My Video:
What did I learn about dystopian fiction?
Dystopian fiction is a story which talks about society where something has gone wrong or doesn’t give its characters and people much human rights. It was generated from the Greek word “Dystopia”, which means “bad place”. Dystopian fiction often encourages us to think about the society we are living in right now, and what we are doing right and what we are doing wrong. We can also learn lessons from dystopian fiction stories, and also grow our critical thinking skills. Dystopian fiction has seven characteristics: totalitarianism, social control, conformity vs difference, constant surveillance, dehumanization, control of nature, and illusion of utopia.
How does dystopian fiction invite me to think about real life?
Dystopian fiction invites me to think about our society and some benefits of those elements in dystopian fiction by making me think more deeply and critically. By discussing serious social problems, it makes me think that in some aspect, some of the elements are beneficial, and on the other hand, it makes me think that it is awful. It also made me think deeper by encouraging me to think about the possibility and benefits of applying the elements in dystopian fiction to real life, our society.
I enjoyed / did not enjoy The Giver
I enjoyed The Giver book because it was very fun in a way that made my mind dive more deeper inside the book. The disturbing elements of dystopian fiction makes me be more interested into the book as it goes on. It also has adventurous elements (which I like), so I really enjoyed it.
How have I improved my ability to write academic paragraphs?
While going through this unit, I practiced writing academic paragraphs a lot of times. We read some chapters, and wrote academic paragraphs that answered the prompts of the Commonlit assignments. We kept practicing the structure, transitions, and other elements of academic paragraphs. STP always gave us detailed comments about our academic paragraphs after we wrote each one. After I did all these exercises, now I think I can write much better paragraphs. My understanding of academic paragraph is much clearer.
How am I better now interacting with others in literature discussions?
Throughout this unit, we did three literature discussions. Through these three discussions, I learned paraphrasing, validating, and other communication skills. Now, I can use good conversation moves to express my ideas in these discussions. My discussion skills are getting better. I improved a lot on doing these literature conversations, expressing my opinions and using evidences from The Giver book.
The safety behaviors that are most important for me is wearing my seatbelt in the car, doing safe things online, and not communicating with people that I don’t know. These are the people that I can rely on when I face something dangerous online: mom, dad, school teachers, academy teachers, and trustable friend. I think social media impacts teens and tweens by harming their mental health, addiction, distraction, and sleep. I can protect myself online and offline by:
- reporting to the teacher about something weird
- not talking or chatting to strangers
- not using social media too much
My biggest takeaway will be learning how to be safe in our life.
- What did I work on?
- During this unit, ‘Why should we care about the past?’, I worked on
- Making observations, inferences and wonderings
- Using photos and articles as evidence
- Writing a CER paragraph
- Asking and answering open and closed questions
- Taking part in the Otzi Mock Trial, my role was the prosecution lawyer 2 (arrowhead).
- What did I learn? Why should we care about the past?
- We should care about the past because we can learn about
- Origin of humans + their culture
- Learn how pre-historic people lived
- Learn the differences and the similarities between the neolithic culture and nowadays’ culture
- -same diseases
- -same human conflicts
- Very resourceful
- Very innovative
- Very skilled
- What worked well?
- I am proud of the following work: my questioning in the mock trial, the notice wonder inference chart, and my Ötzi CER.
- I am proud of the work above because I did well in the questioning, I worked hard to fill in detailed evidence in the chart, and I applied the evidence shown in the article to write my Ötzi CER.
- What did not work well?
- I found some of this work challenging: asking very detailed open questions in the mock trial and writing our opening sentences on time with my partner.
- I found the work above challenging because it was quite hard to come up with very detailed questions and a good opening statement in a short time.
- Personal Relevance
- Collaboration and communications skills are important in my future because there could be a situation where I need to make a strong argument and group work, and I can apply what I learned in this unit to those situations.
- This is a photo of my work about the mock trial questioning.
What did I do?
