James's Portfolio

Unit 4 Dystopian Fiction Reflection

December 16, 2025 /

I learned that dystopian fiction is a type of writing about a dark, imagined future where society is controlling, totalitarian governments rule, and there is advanced technology.

Dystopan fiction encourages us to think about lots of elements that happen in real life, as many things that happen in dystopian fiction happen in the current world, but is magnified. This helps us to understand what many practices that we do today, could lead to extremely negative endings. Dystopian fiction helps to warn us and let us reflect on potential dangers, and it helps us to reconsider many of our practices.

I enjoyed the Giver, because the Giver successfully magnified many of our current day issues, and it made me think about how lots of stuff in the Giver is happening today, and how, if those things expanded, could ruin the world. It also helped me have deeper understanding of the fact that the world can not be perfect, as many of the actions in the Giver are solutions to many problems today, but also come at a significant cost.

My ability to write academic paragraphs has improved a lot, as we are writing one of them every single week for CommonLit. The wide variety of subjects in the Giver and the relationship between them and real life helped me to widen my view on how I could write academic paragraphs. I also learned how you should properly give evidence, as before, I used direct quotes for evidence, but now I can paraphrase the evidence in the text.

I have become better at literature discussions, as through this unit, I have learned how you should validate other people during these discussions, how to challenge others in these discussions, and different ways to add on to others opinions during the discussion.

Unit 2 Otzi Unit Portfolio Reflection

November 27, 2025 /
  1. What did I work on?
    1. During this unit, ‘Why should we care about the past?’, I worked on
    2. Making observations, inferences and wonderings
    3. Using photos and articles as evidenceWriting a CER paragraphAsking and answering open and closed questions
    4. Taking part in the Otzi Mock Trial, my role was as Prosecution Lawyer 4.
  • What did I learn? Why should we care about the past?
    • We should care about the past because the past teaches us about the present. This is because the past will always repeat, and this can help us understand people thousands of years ago, but also humans today.
  • What worked well?
    • I am proud of the following work : My CER paragraph final draft, and my evidence graphic organizer, and also on consolidating evidence for the case.
    • I am proud of the work above because I got exceeding on the CER final draft, and my evidence graphic organizer, and while consolidating evidence,  I found useful pieces of evidence that could be used in court.
  • What did not work well?
    • I found some of this work challenging: Cross examining the witnesses.
    • I found the work above challenging because cross examining the witnesses requires you to get an opposing expert witness to support you view.
  • Personal Relevance
    • This helped me learn include to make reasoning between evidence and claims, how to present work in a “trial”. This will probably help me later on because these sort of skills really help with critical thinking and presenting.
  • This is a photo of my CER Final Draft
    • Insert photo here

Egg Car challenge

November 12, 2025 /

What did I do?

We created cars to hold an egg and survive an impact.

IMG_0320.mov

What did I learn?

We learned that having an area called a crumple zone helps to reduce force exerted on an object. We also learned that according to Newton’s First Law, that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This was shown during the tests, as the car goes at the wall with a force, and the wall exerts the equal and opposite amount of force on the car.

What worked?

We successfully designed the car and it worked fine during testing. The car followed the guidelines we were given to create the cars. We also successfully implemented crumple zones into our cars.

What did not work?

During the final test, where a real egg was put into the car, the egg broke. This probably was because the crumple zone was not large enough, or because we did not add any breaking mechanism.

Personal relevance

This has personal relevance to me because it helped me learn how real cars work, and how they implement crumple zones to protect the passengers.

Balloon Car Reflection

November 4, 2025 /

What did I do?

We created balloon cars, and raced them. We used them to learn about force diagrams, and Newtons Laws. We used select materials to make the cars, and also changed and adjusted them.

What did I learn?

During this unit, I learned about Newtons Laws. I know that the first law is that an object will stay in motion unless acted upon by another force, which fit into the project, as the car would stay not in motion unless acted by a force (the balloon) The second law is F = ma (Mass * Acceleration), and this was used in the experiment, since the larger the balloon was (force), the faster the car would be (acceleration), as the mass stayed the same. The Third Law is that actions have equal and opposite reactions, and it was what made the car move, as the air from the balloon pushed at the air, which gave an equal and opposite reaction to move the car.

What worked?

What worked during this project was that our balloon car managed to travel the furthest among the class. I also was able to learn and understand Newtons Laws of motion. I also learned how to successfully draw force diagrams.

What did not work?

