The Art of Persuasion

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Hey, hi, and hello. Welcome back to my blog where not all those who wander are lost (J.R.R Tolkien). In this post I will be talking about our most recent project. In this project we learned how to use persuasive text to create change. Our end goal for this project was to be able to persuade a certain audience. The driving question for this project was: How can I use my voice to effect change? Now let’s get into the post.

My first thoughts on this project were that I would be successful in using persuasive text. I have previously taken sylvan tutoring to help me gain more reading and writing skills. One of the focuses was to learn how to analyze and how to write in a persuasive form. I found that learning about this a few years ago helped me achieve the goals that were set for this project. 

The main steps for this project were to choose a topic and audience, learn how to use persuasive text, and go through the steps of drafting till you get a final version. I went through the struggle of finding a topic. I was, at the beginning of this project, watching a lot of shows that were centred around the topic of feminism and women’s rights. This influenced me to choose this as a topic but when it came down to the narrowing part and choosing what to get your target audience to do as next steps stumped me. I couldn’t think of a way to narrow this topic. I wanted to be able to pick a large topic because I think that small topics like “no more homework” are meaningless and wont change the world for better. But the problem was a large topic was too much for this small of a project. I was able to find a different topic though. I chose to try and persuade students at my school to join our ultimate team next year. We sadly didn’t have enough interest last year or this year so we did not have a team. The last time our school had a full ultimate frisbee team was back when I was in grade 8. That was almost 3 years ago. I would like to leave high school with accomplishing on getting enough students involved in the sport so we have a team.

We spent many classes looking at the different ways to form persuasive text and at many examples. I won’t go too in-depth into the reading and writing activities we did but I will say that I enjoyed them and how they challenged me from an ethics and morals standpoint. 

Now onto the drafting process. This process is a repeat of create-reflect-revise. I originally wanted to create a journalistic styled piece but I realized that if my target audience was students I would need something more tailored to teens. I then got an idea to create a flyer that has a brief explanation of why to join the ultimate teams and a QR code that would link to my blog if they wanted to learn more. I was able to get a few drafts together of both my flyer and blog post. I was very proud of how my final version turned out but there was one problem. My goal was to persuade students to join the team next year but our project was done on April 28th. So I decided that I would send my flyer to one of my friends who has not yet joined the team but has shown some interest in the sport. She responded saying that she will tryout for the team next year and gave me good feedback on my flyer and post.

In conclusion I quite enjoyed this project. I learned that not just my voice can create change but my writing too. This project was able to make me see that I really do want to become a creative writer in my future just like how last project made me certain I wanted to be a costume designer. A few years ago my brother created a large document that goes in depth on what ultimate is, the benefits, and how to’s. I wish I was able to use this as a resource and link it in my post but sadly the app he used to design it no longer runs on iPads. Now circling back to the driving question: How can I use my voice to effect change? I think that being confident in facts and your own opinion can really help to persuade others. I think that being able to adapt to your target audience and change your strategy to fit that audience helps. I really hope we get to do more creative based projects like this in the future.

Stay tuned for more posts.

Peace ✌️ 

Ultimate Frisbee | Why You Should Join

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Above is a highlight video of the US 2021 mixed championship. Most teams from university onwards are separated into males and females however there are some mixed teams and most high school teams are also mixed. Below are a few reasons why to join the sport, different opportunities, and a brief explanation of what ultimate frisbee is.

There are many reasons why to join the ultimate team. It’s a really fun sport whether playing it recreationally or competitively. This sport isn’t always about wining but about having fun and bringing spirit to the game. Playing ultimate really helps build up stamina. Yes, there is quite a lot of running involved in this sport however the constant practice of running builds up stamina. Another reason is that there is no rush to build up skills. Even though there are skills needed to play ultimate, the only skills you really need are knowing how to throw and catch a frisbee. With this sport you don’t need any previous knowledge and you can work the ultimate season to build up skills.
Ultimate is a mix of a few different sports (football, basketball, and rugby). The way a game of ultimate is played is when two teams start at either ends of the field. Once the frisbee is released the game begins and goal is to get the frisbee to the end zone to score a point. The teams need 14+ members to have two rotating lines of 7. There are two main types of throws, backhand and forehand or as some call it, flick. You can find a tutorial here. https://youtu.be/lNQexzgzvw4
There are many opportunities for playing ultimate frisbee. The main options for a student to play are clubs, clinics, and school teams. There are many summer clubs that one can join. I myself joined Wildfire/Bonfire, but there are many more like elevate ducks or misfit. These clubs are a great way to continue playing ultimate during the summer. There are quite a number of ultimate clinics being run. Some of the best ones that I would highly recommend are VUL clinics and Elevate clinics. The third opportunity is school team. Our current school team didn’t have enough people interested for a team so we did not have a season this year. I hope that this has persuaded some interest to tryout next year so we can hopefully.

I hope that this blog post was able to help you understand a bit about the sport and I hope it was able to make you consider joining.

A Tale of Madness

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Hey, hi, and hello. Welcome back to my blog where not all those who wander are lost (J.R.R Tolkien). In this post I will be focusing our latest project. This project was one of the most fun projects ever. The driving question was: “How might we craft a compelling vision of “Macbeth” set in the 1950s?” Our end goal for this project was to be able to create a film that combines the gruesome tale of Macbeth and the Cold War. The stages we went through to lead up to this final project were to analyze the story of Macbeth and different versions and to learn the history of the Cold War. At first I thought that we wouldn’t be able to acheive our end goal due to the teachers telling us tht no PLP class has been able to complete this project. However my thoughts were soon to be altered.

When we first started with the learning of Macbeth I found myself more enthusiastic than my fellow classmates. Back in elementary school, grade 7, I became so interested in Shakespeare and learning how to understand his work. I am always looking forward to when we incorporate Shakespeare into our projects. We started by getting a textbook copy of the play and started to read. As we read we would analyze and ask questions. We would also look a one or two different film adaptations to be able to get visual representation and see how different directors in vision this tragic tale of madness.

I found that we as a class were lacking on the knowledge of the Cold War and what happened during it. We only had two quick lectures and I think that we could have spent more time delving into it to then be able to have included it more into our final project. During this project we had to make a weekly literature note about something interesting we learned in class or something that sparked an idea in our head. One of the literature notes I was really proud of was the one I did after we analyzed the witches in Macbeth.

Once we had our knowledge on macbeth and the Cold War we then started into our final project. The first step was to assign roles, not casting but the roles like director or producer, even in my case, wardrobe manager. When we applied for a role we had to hand in a vision for the role and a resume tailored to that role. I applied for wardrobe manager and added in my experience of helping with the costumes at my dance studio into my resume.

The first thing I started to do was put together a Pinterest board of my vision. I collaborated a lot with Kaia, the director, on what her ideas and vision so I could stick to an idea. I had a rough idea of what Kaia had in mind for the story and used that to start planning costumes. Once we got the actual story and the class had collectively written it I formatted my final ideas. The next step was getting them. I went down with the rest of the wardrobe team (Natalie and Liam) to our school’s theatre to find some costumes. I was able to find quite a lot of costumes that would work with the time period of our film (the 50s) and any missing things would be brought in by the actors.

Now due to the timing of editing this film I will not have the film on my blog until a later date but once I do have the film available a link will be below.

Now as usual I will be not only evaluating how the project went but how I personally think I did and how I can improve. I think that we were able to achieve our goal in being able to create a vision of macbeth that was set in the 1950s. I did wish that we were able to learn more about the Cold War aspect of the 50s but due to our previous knowledge of the 50s I think we were able to execute this project well. Now before I began writing this post I asked myself some questions. What did I do? How well did I do? What should I do next? After answering these questions I collected one conclusion. This project was amazing. Not only did it go well but it allowed me to realize what my true academic aspirations are. This project helped me achieve a realization that I really want to become a costume designer for theatre or film. I think that this project was one of the best by far because it allowed me to use my creative and critical skills and helped me build on them. The best thing about this project was what I was able to take away from it and this is what is important in projects. I hope we get to do a project more based around my second career choice (creative writing) and that the next project will be able to help me focus on building my writing skills.

Stay tuned for the next post.

