I learned about dystopian fiction by reading Giver and writing academic paragraphs responding to questions about the text.
What did I learn?
Academic paragraphs we built vocabulary with transition words. We had group disccusions and did reading comprehensions on common lit.
What worked?
I prepared good notes for the discussions and understood the book well.
What did not work?
My Common lit reading comprehensions were not really great. I didn’t provide enough evidence for the questions and I didn’t write a whole paragraph with enough sentences.
Personal Relevance.
I could use the skills to understand the text in many places also
In science we started by completing an investigation to determine the relationship between potential energy and height. We also took a data and wrote conclusions with CER.
I worked on learning about Ötzi the Iceman that lived more than 5300 years ago that died in the Italian Alps. I read passages and researched about how Ötzi died and learned about what happened at that time when Ötzi died. I learned about Ötzi’s health issues, the environment on the Italian Alps, the arrowhead in the back of his shoulder and many other information. We first made observations on Ötzi the Iceman and learned about him. Then we learned about how to write a CER paragraph and wrote one about our opinion on how Ötzi died. Then we prepared for a Mock trial and I was a lawyer persuading the lawyer that Ötzi died because of natural causes not murdered by another pre-historic man. I wrote questions for the expert witnesses and participated in the Mock trial.
What did I learn?
We should care about the past to learn about how people lived a long time ago and how people used tools, made tools and how they hunted for food. I learned about the culture people had before and how they lived differently from us. I also learned about how people ruled their society in the community.
What worked well?
I learned a lot about Ötzi the Iceman and understood all the paragraphs I read. My CER paragraph provided good evidence and reasoning which made the paragraph successful. Also, I prepared good questions for the Mock trial and during the Mock trial I projected my voice loudly and confidently.
What did not work well?
I should find more important information from the text and my CER paragraph needs more persuasive reasoning. I had good questions for the Mock trial but their too little questions and they could be more direct to prove that Ötzi died not because of another prehistoric man. I could project my voice more clearly and not move around my body when asking the questions in the Mock trial too and I should practice with the expert witnesses since they didn’t know how to answer some of my questions.
Personal relevance?
I could use the observations skills in many places and the understanding of passages when reading the paragraphs could help me too. The CER paragraph could help me provide more persuasive language when persuading someone and writing better paragraphs using claim evidence and reasoning. I could use the ability to write questions for the expert witnesses when debating to provide evidence and strong reasoning.
Me and my team made an egg car so that the egg inside the car won’t crack when going down the ramp and crashing into the concrete wall.
What did I learn?
I learned that we need to use a crumple zone for Newton’s 3rd law. The crumple zone absorbs most of the force from crashing the ramp so when the force comes to the egg the egg won’t crack. We also made a seatbelt for Newton’s 1st law. The egg stay in motion when the car hits the concrete wall so we need a seatbelt to stop the egg from flying out.
What worked?
The crumple zone absorbed most of the force so that the back of the car where the egg is didn’t get a lot of force.
What did not work?
The seatbelt didn’t work and the egg broke the seatbelt and flew out. No matter how much the crumple zone works the egg flew into the crumple zone and hit the concrete wall with all the force so it cracked.
Personal Relevance
I could use Newton’s 3 laws in real life. I now know that I must put on my seatbelt when I am on the car or I will be like the egg and crash into the glass or fly out of the car. I don’t want to become the crumple zone for the car.
I made balloon cars and applied it to Newton’s 3 laws of motion. I also drew my own rollercoaster and labelled Newton’s laws of motion. We did projects about Newton’s 3 laws of motion.
What did I learn?
I learned about Newton’s 3 laws of motion. Newton’s 3rd law is the law of action reaction, Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Newton’s 2nd Law is the law of acceleration, the higher the mass of an object the more force is needed to move it. Newton’s 1st law is the law of inertia, an object that stays at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted by an unbalanced force.
What worked?
I remembered all of Newton’s 3 laws well and did well on all tests. The 2nd version of my balloon car worked well and the investigation we did for it worked well too. I am a good active learner and did all my work for unit 2.
What did not work?
The first version of my balloon car was not well. I destroyed it because of my bad design and the car is blocking the wheels from moving. I got mad with my teammate Eugene when making the balloon car and didn’t collaborate well.
Personal Relevance
Newton’s 3 laws are in real life in many places. For example, for Newton’s 1st law when I kick a ball the ball rolls away and gets stopped by an unbalanced force, for example the wall or air friction. For Newton’s 2nd law, when I go to the supermarket, the more food my mom adds into the cart the more force I need to push the car. Finally, for Newton’s 3rd law, when I bump into the wall with a huge force, the wall is going to break and my head would hurt badly.
In this unit we focused on the Olympics, we read much information about the Olympics.
We partnered and worked on a presentation to persuade an IOC member to host the Olympics in the city we chose. We created a PPT and prepared a script and wrote notecards for the presentation
What are we learning?
We learned how to use the information and research we read to create a sketch note. We learned a lot about the Olympics and wrote a script. We learned how to use persuasive language to persuade the IOC members to choose our country.
What Worked?
I didn’t use notecards and the PPT was simple, and I used a lot of eye contact. I had great presentation skills.
What didn’t work
I should use notecards because my presentation was not fluent enough. I should also practice more. I used too many fille words and there was no introduction. My language was not persuasive enough.
Creating a portfolio, or blog is a great way to collect all the work you’ve done throughout your academic career. You can include academic, athletic, and personal artifacts or experiences that you want to share with a wider audience. This is a great way to organize all your learning in one place and you can take it with you when you leave SAS. When you make your portfolio, you create posts that are categorized according to your subject. Some categories have already been set up for you, but if you need more categories you can add them as needed. It’s important that your posts have the following:
An engaging title – this should not include the name of the subject since this is referenced in the category. Think of this as the first opportunity to engage and hook your reader!
Body – this is where you share your learning. This should include a combination of text and media in the form of images, graphics, and embedded videos. You should always consider how your post looks to your audience. Is it engaging and organized? Do they want to keep reading?
Category – select one that has been set for you or add a new category. Posts can have more than one category e.g. Humanities and Myself as a Learner
Tags – create tags that can be used as keywords to describe your post. Tags help organize your post a little more! Aim to have 3-5 tags for each post. For example, if you are posting about a novel you wrote, you might want the following tags: #Fiction, #MurderMystery, #Theme, #PlotDiagram
Take a look at the images below to find a few helpful tips for creating your posts and using the block editor:
