Month: June 2023

Surviving Year 2 of High School (tPols)

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“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

This year is my second year in PLP and a lot has happened. As a learner, I’ve had lots of opportunities to grow, and I’m confident that I have improved myself using these opportunities. I’ve brainstormed, compromised on ideas and reached agreement in group projects, worked on my public speaking skills, communicated with my peers, developed my skills in technology, and overall used my creativity as a driving force for my projects.

I will now share with you how I’ve grown as a learner and why I’m ready for the transition to grade 10.

 

Evidence of My Progress as a Learner

Science:

If I had to choose a PLP class to be my favourite, I would have to settle for Science. I felt that during the projects that we did in this class, I was really able to unleash my creativity and create final products that I was really proud of. I feel as though during the duration of Science, I was able to meet, if not go beyond, the goals I had set for myself.

Proud of:

For this assignment, I was really proud of my work on it. I utilized my practice in coding and graphic design to create a “somewhat” comprehensible food web of some of the more basic species. The only thing I’d change if I did this again is making the arrows more orderly and easy to understand. Other than that, this is definitely something I as a learner can be proud of.

 

I really liked the idea of this project because it relied on two abilities that I’m confident in; acting and video editing. I was able to put both of these to good work in this keystone, and I was thrilled with the results afterwards. The accents and impressions, amazing lines, and “smooth” video editing provided for an experience that I was pleased with.

Honourable Mention:

 

Maker

This year in Maker, I was really able to explore my areas of interest more. We spent a lot of time working on photography and videography projects, which is a strength of mine, and I was able to apply these skills well.

Proud of:

This assignment definitely preyed on our patience. In this, I created a Stop Motion video that used both my practice in video editing and filming. I put a lot of time and effort into this project, even asking for an extension just so I could finish it at home because I was so keen on getting the final product just right and as close to the original video as possible (Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”). I wanted to make sure that I as a learner could say “I made that” with confidence.

 

This was a real video editing experience, and I enjoyed every minute of it. From conducting an interview, to filming B-roll of different AR and VR technologies, to spending hours in CapCut, looking over and making sure that my creation was going to be interesting and eye-catching. Creating and presenting this video at the winter 2022 exhibition was an experience I’ll never forget because I was so overjoyed with how the final product turned out and how much people enjoyed watching it.

 

Humanities

We touched on a wide range of topics in humanities, and I found myself intrigued by each one. From sci-fi and Frankenstuffies, to the five themes of geography and slam poetry, it was an exciting and new project at every turn.

Proud of:

Here we have the project called “Rise of the Frankenstuffies”. I was given lots of creative freedom in this project, and I feel like I used it to its fullest potential. I enjoyed getting to make up my own story from scratch that followed my rules in a world of my imagination. Both the most challenging and rewarding part was the video filming and editing, where it was necessary for me to use a green screen on the backdrop while filming and move my stuffies at the same time. All of these working parts definitely made it harder, but I still managed to complete it with general ease and enjoyment. I enjoyed voicing the characters because I got to make up their personalities from scratch as well as I saw fit.

 

This project was certainly an interesting one, and I found myself getting more wrapped up in it by the day. In the past I’ve had my fair share of poems, both in grade 8’s coffeehouse, and in my grade 7 and 6 classes, where we learned more about the vocabulary of poems and how to both make and identify one. The thing about this that specifically stood out to me was how, from the very first day, the poem was meant to be revised by your classmates. You weren’t supposed to get it right first try. You were supposed to look back, ask a peer, and see what you could improve on if anything. Even if you didn’t have anything that you thought you could change, the fresh perspective of someone else definitely aided in making a satisfying final product.

 


This project relied on teamwork and cooperation between your group member(s). Both DIY skills and the creativity of coming up with a (semi) new idea for a board game were necessary in given out to us by the teachers. I had a fun time creating this because I got to design my own player pieces based on information I’d researched about each of the Canadian provinces (see second above photo). I also enjoyed seeing the looks of joy on the grade 8 faces when they got to try our game. I especially enjoyed when they turned to looks of horror when they found out how complicated the game was.

 

This was the most recent humanities project we had, and probably the one I enjoyed the most in the entire year. Now, that might be saying a lot, but I find it to be true in this project. I’ve gotten to use lots of skills, and even further some new ones for me. From acting and theatre performance practice, to sound design and video editing. Even DIY and script writing were included in this collection of talents! This project had it all, and better yet, it was being performed at the spring exhibition. The final product was a massive hit with everyone, and tons of compliments were showered upon my group and me. Collaborating in a group was definitely something that helped the experience because there’s nothing like bouncing ideas off of people you know to create an amazing piece of art. In this case, a performance.

 

Stretches and My Strategies to Deal with Them

Driving Question

Why do you feel you are ready to advance to the next grade level?

I think my work in grade 9 reflects that, as a learner, I have made quite a few final products that I can be proud of, and in the end, I have the skills and spirit to get things done, despite having difficulties arise.

Last year, I had difficulties focusing my attention in class and staying on task. I often distract both classmates and myself, and generally have a harder time completing work within the given class time. This year, though, I’ve had a very successful time focusing and using my time wisely and efficiently to create and accomplish.