Peace ✌️

MPoLs rising from the dead

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Hey, hi, and hello. Welcome back to my blog where “not all those who wander are lost” (J.R.R Tolkien). This is an MPoL post, I haven’t done one in a while since we didn’t do them last year. The driving questions for this years MPoLs are: How have I demonstrated growth as a learner so far this year? And, How can I sharpen my Learning Plan to ensure I will reach my learning targets by the end of this school year? Let’s dive in.

The goal I set at the beginning of this year was to expand more upon my blogs and find a better way to plan and format them. The plan I set to achieve this was to set a day during the week where I would organize my schedule and time block my homework, and if that homework included writing a blog post, I would create an outline before I started writing, unlike previous years. I have done some good work towards my goal over this first semester. I now create outlines for my blog posts and time block my homework times, I even schedule breaks. I try to keep organized by writing: what is due, what is scheduled, and any homework. I will create this as a daily note. I have also improved my work set up so that I am at a desk with little to no distractions so I can get work done.

Some evidence of my continuous work on re-formatting my posts are shown in my summative posts for the election reflection project and the Manhattan project project. Looking back on my summative post for the project on the election I had a strong and new intro and I had customized my blog to look more presentable. For the Manhattan Project post I didn’t have that strong of an intro and I could have expanded more on my post but I did have good use of links and media. I then reviewed these two posts while I was writing my summative post for my recent project so I had a strong intro and good use of links and media.

In preparation for MPoLs I started reviewing my start of year goal and compared it to the competencies. I thought it only fit under the Critical and Reflective Thinking Competency. However, after looking more closely I realized that my goal fits under the Creative Thinking Competency as well. I discovered this due to me trying to gain more writing skills, to expand on blog posts, through creative writing and that although blog posts are supposed to be critical and reflective it takes creative skills to write them. I have been able to build up my creative writing skills this year with writing scripts and screenplays in my drama class and with writing a book. Near the end of summer I started writing a book and now I continue it in my spare time. I have noticed a difference in my writing in PLP assignments this year and I think it is due to all the writing I have been doing.

Now back to the driving questions. How have I demonstrated growth as a learner? I feel that my writing skills are the most noticeable change and I feel that I have demonstrated that through the written aspect of assignments. How can I sharpen my Learning Plan to ensure I will reach my learning targets by the end of this school year? Looking over my start of year goal and where I’m at now. I have decided to re-write and expanding upon my goal and my plan. My updated goal moving forward is to not only expand upon my blog posts but to also expand upon any writing assignments. My plan moving forward is to time block every homework session, implement a new way to organize my notes and todo’s, and always create an outline when working on a blog post or writing assignment. I hope that by the end of the year I will be able to use my time effectively and be able to have better structured blog posts and writing assignments.

Thank you for spending the time to read through such a long post. Make sure to stay tuned for more to come.

Peace✌️

 

Sounds of Poetry

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Hey, hi, and hello. Welcome back to my blog where not all those who wander are lost (J.R.R Tolkien). In this post I will be focusing our latest project. This project has been one of my favorite projects we’ve ever done. Our final product for this project was to create a playlist of 5 songs that we connect with or that represent us. The driving question for this project is: How can we use music to represent texts and ourselves? now let’s dive in.

One of the first things we looked into was poetry. We read many poems and song lyrics and annotated them. In our annotations we would point out the different poetic devices we could stop and thought on how they made the song or poem better. I think that my favorite part of this stage was one specific poem I read by Edgar Allan Poe. I have always admired his work and love reading his poems, no matter how gruesome they are. The one we read as a class was “Annnabel Lee“. I was able to connect to this poem because I watched a web series focused around Edgar Allen Poe and mentioned his love towards her.

we then moved on to individual song analysis. For a couple of our classes we had to pre pick a song that we connected to in some way. We then wrote an analysis on one of the songs to then help prepare us for doing an analysis on each of the 5 songs in our playlists. I did my analysis on the song “Line Without a Hook” by Ricky Montgomery. I chose this song due to it being one of my many favorites.

Soon after doing the individual analysis we started on creating our playlists. I struggled to narrow it down to only 5 song. there was one song that I really wanted in my playlist but it took me around 7 minutes to find it. I then had 6 songs so I went to my brother for some advice and now I have 5. Below are my analysis and the playlist. Feel free to listen as you read.

