUMANITIES

Humanities has been an up and down subject for me all year. Some projects I thoroughly enjoyed, and some I disliked. In life, you can’t choose it all, so I dealt with it! We have done so many projects this year from writing songs to presenting to grade 11s! The most recent project we did, the Spring Exhibition, was the one I chose, because I think it shows my success behaviours I chose the most. The project on the spring exhibition all started with our field study along the Oregon Coast. As we went, little by little we added to our ‘adventure book’ which was a document of the activities and things we did. Other than the book, our project was all about advertising. We were split up into groups for the Spring Exhibition and my group got the theme Discovery and Learning. We were to represent the theme of our group in our advertisements about the Oregon Coast. I love that everyone in my group collaborated and contributed to our dazzling final result. I think our presentation at the exhibition turned out great and it is definitely something to be proud of.

 

 

Over the course of the year, worldview is always something we put into consideration. ‘How does this affect your worldview?’ ‘How does this project influence your worldview?’ These were questions we were peppered with and they will always and forever stick with me. It helps me put myself into other people’s shoes. The Oregon trip influenced my worldview because all the little stops and stores and jobs people do can change a persons mind.

WHAT HAS HELPED ME GROW AS A LEARNER?

2 small things have helped me become a better learner in and out of school.

  1. Attending Tutorial 
  2. Using The Things App

PREPARING FOR GRADE 9

Looking back on my grade 8 year, I have learned so much about how PLP works, how my teachers teach, and how my peers work. Although grade 8 is a difficult year, I love that I now know that getting revisions is ok, and learning from your mistakes is great, because you are a better learner from it. 

A goal I am setting myself for next year is being more efficient with my time. I feel as though I spend more time on my work than I really need to. To make it become good to great takes time, but not so much that I am only adding little things at a time. 

I feel as though I am ready for next year, and I hope that it is just as fun or even more so than this year! I have become more confident in myself as a learner and a leader in the classroom, so I hope this shows through next year, and the following years as well.

Thank you so much for listening to my tPOL!! Have a great summer!!! ☀️⛱️

Consequences of Colonization 🇨🇦

By

On May 12, 2024

In Humanities

Driving Question 🏎️

Every project in PLP is led by a driving question. Our question for this project was ‘What were the Consequences of Colonization?’ Throughout the project, as we spent more time thinking /about the driving question, our line of thinking went to ‘What ARE the Consequences of Colonization?’ 

Craft

We started our project off by enrolling ourselves in learning about the helpful app Craft. This wondrous creation has helped me so much, and I wish that I had started to use it earlier. Craft has taught me to be organized, even if I want it to still be aesthetic.

Keynote

It was decided that our answer to the driving question would be presented to the BCFP grade 11’s through a Keynote presentation we would put together in groups of 3. My group consisted of:

Tyler

Siena

Click on the links to visit their blog to see their answer to the driving question and how they thought the project went!

Yet again, this project was connected to worldview. We learned about worldview in our very first project of the year, and most projects since have been connected to worldview.

Watch Tyler, Siena and I’s presentation here!

I thought our Keynote went reasonably well, and the grade 11’s seemed interested enough. Our main feedback we got on our 2 presentations we made was the same both times: SLOW DOWN!!! We thought the second group we presented to we were going slower, but apparently not! It seems when you are nervous or you know the information really well, you talk fast, even if you aren’t!

Algonquin People

The Algonquin people were the specific Indigenous group we chose to focus on. They originally occupied western Quebec and Ontario. They lived in Wigwams, which were kind of like Teepees, although Wigwams were much more stationary, while Teepees could be transported with visitors. The Algonquin people shared their knowledge through storytelling, and they believed in a supernatural being.

New France

Samuel Du Champlain was the man who came and pretty much started New France. He started by building one settlement, but his men kept working, and they started to build more and more. The early European settlers depended on the Indigenous to survive because they were living with different resources and on different land.

Individual Keynote

After my group and I presented our Keynote to the grade 11’s, our teacher told us we then had to make an individual keynote. I think this assignment was a way of finding out if we knew the information through and through without cue cards or anything. We could only use presenters notes, and we needed to make a 2 slide keynote with 3 words per slide, although we could add as many pictures as we wanted. My individual keynote presentation was my final answer to the driving question.

