Fredrik’s Blog

  During Quarter 3, Grade 8 English Classes were working on three different projects; A poetry book, Poetry Night, and Teen Life. First, the Poetry book was made up of many different styles. For instances, we wrote a message poem, a color poem, and Haikus. Simultaneously we were working on a project that included four other schools, a Canadian school, a Columbia school, an American school, and us. The whole point of this project was to educate people about major issues around the world like: Teen Smoking, Global Warming, and Poverty. After we finished our poetry books, we had a poetry night to show off our books and read our poems. During this event, many people learned about different styles of poems and wrote their own poems.            During the poetry night, I was an Involved Citizen because I sought to improve the lives of others in my community by helping them learn about poetry. Seeking to improve the lives of others in their community means that you are willing to help others and teach them something.  At the poetry night, lots of people sat around and relaxed. They read books, enjoy the comfy couches, well written poems, and the good food. At the poetry night, I taught people how to write haikus and sensory poems using pictures. The poems that were written by parents and children were recorded. If I were to do this again, I would have gotten more people to write and record poems because at the end of the night we only had about four peoples recording of their poems. I would have also recorded the poems that the eighth graders said because then we would have had more people’s recordings. Meanwhile the casual mood made it very cozy and had a good vibe. In short, I was an excellent Involved Citizen because it participated in activities that help my community most of the time.

            I was a Critical Thinker when I created my poetry book because I identified, evaluated and used resources effectively for the purpose of problem solving. In other words, I used my resources wisely and thought if it would help me in my final product. Photoshop aided me while I was creating my book because it assisted me when cropping my pictures and helped me with the lighting if my pictures were to bright or dark. Additionally, it helped me put a picture into another and helped me put my title on top of my picture. This helped me a lot because it would have been a lot harder to draw a picture so I used my strengths. If I were to do this project again I would try to use different styles of photoshoping software. All in all, I did an agreeable quality of Critical Thinking.

            I was an Effective Communicator while producing my book because I collaborated with others in appropriate learning situations to achieve group goals. Put another way, I worked with others to achieve goals. I did this when Farouk, Abhi, Nick, and I went to Abhi’s house for a poetry day of our own to work on our books. We helped each other by sharing ideas about poems and how to make each other’s books. However, we did not get a lot done during that night .If I were going to do this again, I would work with a more productive group and not hang out with my good friends. Hence, I would not be so distracted and more constructive. On the whole, I was an average Effective Communicator because I was communicating a lot but I did not work efficiently and effectively.

            I was an Academic Achiever making photos for our classes’ introduction video because I demonstrated technological literacy and used technology as a tool for the efficient and creative completion of a project. That is to say, that I use technology to help create this project. I used a camera, video camera, iphoto, and imovie to create this project. These different tools helped each other to make an excellent final product. If I were to do this differently I would use windows because I am not that much of an Apple fan. I have grown up with windows and know how to use it very well. This gives me the advantage of a lot more experience and I am new to Apples. In conclusion, I did an average job of being an Academic Achiever because I did not use my most developed skills, but I still used skills that I was familiar with.

            I was a Self-directed Learner when I worked with other schools to create a project about global warming by monitoring, adjusting and documenting work in progress. That is to say that I often looked over and evauated the work that was being put on and proceesed on my groups Wiki page. My group and I did this when working on a wiki page which nearly changed everyday. I had to check everyday to see if something changed. I also posted my message poem here and included some research. This data contributed to everyone at every step of the way. Nick and I even use the information to help us write our poems. If I were to do this again, I would have the data on the website more clearly and included it into my life a bit more. I should have also look at other group’s wikis and tried to learn from theirs. Thus, I could have done a lot better job with this ESLR and was below satisfactory with this.

            To conclude, this whole quarter was a big learning experience. Mr. Raisdana taught the eighth grade a lot and made people more appreciate poetry and how we can work together affectively.  This unit helped us a lot. The poetry helped us by saying that poetry is not only for love and is boring but can be added to an essay or a reflective journal. He also showed us that sometimes you ma work with very productive people and sometimes lazy people. This was done when we were involved in the Teen Life project. Finally, I found that this quarter was very interesting and enjoyable.