As you listen to this song imagine a cool spring day. Sitting in the back seat, staring out the window in excitement while counting the trees as they pass by. Finally turning and parking outside a brown and white building. Hurrying through the halls, anxious to arrive. Stopping at a white door with a number at the top, looking over to two tall figures to be sure this is it. A knock, then silence. Suddenly the door opens to a lady, she’s wearing a lavender and mint blue outfit, holding onto a walker. This is one of my few memories that I have of my great grandma. She died when I was quite young and I can still remember the dreadful day of waking up and walking into my parents room as I see my mom in tears. We still have many things from her to hold on to and remember her by but none as great as her piano. The piano where I spent 5 years practicing and learning, the piano where a photo of her, my gran, my mom, and me is perched, the piano where when I look at it I see her. This song reminds me of her and of her piano with it’s soft feel and the sustain in each note.
When listening to 3 specific parts in this song (1:18-1:43, 2:21-2:47, and 2:28-3:32) I think back to a specific place. My dad’s side of the family has a trailer at a lake in between Cash Creek and Lillooet. My dad’s family has had a place up there since before he was born. I have been going to this trailer since as long as I can remember, and now knowing that this might be our last year up there saddens my heart. I have made so many memories up there and it’s always been my way to escape the panic of life and lets me just relax and have fun. There are only a few words sung during the first two sections I connect with(“welcome home”, and “I’ve come home”). They have the repetition of the word “home” in which I connect with. I do however have a better connection with the third section. “All my nightmares escape my head Bar the door, please don’t let them in You were never supposed to leave Now my head’s splitting at the seams And I don’t know if I can” As I mentioned earlier with how I find this lake a way to escape life, the line “All my nightmares escape my head”(2:28) is exactly how I feel when I arrive there and I get the sense of going home. “I’ve come home”(2:21). The repetition of the word home really makes this song leave behind the mood of home and that you’re always welcome home.
Once I first listened to this song I felt a connection to it. Not just because my friend wrote and sang it but I felt a connection to the lyrics. The theme I got from this song is escapism. As I mentioned earlier with the song “Welcome Home” by Radical Face, I like to find ways to escape the troubles of life. I have been able to find it in books, movies, music, nature, and daydreams. I think the line I most connect with is “And you will fly someday to a world far away from your troubles” (2:42-2:46). The one poetic device that stuck out for me was rhyme scheme. The scheme is AAAA or AABB. For example in stanza 2 the rhyme scheme is AAAA (fall, walls, tall, all). I fell that this makes the song get stuck in my head. The repetition of a rhyme helps the words stick.
It’s dark, curtains so rounding as excitement fills the air. Suddenly a figure is in the middle of the stage as the lights turn on and fade to blue. The music starts as two more walk on stage. This is how my passion of hiphop began. In 2015 and 2016 my brother did hip hop. I started hiphop in 2016, 6 years ago. I have always followed in my brothers footsteps and look up to him. I play flute, do ultimate frisbee, am in PLP, and do hiphop because he did it. While I watched him dancing from backstage I immediately wanted to add hiphop to my list of dance styles. I did around 2 years of recreational hiphop then went on to competitive. I have now been doing competitive hiphop for 4 years and now it’s the only dance style I do. This song and hearing this genre lead me down a path in my life and I can’t think what my life would be like without hiphop. As for literary devices, repetition is the major one. The repeating of the line “started form the bottom now we here, started from the now the whole team here” really leaves behind the message that they started from the bottom and made their way up. This song convey’s the message that anyone can start from the bottom and work up towards a major goal.
I chose this song for 4 reasons. All of these reasons are connected to each other. Let’s dive into the first. This song is from the Irish dance show “Lord Of The Dance”, the first connection I have to this song is that I did 7 years of Irish dance. I enjoyed it a lot except for the competitions (feis). At these competitions you would have to dance your specific dance as a solo as someone danced their’s right next to you. Each studio has their own specific dances but all studios share the same music. I always got stressed out at these competitions thinking I would forget everything. The next two connections I have are music based. The first being that I grew up loving the bagpipes and wanting to learn how to play the fiddle (both being Celtic instruments). I also grew up loving Celtic music and now it’s one of my top genres of music. And finally, la piece du résistance, the reason that ties all reasons together. I have Celtic heritage. I am part Scottish, part Welsh, and part Irish (I also have Ukrainian heritage). I am still looking deeper into my family’s Scottish clan and am interested in learning more.

