How can we explore what poetry and short narratives reveal about identity, power, and perspective?
Although, I haven’t started this project quite yet. I am still able to make an assumption about how we can take text from poetry and learn about how identity, power, and perspective is related to me and the author. I will plan on answering this question by applying my own worldview into consideration while using critical thinking to make reasonable judgments on the poem.
What focus strength do I want to improve on?
I want to work on my critical thinking skills by applying agency. I will do this by questioning and understanding the text in the poems. I will demonstrate agency by taking my own time at home to read up on poems so I can get an extended understanding on how they are structured.
I will improve on my Communication skills by explaining my ideas and provide evidence in discussions. I will use Self-Regulation to prepare discussion points mentally before I arrive to class. This will allow me to take agency and be more prepared for discussions which is something that I wanted to accomplish on my VMV.
What I want to do this project:
This project, I want to explore my writing skills and deepen my understanding on how I can write and analyze poems that are meaningful. I will be using all the core competencies I mentioned previously to move from a proficient understanding into a extending perspective and final product.
I will do this by finding different ways that will help me stay committed. Such as reminders on Things for deadlines and weekly reflections on my VMV to assess my progress in relation to my goals. This will allow me to become a more productive and extending learner. The extra work will develop my work ethic and my GRIT.
I enjoy poetry and writing so this is why I want to get the most out of this project. I believe that without a deeper meaning or passion towards a subject, the project will be somewhat meaningless because you don’t care about the final product. Already, we have read poems as a class and I have enjoyed reading the Raven by Edgar Allen Poe because it is very deep and uses many old English terms that I wasn’t familiar with. What I liked about this poem is that it evoked many emotions and made you feel like you were experiencing the emotions of the character. It was confusing and it made you use your imagination to determine what was going on. I interpreted it as a dream and I thought the raven was questioning his sanity. I hope that many of the other poems we read will be as intriguing as this one and I aspire to evoke emotions in my own poems like Edgar Allan Poe does.
Thank you for reading my learning intention blog post!
Originally, I wanted to improve my running pace so I could get more consistent with performance and playing time. Something that I lacked in the midfield was my ability to accelerate and be first to the ball against bigger and stronger defenders. The fact that I had to compete with others for a spot, gave me a reason to assert action into my goals and it caused me to be more motivated towards my goal because I needed to reach the level I was expected to perform at. I’ve always been a good technical player but I’ve never stood out as a faster player. This has limited me in the past and caused me to be overlooked.
Similar to many projects this year, I was challenged to take the statements of learning intent and apply them to my habits. Setting goals and tracking my progress made it easier for me to finish the project on time while being able to see how I was getting better. I set reminders at the beginning of the video that reminded me about the statements in my VMV. This certainly helped me learn from the habit and I think I got the most out of the project because of it and made something that’s meaningful to me. Which is something I stated on my VMV. A value that I was working on throughout the process was consistency. A value that I have is that hard work is nothing if you aren’t consistent. This is something that was able to provide me motivation and a reason to work on my running and plyometerics everyday. I also needed to have discipline and choose the harder route because in Atomic Habits, Clear states that sticking inside of your comfort zone kills growth and by doing things that are hard, I was able to make more progress. This was important to me and my future goals because I want to carry these habits forward and use this project as a baseline for things to come. This is also a good opportunity to apply my VMV statements into my life outside of school.
Where did I see evidence of this growth?
The first few days, I didn’t see much progress in my speed, but I did see progress in my discipline and work ethic. It made it easier to focus on other tasks and create a routine around my habit. I found that the effort I put towards my habit would translate into other activities in my life. Working on my speed would give me confidence throughout the day resulting in even my mood improving when I saw my progress. I became aware of my time management and started being mindful and planning ahead for when I would do my habit. I realized that Clear’s idea about getting 1% better everyday worked, and it gave me confidence that I would get faster if I just put in the work in. Something I had to adjust my schedule to was my soccer practices. I didn’t want to be too tired out from the training so I introduced stretching which improved my performance and allowed me to put more effort towards my workouts.
How can improving by just 1% each day help me take responsibility for my learning, strengthen my habits, and create balance and purpose in my future career and life?
There was many ideas and theories that James Clear proposed in his book: Atomic Habits. Many of them related to me but the one that I thought influenced how I approched my own habit the most was the plateau of latent potential. The way that this works is, most people don’t see any results after a while even though they put in plenty of work. This causes them to quit before even getting anywhere. Your potential is stored up and you don’t see gradual improvement. It will suddenly all click together and you’ll begin to understand your habit, but that’s only after hours of hard, consistent work. It related to my habit because I was getting frustrated because I wasn’t seeing any progress to my speed, but with this idea in mind, I was able to stay consistent because I was reassured that I would have my breakthrough soon.
How did I stay consistent with my habit?
Staying committed without seeing results is difficult, so I had to constantly be working on my running, otherwise I would get lazy and forget to do it because like Clear says, ‘’comfort kills’’. I took this to mean that if I procrastinated, I would lose time that I could be spending on my running or recovery. I faced many challenges when trying to complete my habits. But the main one that stuck out was recovery and overcoming injuries. I underestimated the amount of training I did and I didn’t think that it would impact me as much as it did. My legs were exhausted and stiff and I needed a way to train everyday without feeling pain that would cause me to get injured. This is why I introduced stretching exercises into my routine to help eliminate the chance of injury. By reflecting on my habit and the video, I was able to see how far I’ve come as a result of my discipline and dedication. I was able to strengthen and improve my understanding on how my habit works for the future. This is important because there are many things that I have mentioned that I need to critique and develop.
Why did this project matter?
