As a year-end project in ELA, we are answering questions that reflect on our grade 9 year. There are eight questions that talk about our improvement of skills and things we covered in this class. I will provide an example for some of these.

1. Prove or disprove, using supports/examples, that you have grown as a learner through the ELA class activities. 

There are many ways that I have grown this year. One place that shows this is on my blog. My writing has become a lot more in-depth and detailed as the year went one. When I started my blog I never really added an introduction to what my project was or why I was doing it. I think my writing has improved, and my comma usage has advanced compared to where is was at the beginning of the year.    I have attached two links to my blog posts below. The first one showed one of my very first posts that didn’t have an introduction and was that well written. The second one has an intro and is much more in depth. I also added pictures to make it more visually appealing.

Earlier Blog Post

Later Blog Post

2. You have completed speaking, writing and visual representations in this ELA course;                                                                                                       

A. Identify a before (reading/listening/viewing) activity that enhanced your appreciation or understanding of the text. Explain how the before task changed the text for you.                                                                          

B. Identify a During (reading/listening/viewing) activity that enhanced your appreciation or understanding of the text. Explain how the During task changed the text for you.                                                                        

C. Identify an After(reading/listening/viewing) activity that enhanced your appreciation or understanding of the text. Explain how the After task changed the text for you.   

4. Give an example of the planning/development of an assignment that you’re most pleased/proud of. 

I try to give myself an outline to follow when I am writing. I find it way easier to keep the ideas flowing if I already know what I want to write. I have done many types of outlines this year, including webs, charts and just jotting down my ideas. I feel that just jotting down my ideas and color coordinating them works best for me. The example that I am going to show you is about my ending to the outsiders movie. It shows exactly where I would like to start my story, tells me what my climax is going to be and then the fall actions and resolutions. It is all color coordinated in a way that I can follow. It may be hard for others to follow, but it is very easy for me.Planning Outline

5. Formative feedback is the same as summative except you get it before you finalize/submit the assignment. How did it help you improve the quality and/or level of your work to get your feedback during your work instead of after it? Give and example to support your work.

I find it very useful when teachers provide me with formative feedback. It helps me learn and expand my knowledge when I can take the feedback and change the mistakes in my work. I am not able to change them after I submit the assignment. This helps my marks and even how I do in other classes. I feel like the feedback sticks in my brain because I am using it right away. When I get summative feedback back, I usually don’t remember it as easily because I am not using it until the next project. One way my teacher did this was by commenting on my blog. She told me what I was doing well and what i should work on. This helped my take my assignment to the next level. Here is a blog post with one of her comments on it.

Blog Post Formative Feedback

6. Did you reach or test your potential in this ELA class? Explain with and example.

I do think that I reached my potential in this ELA class. My work did advance over the course of the year. I am writing longer answers to my questions and way more detail. My comma use and grammar have changed as well. I have noticed that these skills are transferring to other classes as well. I pay attention to more of these types of things, not just in ELA class. I also used the blog and I help me add more details. I am able to write more on a computer than with a pen and paper. Also, when I am writing for an audience, I make sure that my work sounds good and uses proper grammar. This is one blog post that shows these improvements.

Blog Post With Improvements

7. Do you find your level of self-awareness in your skills and abilities in ELA has improved at all over the past year? Are you reflective and conscious of what is expected if you and what level you accomplish? 

8. Explain whether you felt sufficiently challenged in you ELA work this year. Give an example of a task or project that tested the limits of your abilities.

I feel that I was challenged by many different activities this year. Adding the blog to our course took our work to the next level. We were always adding new things and learning new skills on our blog. I think that it challenged us in an excellent way! There was one activity that challenged me the most this year. The last presentation that we had to do. We had to do a lot of research about a topic that didn’t have an answer to the questions we asked. Then we had to come to a conclusion and create a presentation. These projects took a lot of work and time. Then we did something that I’m not very strong at, presentations. I prepared notes for what I wanted to talk about and practiced. I was very nervous doing this presentation, but in the end, it turned out well. I have attached a copy of my presentation below.

