mPOL 2022

Hello! Welcome back to my blog! This post is for my mPOL (midyear presentation of learning.) Today I will be talking about how I’ve grown so far this year, and what I could do better. 

I’ll be talking about 7 different projects in this post: I’ll be talking about DI, Laser Laws, Working With Words, Constructing Creative Communication, The Medium is The Message, Fractions of Our Time, and The Outsiders.

Scimatics

One of my strengths in scimatics is my problem solving skills. When given a problem, I am able to work with pieces and put them together.

One thing I could grow on in scimatics is my motivation. It depends on the project or problem, but my problem solving skills are wasted when I am simply tired. A way I could work on that is to remind myself that I will need whatever information I am finding later on in the project.

Fractions of Our Time

I think I did pretty well on this project. It was the very first project I did in PLP, and I worked pretty hard on it. I really remember being comfortable in this project, because I was really familiar with fractions. It managed to set the bar pretty high for my projects in general.

Laser Laws

Laser Laws was definitely one of my favourite projects I’ve done. Setting up a laser display was really fun. One big thing that I could’ve improved was the whole time we were building knowledge. It involved a bunch of textbook work and I could’ve done way better in that part.

Maker

One of my strengths in maker is my ability to work in a team. If I’m with a motivated team, the motivation passes over to me too, and I get a lot more done.

One thing I could definitely grow on is my inability to work in a team. I know that completely contradicts my strength, so let me explain. I’m not a great leader. If there’s no motivation in the team, it likely will drain my motivation, and I end up getting nothing done.

Destination Imagination

In Destination Imagination (DI) I think I’ve done okay so far. A way I could grow in this project would be participating more. I’ve been a lot more involved with the planning part and haven’t really participated enough in the doing part.

Constructing Creative Communication

In this project I definitely didn’t do the best that I could. In the Carr part (the drawing part) I did okay, and most of the time I was genuinely trying my best, but in the Herzog part it slowly fell apart until I was just scraping by with sketchy work that I didn’t fully think through.

Humanities

One of my strengths in humanities is my ability to tell a story. No matter the format, I am always able to create and tell a story. Another one of my strengths is my ability to give honest criticism with little to no bias.

One thing I could grow on is definitely my mindset. I enjoy most of the work I do in humanities, but usually at the start I don’t. A great example of this would be in The Outsiders project. I didn’t have very high expectations thanks to my mindset. In the end, I ended up enjoying it greatly.

Working With Words

In this project, I think that I definitely did well. One of the things I was the most proud of from this project was the emotion in my poetry. I managed to tell good stories throughout all of my poems and properly reflect my worldview in a passionate way. One thing that I definitely could’ve done better was effort-wise, and this isn’t really regarding to my poetry, but my E-Book in general. I definitely could’ve put more work into it. Overall, though, I’m very proud of this project and the work I did in it.

The Medium is The Message

One way that I definitely could’ve grown in this project was giving more criticism. I helped quite a bit by working on the general ad, but I definitely could’ve helped more by giving criticism. That’s definitely something I’ve grown on in general; if someone asks my opinion on their work, I’ll give honest but not mean criticism.

The Outsiders

I already used this as an example overall for humanities, but I want to talk about it more in-depth. One thing that I totally could’ve done better would be to have a better mindset. In the start, I was constantly thinking “this project is going to suck, and I’m going to do really badly.” In the end, I enjoyed doing it a lot, and looking back on it, I wish I had taken the time to enjoy it from the start. I definitely improved on this, especially in the next humanities project, which was Working With Words.

How to Write a Good Story

Hey guys, welcome back to my blog! If this is your first time on my blog, or if you haven’t checked out my last few posts, here are parts one, two, and three of this series. (link posts) In this post, I will be telling you how to write a good story. Later on, I may create another post telling you how to write better non-fiction and informative-type prose. For now, I’m just going to start with this.

How to Start Yourself Off

A lot of people start their stories at the wrong time. Usually this involves being either too close or too far from the climax. For example, a while ago I tried to write this fantasy story about three kids who travelled into a new reality by accident. My problem when I wrote that story was that I started it and less than a page later it was at the climax. If I were to go back in time, the tip I would give myself would be to start the story a day before the characters are thrown into action, so the story can start off slow and get keep snowballing until it’s at full speed. This way it seems more natural.

How to Finish a Story

A lot of people don’t know how to end a story properly. Usually you want to close any loose ends. One way to make sure you’ve finished a plot line properly is to read over the story again and make sure there isn’t any “unfinished business” in there. Of course, if you’re planning on writing a sequel, you can have an unfinished plot line (though I recommend the only plot line you leave unfinished be the main one.) Other than that, just try to tie most if not all loose ends in your story.

