This semester I took a newly required course called B.C. First Peoples.  While we did a lot of work in this course this year, which you can look at some of work here, this post reflects on our most recent project answering the question “What can I do, even if only in a small way, to be a part of Reconciliation?”

First here are some of my products from other projects and weekly notes that I wanted to highlight:

 

I knew from the start of the year that I would have an exhibition for BCFP and one for PLP and while I hoped they would be on the same night, they actually turned out to be back to back. Originally we were told that PLP 11 would be showing our humanities Holocaust project (which you can read about here) but a bit over a week before the exhibition the plans changed. Firstly we were going to only create something small for humanities and focus on BCFP for both exhibitions, then I heard we would be able to choose, finally it settled on a combined approach where students could combine the humanities and the BCFP. 

This is the part of the project I’m especially proud of because when some people heard this they started to stress and I know I can get like that, sort of stuck, but that day I found a white board and started writing down everything I wanted to do and how to connect them. 

Working with my partner, Fraser,  we created an amazing project. I originally wanted to do something with making people aware of the mistreatment of Indigenous peoples in the Canadian health care system. I got interested in this because of a weekly note I did which you can find here and after reading many articles I knew it was a very pressing and important topic. Then when planing for this exhibition my mom actually told me about what she saw the last time she was in the emergency room. She saw an Indigenous Staff member come and connect to Indigenous patients waiting in the ER. She heard him talk to them and assure them that he would be checking in wth them during their time in the hospital that day. In my research, I learned that in multiple hospitals in BC there are Indigenous Patient Navigators who are Indigenous people who help other Indigenous Peoples through everything in the hospital, basically being their spokes person. So I decided to do a project talking about the mistreatment, the statistics, and the systems set in place and where. So when the two projects had to combine my humanities partner Fraser and I decided to use my BCFP project idea and our humanities one and connect it through the idea of people needling to be up-standers today. 

We created multiple interactive parts including a physical timeline, an online quiz with statistics, effective visuals one where some of my friends and I made orange origami roses to make into a heart, and a physical card the visitors could bring home with a link to our calls to action describing how you can be an upstander even in a small way (look below if you want to scan the QR code yourself to see what you can do). Everything was presented well from the beautiful painting of BC (I did the islands and Fraser did the mainland) to the edges of the paper on the table, and the layout was eye catching.  I was super passionate about both topics and really enjoyed telling everyone one about it. I would end up in discussions with people who would tell me what they knew about the topic as well and personal stories they had heard.  

 

In the end I am really proud of the project Fraser and I created and I think it answered the question “What can I do, even if only in a small way, to be a part of Reconciliation?” And if you want to see a few things you can do please check out this link. The link shows some of our research as well as places you can sign your name, volunteer, or donate to in order to help stop the mistreatment of Indigenous Peoples in the Canadian healthcare system. I’m very glad I took this course because not only did I learn this information but in multiple exhibitions I was able to help raise awareness to others who I hope might tell it to even more people causing even a small step forward in reconciliation. 

🤷‍♀️ Where I started

In Grade 5, I distinctly remember learning that there are municipal, provincial, and federal governments in Canada. And that there are taxes. Since then, anything about government has seemed to disappear from my memory. When we started this project, I remember internally complaining about the fact that I had to spend the next month or so learning about something “so boring.” I never knew why there were different names on the election signs in North Vancouver than the signs just across the bridge. I didn’t really understand why we had different parties or that the Governor General even existed. This is where I was at despite my family being somewhat knowledgeable about the government and a great grandfather who was a speaker for the house for Alberta. 

📍Where I am now

The driving questions are: “why do politics matter,” “why should we bother,” and “how can we engage young people in the voting process.” At this time, not only has my knowledge about the government increased but also my understanding of why it should matter to me.  

 

🧭 How did I get here

The Inner-workings of our Government:

To start this project off we built our knowledge of how our governments are run. We listened to lectures from Ms. Madsen, watched videos, looked at visuals, and did daily activities to apply why we learned.

What I did well: Knowing more and more how I learn, I didn’t just type everything the teacher was saying, instead I drew what she was drawing on the board. I added other drawings to it so I could remember and understand the content more. Whenever someone asked me a question, I found that I could visualize where in the chart the information was, which helped me access it. Something else that I did really well was making a storyboard. This was not required for the government video, but I knew I could help my group be organized if we had a visual plan (even if the drawings were stick people), and help myself see what we needed to get done. 