Now let’s look back on the driving question. How can we use music to represent texts and ourselves? I think that a piece of music can have many different meanings to many different people. Everyone interprets music in different ways due to their past experiences and who they are. We can make it represent ourselves if we explain the meaning we find and our connection to it. Without an explanation others will keep pondering and might reach an incorrect conclusion. My conclusion however, is that I quite enjoyed this project so much that it has inspired me to read more poetry, point out poetic devices in everyday life, and to really listen to the lyrics of a song and find a connection to it.

Hope you enjoy my summative post. Stay tuned for more to come. My next post will be about MPoL.

Peace

“Tension” by Fraser and Rhiann

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Hey, hi, and hello. Welcome back to my blog where not all those who wander are lost (J.R.R Tolkien). In this post I will be continuing on the topic of historical significance and the Manhattan Project. I will also be adding in the idea of conceptual art and how we used it to convey different perspectives on what we learned throughout this project. Now lets dive in.

Near the beginning of this project we focused on historical significance and what makes something significant. Our main assignment for that section of the project was to take a historical event and create a post. You can find that post at [this link]. Along with learning about the Manhattan project we were assigned to read a book called “Hiroshima”. We participated in Socratic seminars and posed questions as we read. At the end we wrote a post of our opinion on the book. You can find that post at [this link].

Just like every project we have a driving question, however in this project we had 3 sub questions. One for historical significance, one for the bomb, and one for conceptual art. I was able to answer the first two in my past two posts however i still need to answer the third and the driving question. 

Now to answer the conceptual art question (How can we express ideas through art?) I need to talk and reflect on our trip to downtown. In the middle of November we went to two museums. I went into this project thinking that conceptual isn’t art and that it is pointless. After experiencing the Yoko Ono exhibit my feelings changed. I now think that conceptual art is art, however i still dislike ready made art. With this new view i am more able to answer the question. I think that the best way to express ideas with art is to add some sort of element to the piece that will keep the viewers wondering so that they will try to find the meaning, idea, or concept behind the piece. 

To answer the driving (How did the development of the atomic bomb change the world?) I will explain me and Fraser’s project. For winter exhibition we had to create a piece of conceptual art, either on our own or in groups. Our art piece had to somehow reflect an aspect of the Manhattan project and to fit under one of four categories. Politics and warfare, ethics and morals, technology and science, and society. Fraser and me created a piece that was balloons filled with sand suspended above pins creating the idea of tension and anxiety that the balloons could pop at any moment just like how nuclear weapons could be fired off at any moment. Each balloon is filled with the same amount of sand to represent that each balloon has the same amount of impact however the bigger balloon the more of an obvious threat compared to the smaller balloons. The closer to the pins the balloons are the closer to the decision to set of the weapons. 

In conclusion I think that the development of the atomic bomb has made nations more cautious towards other nations with not knowing if they posses these weapons or not. Over the years with new developments in technology the tension and anxiety grows between nations. I quite enjoyed having the three different sub questions in this project and i think it helped build up to answering the driving question.

My Opinion

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Hey, hi, and hello. Welcome back to another post. Recently my class has been reading the book Hiroshima to aid in our learning of the Manhattan project, or as its more commonly known as the “Atomic Bomb.” This event cannot even be explained as tragic or devastating due to it being far worse than those words. Let’s jump right in.

When I was first told to write a literary criticism on Hiroshima many ideas flooded my head. Many thoughts and questions, “what do I write?” “Should I focus on one idea or many?” All of these thoughts and more, however one stood out to me. “What is my opinion?” I have many opinions on many things and they are constantly being changed. For example I used to think that contemporary art was not art until I went to a Yoko Ono exhibit. It only takes one thing to change someone’s mind. My opinion on this book and specifically different aspects of this book has changed over reading it.

