Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog, this post is all about the winter exhibition. This year us grade nines got to learn a lot. From ewoks to theme statements, we got the chance to improve in so many ways for this years winter exhibition. Winter exhibition theme this year was Star wars. The main project us grade nines worked on was called the story strikes back. Which tasked us with designing a non existing or popular character and giving them their very own hero’s journey. As well as that project we also did another blue sky. (I did another blue sky last year tap here to see that post.) the catch with this blue sky is that it had to compliment our story. As well as all that we worked with the grade eighths to completely transform a classroom into a amazing Star Wars planet. A lot right? Well let me break down our process.
We began this project by writing a paragraph about why we care about Star Wars. This assignment was really helpful because it got me more intrigued in the many worlds of Star Wars. It also gave me a chance to state my opinion and proactive supporting it. In al this was a great beginning to our project because I got to get started on some research, but also got to express my initial thoughts on what we would be learning a lot about for the next few weeks.
We then began to focus more on the story section of our project. We read some short stories and learned about important factors of them. Theme, setting, symbols, plot etc. We kept track of our knowledge in a numbers template. After we completed our template we completed a test to assess our understanding.
These activities really helped me identify what made a story a story, and came in handy for when I wrote my section of the short story. Because I knew what needed to be present and what was interesting. I think the knowledge I acquired in this part of this project will also help me in the future like it did in this project. By being vocabulary I can refer to in my writing.
Around the same time we were learning about what the main parts of a good story are. We were also beginning to learn about the best way of creating a story, the hero’s journey. We took notes and researched how the hero’s journey had been used in popular movies and books. Until it was our turn to begin to organize our very own hero’s journey.
By this time we had already been put in our planet groups, I was in Endor. My group had decided on our main character as well. We chose an ewok named nicki who was featured on screen for about four seconds in the movie “Return of the Jedi.” We were then tasked like I said earlier to create a hero’s journey for Nicki.
This milestone was a little harder then the others. First of all we had to demonstrate what we had learned and create a good structure of a story, but we also had to agree on what would happen to our protagonist and what she would accomplish.
After some minor arguments and group collaboration we finally completed our outline.
This activity was so important because it was our very first draft of our story. We got the chance to get all of our best ideas out and written down. This activity was also a sort of test of what we’ve learned, it gave us a chance to express what we wanted our hero’s journey to be. Personally I improved at working at coming to decisions during this activity because we had to make a lot. I also feel I got better at organizing a story because I worked at organizing it under a time constraint but also had the added interference of the story that goes on in the Star Wars movies.
While we began writing our stories, we also learned more about Star Wars. We watched the movies and did some research, we then wrote an opinion piece about one of the Star Wars movies. For this assignment I chose the first Star Wars movie “a new hope.” Heres the link to my post I wrote about my opinion of the first ever Star Wars movie.
This activity helped me learn more about Star Wars, it also gave me a chance to improve what I did at the beginning of this project with my paragraph about the importance of Star Wars. I got to improve my ability of making a point and supporting it, but also at giving evidence of my research and displaying what I know in my writing.
Next we continued working on our short stories, making multiple drafts of our story until we were happy with what we had made. Here is my finished section of our short story.
Writing my own section was really fun, Im not the best writer but I really enjoyed coming up with small details and creating Nicki’s story. Making my part of the short story also gave me the chance to show my learning and growth from the beginning of the project to then. I feel through that experience I understood the terms I had learned even more, (setting,plot,theme) because I used them myself to create my part of the short story.
Once we had our first draft done of our story we began another component of our project. We started our Blue sky project.
For the blue sky project we completed the launch cycle. Heres mine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y5MWIQA42w
After completing some of launch cycle you see above I began figuring out what I wanted to make. I decided to re create a monumental moment of my story. When nicki decides to accept the call to adventure. I decided I would make a structure of sorts that would replicate what the protagonist saw and heard during that moment. Heres what it ended up looking like.
Making my own project was really fun. I think my project ended up pretty good, the night of, it worked well for the most part. I also learned quite a few new things while completing it. For example I got better at using garage band, and also work on my video skills. And my ability to add animation to a video.
After our story was written and our blue sky’s were ready it was time to present our work at the exhibition.
The week before we began transforming our room into endor for the night of the exhibition. This is what our floor plan looked like.
Most of our original plans ended up working out and our room ended up looking pretty good.
I wouldn’t have changed much about our room, If I did have the chance to change something I would have made sure the jobs were more equal amongst my group members. So that we could’ve got even more done faster to leave time for extra adjustments or changes. I also wish we focused more on lighting, maybe by adding some green lights to give it a more forest like look.
The room aside ,presenting my project also went well that night. I had quite a few people check out my blue sky, and I got pretty positive feedback but also great suggestions on how to improve. From presenting my project I didn’t only have the chance to show everyone my work but I also got extra practice communicating my ideas and opinions to others. While I presented my work to people at the winter exhibition I also got a chance to self reflect on my project because I was constantly telling others about my process.
Overall this project was really fun, some highlights for me was transforming a classroom into Endor, creating our characters story and personality, but most of all getting to work with so many different people. Thanks for visiting my blog, kaia
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