Where I pushed my thinking: The goals of the Government video pushed my thinking. We had to create an informative video for teenage on a topic I knew many of them found boring and somehow keep them engaged. Together my group decided that to do this, we should include different medias by having a video of us and animations that moved around. We also made it seem less than a just an informative video and more like someone helping someone out by explaining it. I also needed to push myself when I not only helped write the script, but did more animation than I thought I would need to do. Animation is not one of my strengths but the video turned out well.

Lord of The Flies:

To learn about the idea of social contract and human nature, we read William Golding’s Lord of The Flies and did group discussions. 

What I did well: I TALKED. A LOT! (for me, at least). For this part of the project, we had to do a group discussion with Ms. Madsen. I was very nervous about this since I don’t enjoy talking in groups or to teachers, and this was both. But I was determined and ended up talking more then I have in any past class discussions. It may not have actually seemed like a lot but I was very proud of myself that I tried to talk every time I had something to add, including being the first student to talk in my group at the beginning.

Where I pushed my thinking: Along with reading the book, I also listened to the book so I could take better notes. The analysis of my notes and the specific questions we were asked, was the basis of what I shared and contributed in group discussions. Where I pushed myself was in the analysis of the book. I had heard of this book from my Mom and many non-PLP classmates but when I started reading this book it wasn’t my favourite. I found the word choices and the amount of descriptions very confusing. When I was done the book, I was very concerned because I did not think I could make connections between the book and the questions. In the end, I talked to friends, family members, and processed the book more and wrote my ideas down, making good connections that you can see here.

The Final Product:

For the final product, we had to create a 10 minute presentation that included our government video, showed our research about current issues, all to convince young people to vote.

What I did well: My communication skills and collaboration skills were strong in the final product. I made sure that everyone had something to do, that they were doing something that was one of their strengths, and that they came in early the day of our presentation so that we could practice. I also helped write the script and researched the political issue I was in charge of as well as helping others find sources for their research. 

Where I pushed my thinking: In the creation of the final presentation about “why young people should vote,” I pushed myself to find ways to make the presentation engaging, and also to problem solve when we ran into issues. Our judge’s panel was made up of Grade 10 and 12 students, which meant that everything in our presentation needed to capture their attention. My group decided that Noah should be an old man with outdated views and who kept interrupting us. This was funny and broke up the longer sections. We also made it seem like we were “FaceTiming” a person who then talked about one of the issues and we set our whole video up as a ted talk. I personally had the idea to split up the long government video into two parts so that the judges did not get bored. Overall, I pushed myself to be very aware of who my audience was and how to get them to care about the information we wanted to get across. You can read their feedback below:

🔍 Where I could improve: 

When reading over The Lord of the Flies, I needed to make connections for the discussion. I found this challenging. Looking back, I should have talked to Ms. Madsen more for help and to see if I was on the right track, because trying to make those big picture connections was difficult. This novel was important because it teaches us about social contracts and why government is important and it talks about human nature. Also, for the final presentation, I wish I had practiced my own lines more because I found myself tripping over many words. 

🤔 Why does my learning here matter: 

In trying hard to convince other young people to vote, it showed me many reasons why I need to vote when I am 18. I was not against voting, but I was not thinking about it. Now I want to and I know that many of my classmates feel the same.  In the last federal election, 10% less young people voted than the election before that one. Decisions about climate change, tuition prices, homelessness, the war on drugs will affect our immediate and long term future. By voting, young people will have a say in what their future looks like.

Thanks for reading!

Hi. This is a short blog post showing part of the work I have done in BC First Peoples so far this year.

UNDRIP stands for the United Nations Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples and it got royal assent (making it law) in 2021 in Canada. It is a framework of rights for the minimum standards for the survival, dignity and well-being of the indigenous peoples. For this assignment I had to pick an article from UNDRIP, research it and share what it is and why it’s important in a story formate. I hope you like my puppet pals video below.

I hope you learned something watching the video. Article 44 states that: All the rights and freedoms recognized herein are equally guaranteed to male and female indigenous individuals.