A problem was that our car sometimes could not travel straight. We solved this by tightening the tape around the straw, as it sometimes would wobble and cause the car to change direction. Another small problem was that the washers stuck to the balloon because of some tape, and this nearly popped the balloon.

Personal relevance

Personal relevance for me during this project was that these laws all have use in the real world. Examples of such include that if a ball is thrown, then it will not fall unless acted upon by gravity. Or that if you push something, an equal and opposite reaction will push back at you.

Creative Writing – Reflection

October 30, 2025 /

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

Story elements that I enjoyed planning and writing include the setting, and the protagonist. This is because since this was a piece of creative writing, I could choose any setting as long as it fits within the theme.

In my opinion, the best line in the story was: “Every order cut through the low hum of the engines like a knife. The crew moved fast, too fast. The metallic stomps of the mechanical beasts shook the ground, their glowing sensors slicing through the alien mist. I could feel the tension—thick, electric—rising with every mechanical whirr” because I really like some of the writing techniques I used.

Areas for growth

Elements that were harder to plan and write include the conflict, as I didn’t make the it extremely detailed, and next time, I would make a smoother conflict.

Personal relevance

I think creative writing helps me to think imaginatively and visualize things better.

Cultivating Critical Thinking in Science

October 7, 2025 /

This lesson, I experimented with Indi robot cars and Gravitrax to strengthen my critical thinking abilities skills.

I learnt that critical thinking is analyze a piece of information to form a piece of judgement and evaluate sources to create judgement based on evidence. It involves using creativity, resourcefulness and problem solving.

I thought critically when I designed the marble run, because I had limited blocks, which made me have to think creatively to make it successfully run. While experimenting with the Indi robot car, I also thought critically because we had to use what we knew about the different reactions the Indi car would have to different colors, and what was given to us on the challenge card to find out what to use to make the car successfully run.

Some personal relevance to critical thinking includes that critical thinking helps you think of solutions to problems with speed and efficiency, and it also helps you to analyze things you see in daily life.

Fiction Reading – Character Analysis

September 23, 2025 /

What are we doing?

Reading: One of us is lying, and determining important character traits.

What are we learning?

How to analyze character traits based on evidence (Character’s Actions, Words, Thoughts, and Other Characters’ Reactions).

What’s working

This unit helped me deeper understand the characteristics of people, as this helped me to understand people’s views from their perspectives. I have learned that evidence for traits can be understood in different ways, and one action can be analyzed in very different ways.

Areas for growth

I think some room for improvement includes going into deeper depth on the evidence I chose, and finding the different views on that piece of evidence from multiple characters.

Personal relevance

This helped me learn that people are extremely complicated, and it also helped me learn that some traits can be used for bad usages and good usages. This helped me understand that people are more effected by their choices than their personality.

Non Fiction Writing Reflection – Paragraph Structure

September 19, 2025 /

What are we doing?

Academic Paragraph about character analysis

What are we learning?

Paragraph structure, topic sentence, transition, conclusion.

What’s working

Some stuff that is working for me is the structure of the academic paragraph, as it is quite similar to the structure of a report before, just in one paragraph. The transitions are also working for me, as I know what they mean and can use them confidently in writing.

Areas for growth

Some areas for growth include to use higher level transitions.

Personal relevance

This type of paragraph might help me right write reports in the future, as it is very formal and practical.

Road Safety – Be careful or be roadkill

September 8, 2025 /

Watch our video below!

Road Safety Video.mp4

What are we learning about?

We are learning about personal safety in this unit, and we have learned things like road safety, CPR, bandaging, and recovery poses.

Why is it important to SAS students?

It is because some of these scenarios, like bumping into a car is very possible for people our age.

What went well?

Stuff that went well were we were able to write a script and act it well quite smoothly.

What can be improved?

We could have another person film us so we could do the scene while walking and make it more realistic.

What is something I am wondering about personal health?

Something I wonder about personal health is what signs on people show danger.

What is my key takeaway?

My key takeaway from this unit is how to do CPR and bandaging.

PE Table Tennis Reflections

September 5, 2025 /

What did I learn?

Some things I learned during the unit was how to backhand serve, and how to add backspin.

What did I improve on?

I improved my forehand serve and my backhand, as I can get it just a little bit over the net, and can get the ball at the edge of the opponent’s side.

What challenges did I face?

Some challenges I faced were playing against people who has played Ping Pong before.

Am I looking forward to this unit next year?

No!!! Ping Pong is boring.

What am I proud of?

I could play against people who had either played Ping Pong before or a similar sport like tennis and I got to the top 3 tables every time even though I have never played before.

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