Hello, and once again welcome to (I need a better intro, suggestions welcome) my final post of Grade 9! It’s crazy that a year can go by this fast, and yet this slow. Here were some of my thoughts on this year.

This year I learned a lot, both about academics and about myself and my needs, and that is what I want to show with this post, where I will highlight what I did well this year, areas for growth, and how I think I did and what needs to be improved on some success behaviours from this year. 

I had a few really big achievements this year and a lot of things and techniques that I’ve learned as well, here is what I thought I did well this year.

Because of our overall theme; storytelling throughout the moving image, that is what I’m going to focus on for this section. I think the project that I learnt the most from this year was our field school in Alberta which taught me a lot about about the real world and problem solving. In terms of filmmaking, the most meaningful projects were running a remake which helped me improve my revision skills by remaking our video, and then this idea of revision was improved upon with our thriller in Thrill Us, where we expanded upon our filmmaking and storytelling skills while also having fun with friends.

My thriller video made with my friends

 I think that my best project for storytelling was Frankenstuffies, where the entire project was based off of our world building and storytelling skills. Also in the story creation department was WWI-Con, which I think was one of my best projects this year, and one that accurately represents my growth and improvement, with meaningful research and planning, good end result, and interesting presentation.

My comic book:

These are some other things I felt that I did well this year:

  • Destination Imagination: This really tested my teamwork skills, where I was trying to manage our entire group and create our final product. It was also great for my presentation and public speaking skills, and I was incredibly happy with our first place finish
  • Let’s get Riel: this one was really fun i felt like it was executed really well, both on the teacher’s side, and also on mine. I enjoyed the writing and was well organized and all that made the project very manageable for me.
Me and my group very happy after winning our category

And I think that these are some areas for my growth as a learner next year at school and in life:

  • Using correct tools: Using the best tool for the job, unlike using superimpose for my advertisement in grade 8, and not using comic life in grade 9 / using the tools provided to me.
  • Better organization: Having a spot for notes & work so nothing is lost, and no time is wasted trying to just find my work, which I feel like will help me in general with all the work we I will be doing in grade 10.
  • Focus in and out of class: Staying on task, but also taking breaks to maintain productivity. I struggle with this a lot sometimes, and finding out how I focus best would be super useful to me, and something I will be working on.
  • Teamwork: Although most of my group projects this year worked out well enough in terms of a final product, most things other than that didn’t really work for me this year, such as D.I. and Metaphor Machines, part of this was who was in the group, but I will also try not to take lead or control of a group as much and make sure everyone plays to their strengths.

Making these changes to my routine and work will help me be able to produce quality work not just throughout next year, but also the years to come after. 

And here are the three success behaviours that I want to focus on:

  • Agency -> Goals and self-assessing: I think that this is something that is important to work on, because setting meaningful, realistic goals will be really useful to me all though life, and being able to look at and critique my own work in the name of improving it, is in general a really important skill. Over the summer, I will set three goals for myself that will be realistic and related to my hobbies, and check in on my own progress over the break.
  • Outside school: I do have a lot of extracurricular activities like piano, soccer, band, and my hobbies, and it can be hard to keep track of everything and maintain balance, but I think I did okay on this, but with room for improvement.
  • Balance: This plays into the previous section, and in terms of balance, usually it’s not too big of an issue for me, but it can become an issue when band concerts and exhibitions are close to each other, and I think that I way that I can improve this balance in general, is when I have a lot of downtime, starting or preparing something that will make the school element easier in the future. This could be starting a blog post, or organizing something in advance.

Overall, it’s been a pretty good year, and I’ve learned a lot, and had good times with with my friends. Thanks to everyone who helped me get though this year!

See ya’ next (school) year! Till then; bye! 👋