In day 1, we wrote down 3 baking options for us to choose from, chose one of them (which was marshmallow chocolate cookie), and converted the amount needed for each ingredient from U.S. system to metric system. In day 2, we calculated the unit price for each ingredient and calculated the cost per batch for each ingredient. In day 3, we figured the total cost of one batch of our recipe, calculated the cost per serving, determined the final sell price by applying the markup percentage to the cost per serving and adding the cost per serving to the markup price. In day 4, we created a pitch about how we determined our sell price based on the markup percentage. Finally, we did the bake sale, selling our chocolate marshmallow cookie to many people.
What did I learn?
I learned about rates, unit rates, and percentages. By calculating the cost per serving in day 3, I learned about unit rates. By deciding the markup percentage and applying it to the cost per serving in day 3, I learned about percentages. Also, I used models and double number lines in the process of determining the final sell price.
What worked?
During the bake sale, our team was very successful. At first, there were not much people, so we couldn’t sell that much. But, the number of people increased and increased while the time was nearing breather time. We were already sold out before the bake sale ended. We earned a lot of money, and we also got a satisfying amount of profit.
What did not work?
We were having some problems to decide our sell price. At first, our sell price was too expensive, so we decided to make it cheaper. We still thought it was expensive, so we finally came to an reasonable price of 6RMB per cookie.
How is this relevant for me?
The bake sale was a great opportunity to learn about entrepreneurship, rates, and percents in a fun way. It’s a interesting project which I could also collaborate well with my teammates and have fun baking cookies. I really want to recommend this project to other people, and it was a great chance to learn more deeply about rates and percents!
What did I do?
The criteria for the egg car was to build a paper-built car that will carry an egg, and will keep the egg safe when it bumps into a brick. It’s job was was to keep the egg from cracking when it ran down the ramp and crashed into a concrete brick.
What did I learn?
The Newton’s 1st Law of Motion (Law of Inertia) is applied to the egg car when the car crashes into the brick, and the egg flies forward. It flies forward because it wants to keep moving because of the inertia. To prevent the egg from flying forward, my partner and I made a seat belt to keep the egg from flying forward. The Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion (Law of action and reaction) is applied to the egg car when the front part of the car crashes into the brick. When the car crashes, the car applies force to the brick (action). Then, the brick applies the same force back (reaction). Finally, the force applied by the brick make the egg crack. To prevent the egg from cracking, we attached a flexible crumple zone in front of our car so that the crumple zone will absorb most of the force applied by the brick, not cracking the egg.
What worked?
Our goal to make our egg not crack worked well. We applied our knowledge of Newton’s 1st and 3rd law to make a safe car that will not crack its driver (egg).
What did not work?
Our car didn’t crack the egg, so I’ll make a suggestion to someone else about their car. There was a group that did not add crumple zone to the front of their car, and their egg cracked. If they don’t add a crumple zone, the egg will crack because of the force applied by the brick. So, they could add the crumple zone to make the car safer.
Personal Relevance
It is important to know Newton’s Laws because the science is used to develop lots of things like the regular cars that we ride normally. There is seatbelt and the frot curmple zone to make the car safer. The seatbelt and crumple zone makes the driver not fly out or smash their into the steering wheel when they have a car crash.
What did I do?
We used the balloon car to investigate the forces acting on an object, and to learn about Newton’s 1st, 2nd, and 3rd law. The balloon car was built using straws, white tray, small wheels, axles, and a balloon. It went forward by using the air coming out from the balloon.
What did I learn?
Newton’s 1st law (law of inertia) says that an object in motion tends to stay in motion until some other force stops it. Also, an object that is staying tries to stay still unless some other force pushes or pulls it. We see this law in action with the Balloon Car when it crashed into something. When it crashes into something, it lurches forward because of the inertia. Newton’s 2nd law (law of acceleration) says that it takes more force to push or pull something that has bigger mass, and it takes less force to push or pull something that has smaller mass. It also says Force=Mass x Acceleration (F=ma). We see this law in action with the Balloon Car when it doesn’t move that far when there are a lot of washers added on the balloon car. On the other hand, when there are less washers added on the balloon car, it goes farther. Newton’s 3rd law (law of action and reaction) says that for every action, there is reaction acting on it. We see this law in action with the Balloon Car when it moved forward with the air coming out from the balloon attached on the balloon car. The air shooting out from the balloon is action, and the balloon car moving forward is reaction.