How to Hook Readers

There are many ways to hook readers into your story. The first one doesn’t have quite as much to do with the actual writing. If you can, write a short summary but leave the reader on a cliffhanger. They will almost 100% come back for more. Another way is to separate parts of the story by chapters, and leave the readers on a cliffhanger after every chapter. In general, cliffhangers are great ways to bring in and keep readers with your story until the end. Yet another way is to stick to the storyline. This one seems obvious, but I have seen many times when a story completely strays from the main storyline/plot line. Make sure to check in every once in a while so that you don’t bring the story too far away from the main idea.

The End?

Those are just the three most common mistakes that people make when writing. Hopefully this helps!

I Guess I Made a Book

Hey, welcome back to my blog! In this post I will be talking about my most recent project in humanities, Working With Words. In this project we learned about poetry. In the end we wrote multiple different styles of poetry, including haikus, sound, and found poems. The driving question for this project was “how might we construct text to show who we are right now?” Well, in this post I will answer that.

In this project, we worked in groups of threes, but it was a different group every day. Over the course of the project we learned different poetry terms, including, but not exclusive to, onomatopoeia, simile, metaphor, connotation, denotation, rhyme scheme, theme, mood, and many more.

In the end, we created an E-Book with the poetry we had written about our worldview. Here’s mine:

So, to answer the driving question: how might we construct text that shows who we are right now? Well, through our poetry, we can convey moods and themes, and talk about our experiences, biases, or anything else that makes you, you!

So I Guess I Made a Laser Display?

Hey, welcome back to my blog! In this post I will be talking about my most recent Scimatics project, Laser Laws. This project was all about the law of reflection and the pythagorean theorem.

The driving question for this project was “How can we test the pythagorean theorem and the law of reflection at the same time?”

The first thing I’m including in this post is my MindMap. This was created at the start of the project, and I added answers to some of the questions now, as the project has been finished.

As you can see, I’ve gained knowledge about the pythagorean theorem and the law of reflection.

At the end of the project, we used the knowledge we gained to create a laser display using only one laser and mirrors! Here’s a photo of mine:

 For this part of the project I worked with Max, Ronan, Owen, and Keira. Check out their blogs by clicking on their names!

Now it’s time for the most important but most boring part: the core competencies.

Questioning and Predicting:

I don’t think I did too well on this competency in the building knowledge stage, because I didn’t really care about the work and barely paid attention in class, but once I got past building knowledge, I started to pay attention more and invest myself in the ways that lasers and triangles work.

 

Communicating and Representing:

I think I did well in this competency because I prominently showed a right triangle in my laser display and calculated the various angles to prove the law of reflection. The entire laser display was basically the way that I communicated the mathematical ideas involved in the pythagorean theorem.

 

Applying and Innovating:

I think I did very well in this competency because I built a full on in-depth laser display co-operatively with my group, communicating the triangle idea well while making it look good, and divided the work evenly.

 

Thank you for reading this blog post!

Writing – In a Picture?

Hey, welcome (back? It depends who you are) to my blog! This blog post will be the 3rd in my series of posts about writing and poetry. This blog post’s theme was fun with photos, so I will be making a picture that represents writing and poetry. Now, this was pretty hard. I spent two or three days figuring out just what to do. When I finally figured it out, I was immediately in action and created my masterpiece.

How I Created This

To create this image, I used Procreate and Keynote, and used a photo of a calligraphy pen to make the tip of the pen stand out.

How This Represents the Topic

This photo represents writing and poetry because it shows a pen writing something down, which is one way to write things.

Writing: Why It’s Not As Bad As You Think

 

Image Source

A lot of people dislike writing and/or poetry, so for this post I will be telling you why writing isn’t as bad as you think. In this post, I will list 5 reasons why writing and poetry can be used for good and counter arguments to yours on why it’s bad.

  1. Writing and/or poetry is a great outlet. Any ideas you have? Create something with writing or poetry! Want to organize scattered thoughts? Write them down! Want to tell people information? Write it and give it to people!
  2. Writing and poetry are great for entertainment. It helps distract people, whether they’re reading the finished product, or just writing it.
  3. It’s fun! Especially when creative writing, because you get to make up cool stories where there are literally no rules/laws, but even other types of writing can be fun, especially when you’re passionate about the topic.
  4. You can express yourself. Poetry and writing are yet another way to express who you are and your personality. When you do this, others can read it and have a better time understanding you and how you work.
  5. It’s really not as bad as you think, you just need to learn how to write about topics you like. For example, if your favourite animals are cats and you hate dogs, but you’re writing about dogs, then you’re quite likely to dislike writing about dogs. But, if you were writing about cats, you would probably enjoy it!

In conclusion, I believe that people don’t think writing is bad, they just don’t like writing about the topics they’re writing about. Because really, what’s not to like?

Writing? Why?

Introduction

Hello there and welcome back to another blog post. In this post I will be introducing you to my short (upcoming) series of blog posts about writing and poetry. Now you might be wondering, “Why did you choose two topics?” Well, I might answer, they really aren’t different at all. I mean, other than the fact that (SOME FORMS OF) poetry has stricter rules, the line between the two is quite blurry. Either way, I’m going to be talking about both, and in this post, why it matters to me.