This is important because it means that Indigenous women legally have to be treated the same as men. Indigenous people always faced a lot of discrimination and their rights have always been late to come into place but Indigenous women rights are even worse. Up until 1951 Indigenous women couldn’t even vote on their own band members and it was only in 1985 that Indigenous women could marry someone without status without losing their own status. And we see this more recently with the MMIWG. Those are just some examples of why this law is so important it makes it official that indigenous guys and girls have to be treated the same. I hope you learned something and maybe feel like you want to do your own research to learn more. 

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How can we use a formal debate to convince an audience we’re right?

When I heard that we were starting a debate unit my first thoughts were “I’m going to have to speak in PUBLIC? Noooooooooooooooooo!” But throughout the project I actually had a lot of fun and surprised myself.

To start the project off we watched the movie The Great Debaters and if you have seen the movie you will know that their teacher has them practice speaking with a cork 🍾 in their mouths. While this movie was very interesting to watch and got us in the debating mindset, I was very glad that we never had to do that (it was offered though). I enjoyed the movie because I never have been interested in debate so I felt like this introduced our class to what we would be doing. 

Now that we were in the debating mindset, we needed to practice using persuasive writing. “The Best _____ Ever” was our prompt and I chose to do the best sport (which you all should know is volleyball!!!!!!!). Here is the link to all the different versions I made including the one where I had to identify logos, pathos, and ethos as well as the one where I had to rewrite to add parallel structure. Parallel structure was the format we were going to use in our debates so we practiced with this writing skill. Interestingly, I found that my writing actually showed several parallel structures already which gave me hope for my debate. 

Then we got to pick our topic and nemesis (opponent). My friend Ava and I had already decided to go against each other so as soon as we got the list of possible topic we started highlighting. We went through the list crossing off things we didn’t want to do (basically anything to do with money and school) and highlighting all the ones we would want to try to debate (this was a long list of everything else). Eventually we narrowed it down to multiple serious topics and one fun one. We found that most people were doing serious topics since it was going to be a serious debate, so we picked the opposite (the fun one:) ) to challenge ourselves to turn a fun topic into a serious debate. We chose “Super Villains are Better Then Super Heroes”.

Once we chose our topic we begun researching which allowed me to show growth in my questioning competency. I chose the affirmative side of the statement and because we weren’t supposed to know our opponent’s arguments, the affirmative and negative were put on different sides of the classroom. One engaging part of this project was how my opponent/nemesis/Ava and I made the competition entertaining. For example, you can see from the title of this blog that we would find creative, and fun names for our documents. Other examples are the title of my Need To Knows and the tittle of my Research. For our debates we were told to find lots of research and put it in the form of an annotated bibliography. The trickiest part of this process was finding sources about Super Villains that met all the reliability requirements. We needed at least three reasons why each source was reliable before we could use it (if it was made recently or maybe its a university paper) and there aren’t many research papers from universities about Super Villains. This is one part that definitely showed my researching growth and how I had to change which criteria I was using. Instead of trying to find university studies,  I found articles written by reliable authors with jobs like psychologists and others that made sense with my topic. 

 

Now that I had the research I wrote the actual debate. We broke the debate speech into three parts:

1. The 4 minute opening with most of the research and arguments. 

2. The 1 minute rebuttal which was our reply to our opponent’s arguments. 

3. The 30 seconds closing remarks.

I think the was the hardest part for me was writing the opening 4 minutes as I had lots of ideas but found that…. It might have been too many ideas. My first draft was about 9 minutes….. it took me a long time to cut it down to the four minutes. During this process no matter what people said when I asked them what I should cut I would always keep a certain part. That part was “Are you trying to decide between blond, or brunette? Cruella Deville shows us that you don’t have to decide – make a statement, go for both.“ I don’t know why, but I loved that part and I wouldn’t get rid of it. Eventually with lots of feedback and edits I had a draft that I was excited to present.  Next was the rebuttal. We got many rebuttal examples so when it came to writing mine it wasn’t as hard as writing my 4 minute speech. What I did find hard was knowing that Ava was going to think of some abstract and not obvious point, that I didn’t know, so I couldn’t prepared for it. Then I wrote my conclusion (that I threw out the window during my debate so it doesn’t matter what I originally wrote). 