Canadian Beef Farmers Inquiry Presentation

9. You developed your blog this year, adding samples of a lot of your work. In doing so, you’ve tweaked it to include a fair representation if your personality online. What skills do you think you’ve developed through using the blog? List two positives and two negatives of the blogging work you’ve done this year.   

I really enjoyed using the blogs this year.

For this activity, we started out practicing drawing a sketch of the image that our partner was describing to us. Today we had to find an image off of google and not show our partner. They will then have to use the description that we give to try and do a drawing of the image we have. Here it goes.

• I will start off by saying that is a picture of a chihuahua. Though, it is not your typical dog.
• It is a front view but is turned slightly to a right side angle.
• The dog is a very light brown color (almost white) and relatively small.
• It has two very buggish green/brown eyes. They are spread fairly far apart.
• It has a smallish nose that is just the slightest bit darker than its body color.
• It has very large pointy ears that stick almost straight up.
• You are not able to see very much of the dogs body due to a puffy snow white princess dress.
• the dress has light blue, puffy sleeves that have red stripes running vertically on it. You can only see one stripe on each side.
• The dress has a dark royal blue from the shoulders to the waist. (About have way down the dogs body.)
• The dress has a yellow bottom and is super puffy. It is also sparkly.
• The dress has a white collar that stops half way around the dogs neck.
• On top of the dogs, head is a bright red, sparkly tiara.
• The dog has a brown wig with the tiara. The hair is to the dogs shoulders.

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I have now attached the original image and people’s drawings from my description.

 The Original Image.

Carson’s Interpretation

 

We watched the movie The Majestic in ELA. We then went through the movie and picked out the main parts that were important to the story line. Next, we chose colors that represented what emotion Peter/Luke was feeling at that time. I have explained my choices for these colors below:

1. Girlfriend– The movie starts out with Peter Appleton and his girlfriend sitting in the movie theater, watching Peter’s movie that was just released. Happy seemed to be an emotion that fit this situation well. I decided to use the color green to represent this. I used the color wheel above to help me make color choices. Also, green is a happy color. There is lots of green in nature and nature makes me happy!:)
2. Communist– The second point of the movie is when he is being accused of being a communist. I chose fear as the emotion to show this. I chose orange as the color because orange fear is in between angry which is red and terrified which is yellow. Also, orange is a brighter, bolder color, which makes me think something is going to happen in the story.
3. Fired– This is the point in the movie when Peter is fired from his job. Anger is the best way to describe how he was feeling at that moment. The color I think of when I hear anger is bright red. It is bright and bold, and people tend to turn red when they are mad.
4. Drinking– After being accused of being a communist and getting fired from his job, Peter is upset. That is the best word to describe how he was feeling at that time. He decided to go to the bar and ends up getting drunk. He is trying to drink away his problems. I chose a light red for this because he is not super mad, but things are still bothering him.
5. Accident– After a night of drinking at the bar, Peter decides he wants to leave and ends up driving intoxicated. After driving for a while, its starts pouring rain and Peter ends up driving off a bridge. He would have to be terrified at that moment. I thought that a greenish, brown color would show this well because Peter is not angry and not happy so this seemed to fits that particular spot.
6. Lost With no Memory– During the accident when Peter was in the water, he hit his head on something and was knocked unconscious. He woke up in the morning with a dog standing over him, licking his face. He didn’t know who he was, where he was or how he got there. He knew nothing. There was a man that was the owner of the dog that helped him up and got him to town to see the doctor. Peter had to be unsure of what was going on. He remembered nothing. That’s why I chose the word unsure. For this, I used a peachy, yellowish color. He wasn’t scared so it wouldn’t be yellow and peach just seemed like it fit as a color. It is in between yellow and red.
7. Breakfast– Once the man that finds him(Ernie), gets him to town, he takes him for breakfast. The doctor just happens to come into the restaurant at the time Peter is eating breakfast. Ernie thinks that it is a good idea for him to get checked out, so they leave to the doctors office. They pass by a man sitting in the restaurant, and the man gets this excited look on his face. The word I chose for this is confused. Peter doesn’t know what is happening and is just going with the flow. Again, I chose an orange color because it just makes me feel confused and not sure what to do.
8. Father– The man that was in the restaurant comes running to the doctors office needing to talk to Peter. They let him in a he introduces himself to Peter as Harry. The weirdest part of this is he calls Peter, Luke. Also, he says that Luke is Harry’s son. Everyone thought that Luke was killed in the war, but Harry is positive that Peter is Luke. Everyone believes this, even Peter. Still Luke is a little bit hesitant. The color I chose for this is a yellow, green color. He was somewhat happy, but also a little scared.
9. Town– Harry convinces everyone that he is Luke. Harry then takes Luke and shows him around the town, to “refresh” his memory. Luke has no recollection of anything. Harry then takes Luke to where he lives. The old movie theater. He gives Luke a tour of that and takes him up to his living room.The emotion that best described this was interested. The color I chose was a bright green. Luke is happy and excited to see all of these new things.
10. Reopening– Luke falls asleep on Harry’s couch and sleeps away the rest of the day and the entire night. Luke wakes in the morning with Harry and two other people standing to overtop of him. Luke sits up very rapidly because this startled him. Harry introduces the other two people, Emmett, and Irene. They are the old staff members from The Majestic. They had a very good idea to reopen the theater and start playing movies again. Luke doubts this a bit. He says it will take to much work to get it going again. The color I thought represented this the best is a bright purple. He isn’t sad and gloomy, which I feel is a blue color, but he isn’t mad which is red. He is somewhere in between this, so that’s why I chose purple.
11. The Majestic– They get Luke convinced that it is a good idea to reopen The Majestic. They go and look through the whole theatre and see how much work it would be. They decide that they should and start figuring out how they are going to make this happen. The colour I chose to represent this was a darker green. Luke was intrigued and excited to see how this was going to turn out. Green representing intrigued seem to go along well with the other colours that I had chosen for the other emotions.
12. Adele– Luke goes to the diner with his dad. There he meets Adele, Luke’s old girlfriend. They go for a walk around town, and she shows him all of the places they used to go to. At one point Adele gets a really bad case of hiccups and the only thing that fixes this is kissing Luke. He was excited in this part of the movie. A very bright green is the colour I choose for this. Excited is a lot like happy. When you are excited, you are happily mixed with so many other good emotions. I had chosen green to represent happy so I thought that a very bright green would show excited well.
13. Party– The whole town has a welcome home party for Luke. They try and get him to play the piano because he was so good at it. He doesn’t remember how to play at first. He starts to play jazz music which is not what he played before. This confused quite a few people. Luke was amazed that people would throw him such a big party and that he remembered how to play the piano. The colour that I thought amazed should be is a yellow, green colour. He was thrilled with the party but also a little frighten to play the piano. Then he ended up playing it which shocked him a little bit.
14. Confrontation– After the party, Luke walks back to the Majestic. He is just about back to the theatre when a man stops him. The man is Bob, a war veteran that lost one of his arms. He thinks that Luke is not Luke. He is fairly upset about this and ends up punching him in the face. Luke is very aggravated at this point in time. He can’t understand why Bob thinks that he isn’t Luke. The colour I thought represented this the best is a lighter red. He isn’t super mad that it would be a really bright, bold red, but he is getting to that point.
15. Setting up the Theatre– A whole crew of people comes together trying to get the theatre ready for its first showing. People are busy doing all of the jobs that need to be done. They have to get everything ready for the opening showing that night. Luke is thrilled to see this happen. He is so much more than happy, so I chose a dark green. He is super happy to have the theatre up and going again. Also, it makes his dad really happy!
16. The Moment he Remembers– Everyone starts to show up for the movie at The Majestic. The movie that is being shown is the movie that Peter released before he got accused of being a Communist. Luke has a moment of “Wait, I know this movie! I am not Luke after all!” He is completely astonished! His actual name is Peter Appleton.  The colour I chose for this was yellow. He was shocked which makes a person turn a bit white, but i thought that yellow would be a better colour to choose to represent an emotion.
17. Heart Attack– Harry is the one that is running the movie and doing the reel change. At the time of Luke realizing he is not Luke, Harry misses a reel change. This causes everyone to panic. Peter goes running up to check on him and finds him on the floor. He had a heart attack. The doctor comes an takes him to his bed where he later passes away. This causes Peter a lot of grief and sadness. I thought that blue was the best colour to show this with. He is feeling down and depressed, and blue is usually the colour people associate with sadness and grief.
18. Funeral– They have Harry’s funeral. Many people from the community show up. Peter is sad at this point in time. I chose a lighter blue for this. He still is sad; it’s just not as dark of blue as when he was grieving.
19. Informs Adele About Not Being Luke– After the funeral, Peter asks to talk to Adele. He tells her about not being Luke and gives her all of the details. She is pretty mad at him and doesn’t want to talk to him. During this part of the movie, Peter is very worried. He doesn’t knows how to tell Adele or how she is going to take it. Then, once he tells her, she is mad at him. His emotions are an orange colour right now. He isn’t mad (Red), and isn’t surprised (yellow). He is somewhere in between there (Orange).
20. Federal Agents– As Peter is walking down the street, a person calls out and orders him to stop. It is the federal agents accusing him of being a communist. They call him on it in from of everyone in the streets. People start to get upset. The Federal Agents tell him that he is going to have to appear in court. Peter is very frantic at this moment. I wasn’t sure what colour frantic would be, so I used the colour wheel to help me make my decision for this one.
21. Talks to Emmett– After Peter is accused of being a communist in front the entire town, he goes home to the majestic. He finds Emmett in his room and talks to him for a bit. He tells him that he knew that Peter wasn’t Luke ever since he played the piano at the welcome home party the town threw. Peter is surprised about this and doesn’t quite understand why Emmett didn’t say anything. I chose a yellowish, peach colour for this because he was kind of shocked and upset at the same time.
22. The Court Room– Peter has to go to his court hearing today. He is super nervous and can’t even focus on what he is trying to read. The court is getting a little upset with him because he isn’t using his time and doing what he is supposed to be doing. The emotion that represents this situation is nervous. I represented nervous with a light orange. He is stressed and getting a bit upset, and orange makes me think of stress and nervousness.
23. Makes a Statement– Peter finally gets over his nervousness and starts talking. He begins making points about human rights. He talks about Luke and from what he has heard, Luke wouldn’t agree with what the court was trying to do. At this point, Peter is a little bit irritated. I used a bright pink colour to show this. He is getting mad, and he is trying to get his point across.
24. Starts a “New Life”– After Peters court hearing, he goes back to his studio and quits his job. He then comes back to Lawson and finds Adele. They work things out and start dating again. They eventually get married and have children. Peter is more than happy! He is Exuberant! I again chose green for this. Green is just a happy colour for me and it fit the situation perfectly.

