Do you know what is a PuchaKucha? PechaKucha is a presentation style. It has 20 slides shown for 20 seconds each, totaling 6 minutes and 40 seconds per presentation. It’s a concise, fast-paced and engaging way to share ideas. It is also is the final project in “Cray Cray Yay Yay.”

In our project called”Cray Cray Yay Yay,” we explore the driving question: “Why does it take a crazy person to change the world?” Inspired by the iconic Apple commercial “Crazy Ones,” we set out to discover the power of innovation and creativity. We had a field trip to Seattle to give us first-hand information on the question, we explored some of the city’s most innovative and influential companies, as well as the crazy ones. Finally we need to create an PechaKucha presentation to express our answer to the driving question!

During my learning journey, I faced many challenges and successes, and these things shaped my growth. Here are my reflections on myself:

What I did well:

I’m more comfortable in public speaking situations. I used to be afraid to speak because I wasn’t confident, but I stepped out of my comfort zone. I helped with the process of writing scripts for my team. I was always the kid in the group who didn’t do anything, but I now have a 

awareness of helping the group.

What I did bad:

There is one area I struggled with the most, which was relying too much on cue cards during presentations. It affects my communication with the audience. Also, I found myself scared to participate in class discussions and answer questions, which was largely due to self-doubt about my English. But I have to learn to accept myself and believe in myself.

Improvements:

Despite the challenges, I can overcome the nervousness of public speech. Through practice and preparation, I become more confident when speaking in front of people.

Need to Improve:

I’m going to be more active in the classroom and overcome my fear of expressing myself. Due to language issues, I was shy and didn’t want to talk. I need to recognize that my English skills are better than I thought. I’m going to contribute my ideas more freely because I know my contributions make the learning environment better.

How field studies help me learn:

The field trip broadened my worldview and taught me the culture and experiences of a different city (Seattle). Trap to Seattle not only enriched my knowledge, but also made me curious about the world. Seeing a lot of ways that crazy people deal with challenges has inspired me to want to be a person who makes positive change to the world.

Here is some of the photos I took in Seattle:

Young people should bear in mind the terrible disaster that fascism has created. and they need to be wary of the reemergence of fascism that affects world peace. If people can’t learn lessons from history, they will never progress. 

     It is important for people to learn from experience and lessons from history, and they gain wisdom from that. 

     The disaster caused by World War Two(WWII) is something that all people who love peace can never forget. At that time, Germany caused the death of tens of millions of Europeans through many cruel means. The Japanese caused terrible crime in China, and they invaded more than 10 Asian countries. 

     History tells us that fascism is an anti-human and anti-civilization. It brings disaster to mankind.  

     Looking back at history, people can see that it was expansionism, right wing thought, and extreme nationalism that made the fascists control the countries. 

     The people have been deceived by fascism, and the country has become a tool for the politicians to enslave people. 

     Now, although the smoke of this world war has cleared, this painful lesson of history will always be worth learning.

     In this project, I learned about the historical significance of WWII, and why people should always remember about it. I need to write a essay at the end of the project. Let’s we see how learn about WWII, and finish this essay.

     Building Knowledge 1: The Causes of WWII “PEE” Answer.

I need to think about why in WWII started in three ways, they are: my point, why I think that, and why it is important.

The chart that shows my understanding of the affects of WWII.

Building Knowledge 3: Bulletin Board Contributions.

I did a BRIEF (2 sentences) to the driving question: Why is it so important to learn about Canada’s involvement in World War II?

The Essay: Brainstorming.

Ideas that are as many as I can think of  for the .

     Thesis of the essay: It important to learn about Canada’s involvement in WW2. because people should not forget history, the suffering of the victims, and the sacrifice of the soldiers.

Outline:

The Final Draft of Essay:

• In this project, I learned a lot. The World War II was the most curl  war in human history, with more than 60 million people losing their lives. The significance of commemorating World War II is to remind people not to forget history, and today’s peace does not come easily.

     In this project we learned about Canadian identity. I’m from China and I moved to Canada few years ago, so I’m actually not familiar with this project. But, I am really interested in national identity, and I actually never learned and wrote things at school about Canadian. I don’t really feel like I belong in Canada because I haven’t lived here long enough. But I know that a sense of national belonging is very important. Our final goal was to done a human library project.

The definition of national identity that I learned: National identity is people’s sense of belonging to their country or nation, and it is an important part of nationalism. It is the idea of a country as a cohesive whole, and national identity is represented by the country’s unique traditions, culture, language, and politics. It also means that one shares a sense of country with another group whether they are of the same nationality or not.. For example, Koreans in Japan are not Korean citizens, but this does not prevent them from recognizing Korea as their national identity. National identity is used to show “awareness of difference”, and it differentiates “my group” and “other groups”.

     1.The first homework, launch question: answer the question “why does it matter to think about who we are as Canadian?” 