I will take my skills, both new and old, my strengths and weaknesses, my strategies for learning, my love of both photography and music, and my newfound knowledge with me as I move into grade 10. (Double digits! Woot woot!)

WW1 Wasn’t Fun | No Sitting Allowed Part 3 (The 2023 Spring Exhibition)

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The Project Pitch

This blog post will be a bit different from my usual ones. I mean that in the sense that this post is actually two things smushed into one! In this post, I’ll reflect on and talk about both the process of “Dulce et Decorum Est” and the skills I gained from it, and how the Spring Exhibition went or if I can add more on the topic of the Spring Exhibition.WW1 Paragraph Placeholder

 

My Learning Adventure

Throughout the course of this project, we learned a lot of things. Some of those things included

  • learning the components of a successful story, along with the forms they take and why we tell them
  • stuff at MONOVA
  • causes of WW1
  • Canada in WW1
  • a deeper dive into some of the important aspects of the war (trench warfare, medicine, planes, tanks, and ships, weapons, PTSD, minorities and women in the war)
  • propaganda, consription, internment, ethical judgement

Overall, I was able to further my knowledge on a lot of topics I originally had little to no clue about.

 

The Skills

As for the skills I was able to pick up or further improve on, I’d say I utilized a lot of them. A few of them were as follows:

  • brainstorming for coming up with ideas for theatre script
  • acting
  • technology design (sound design and video editing)
  • paying attention (joke)
  • public speaking (WW1 weapons presentation)
  • reflecting

I feel like throughout not just this project, but the school year as well, I’ve gained and progressed on lots of new skills, and am therefore becoming a better learner than the year before. tPols here I come!

My Work

Dulce et Decorum Est:

”Museums tell stories in multiple ways, and in many forms. For example, there’s interactive displays, and even in those, there are multiple forms. There’s visual, auditory, tactile (touch), olfactory (smell), etc. There’s also dioramas, VR, and living exhibits, such as people pretending to be a notable character. There are also layouts that help to understand the story the museum is trying to show or make example of. Some of these are thematic galleries, time & date, location of events, and many others. All in all, museums can tell stories in a variety of ways to drive it forward in the way they choose.” -Keystone 1

”The competing narratives of war can be sectioned into 2 main views: “The reality of war”, and “the myth of war”. For example, the myth might be a healthy soldier in a crisp clean uniform and little to no injuries on a poster telling people to join, as opposed to the reality that in war, uniforms were dirty and may even have lice in them (see “Weapons of WW1” presentation, subclass “Bayonets”), and the soldiers would have grave wounds, with diseases passing throughout the trenches. The myth of war refers to the government using propaganda to protect the country, gain public support, counter enemy messages, and recruit soldiers. It fixes war in the glory of a “noble and necessary endeavour.” On the other hand, the reality of war is the more negative effects of such. For example, the negative side of propaganda was that it manipulates people, limits freedom of expression, and spreads false information. These different perspectives show that war is a complex topic, with some justifying propaganda’s use, while others loathe its impact on ethical values and society.”
-Keystone 2


Launchers, Torpedos, and Bayonets, oh my!

“Solar:
– Make sound louder = fixed by air playing it to TV
– make trench look more like trench = brown paper or cardboard
+ Acting was very good
+ Sound effects really added to the performance

Owen:
+ Emotion was very powerful
+ & – Good emotional ending, but try to act better (practice)
+ & – Card is nice, but make sure you have an exhibition layout soon
+ & – Trench is easily noticed, but add texture
– Make grenades” -Keystone 3 feedback

“Cam:
– writing the Script and rewriting it to work around problems and ideas
– provide stomp rocket (for mortar shell)
– filming and video editing (for flashback)
– acting (in theatre performance)
– sound design” -Keystone 3 what I provided in the group work

Spring Exhibition 2023:

BONUS: My Experiences

Dulce et Decorum Est:

Throughout the project, we were given multiple opportunities to expand our learning. The museum visit to the Museum of North Vancouver (MONOVA) and the multiple classes for creation, planning, and work all helped us reach our final goal of making a true museum experience.

Spring Exhibition 2023:

Being able to showcase the work that me and my group had been working on for while was probably one of the most enjoyable parts of this project for me. Both during and after the Exhibition, my group and I got multiple compliments and rounds of applause, and I’m really proud of that. Each time we performed, we’d notice little things we weren’t happy with or wanted to experimentally change, and it slowly bettered our performance to what we could call satisfactory.

Driving Question and Answer

How can we make the contrasting narratives of war come alive for an audience?

It’s possible to make the contrasting narratives of come alive for an audience in a multitude of ways, and a museum is one of the best ways. Museums give the audience a unique experience to walk through history themselves, getting to see the different perspectives, listen to key stories and events, and explore many other possibilities. Theatre (living exhibits), interactive displays, VR and AR, dioramas, and many other things can offer an interactive and interesting experience to keep the audience intrigued and interested. All these things and many more make it fun to learn about and explore the contrasting narratives of war, as we got to see through our final product. The theatre performances, the interactive cannon (along with other interactive exhibits), and realistic dioramas were all a big hit during the museum experience on Exhibition night. Making the contrasting narratives of war come alive for the visitors was certainly a journey, but a rewarding one.