Here is a trailer for the movie The Majestic. It will give you an idea of what I am talking about.

 

We were instructed to rewrite the ending of the Outsiders. We then had to do an overview of what we wrote about. I have attached a copy of this review below. Go check it out!

In ELA, we watched the outsiders movie and read the book. We then rewrote the ending of the of the story. Here is my version. The link is attached below. Go check it out!

LeahRe-write

Here is a trailer for the movie so you will kind of get an idea of what I am trying to explain.

I am loving the book so far!! It is very easy to follow and it is very intriguing. I think that the author did a great job adding important details into the story. They make you want to keep reading and finding out what is going to happen next. For example, at the end of chapter 3, she ended it by saying “Things gotta get better, I figured. They couldn’t  get worse. I was wrong.” That last part were it says “I was wrong” makes me want to keep reading and find out what is happening. So far, the characters have been described really well. I have a clear picture of what they all look like in my head. I am very excited to see what happens next in the book!

Dear Allegro,  

I’m heart broken!

I NEED HELP!! I don’t know what to do! My new husband has been banished from Verona and my father is forcing me to marry another man! A man that I will never love! This man will not leave me alone and I am to be married to this man on Thursday. I have been given the option to fake my death, but if I do my husband, Romeo, may actually think I’m dead! I am in desperate need of your advice. I am willing to do whatever it takes. I really do not want to marry this other man! Isn’t that cheating? How can I cheat on a man that I love more than the man I am cheating with? Please, I need my Romeo back! He is everything to me! My father is forcing me to marry Paris! Please, please reply with some advice.