I grew in my communication competency in the practicing and presenting of the debate. Before I tell you how I am proud of how the debate went, you should understand that public speaking has never been my strong suit so I was pretty nervous going into this project. The feeling of not wanting to talk in front of people got worse when I came early one day to practice in front of of Ms Madsen, my teacher. It didn’t go terrible but I could’ve done better and it didn’t instil me with confidence and nether did the practice later that week in front of her in class. I did practice a lot in front of friends and (what I found very helpful) in front of my whole family but I was still very nervous.

Exhibition day!!!!!!!!!!!!

This was it where all my hard work hopefully was going to come together. I watched multiple people debate (which I found helpful for my own) and saw part of the other PLP students’ work (though not as much as I would’ve liked). Then it was my turn; Ava and I both did really well. A few things I am especially proud: I didn’t speak too quickly which is a tendency of mine when I speak publicly, I used my research to make up an appropriate rebuttal in the moment, and I completely redid my conclusion while talking. What I found surprising was how Ava took a shot at my argument in the conclusion (it was a smart move to be honest) but I definitely wasn’t expecting that. She also made a lot of points that I wasn’t expecting making it challenging for me to rebut her. 

In the end, I did win the debate which might have had something to do with 6 of the audience members being related, but overall, I was very proud of how I did and I loved having Ava as an opponent/nemesis. The experience was fun and challenging. I found that I surprised myself in how I spoke in my debate and even though I need to work on annunciation I was glad I didn’t just speed through all my writing. I really enjoyed communicating in this different format, as it was something I hadn’t tried before and I found it very enjoyable. Overall I enjoyed this project and I hope you look below and watch my debate as well as the debates of my other classmates. 

In this post, I will be reflecting on my last PGP project and our spring exhibition!

This PGP project was all about our financial future!!! We started off playing a Uber simulator to get an understanding of gig work. I would never consider being an Uber driver myself and this simulator didn’t change my mind, it was long hours and didn’t seem like a lot of money.
Then we went into personal budgets. We started with creating a craft document stating all my personal fixed and variable expenses in a month. Taking this information we added how much we should be spending on it versus how much we spend. This made me realize that I need to buy fewer fries in the cafeteria but that other than that I’m not spending too much.
That was the starting point in learning about financial literacy. Having financial literacy means that you can make smart and informed money decisions in your life. In class, we then talked about the five pillars of financial literacy
1. Earning
2. Spending
3. Saving and investing
4. Borrowing
5. Protecting
After defining everything we watched the movie “Moneyball” to see these skills in action.

This brings us to my favourite part of this project the stock simulator. The point of the stock simulator was to deepen our understanding of investing and understanding how it could fit into the real world.
Using an app on our iPad we all got $13,000 fake money in a real-world simulator. At that point, we had to decide what type of investing we wanted to do. We could invest ethically or profit based or in anything we recognized. I found myself researching multiple ethical companies that ended up being about 50% of what I invested in. The other half were companies I recognized (like Apple and Google). One smart investment that I was happy with was Apple I bought it when it wasn’t super high and then only sold it when it got super high during the Apple event. Here you can view all my week-by-week reflections.

This brings us to the exhibition part of my blog post! This year the exhibition for my grade included this finances project, the last marketing me project, and the podcast I made in Maker. This is a lot of stuff but I think our room incorporated it all very well, our main idea was that our room would look like an office where we could each display our podcasts and who we were on business cards while also showing examples of our stock simulators.

I liked how my podcast business card turned out. I did multiple drafts and got feedback from a lot of people and in the end, liked the look of what I created. I was also impressed by how well my class got our room ready for the exhibition. We had a lot of problems at the beginning like how we didn’t have any tables and all of our plans needed tables but as a class, we figured it out and created an impressive office.

 

This was a good introduction to the world of finances, marketing, and stocks (I should never invest real money I would lose it all) and I loved showing what I learned at the spring exhibition.

How can art and text reflect both the history and our current place in time? That was the driving question for my last humanities project of grade 10. We combined the idea that art is not just something to look at because it’s something you can engage with to learn about and the historical/present day relationship with the Canadian government and Indigenous Peoples. 

