Hello Lovely Readers, and welcome back to another blog post! Yes, it is that time of year again. MPols!
If you are not familiar with mPols, they are essentially where we, as PLP learners, get to show and talk about our work to our parents and teachers. We are able to show our highlights, our low points, and what e want to focus on improving during the rest of the year. Although they seem daunting at first, mPols are such a great way for us to show our work, and I am really excited about mine!
I love to learn. More than anything in the world, I love to learn. I love to know things, I love to use what I learn to make something, I love to challenge myself to learn more. And that is exactly what I want to do in grade 10.
My goal for this year is to learn. I know that sounds simple, but I want to learn, and take that learning, apply it to my work, and be prouder of what I have presented. I want to create work that I will show for the rest of my life as an example of who I am as a learner and a person.
I like to push myself. I like to know that I did the most work that I could do in order to make something great. This year, I have struggled with that. Being older, I have more responsibilities then ever before. On top of non-PLP classes, work, extracurriculars, and volunteering, PLP is something that is so important for me to work on. In this coming year, I want to make sure that PLP is a focus for me, because I don’t want to lose my love of learning.
At the beginning of the year, I had set 96% as my goal. Looking back, I know that I did not meet that with some of my work. However, there is some work that we have done that I am so proud of that I think is up to that caliber.
Our first project was Think You Can Do Better?
This project was, admittedly, a rough one for me. I started out strong with my Election Reflection post, and I felt like I demonstrated my learning and how I can put extra bits of Amy into my work. Unfortunately, things went downhill after that. The newfound stress of grade 10 definitely got to me, and I can see that clearly in my next two blog posts.
After the accepted fiasco that was my first project, I was convinced that I could do better. I had gotten more into the swing of my schedule, and I felt confident that I would be able to do work that was up to my standards. And I am very proud to say that I did that!
In the Oology of Apology, I can clearly see that I can produce good work when I put my mind to it. Through documenting more in my Zettelkasten, as well as taking the necessary time to understand what we were learning about, I have learned so much from this project. I was able to explain the three acts of injustice that we looked at to family members without hesitation. I could confidently talk about specific details of oppression against Chinese people in Canada to over 100 people at the PLP Winter Exhibition. I also feel confident that I will be able to do all of those things one year, ten years, twenty years down the line because I documented all of it. After I took the time to understand the Zettelkasten method, and adapt it to work for me, I can see its importance and how much it helps me. I was weary of it at the beginning, but now, tagging notes is one of my favourite pastimes!
I really saw how I can apply my knowledge in our Romeo and Juliet project. When we found out that we were doing R+J for a project, I got to work right away. I reread Romeo and Juliet.I started pulling quotations from the play. I had a lovely conversation with the owner of Booklovers bookstore about all of the adaptations. I talked to my grandma about the 1968 film. I read over my old scripts from the youth company at Bard on the Beach. I was able to take all of that information that I had gathered, write it in my Zettelkasten, and apply it to my work. Having all of that knowledge at my fingertips helped me so much with this project, and it taught me that any little detail can help you with something in the long run.
For the first half of a crazy year, I can definitely look back at the work that I did and say that I am proud of it. I can also definitely say that I am not proud of some of it. For the rest of grade 10, I am going to challenge myself to produce work that I can clearly see my learning in. I want to make sure that I am able to take something away from every project that we do, put it in my Zettelkasten, and retain that knowledge for years to come.