Waiting for your wise reply!

Desperate, Heart Broken Juliet

 

Dear Desperate, Heart Broken Juliet,

I can really tell that you don’t want to marry this other man! I think that you should talk to your parents and see what they say. Explain to them the situation that they are in. They may get very mad at you but that’s better than them finding out later. They could be understanding of the situation that you have gotten into. They also could be very mad at you for falling in love with someone from the opposing family! Give them yours reasons why you don’t want to marry this other guy. You could go talk to Friar Lawrence and see if he has a solution for you. He may be able to talk to your parents or maybe even explain to This other guy what is happening. I feel that you shouldn’t have to marry this other man if you really don’t want to! Your parents could be very mad at you so they may not want you to live with them anymore. If this happens you could maybe end up living with Friar Lawrence for a bit or maybe even go live with Romeo. Anyways, I feel that you need to be honest with everyone otherwise you could end up in a lot more trouble, or be in a situation that you don’t want to be in!

I hope that my advice helps you a little bit and hope everything works out for you in the end!

Allegro,

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Dear Allegro

From xXx_Romeo40_xXx

Help! I’m a criminal and I’m wanted in Verona, I want to see my lovely wife Juliet she is left alone in Verona with a creep by the name of Paris or online named “Puffy Paris, ” he wants her and she chose me, he lost fair and square I should be the one to have her not him but I go and kill someone because the person I killed, killed my best friend. Oh, one thing the person that I killed was her cousin so I’m in hot water with her, but I hope things will blow over now I’m waiting for Fair Lawrence to come up with a plan cause he will, he knows I can’t be without her, and she can’t be without me I hope she can come up with something cope with it. Please, I need you to talk me through on what to do. I need your answer NOW!

xXx_Romeo_xXx

 

Dear xXx_Romeo_xXx,

It sounds like you are in a pretty sticky situation! I think that Friar Lawerence and Juliet will come up with a plan on how to get her out of this situation. I think that you shouldn’t give up on her until you know for sure that you cannot be with her. You need to somehow get in touch with either Friar Lawrence or Juliet herself. If they come up with a plan you need to know the plan if they want Juliet to end up with you. It sounds like Juliet doesn’t want to be with this Paris guy and if that is true she will try her hardest to get away from him. I think the main thing that you need to do is stay in touch with those two people and eventually things will work themselves out!

Hope this helps!

Allegro

 

Dear Allegro,

From a Nervous Gentleman,

I really need your help!!!!!!! Now! The girl I really want to marry is already married!!!!! And of course, she is married to a member of her family’s biggest enemy!!!!! ROMEO!!!!! How could she fall in love with someone like that? She is just so perfect! I can’t stand the thought of her being with anyone else besides me! I want her to break up with that dirt bag! She is too good for him! I am planning to marry her on Friday, but I don’t think that she wants to marry me. How do I make her fall in love with me and not Romeo? Should I keep fighting for her love or do I let her go? Please help me! I really don’t know what to do? Please respond as soon as you can. I need advice NOW!! 🙁

Grieving Paris.

 

Dear Allegro,

From Lonely Banished Boy,

I have a HUGE problem!!!! I ended up killing my wife’s cousin and got banished from the city of Verona! I am no longer able to see my beautiful wife, Juliet. She is the most beautiful girl in the world! Then on top all of this, she was supposed to be marrying another guy on Thursday! And this guy is such a loser! I know that she didn’t want to marry him, but I wasn’t able to go help her because I was banished! The worst part is I just found out that she’s dead!! I can’t live without her! I need to be with her! What should I do!! Should I try and sneak back into Verona and go to her tomb! Should I write a letter to Friar Lawerence to see if he knows what to do? Should I move on a find a new girl? But she is just so beautiful! Please tell me what to do?? I need your help! Respond as soon as you can!

Unlucky Romeo

 

For the past few weeks, we have been working on the story of Romeo and Juliet. We were acting out the play and watching the movie. We are now looking at the different themes of Romeo and Juliet.