To start we each created an I am from poem to start thinking about our relationship with the world around us. Here is mine:

I Am From Poem 

I am from beautiful places 

I am from clear blue skies And cloudy rainy days 

From both the flat prairies and the tall mountains

The smells of farmland and pine tress

The peaceful quiet acreage 

The busy city roads 

I am from a jumbled crazy and large family 

Siblings always shouting, throwing, showing our insanity 

A brother whose teasing humour I know well 

A sister who is off on her own adventures farewell

Another who is with me everyday 

Parents who’s safety I can never repay 

I am from the back and forth sways of a boat on the waves

The speed, Chaos, adventure I crave 

The peaceful rest with barbecue smells 

Diving into the deep collecting shells 

Rapidly Skimming across the water

Crashing down into the sea now swimming like an otter 

I am from big family Christmases 

fondues with cheesy sauce and chocolate 

None of us knowing when to stop eating 

I am from the laziness that follows 

groans, huffs, puffs, slow movements 

Excitement, music, we can open only one 

Shapes of our gifts not matching reality 

5 mattresses stuffed into one room 

Dog jumping, sister singing, pillows flying 

No chance of sleep 

I am from Little cousins running all around 

Screaming, kicking, acting like clowns 

Baby laughing, toddlers singing 

I am from overwhelming joy 

I am from many amazing friends

All around the picnic tables Laughing, 

From volleyball circles

To whales named Gary 

I am from Joyful, fun, kindhearted friends  

I am from beautiful places 

I am from A jumbled crazy and large family 

I am from the back and forth sways of a boat on the waves

I am from big family Christmases 

I am from Little cousins running all around 

I am from many amazing friends 

I am from chaos, peace, laughter, and love

I am…

I really liked mine.. Thinking about what makes me Faith Scheewe made me think about where I lived, what I do, and who is in my life. I found that it was fun to write and a good start to this project. We used a website to collaborate on what we already know about Indigenous people and issues that are relevant to them for this project and what we still need to know. While doing this I realized how much general information I had but not very many specific information. 

This brings us to when we started reading our class novel Marrow Thieves, by Cherie Dimaline. While it was set in the future, it reflected on issues shown presently and in the past. For example it referred to residential schools as part of the past and also as something happening again in the book. While reading the book, I would analyze what I was reading and make connections to issues being brought up today. For example we listened to a podcast on the Indian Act and read articles on topics like cultural appropriation and indigenous resurgence. Every couple of chapters we did a reflection. We called this a contribution as we needed to bring those thoughts to class. Sharing those contributions helped to see other peoples points of view. I did a poem, an image, list of questions and drawings. In the end, after we finished the book, we did a quick write reflection for 15 minutes about the connections we saw from the book to the past and to right now. 

The next keystone introduced us to analyzing images and we had to make decisions about what we thought the artists were trying to communicate about Indigenous perspectives. Our teacher would introduce some issues and we would take notes. I am proud of the notes I made from class and from my own research. These prepared me for when it came to writing. The artwork was created by Indigenous Artists. It was a way to express their opinions on important issues like MMIWG and intergenerational trauma. I actually found it hard to keep my responses to 250 words as I had lots of notes. The different styles were really interesting to me such as the beading over top of the Indian Act. Here is a link to the three art pieces I talked about.

After doing so much research, analyzing art, and learning about different perspectives, we went back to our own point of view and thought about if they had shifted from the beginning to now. Our keystone was a short reflection on Truth and Reconciliation. I think I realized that Indigenous issues are current and not just in the past. It is important to understand how much needs to be done.

Finally we got to the final product which was a photo or art collage about one or all of the issues we wrote about for keystone two. There was a lot of flexibility in that’s this could look like I chose to do it digitally on SuperimposeX. I really liked the art I found for my MMIWG reflection so I wanted to include that, and I also wanted to have images from the past and present. It took a while to get a starting idea but with a focus on MMIWG I created a collage I’m proud of. I used historical images and art about residential school that I made black and white to show how Indigenous Peoples were treated in the past. I made the images about the present more colourful and used red to highlight the issues I was focusing on, MMIWG. The red handprint was one part I really love. The app allowed me to place the palm of the hand behind the images while I could put the fingers on top of other images. This feels to me like people reaching out. I also like the feathers from the dream catcher. The dreamcatchers are symbolic for Indigenous people and the feathers fly over the residential school images as well as the artwork and protests to show dreams leached away. From the Marrow Thieves, I chose a quotation about schools leached away dreams. It was not just us looking at art and saying what it is about. We needed to try to understand what the artists were trying to say and then we needed to take our knowledge and made our own art. Art is engaging and helps people represent important topics and express their opinion.