Wondering what exactly is the difference between the two? Here’s a link to the definition of Poetry, Writing, and here’s an article about the difference.

How I Use Writing and Poetry In My Daily Life

Now, you might ask me, “Why are writing and poetry even relevant to me?” or “How could I use it in the real world?” Well, here are three examples of how you could involve these in your life, and how I do:

  1. Venting or talking about something you’re passionate about. Many people sometimes need to speak but have no one to say specific things to, and might need to have an output for it. For me, that’s poetry, and it could be greatly helpful to others, too.
  2. Reflection. Often when I have a weird or interesting dream, I write about it and sometimes even add on to it, creating stories. It helps me reflect on my dreams and get me thinking.
  3. School or work. If you’re good at writing, it can help you do better in almost anything, even if it’s something almost completely unrelated to writing. If you’re better with words, it’s easier to make a statement or get a point across.

Why It’s Important To Me and Others

Now, I told you how you could use it in your life, but I still haven’t told you why it’s important. Well, many people find joy in reading what people have written. It’s like an escape from the current world, and allows you to see things from a different perspective. It also can help people express emotions or get their minds working. In conclusion, writing and poetry are important because they can help people think about different things, think from a new perspective or express emotions.

The Outsiders and its Relevance to Worldview

Hi, and welcome back to my blog. Assuming you read the title of this post, you probably have some questions. Firstly, how the heck is the book “The Outsiders” relevant to worldview? Secondly, what is “The Outsiders?” You will find out this and more in this post. 

First of all, I’m going to provide you with the driving question and an outline of what I will be talking about in this post. You should appreciate that. I am very generous. The first thing I will do in the post is give a very quick summary of “The Outsiders” and show the definition of worldview. This way you will know what I’m talking about when I name scenes, characters and different aspects of worldview. Then, I will talk about a few assignments we did within the project. After that, I’m going to talk about how the two relate. I’ll then talk a little bit about the winter exhibition and show some photos and videos. Finally, I’m going to answer the driving.

The driving question for this project was “How can the Outsiders teach us about worldview?”

We worked in groups. My group was: Keira, Mackenzie, Callum, and Daniel. Check out their blogs!

The Outsiders

The Outsiders is an old novel written by author S.E. Hinton. It follows the story of Ponyboy and the chain reaction set off by Darry (his brother) getting mad at him, and socs (the upper class) hating greasers (the lower class). When Darry got angry, Ponyboy went outside and found Johnny. Johnny and Ponyboy got jumped by socs, and the socs tried to drown Ponyboy. In order to save his life, Johnny killed Bob (the soc.) Johnny and Ponyboy ran away and stayed in a church for a week. At the end of that week, the church caught fire and Johnny and Ponyboy had to save kids from the fire. As a result, Johnny ended up hospitalized, and died. Dally (a good friend of theirs) ran away because of this, and died because he pointed a gun at a policeman and the policeman killed him. After this, Ponyboy was traumatized (obviously,) but he still needed to keep up with school. So when he was assigned an essay, he wrote about his experiences.

My Work

One of the assignments I had was to make a movie poster for The Outsiders. The economy aspect of worldview is demonstrated, regarding privilege and money, which are a huge part of the economy and society as a whole.

Another assignment we had was our worldview MindNode. This is basically a mind map of the different aspects of my worldview.  

How do worldview and “The Outsiders” involve each other?

This was a very popular question among me and my friends. Why did we read “The Outsiders” to learn about worldview? Why didn’t we read another book? Well, “The Outsiders” ties in very well to worldview because of all of the different points of view. On top of that, many outside things are influences many of the characters’ worldview in drastic ways. For example, when the socs jumped Johnny (the first time, before the instances in the book) Ponyboy began to view the socs as much more barbaric than he originally thought. His brothers, Darry and Soda, also influenced his worldview. Darry raised him to think, “greaser good, soc bad.” All in all, “The Outsiders” provides us a different point of view and an easy way to see how other’s actions can influence how you see the world.

The Exhibition

For this project, we did a presentation at the winter exhibition. We presented a tableau. A tableau is a still image. An easier way to describe it is a freeze frame. It’s almost as if you’re watching a scene and time stops. Our tableau was the court. We had to do two tableau’s: one from the original book, and one that’s been transposed into 2021. For example, our first tableau was the courtroom, with the judge closing the case. In the 2021 version, we had a social worker talking about the same things. For our tableau we created multiple props. This included a zoom call frame and an American flag (for the courtroom.) 

 

This post started with the driving question, and it’s also going to end with the driving question. How can the Outsiders teach us about worldview? Well, the Outsiders can teach us about how certain things influence worldview, such as experiences (Johnny getting jumped,) society (the greasers vs socs,) and many other things. We can also see that everyone has a different worldview due to experiencing different things that influence it. In conclusion, the Outsiders can teach us about worldview by showing different experiences that everyone’s gone through and how that changes who they are as a person as well.