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They Say, I Say
We start off the year fittingly by reading Mrs Taylor's beliefs and responding to it with our own opinion. This sets the stage for much of the year, and especially the mythology unit. It teaches us to approach worldviews with an unbiased yet critical mindset, whether we agree with it or not. I think this is a very important lesson that applies to all aspects of life, now more than ever with the overwhelming amount of information on the internet, as was discussed during this first unit. -
Reading Strategies
Today we tried sketching out the descriptive text of a location to better understand it, which helped as it would be impossible to keep track of all the places otherwise. However I don't think this'll be useful very often in reading, as most good books will include an image if the author is unable to adequately express themselves with just words. We also learned that before we start reading a book or forming an opinion on a headline, we should make sure we understand the context & background. -
Mythology Unit
Applying what we learnt from "They say I say", we first listened to what experts had to say about mythology and read creation stories from around the world, then formed our own opinions on them. We also saw different arguments for God, again coming back to the importance of a critical mindset and searching for more solid foundations to our faith. We continued with the I Say part afterwards with our mini inquiry project, where I created an infographic about the elusive origins of spoken Japanese. -
Narratives/Short Story Unit
Much of the unit was spent reading the Christmas Carol. We got to watch Scrooge's character arc unfold chapter by chapter. I thought it was incredibly detailed and well planned out, making him feel like a real living figure. This skill of character and world building was one thing we were learning, but I still have much need for improvement. We also read several short stories in between our Christmas Carol readings, all of which we took inspiration from when we wrote a short story of our own. -
Poetry Unit
When we got back from christmas, we were greeted with a unique new teaching style. The lessons took place largely individually and online, on the Poet Master site set up for us. It was an interesting experiment, however I thought that it needed more variety and group projects as it often got repetitive. Then we read the War Photographer, which conveyed some of the horrors of war. It was a good example of how poems can be used to spread important messages such as this better than normal text. -
Romeo and Juliet Investigation
Keeping with the second semester's theme of unique activities, we went on a month long inquiry into the peculiar story of R&J. We collected clues and slowly pieced them together. This was good practice to help us know the right questions to ask, which is a very useful skill when writing a research paper. -
Self Directed Project
I chose to read "The Intelligent Investor" for my project. It was a very eye opening experience for me, both in my misconceptions about investing but more importantly it gave me a much needed reflection into my mindset and character. It teaches the importance of discipline, and the necessity of having realistic expectations of yourself in order to have real discipline. Only when we understand ourselves can we begin to control ourselves. -
Endgame Assignment
(droste effect maker)