My answer was this:

This work really helps me understand why is having a national identity so important as a Canadian. I used to think that national identity was a spiritual thing that didn’t affect me. But through this thinking, I realized that the sense of identity is actually an important part of people’s happiness. When I first came to Canada, I was often unhappy because I didn’t feel like I belonged.

     2. In order to learn more about how our Canadian identity has been shaped, we got an assignment “Women Questions”: I investigated and thought deeply about Canadian women’’s identity. I asking 20 questions. 

They are:

This homework is actually my favorite one because as a woman, I am always really care about the problems that women are facing or have faced before. So I ask questions about them, and I think about how does they shaped Canadian women.

     3.To study the impact of government on Canadian identity, we studied the Charter Rights, and we got to write why it is important and what rights it protects. 

The Charter is the government of Canada established to protect the freedoms and rights of Canadian 

My works here:

I am truly grateful to the government of Canada for its responsibility to protect the rights and freedoms of Canadian👍. The Chinese government has not done that well, which is one of the biggest reasons my family and me came to Canada.

     4. To prepare for the Human Library, I needed to become an expert in a certain area of Canadian identity (by looking it up online). The topic I choose is Canadian local animals. But before I do that, I need to raise a driving question. Driving question means a question that drives the whole project, and my project was to write a essay.

 

Here’s my driving question: “How has local Canadian animals shaped Canadian identity” 

Here’s need to know before answering the driving question: The answer to this question is not to list the animals that are found in Canada. It is to write in detail how these animals have shaped Canada, such as the impact of this animal on the environment, history, and economy.

And here is the essay I just said, which called the Independent Inquiry Research in Showbie.

Finely is is the human library, it was really fun and I heard interesting experiences from other people that are really different from my. Unfortunately, I didn’t took any pictures, but I help setting up the library and I made the name card for the books.

Here is my reflection after the human library.

     In the spring exhibition, me and Mackenzie made a presentation about “Constructing Creative Communication”. We did this project in November and December, it is about communicating by taking photos and drawing pictures. We present our works and understanding of the project. We have 6 pages about what we have done in the project, they are perspective, mood, apps, doodling, using colors, and shading. I need to present the perspective, mood, and shading.

     Perspective is a skill which makes drawing more complex and interesting. My drawing is a picture of my school.

 

     Mood is to express a mood in photos. I took a photo of a chair in the park and tried to express Tense tendu.

 

     Shading uses different shapes and shadows to make the drawing more realistic. I have drawn two caps with shading skill.

 

     In conclusion, I think I did a good job of being confident in speaking to the audience. I hope I can do better in the future.

     In the unit New Beginnings, I learned about the history of New France and advertising skills, and I made an ad for the fur trade. The driving question is “What did the establishment of New France mean for all people involved?” My answer for the driving question is that the French established fur trade relations with the First Nations. The French got benefit from this, but many First Nations died because of trade with the French (because of disease). This is my answer, because the topic I chose is the fur trade. 

Revised Seycove Ad Challenge:

     It is the first project I did in New Beginning. I didn’t really learn anything about New France in it, but I reviewed the advertising because the final project in New Beginnings is about making an ad for New France. I made an ad about propaganda seycove together with my teammates, we have two drafts of the ad. I write about the many advantages in seycove and the address and contact information of seycove. I don’t have the first one on my iPad, but this is our final draft

Nature Photography Practice:

     I take photographs in the woods for the base of my visuals. I take many pictures, but I think this is the best one.

Learning Reflections

    A reflection of what people have learned in a week, like knowledge about advertising and New France. I have written 3 of them.

Trade Simulation

    The students were divided into three groups: the English group, the French group and two Indian groups. I was in one of the Indian groups. We simulated the new French fur trade and wrote tables about our group. The simulation is really fun, and it is my favorite project in new beginnings.

Visuals pitch

   In the first draft of the visuals, I made two pictures about the fur trade. First is trading, another is after trade.

New Beginnings Two Visuals

It is a thing that explains the evidence of the visuals.

Final images

It is a final draft of the visuals.

In the unit New Beginnings, I learned a lot of knowledge about Canadian history, they will be useful in the future .

The Learning Portfolio Post for The Renaissance: A Change Engine

     In this project we learned the Renaissance, Renaissance is a European ideological and cultural movement that happened between the 14th and 17th. It started in Italy and its causes are still unclear to this day. 

     There are Three famous people in The Renaissance. They are Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael. They are called The Three Renaissance Outstanding. I chose Da Vinci as the topic of my thesis for three reasons.

     Da Vinci is known as the person who is the best represents the Renaissance. He is not only a painter, but also knows science, architecture, anatomy, weather, geology… Leonardo is the leader of the Ninja Turtles.

The first thing need to hand in Showbie: Beautiful Paragraphs

     Before Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa smiled at the world, medieval painting was mostly strange: a lot of painters painted with no proportion. For example, the eyes of the Virgin Mary in the left picture has drawn on the forehead, the blue creature in the right picture is a dog.

     If you look at Renaissance paintings, the proportions of the human body are more scientific.