Before reading this book I had thought that the Americans made a smart move to end the war. After reviewing this I realized that I was looking though one viewpoint, this book allowed me to see through another. In this book we read through the view of 6 survivors and their experience. This allows you to sympathize and remember that there are always two side to a story. At the end of this book I had one main question, “Can we blame the US for making the atomic bomb and not taking the time to test for long lasting effects if they were just trying to get there before the Germans did?” The US might have made a smart move in saving their own men by bombing the Japanese, however it was not ethically the right thing to do. Let’s look at this through the trolley problem.

“There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on the side track. You have two (and only two) options:
Do nothing, in which case the trolley will kill the five people on the main track.
Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person.
Which is the more ethical option? Or, more simply: What is the right thing to do?”

Is it more ethical to end the war and save your men by bombing innocent Japanese civilian lives or to continue fighting and lose more lives? In the book, John Hersey wrote “Mrs. Nakamura and her relatives had been quite resigned and passive about the moral issue of the atomic bomb, but this rumour suddenly aroused them to more hatred and resentment of America than they had felt all through the war.” This showed that even a survivor of the event questioned the morality of the bomb.

After pondering my original question (Can we blame the US for making the atomic bomb and not taking the time to test for long lasting effects if they were just trying to get there before the Germans did?) I remembered a quote from my favourite musical (which happens to be Newtons Third Law), “Hamilton.” As Daveed Diggs (Thomas Jefferson) said “Every action has an equal opposite reaction.” There were clear consequences to the bomb being dropped wether the US decided to ignore them or just didn’t pick up on them.

In my opinion everything we do has equal consequences, the US might not have considered the consequences or the ethics if they felt a rush to get there first however they have learned their mistake and I hope that there will be more consideration in the future. This book has left behind an impact on the minds of many Americans and I hope that more historians and journalists consider writing in this method.

Stay tuned for my next post.

Peace ✌️

The Telegraph

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Hey, hi, hello. Welcome back to another post. This post is going to be talking about something I have talked about in the past. Historical significance. Now as most people know, the past is everything that has ever happened. Whereas history is specific significant events from the past that have left great impact. Now with this in mind lets dive into the post.

Now talking about historical significance I thought I would give an example of a significant event that impacted communication and technology. The invention of the telegraph and morse code. Before the telegraph was invented communication was different. It was different for each culture, for example civilizations in China, Egypt and Greece used drumbeats of smoke signals to communicate over long distances. Then the telegraph was developed in the 1830s and 1840s. Samuel Morse (the inventor) sent the first telegraph message in 1844 from Washington D.C to Baltimore Maryland. Until the early 19th century telegraphs were not wireless causing weather to effect to communication. The electric telegraph was then created allow contact with ships, trains, and places of longer distance. 

With the invention of the telegraph came the creation of morse code. Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail assigned letters to certain sets of dots and dashes. More commonly used letters got simpler codes compared to those less common. Nowadays we may no longer have telegraphs however we still use morse code. One of the main ones is SOS signalling. There are two main ways I know of to do this. One is three whistle blasts, this will usually get someone’s attention and someone will help. The second is to do the morse code for SOS (3 dots, 3 dashes, 3 dots) with a flashlight.

Before I delve into why i think this event is significant I want to explain what makes a historical event. A historical event is determined by historians. These events need to leave an impact over both time and distance (geographically). For example the creation of the atomic bomb is significant whereas buying chocolate milk instead of eggnog isn’t significant. 

Now, with the knowledge of what makes something significant I think that the creation of the telegraph and morse code is a significant event. Without the telegraph we would probably not have developed phones or a well known way of signalling for help. Now knowing this it’s strange to think what our lives would have become without Samuel Morse and many great inventors. 

Thanks for reading this post. If you want to learn more about the telegraph click this link. Stay tuned for my next post. 

Peace ✌️ 

Our Revised Government!!

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Hey, hi, and hello. Welcome back to my blog where not all those who wander are lost (J.R.R Tolkien). In this post I will be continuing on the topic of politics, like my last two posts (election reflection & Press release) . Before we get into the post I want to briefly explain our recent project. With the recent election we started a project about Canadian politics. The main focus of this project is to answer the question, how should we govern ourselves? My answer to this before we delved into this project was; I thought the way we currently govern ourselves is fine. Now, onto the post.

