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They say I say assignment
We began the year by responding to the syllabus by using the 'They say I say' template. We also repeated this process with ICS' mission statement. I thought that this was a great way to analyze text because it gave us obvious boundaries. -
How Does Writing Affect Your Brain?
We read an infographic about how reading and writing affected your brain. The study found that writing things by hand helped memory because it triggers certain parts of our brains. I found this intriguing because as a student, I always find myself in situations where I have to memorize things. -
Reading Strategies
We read a variety of texts including jokes, headlines, and an excerpt about Worcestershire. We then applied reading strategies introduced in the lesson to effectively grasp the topic. We drew a map of Worcestershire which was, in my opinion, a great way to visualize text and help me remember it. -
Core Academic Vocab
We defined vocabulary words and then wrote them in sentences. This was a good way to set goals for the year ahead of us. -
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Mythology
In this unit, we explored creation myths, comparing their similarities and differences. I was surprised at how similar they were, considering most people groups couldn't contact faraway civilizations until relatively recently. After this, we explored flood narratives, including Noah's ark. It was shocking how similar they were, with only minor details changed in some. Then, we explored the existence of God and arguments for and against it. Lastly, we compared science and facts to the Bible. -
Mini Inquiry Project.
For this unit, I explored the history of the Japanese language. I liked how we had some freedom to choose from the topics and it was a good experience in terms of research. This project really helped me prepare for the year ahead and it was good practice for researching. I also had to make an infographic so it was difficult to fit everything in without making it all text without images or graphs. -
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A Christmas Carol
As we neared Christmas, we read the classic story: A Christmas Carol. It was about a man named Scrooge and his change from a stingy, bitter old man to a generous, Christmas-loving person. I enjoyed reading it at a slow pace with the rest of the class because normally I am a fast reader so it was nice to take it easy and really take in the words of Dickens. -
The Veldt
We read the dystopian short story: The Veldt. It was about a nursery that could synthesize whatever the children wanted. We then had a Socratic discussion about it. I enjoyed reading the story by Ray Bradbury and then having a discussion about it as it really helped me to understand the book further. -
Short Story
We got to write a short story about anything. I chose to write about an assassination on a plane. I had a lot of fun doing this and I thought it was the best unit of the year because we could write about any topic that we wanted. -
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Christmas Holiday
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Movie Book Analysis
For this project, I chose Percy Jackson. I watched the movie and book and compared the two. I thought that the book was much better than the movie, but the movie had more action. This wasn't my favorite unit because I prefer writing about fiction or at least realistic fiction. -
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Poet Master
For this project, we had to complete a game about poetry. The game had several stages and we had to finish one to move on to another. It really helped me to understand how a poet thinks and what to do when writing certain poems. The unit was mostly self-guided and I liked working at my own pace. -
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Romeo and Juliet
Without reading the story, we had to use props and clues given to us to decipher what really went down inside the tomb. Slowly, my group and I discovered the plot of Romeo and Juliet. I like writing an official report on what happened, but we also had to fill in an extensive spreadsheet-questionnaire. It was great working with other members of the class because we didn't get too many opportunities like that during the year. -
Over To You
In this project, we could do whatever we wanted. It was hard to narrow down a topic at the start because we had so many different options. I liked choosing my own topic, which was writing something on the SCP universe. After this, we did a reflection paper on what we liked and disliked about it. -
Endgame
This is the unit we are in currently. We have to do five different text types for four themes. I am enjoying the wide variety of media I am creating and I liked the dictionary poem. I liked the way we could choose any of dozens of text types and that allowed me to be very creative with how I presented my information. We also need to make a presentation.