Conclusion

Overall, I thought that this project went smoothly, and I wouldn’t make any major changes in the layout. I enjoyed working with my group members, Siena and Tyler, and I thought we all contributed evenly. Group work is still something I have a bit of trouble with because I like doing all the work, and getting it done ‘my way’ but the more experience I have with it the better I become at working with my peers.

Thank you for reading and stay posted for more!

 

FIRST MPOL EVER

By

On April 8, 2024

In Humanities, Maker, Science

Hello! These are my parents, Katie and Ian Mortimer. 

Statement of Learning

“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

Maker

Let’s start with Maker. Maker has been my favourite PLP class so far this year. I love art, and involving myself in creative and unique ways, and having fun while experimenting. I had 3 teachers for Maker this year; Mr. Harris, Ms. McWilliam, and Ms. Kadi.

The very first project we did in Maker was Becoming a PLP Learner. I enjoyed this project  because I acquired so much useful information. We learned how to use multiple apps such as Keynote, Notability, Pages, WordPack, and some small details on other apps. I think my favourite app that we learned about would be WordPack. You put text into a box, and then you can choose your shape and colour. The app configures the words to go with the shape and colour which ends up looking really cool. This is mine that I made. We all thought of words to describe ourselves, and then made our own personal WordPack.

Memoji

Making my Memoji was my favourite part of this project. I enjoyed this, because I got to display  myself through an emoji. When I was creating it, I contemplated carefully how well the stickers went together, and the depth and perception of how they looked on my laptop. I acquired skills such as animating my stickers in keynote by making them spin, bounce, drop, burn fire, and more. 

Success and FAILS

I think my design on my final presentation was very me. I included drawing skills I learned from one of our other Maker projects, Finding Fun with Drawing. I decorated the pages, and made sure the patterns and background carried throughout my entire presentation. I think I was proficient in this area, because of my marks, but also because I tried really hard and participated with class discutions. 

One thing I believe I struggled with was time management and productivity. I tend to leave things to do last minute, and when I do finally get to them, I spend lots of time working on it when I really could have done it earlier, and I would be less stressed. My goal for this in the future, is to start right away when the assignment is addressed to us, and then I will have more time over the days to making sure it gets done to the best of my ability. 

Science

I just started science in the second semester. My teacher, Ms. Kadi is awesome. She explains things really well, and is super enthusiastic about teaching us. We have only completed one project so far, Mind over Matter. 

Mind over Matter has been a great experience for me, because we leaped into the deep end,  and involved ourselves with learning about atoms, physical and chemical properties, determining mass, and how to use scratch. We also got to learn how to use microscopes and the different parts of them. We all got to make our own sliders, which fit under the microscope so we can look at them. I used dirty water, and found little critters in the murky water. 

Our final project for science was to create and code your very own video game on scratch. Scratch can be extremely glitchy and finicky. I started by making a plan for my game, and handed it in. When I got the go ahead, I started to explore with scratch and tried to figure out how it all worked.  My game deleted multiple times, which was quite frustrating. In the end, I got scratch to cooperate with me, and I finished my drop game. I showed my knowledge through the game, because you need to collect all the different parts of an atom. Once you get to 50, you move onto a page that explains the different parts of the atom in some detail. 

Play my video game here!

Success and FAILS

I think I succeeded in making my game easy to play, yet still complicated at its core. I spent a ton of time creating my scratch game, Atom Drop, and I think it payed off really well. I am proud of what I have created because it displays how much new information I learned, but also because I really like how my game turned out. I used my coding skills, which were newly learnt, and put them to work by coding an entire game! I think I was proficient in Science because I was intent to learn, and I payed attention to what Ms. Kadi was saying.

One thing I think I could’ve improved on in this project would be my resilience. I got quite frustrated when my game kept deleting my progress, I wanted to make an easier game to code. Instead of thinking ‘I need to make sure I can code an easy game so it doesn’t delete, my mindset should have been, ‘okay, it deleted again. How can I figure out a way to make sure my entire game is saved?’ My goal in the future, would be to persevere and keep going, even if I face some hardships.

Humanities

Humanities has been an interesting block for me. I quite enjoy some of the content we learned about, while other things I couldn’t absorb as well. One of the things that really stood out to me, was the winter exhibition and the lead up to it. Previously to the winter exhibition we learned about the Renaissance and medieval periods in time. Our assignment was to create a triptych representing three time periods; the Renaissance, medieval, and present day. We were to then put these into a tableau, which we would present at the winter exhibition. We were put into groups for this, and I felt as though Ella and I were great leaders in the group. We made sure our group members were on task, everyone was contributing a bit, and practicing! Our props was my favourite part about our entire presentation because we spent hours making them, and to see everyone saying they liked them was quite rewarding. 