Are you in need of a kiwi? If so I’m the person for you!

This project has been about learning how to effectively market myself to employers. I have never made a resume or thought about making a business card so this was all new to me. To start we created two resumes, one with a headshot and one without. I had a hard time with the objective, and experience parts. The objective was hard because we weren’t writing this for a specific job and I think it would work better if we were. The experience part was difficult because I have never really had a job. I have babysat and…….. well thats it. In the end that’s all I had in work experience section but I found I had a few more experiences for the volunteering section. For example I went on two volunteer trips to Guatemala in elementary school and I volunteer with kids every few weeks using lots of different skills. I wasn’t a big fan of putting a picture of me in my resume but the layout in the end looked better with it. 

 

Next were the business cards! To start we created funny ones and mine is the one you see at the top of this post “Professional Kiwi”. Now I am not from New Zealand the only reason I used this for my business card (and for my blog) is because my last name rhymes with it and my friends think it’s hilarious. My entire class made fake fun business cards that were all very…original. In the end I made three very simple business cards that have my name and information (sadly says nothing about kiwi 🥝) .  Below you can see the front of these businesses cards.

Next was the email. This part went by fairly quick and I created a short professional email that fit the criteria and could be used as an outline for future opportunities.

The part where I really thought I grew in this project was with the final product the mock interview. My original questions my group and I came up with were surface level and didn’t show our understanding. For example one of our original questions was “can you tell us about yourself”. So we revised the questions and came up with three new ones and included us talking about a time when we struggled while working in a group and how we fixed the situation. Another aspect I’m proud of is how we filmed all the mock interviews. We used different angles and good phone cameras to make it as professional as we could.

This finished off our initial planing for future careers. I have never liked thinking about the future and I know if I wasn’t told to make a resume for a project that I would have kept delaying it for months. I like the creativity involved in this project; making business cards was an important life skill, but it was still fun. 

Understanding historical significance, learning rhetorical analysis, following the writing process, and writing of a multi-paragraph composition, are the steps I took to answer the driving question “why is it so important to preserve the Juno Beach Centre?” 

Have you ever heard of Juno Beach? Well I certainly didn’t. As it turns out this was one of the five beaches the Allies stormed on D-Day, June 6, 1944. More specifically it was the beach Canada was in charge of reclaiming. A few years ago a development company in France bought the land to build luxury condos and this was not only disrespectful it was making access to the Juno Beach memorial Center harder to get to. Lucky Canada bought the land around it and the condos weren’t built but this is the reason we started this project. Why should we preserve this Centre? 

To start we continued our understanding of historical significance that we have been building for the past few years. We defined the word and after a lot of research wrote about the 3 most important reasons why WWII was significant. We had the choice to write about why WWII was significant for us as a nation or why Canada’s impact was significant elsewhere. I chose to talk about why it was important for us as a nation. Through this process I saw a lot of similarities to WWI especially with the job opportunities for women. In both of the wars women joined the work force but in this war women could do jobs that involved a degree. For example I learned That the world’s first female aeronautical engineer was in Canada! She was in charge of producing fighter jets called hurricanes for the war effort. I also learned that social security and unemployment insurance was created during WWII. This assignment showed my deep understanding of the analysis competency which is about accessing the significance of something over time. I never understood how much WWII connects to Canada policies until this project.

Our next step was learning about rhetorical analysis or actually more about how we can use certain words or phrases to get our point across to the reader in different ways. To do this we learned about different transitions and writing choices. We also reviewed and learned about pathos, logos, and ethos. I really enjoyed the exercises we did at this point as we would take the same idea but change it for different audiences. Next we read an article and in groups did a rhetorical analysis. For that Rhetorical analysis, we first had to identify where the author uses pathos, ethos, logos. Then we had to figure out what the author implied in a certain sentence and how it built their main message. While, I didn’t have a problem with that part I found the class discussion we did the next day difficult. I do not enjoy talking in front of large groups of people and so even when I did have an answer, I found myself just sitting there. I enjoyed the writing questions from the day before, but didn’t really find anything useful in the class discussion.