One of the assignments from this project that I think was the key to this project being successful was the vote compass test. For this we had to go to vote compass and answer some questions. My results from it:

I discovered this to be important once we got our groups for creating political parties. When we were put in our group we all looked at each other’s vote compass results to discover that we all got very similar results. This ended up with us all agreeing, for the most part, on our groups ideologies. After forming our group I than began to rethink my answer to the driving question and started to think there might be some things that need to be changed.

The next thing I would like to talk about in this post are Zettlekasten. Zettles are notes, either permanent, literature, or fleeting. We learned what and how to take each of these types of notes using a program called craft . I found that this method off note taking is similar to the one I started using in march. It helped me find notes easily with the magic of linking and I was able to add those notes to my posts. I will definitely continue to use this method of organization and will create a post soon to explain them more in depth.

Reform & Revise. This is what our group (Izzy, Natalie, Zoe, and Ben [links to their posts] ) decided to call our political group. As I mentioned earlier in the post, we all had similar views on politics and how we should govern ourselves. The main issues we wanted to address were: the current electoral system, climate change, social inequity, and social inequality. After creating our statement of intent we were tasked with creating a press release (you can see it here). And finally our video. When we started to plan our video we wanted it to be serious but then we decided we wanted to be more focused on have a younger audience, make it for future voters. The plan of action to achieve this was to get inspiration from the Rocky Dong video. Rocky Dong was our local PPC candidate in the previous election, his video attracted the audience of teens. We then created our video to be partly serious and partly comedic. This video reflects a more in depth description of our group’s views on the current government and how we should change how we govern ourselves.

Now onto competencies. For this project there were 4 competencies over all.

I can share my opinions and support them with evidence. I found that throughout this project. I was able to back most of my opinions by connecting them to a source or a different topic.
I can use writing and design processes to plan, develop, and create original, engaging, and meaningful texts for a variety of purposes and audiences. With taking Sylvan’s writing program last year I have been able to not only expand my vocabulary but also deepen my knowledge of writing techniques making me a better writer and learner. For designing processes I find it easier to plan with sketches or small outlines.
I can reflect, assess, and refine texts to improve clarity, effectiveness, and impact for purpose, audience, and message. Doing two formative post has helped me understand how to improve my writing for this summative post. I always enjoy feedback to be able to improve for the future.
I can infer and explain corroborated interpretations from sources after investigating points of contention, and the reliability and adequacy of the evidence. During my Sylvan course last year I learned how to see if a source is reliable or not. I think that this has helped me be able to find reliable sources. However I need to work on sourcing in my posts and assignments.

 

How should we govern ourselves? I put this question at the beginning of this post, I then showed the work I did to try and answer. However, now that we are at the end of the post and the end of this project I will try my best to answer it. I personally think that we should govern ourselves in a way that is equal. A way where there are no favourites, a way where everyone is accepted for who they are no matter race, sexuality, or gender. I think that if we do this we can move forward past this pandemic together, then tackle issues like climate change. If we don’t stick together our nation will fall apart.

I hope you enjoyed reading this post and that it has inspired you to ponder this question as well. Make sure to check out the PLP blog. Until next time.

Peace ✌️

Reform & Revise

RhiannLeave a comment

Hello and welcome back to another post. So if you have read my latest post you would know that my class is creating political parties. About a week ago we got our groups and started creating our parties. I was put into a group with Zoe, Ben, Izzy, and Natalie. One of our first tasks was to make a list of issues our party wanted to work on if elected. Our second task was to create a press release. In this post I will be explaining 3 things about our party and allow you to look at our press release.

Our press release:

Why should you be interested in our party? That is a great question, which I will answer through asking another question. First question is: what makes our party unique? One of the many unique things about our party is what we hope to implement. Our party hopes to implement a similar electoral system to the one in New Zealand. This way you have 2 votes, one for the candidate in your area, and the second for your choice of which party’s leader becomes prime minister. We want to implement this due to many Canadians wanting a to vote for a candidate in their area however they do not like that party’s leader or if they like the leader of a certain party but not their local candidate. This causes them to be torn and can lead to people not wanting to vote. So why vote for us? The main issues we want to address are: Climate change, Social inequity, Social inequality, and our current electoral system. We think that these are big issues and we want to change canada for the better.

I hope that after reading this post you will become interested in our party. Don’t forget to check out my teammates’ post as well.

Peace ✌️

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