This project was valuable for me because it gave me a reason to start doing something that I’ve always wanted to, but never had the discipline to stick with it. By reading Atomic Habits, I was able to figure out strategies I identified with and could use to stay consistent. I came to a realization that if I wanted to get the most out of this project, I would have to do it for my own benefit and not for a grade. This is because a habit that I can take into my life and improve myself with, is something that I think we take for granted and it is something that I’ve always sought after. I am glad that I was able to identify my strengths and weaknesses and improve on them in a way that was meaningful to me. The idea of improving by 1% everyday and stacking days and reps one by one creates discipline and confidence. If you are able to stick with something hard, it gives you the confidence to do the same in other areas of your life. Getting better by 1% may not seem like much, but with slow and steady improvement you can transform into a completely different person. I am glad that I was able to get the best out of this class and I’m happy to see that I stuck with my habit all the way through dispite many obstacles.
Thank you for reading my Atomic Habits reflection blog post!
Comparing my learning intention blog post to my final product and my winter exhibition is a good way to see how I’ve improved and followed through with my statements of learning intent. I wanted to use this project to serve as a testament to my learning and as a reminder that if I take the time to focus and be productive, I can achieve great results.
In my Vision, Mission, and Values poster I highlighted areas that will help me stay on track and concentrate on the task at hand. Such as using my critical thinking skills to improve my judgment and analyze information effectively. I enhanced these critical thinking skills in this project by completing and trying to extend my assignments to the best of my ability and trying to solve problems in group work. This showed on the exhibition night because our final product was very successful and polished which was a result of including everyone and bringing in multiple perspectives. I was constantly challenged to use GRIT and took the lead in building and making posters for our winter exhibition project. This caused me to grow and allowed me to be less selfish and complete tasks for the success of our group. Normally I would’ve only done things for myself but I realized that if I could take the responsibility of helping lead my group, I would become a better learner and develop my agency.
Overall, at the beginning of the project I wanted to learn how WWII is remembered and what impact it has on us today. I’ve always been curious about World War Two but never really knew much of the details and why it mattered today. Completing benchmarks that took us through the war allowed me to improve my understanding and proficiency in the topic of WWII. It made me realize why I needed to learn this, why it mattered to me today, and what lead to this conflict in the first place. Specifically, in the “how did Europe let it happen” poster assignment, I was able to highlight events like the Treaty of Versailles and then connect it to current events. I was proud of myself for doing so because in my VMV I wanted to improve my judgement and analyzing information. I did this by researching material and then applying my own thinking skills to determine why it matters.
Part 2
How do stories, media, and propaganda shape how we remember World War II?
…Was the driving question of our WWII project. I think it was a good question to center the learning around because it allows us to understand how it impacts us today and how there is multiple perspectives to war. The most interesting thing that I learnt about was the perspectives of the Japanese people during WWII. I was tasked with making poster about the atomic bomb and some of the sheer facts alone were enough to shock me. Over 200,000 innocent civilians died in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From a western perspective, you are taught that the Japanese deserved it for starting the war. But when you look at the consequences and terrible impact that it had, it doesn’t seem so fair after all. Until more recently, many people haven’t discussed the impact that the atomic bombs had. This allows people to grow up without realizing what their history. Allowing them to make the same mistakes in the future.
The hardest thing that I experienced this project was organizing our group and making sure we completed tasks on time for the exhibition. Going outside of my comfort zone and building things like the Spitfire was very challenging because I wanted it to look as realistic as possible. The materials and time I was given was shorter than I anticipated and made it harder to complete it on time while still finishing other things in time for the exhibition. I was able to get up early and make my way into tutorial so I could have more class time to do it. Without that dedication and commitment, I don’t think I would’ve completed it by the deadline. I feel like the exhibition gave me an opportunity to express my learning and all the hard work that I had contributed. I knew what I was talking about on my poster so I was able to answer difficult questions and strike up conversations with listeners about my topic. This was very rewarding and I will continue to contribute and take the lead in group projects because of the reward and satisfaction of everything coming together.
One of the main takeaways that I got from this project is how media can influence how war is remembered. Propaganda created “good guys” and “bad guys” which causes people to ignore the consequences and suffering of both perspectives. Western entertainment and propaganda further increases the belief that only the allies suffered and everything they did was justified. Because of this people overlook the suffering of both sides. Even though the axis powers had horrible ideologies, some of their people didn’t have a choice and still suffered as a result of the conflict. Another thing that is often overlooked is the holocaust. Many people don’t realize how many lives were lost and how terrible it really was. This is because some schools don’t teach about it. But if we don’t want it to happen again, then we have to teach about it so we can prevent something like the holocaust to reoccur. This relates to my learning in previous projects because in our ‘’Who is Canada?’’ project, I was able to make connections on how things like the Statute of Westminster impacted us today. This relates because in our WWII project, I was able to drawn connections from WWII and Avatar. Tying topics to media or current events is an important skill that I highlighted in my VMV and will be sure to use more often in the future.
Part 3
This project was valuable to me in many ways. It benefited my learning and understanding of WWII. This project gave me confidence in presenting and now I know that if I take leadership on a task, then I can help my group and push them to the best of their ability. I also now know that if I clearly lay out my goals and learning intentions that relate to my VMV, I can follow through with those statements and improve my learning.
Looking ahead to the next humanities project, I want to carry my hard work and dedication towards group projects. Something else that I want to continue doing is reflecting and looking at my VMV so I can stay focused on my goals. Being a leader is also something that worked well for me and I think that in this project I was able to step up and organize my group members. The last thing that I will continue doing is going out of my comfort zone using GRIT and taking the harder tasks and jobs like I said on my VMV. An example of where I did this is when I built the spitfire plane despite building not being one of my strong suits.
Thank you for reading my blog post about my winter exhibition project!