Then it was time for us to do our own rhetorical analysis of this really well written article called “Thank you for not killing my son”. I thought I showed a really good understanding of rhetorical analysis for this Keystone because I wrote a lot and explained how the tone is kind of ironic, and how I thought the author used logos really well in the beginning followed by a strong emotional pull (pathos). I also showed my skills in the questioning competency when I engaged in the text and showed my extending understanding of rhetorical analysis. We then wrote our own rhetorical analysis for the multi-paragraph composition we were about to write for our final product. I found this a tricky part of the Keystone, because I hadn’t really thought through my idea and how I was going to communicate it before then. This exercise did help me think of how I was incorporating pathos and led me to the idea to talk about my great-grandfather.

A multi-paragraph composition can mean different formats and so I decided I was going to be writing an essay and I knew I wanted to have in connection to my great grandfather who fought in World War II. Even though my great grandfather wasn’t on Juno beach on June 6, 1944 he was in the area three days after D-Day giving supplies to those who fought and I wanted him to prove my point that it wasn’t just military people fighting in this war, it was every day people you just see walking down the street. So to understand more about him, I asked my grandparents to send me over some of the scanned images and war items that they had kept from him. Unfortunately there was a problem and they weren’t able to send them in time. I was able to use the information that they told me over the phone. I learned the story of my great grandfather, and incorporated that in my writing. The writing process also involved a lot of revisions. I actually found this process really helpful, as I would come to class with a new draft and send it to a bunch of my classmates, ask them for their opinion and that they thought I could improve and then I would go home and look through what they said, and change my draft to be better.  I also really enjoyed critiquing other people’s work I was able to see some things that I thought could be incorporated in some way in my writing. I could tell which essays I enjoyed reading, and which ones needed a better hook at the beginning or something, and I was able to use that to improve my own composition. 

My final product was a two page essay that I am proud of, and I believe it tells my points of why I think that the Juno Beach centre should be preserved. This is where I used my understanding of the communicating to thoughtfully tell what happened in a form that fits my audience. I have never known much about World War II and I didn’t even know Juno Beach existed until this project. I enjoy learning more about WWII’s history and I think it’s important that future generations do as well which made this project meaningful.

Our power of imagination project was an amazing project which just might have to do with the field school we went on for it …. Florida aka DISNEY WORLD!  Our driving question: how do Disney theme parks shape and influence the cultural, economic, psychological, and social experiences of visitors? 

Investigation 1

This investigation was about building your knowledge that you would need to complete this project and storing it in a PKM. I found this first investigation the most infuriating. Researching, which involved reading articles as a class and watching videos like the “Happiness Advantage”, was very enjoyable. Also, learning about the culture of Disney was very interesting. Walt Disney’s mindset when created these theme parks was so different from other people of his time. What was infuriating? While reading articles and watching the videos we had to MAKE (not to be mistaken for TAKE) notes, which was expected. But then we had to write a summary. The 4 – 2 – 1 structure was challenging.  I like the idea but I had a hard time finding the point I should get across in that amount of space. There was so much information and I seemed to include more than I needed. Concise writing is hard! Overall I liked when we found our own articles such as the PKM I made for Dole Whip. This whole investigation shows my growth on the processing curricular competency with critical thinking shown in the fleeting notes and the creative and reflective thinking shown in the connections I made and my thinking sections. 

Investigation 2

Early on we were put into groups and assigned a specific aspect of our driving question. My group focused on how Disney theme parks formed emotional connections for the visitors of the park. For this investigation, as a group we had to come up with a pitch board for a 10 minute documentary. The pitch board had to include the main concept we wanted to get across and the mood we wanted the audience to feel. This part of the project involved a lot of growth in the decision making competency. Working as a group we had to look at our topic from different sides and figure out how to put it all together in the end. A challenge for us? The groups were made up of students from both classes. This made collaborating difficult. We did not understand what the other half of our group had done the class before us. Communication was not clear. Thankfully we used time in our other classes to bring it together but it was still difficult and it was a problem throughout this whole project. 

 

Investigation 3

It’s story board time! While working on our pitch board, we came up with a reliant idea. We decided that the main concept we wanted to get across was how the merchandise is a way to take Disney beyond the boundaries of the park.  We would show the differences in the merchandise and how they remind you of a place or experiences in Disney.  Group members would each introduce different merchandise. The other choice we made was that the overall mood will be up beat and we will interview someone who obviously loves the merchandise.