What worked?
Working with my partner and connecting to Newton’s laws worked well because my partner and I collaborated well and built a great balloon car. I also connected the balloon car well to Newton’s laws of motion. We also won very many races with our balloon car.
What did not work?
It was a little bit of struggle when we were building our balloon car because the wheels and axles didn’t actually fit the balloon car tray. To solve this problem we cut the tray again and again until it fit the straw that had axle in it. Also, we changed one of the axles so that both of them had the same length.
Personal Relevance
I can see a lot of other examples of these Newton’s laws of motion acting on our balloon car. I see Newton’s 1st law in real life when I’m riding a bus and the bus suddenly stops. When the bus stops suddenly, I lurch forward, my body trying to keep moving. I see Newton’s 2nd law in real life when I try to push a big, heavy couch and I need a lot more force than just pushing a small, light couch. I see Newton’s 3rd law in real life when I ride my bike. When I push the pedal of my bike, the wheels roll forward (action), making my bike to go forward (reaction).
What are we doing?
Writing a fictional story based on a theme that matters to me.
What are we learning?
Theme (my purpose for writing this story, my message to readers)
Character Development (creating believable characters with positive & negative traits)
Plot (the sequence of events in my story; Western and Eastern approaches to storytelling)
Setting (the world that I create for my story)
What’s working?
I enjoyed thinking about what characteristics my characters will have what challenges they will face, because it’s very fun to think about my amazing story I will write. I’m proud of my story’s plot because it holds a breathtaking story about the protagonist trying to get the jewel that holds a mysterious power. I was inspired by the the Indiana Jones movie. The best line from my story is “But they were determined to rely on their true minds.” because it shows how Brian and Lewis overcame the challenge of trying to get the true jewel.
Areas for Growth
It was challenging to actually write the details of my story because I didn’t have much time to think about it, but I overcame it by working it in the weekend and thinking about it deeply. My least favorite part of my story is when the villian suddenly appears at the end because there was no such precise way to make him appear in the middle of the story. However, it doesn’t bother me so much.
Personal Relevance
I could use my creative writing skills to write a good story when I want to calm my mind or publish a story when I become an adult.
What did I do?
I played with Indi robot cars and Gravitrax to strengthen my critical thinking skills.
What did I learn?
Critical thinking is a problem-solving process with logical thinking, reasoning, and creativity.
What worked?
I thought critically when I problem solved to make Indi robot to go to the right direction and the Gravitrax marble to reach the final destination, going through the path that my teammate and I made.
What did not work?
I struggled in Gravitrax when I tried to make up a solution to not let the marble fall out of the track because of the fast speed.
Personal Relevance
Today’s learning will help me to think deeper later in my future through critical thinking. It will help me solve problems easily.
What are we doing?
Reading I Funny and determining important character traits
What are we learning?
How to analyze character traits (Character Actions, Thoughts, Dialogue, and Other Character’s Reactions)
What’s working?
Using my character analysis skills, I wrote:
Reading through the novel I Funny by James Patterson, I started to recognize that Jamie Grimm, the main character, was very funny. Jamie always told jokes to people who came to his uncle’s diner, and people complimented him, saying he’s very funny. Jamie really had a sense of humor. His uncle, uncle Frankie, told him to join the comedy contest that will be going on worldwide. Later, Jamie went to those contests, and became the funniest kid comic in the New York State, receiving a trophy. I predict he will win the next contests later on and be the funniest kid comic in the world. I’m looking forward to Jamie’s next story!!!
Areas for Growth
When I wrote my character trait analysis, I didn’t include the main point why that character trait is important(Jamie used comedy as a medicine to recover from the sadness of car wreck). Next time, I should include the reason why the trait is very important.
Personal Relevance
Character analysis is very important to my future because I can understand someone that has the same character trait as the character I analyzed before.