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2. The first theme is “The uselessness of violence”. Using violence doesn’t lead to anything productive! It only ends with people getting hurt or killed and nothing gets accomplished from it. Apart from the play that really shows this is when Tybalt comes after Romeo because the Montagues came to a Capulet party, and this leads to Mercutio’s death. then Tybalt comes back again and is then killed by Romeo. This leads to Romeo being kicked out of his city and never being able to come back. If this fight had never happened, people wouldn’t be dead and Romeo and Juliet may have been able to be together. Therefore, this violence was useless.

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3. The next theme is “Stubbornness and pride leading to death and heartbreak”. This theme means that a person is want something so bad and doesn’t want to give up on it that it leads to heartbreak and in some cases death. This is shown in Romeo and Juliet when Juliet wants to be with Romeo, but her parents want her to marry Paris. Juliet is not OK with this so she goes and talks to Friar Lawrence to see what see should do. He gives her a potion that makes her look and feel like she is dead, but it only lasts for 48 hours. They are then going to tell Romeo their plan and have him come get her from her tomb when she wakes up. The message never gets to Romeo that the death is just fake. He then hears that Juliet has died and go to her tomb and kills himself just as she is waking up. Then Juliet is so heartbroken that she ends up killing herself to be with Romeo. This event in the play relates to this theme because both Romeo and Juliet are too stubborn to leave each other that it causes them to become so heartbroken when one of them dies that the other ends up killing themselves.

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4. Another one of the themes is “The strength in young love”. The strength of young love means how much they love each other and how much damage that it does. This plays a major role in the story of Romeo and Juliet. If Romeo had never been in love with Rosaline, then he would have never gone to the Capulets party to find a new girl. That means that he would have never met Juliet and they would have never fallen in love. That would have stopped all the fighting that was happening in Verona and not as many people would be killed. Juliet would have married Paris and they wouldn’t have thought twice about it. Romeo wouldn’t have ended up dead and neither would have Juliet. The other side to this theme is that Romeo and Juliet’s love for each other is so strong that they can’t live without each other. Romeo doesn’t realize that Juliet isn’t dead so then he has to kill himself to be happy. Then she wakes up and sees Romeo dead so she then has to kill herself. that just shows how strong their love for each other is.

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5. Another theme is “The dangers of dishonesty”. What I see this theme as the meaning is when you lie to someone they will probably end up finding out and you will be in some sort of trouble that you don’t want to be in. There were a few times in this play that people were dishonest to each other. One of the main times is when the Montagues went to the Capulet party and lied about who they were. If they would have told who they really were, then Romeo would have never had met Juliet. That could be a good thing or a bad thing. It would be bad because Juliet would have to end up marrying Paris, even though she didn’t want to. another time is when Juliet faked her death to get out of marrying Paris. If she would have just told her parents that she didn’t want to and talked it through with them. She didn’t have to “Fake Kill” herself just so she could be with Romeo. In this situation, this caused a lot of deaths that may have never happened if the truth would have been told in the first place.

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6. One of the last themes from Romeo and Juliet is “Revenge leads to destruction”. This theme means that when you get revenge on someone, it usually doesn’t go very well. The person that you got revenge on, will usually be mad and end up wanting to get some sort of revenge on you. A great example of this from the play is when the Montague Boys go to the Capulet party Tybalt realizes that they are Montague’s. Tybalt is very upset from this and tries to go talk to Romeo about this. He is trying to get his revenge on them. He only is able to find Mercutio and Benvolio. They want to fight with him and then Mercutio ends up getting stabbed by Tybalt. Then Romeo is very upset with Tybalt that when he comes back to fight with Romeo, Romeo ends up stabbing Tybalt and killing him. All of this revenge on people is only ending badly. People are getting killed and Romeo is banished from his city. If people would let things go once and awhile, there would be less fighting and revenge happening in the world. Revenge is doing nothing good for the two families. It is causing lots of destruction in the city of Verona!

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From all of these themes, most people will be able to take something out of them and learn. This is a great play/movie to watch!