Thinking back, I loved our idea and I wish our final product showed that more. Our idea evolved and that is ok but I loved our original idea. With the story board, we also created a script for our documentary. The collaboration was difficult because of the separate classrooms and we needed more time. When flights were cancelled the ONLY good thing was that we were able to finish our scripts and get better idea of when and where we would shoot and who would shoot what. I really enjoyed this part of the process because I could see the shape of what we were doing.

Shooting on location …. DISNEY WORLD!

originally I was going to interview a Disney Customer, someone who loved the merchandise. But we decided to have the same voice interviewing both of our interviewees to keep some consistency. So, I instead, was in charge of B Role which meant whenever I was in a store I filmed the merchandise about the 50th anniversary merchandise. My other job, was to film Noah and Gwen when they talked about the custom and limited time merchandise. I helped them film this at multiple locations within Disney Springs. We ran into a several problems. First of all it was very loud in there to get good audio. We also could not find custom t-shirts Gwen had researched before coming. These challenges meant we had to make adjustments so we could still get our point across and show our idea. Throughout our Disney trip, we checked in with each other to make sure we were getting the shots we needed to fulfill our plan. 

Since returning, we have been editing and assembling out documentary. I was not in charge of editing but I got audio from other group members and sent it to the main editor, Noah. 

This project made me think while I was in Disney World. When I was there, I would look at things differently. Instead of thinking “oh look at that tower” I noticed how the tower added nostalgia because it was the Tangled tower, which reminded me of my childhood. The research we did and the focus I had because of the project made this experience of Disney World different for me than when I went to Disneyland a few years ago. I noticed more. The way the cast members talk to visitors was really cool because it changed based on which part of the park you were in. In Disney World, nothing is out of place, which is good for fantasy but also shows a specific view of life.

 

O Blogpost, Blogpost, wherefore art thou Blogpost? …

What’s in a name? That which we call a Blogpost 

By any other name would still be homework

And still retain that dreaded hopelessness 

Which I feel without that title.

Like all English 10 classes before me, I studied William Shakespeare’s great play, Romeo and Juliet but in PLP we wanted to answer the driving question: how has William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet remained relevant to contemporary storytelling? 

Keystone 1, a theme book, was our way to discover and record the themes shown in each act of Romeo and Juliet. The power of love and hate, revenge, naïveté of youth, are three main recurring themes that I talked about in my theme book. By reading the lines, I was able to engage with the text and by writing what I thought Shakespeare was trying to communicate, I extended my thinking. I used my Shakespeare sheet to help me understand some of the words. 

• Keystone 2, was part of the theme book that involved watching and connecting modern adaptations of Romeo and Juliet to specific acts, scenes and sometimes specific lines in the original play. Gnomeo and Juliet, Romeo + Juliet, and Warm Bodies were three adaptations I watched for enjoyment and also used to show my understanding of the themes and how they still appeal to modern audiences. One of the themes that was shown in the play and the adaptations was the theme that love and hate are powerful. In the play, the love Juliet had for Romeo made her make a naive decision to trust the Friar and take the poison. In Warm Bodies, the power of love was the cure for the zombies and started to bring them back to life near the end of the movie. 

To end the project, we had four classes to come up with an idea, script, storyboard, film and edit our own adaptations of one scene from Romeo and Juliet. This was Keystone 3. I was looking forward to this part of the project since we learned about it a few weeks before, but when it was time to start I was concerned about a timeline and the fact that my group could not decide on an idea. Collaboration was difficult because even when we came up with an idea, only one other member was willing to meet before or after school in order to create a project we could be proud of doing. The one day we did meet before school, only one team mate came on time, and the other two came 30 minutes late. Personally, I made some strong connections between the themes in the original play to our own script. We submitted a video that meets the requirements but with more time we would have had a better final product.

I have always heard about this story, I did not know the details, and did not know why it was still a big deal now. This play is relevant because it has connections we still use in movies, books, articles that are still being made now. You would not think that a love story between two garden gnomes and a story between a Zombie and a human could be connected, but they are because they deal with themes and ideas that still matter today.