This is big change of art, Da Vinci helped a lot, the painter, medical scientist, architectural engineer, poet, inventor and geographer. Everyone knows Leonardo is the person who created the Mona Lisa, he also is the person who carry forward anatomy. (I believe Andreas Vesalius invented anatomy

During the Renaissance, the the human body became a source of inspiration for artists. To show what human bodies really look like, artists were delving them.

     I chose Leonardo for topic, and I should wrote paragraphs about him. So, I wrote Vitruvius Man and the importance of anatomy.

My homework and Mr. Harris’s comments

The second edition

     Second, NAME Chart.

     NAME means Novelty, Applicability, Memory and Effect. I need to answered four question based on the words. They are:  

Novelty, what did people in the past think was important about the person, event or idea? What did this person, event or idea achieve which had not been done before? 

Applicability, In what way can the person, event or idea relate to modern events? In what ways is the person, event or idea similar to contemporary concerns?

Memory, Why has this person, event or idea been discussed since the Renaissance? What single element of this person, event or idea has been the focus of commemorations?

Effect,  In what ways have people been affected by this person, event, or idea? What changed as a direct result of this person, even or idea?

Third, Topic + 3Reasons

     My homework didn’t seem very good, but I fix the mistake in the Final Paragraph. (Is the Final Paragraphs add other papers and fix mistakes? If not, I’ll write a new one.)

Fourth, triptych

     A triptych is a picture divided into three parts. Teacher asked us to put ancient things in the left and right pictures (using SuperimposeX) and modern things in the middle

At last, Final Paragraphs

Add up all the other papers and fix the mistake.

Simile poem

A simile poem is a poem that connects two different things that have some common feature. I describe my worldview with simile.

Life is like a house, there is a time to tear it down and a time to build it up.

Life is like a plant, there is a time to sow and a time to gather;

Life is like a war, there is a time to win and a time to lose;

A time to cry and a time to laugh.

A time to love and a time to hate.

There is war and there is peace; 

There is birth and death;

Haiku

Haiku is a type of short poetry that originated in Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku is made up of three phrases

Spring is here at last 

Buds opening up pinkish 

I got new black shoes

colored carps swim by 

a dim memory in mind 

blossom on the pond

The sad end of Spring

Lingers in the peach blossoms

Your birthday is near 

Found poem

Found poem is a type of poem that is derived from other texts and reconstructed by changing the spacing and lines, or by adding or removing text.

I STEPPED OUT the movie house,

I had things on my mind

Paul Newman and ride home.

I wishing I looked like Paul Newman

He looks tough and I don’t

My looks aren’t bad. 

I have brown hair and green eyes.

I wish they are gray

I hate most guys with green eyes,

I have to be who I am. 

My hair is long  

I am a greaser 

I look better with long hair.

Extended metaphor

A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another.

The world is a work of art.

The curved moon is a boat.

The round moon is a plate

The summer sun is a fire ball

The white clouds are white marshmallows.

The fallen leaves are dancing butterflies.

Imagery poem

A poem that evokes the five senses to create a set of mental images. Figurative language is used to represent ideas, objects, or actions.

Black clouds covered the sky and the moonlight was weak. 

The north wind drove away the wild geese and brought heavy snow.

The snow on the mountain by the lake seemed to connect with the clouds in the sky

An old man in a raincoat fished alone from his wooden boat on the dark, calm lake.

I turned back from the window. 

In the evening, the house became colder.

I added wood to the dying fire.

A newly cooked dish smelled good. 

The little stove burned red.

The yellow dog barked outside the door.

Some people were going home in the snow

Sound poem

I used all kinds of animal sounds in this poem because I like animals

The farm

Baa baa baa baa baa baa

Moo moo moo moo moo moo 

Quack quack quack quack quack quack

 

Croak croak croak croak croak croak

Woof woof woof woof woof woof

Meow meow meow meow meow meow

Cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck

Cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep

Squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak

Bray bray bray bray bray bray

Experience poem

Me:

We have not seen each other for many years. 

It is as warm as spring when we meet.

I am very unhappy

that night I set out,

The clouds covered the moonlight. 

As see me off

Don’t be so sad. 

Life is a hard journey, 

you and I are just passing by. 

Like stay and leave from station to station.

My friend:

We say goodbye to each other 

The boat disappeared to the end of the sky, 

only can see the river running by.

I give my missing mind to the moon, 

Hope it can company you with the wind.

When the grass is green again next year. 

My friend, will you come back?

Personification poem

A worldview personification poem that my team and I created

World view walks in

Beaming with borders

It prances around the room 

Looking at all the different people

It smells like morning air

It listens to the pouring rain

That is falling outside

Self portrait poem

A poem about my worldview 

I want to write a song for myself

Adorn the joys and sorrows of life

In this song

A courage to move forward

A memory that will never die

An experience with a long aftertaste

I want to write a pome for myself

In this poem

The sunlight 

Take me in its arm

And only now

My heart will be so bright

Life is full of ups and downs 

It’s all too common

Step over 

A few low walls 

In front of me

There are many wild flowers