Success and FAILS

I enjoyed the journey throughout the winter exhibition. Our group grew together, and we really bonded during the process. I liked how we worked together to make 3 tableaus into 3 amazing works of art. My proudest moment was the very last presentation we did, when my teachers and Mrs. Best were watching. During the contemporary, everyone was like, ‘wow, it looks great’, and ‘all that work turned into something great.’ This was nice to hear after all the hard work we had put in. I think I am proficient in Humanities because I am present in conversations, and I share my ideas openly even if I am not always correct. I also have ✅ in my assignments. 

The biggest struggle for me was getting everything done in time. Time management can sometimes be hard for me. We had our ideas, but we didn’t start getting together costumes and building props until the last couple weeks. We were even still building a prop on the morning of the event. My goal for the future is to start as soon as possible after the project has been assigned, because it will cause less stress for me leading up to the due date. 

Learning Plan

At the beginning of the year, I completed a learning plan, which shows what I am good at, what I can grow in, and how I can get support in these areas. 

           

How Can I Grow as a Learner?

I have talked about some things from multiple areas, but I think the ones I need work in are preparation, self-regulation, and communication and collaboration. Some areas I have shown improvement in are attending to tutorial more often, and asking for help when I need it. I like things done my way, there is no other way of saying it. I can grow by using other peoples ideas, and making sure everyone gets a turn to talk. Another one of my goals for the future, is to know when enough is enough. Sometimes I spend too much time working, when it’s good enough. I really want to do well and achieve extending, so I need to put quality work in instead of just work. Making good use of time is a big thing for me, because I am a very busy person, and I need to use my time well. I have one big goal that I am setting for the rest of the year, that I will reflect on in my TPOL. I want to achieve extending is some, if not all of my PLP subjects. This is really important to me because it sets my standards for next year, and to keep pushing myself as a learner.

Thank you!

Thank you so much for reading my script for my very first MPOL! I spent lots of time working on this, and so thank you for listening to my yap!

All About AR Maker

By

On March 15, 2024

In Humanities

Have you ever tried using AR maker? The app is hard, frustrating, and rewarding. 

My Final AR Maker Video

Watch my final AR Maker video here!

European Exploration

These past 5 weeks, we have learned about the cause and consequence of exploration. We read about the motivation of European exploration, early trading, and of course, the cause and consequences of exploration.

Storytelling

 The driving question for this project was,  how can we use storytelling to investigate what  sparked global exploration and understand its impact? We can use story telling by making a story! We all made a AR maker video to do with this project. Mine tells the story of a girl called Anika. Anika desperately wanted to set sail with her father, and explore the world. One day when her father was leaving on a voyage, she decided to sneak her way along. She made it to the middle of the ocean, when a big wave hit her and knocked her overboard. Anika washed up on the shores of the land they called ‘Newfoundland’ (New Found Land). She somehow transmitted a disease called small pox to the people of the Americas. The disease grew and grew bigger, and it became exceptionally dangerous. Years later, her father reunited with her when he was on a voyage to the Americas. The two of them lived happily ever after in the land called the Americas. 

AR Maker

AR maker can be extremely confusing and hard to operate. You need to press place in a specific area, and make sure that you do not lose sight of your little friend in the white placing box. It was a very frustrating app at first, when we were making our practice stories. My story was deleting over and over, and I was done with the app. I then just kept moving forward, and was glad when I finished.

Small Pox

 I think my story shows my knowledge very well because I demonstrated how the Europeans transmitted the disease ‘small pox’ into the Americas. The disease lasted for many many years,  and was highly contagious. Small children and women were most likely to contract the disease, while men were just the little bit more immune. The more people were exposed to small pox, the more their immune system built up, but the disease could still harm them harshly. Later, a vaccine was created to stop small pox, which helped a lot. Although people were taken care of, there weren’t enough hospitals for everyone, and thousands sadly past away from it.

Reflection

Overall on this project, I am proud of what I have accomplished, and created. I did get some revisions, but I took them in well, and used them to fuel me to make my next draft better. At the end, I got all 👌, and I feel good about that. In the future, I think I could’ve gotten the whole project done faster, but it’s all okay, because it is done and I am proud of the work I have produced. Thanks for reading, and keep your eyes peeled for my next post!

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