Weekly Reflection (21/1-27/1)

This week, poetry was the main theme of our learning as we looked as various acronyms that could help us remember the key elements when it came to analyzing poetry. A few examples were given and we had to discuss the usefulness of these acronyms, as a group we all agreed that each acronym had its strengths and weaknesses and using this we had to create our own acronym which in the end, we decided it would be called MOTELRAPS which stands for:

Meaning
Organization
Tone
Evidence
Language
Rhyme
Audience
Purpose
Structure

But the acronym wasn't complete yet as we had to further add questions to each of the key elements to provoke analyzation instead of feature spotting. Each group decided that they would come up with various questions that would help us to provoke analyzation. We also had to create a portable version of the acronym so that we could analyze anywhere at anytime. I feel that the exercise and the acronym proved very useful to help me structure ideas and my writing when I analyze poetry, it also gives me a key insight of what to spot when reading a poem so that it can be interpreted correctly.

Weekly Reflection (14/1- 20/1)

It wasn't a very optimistic week for English this week. This week, we decided to revamp the current Never Let Me Go page and me and Chua were assigned Chapter 6 to recreate. Over the weekend, I decided to check if Chua had made any adjustments to the page. There was none, so I decided to begin refixing the page. I fixed about the majority of the page and left Character Analysis and Themes and Symbols for Chua to create, I messaged him on Facebook to remind him about the site. Overall,  I felt what I created was pretty good as the page look neat and organized but lacked the multimedia flair of other pages. I headed back to boarding and found Chua and the site untouched, he seemed confused on what we should do and I told him I messaged him but never he replied, he soon began hammering me on how to finish the Themes and Symbols and Character Analysis which I found pretty frustrating as he could have messaged me way earlier and I would be more and than happy to help, but now at 9.45, tired after a long day, I wasn't in the best of moods to help him, I just gave him some advice and let him work on it.

The next day, I checked the site for the Character Analysis and Themes and Symbols and all I saw was a crummy mind map and a short paragraph in character analysis. At this point, I was annoyed with Chua but I didn't say anything. When it got to English, there were so many weakness's to the page, formatting error, font size not consistent, mind map done poorly, character analysis uncompleted.... It was a complete mess and when Chua asked when we should redo the page again... I sighed and gave a date which obviously won't be done by then. Moving on to more positive matters, we were assigned song called Ballad Of A Thin Man, a very cryptic and confusing poem, it seems it was practice for our exams as I heard that any poem could come up and we had to expose ourself to many types of poems to get an idea of what's going to come out. there was the general idea of it being an interpretation of the gap between the rich and the poor, of slaves and slave traders which all suit it perfectly fine but I want to know what the actual meaning of the poem even though Miss Abena specifically warned us not to. Sigh, that google search button looks so tempting now...

Opening Questions

NOTE: 

Your response to these questions will greatly affect your interpretation of this chapter and the characters involved. Make notes in your learning blog (public) or workbook (private). Be sure you understand alternative perspectives that are different from yours if you want to explore the literature fully. CRITICAL THINKING ESSENTIAL!

• How much do you talk to your friends or family about sex?

I do not talk about sex with my family members as the topic never comes up within my household and it is a very awkward and uncomfortable issue but I do occasionally speak about sex with a couple of my friends at schools  

• How important are the issues of sex to a teenager in your experience?

I feel it's quite important to understand sex during the teenage age as it allows us to better understand ourselves and to ensure that we understand the elements that accompany sex such as STD's.

• How do you differentiate between sex and sexuality? What are the different issues connected to each one?

• Do you think 'sex' is an open topic in your social circle or is it very much taboo?

Sex for me is a open topic for my social circle, it's not considered taboo among my family, it's just not touched upon at my household

• Whatever your response, do you think this is the best way for your social circle to be?

I suppose it's ok that my social circle does talk about sex

• Do you think sex outside of marriage is OK? Explain your answer.

Sex outside marriage for me is really up to the individual. If the individual feels that he or she is ready to have sex and has feels that they have enough maturity and sense to have sex, I see no restrictions in having sex after marriage.

This Week's Reflection 7/1-13/1

This week, we did poetry once again. Divided into groups, we were supposed to analyse and later act out one of four poems that were given. My group was given a poem called Fatima, which I was curious about from the very beginning we got this booklet. After some discussion, it was finally revealed that Fatima was actually a girl from Bosnia who fled due to a civil war and was placed in a typical British classroom. Within that classroom, she was frightened and confused and when she saw the nativity play of boys shooting guns and killing babies, it reminded her of her war torn home and she broke down in tears.

This poem really struck me as a powerful and moving poem, reminding us of humanity's ignorance towards others in plight, to our ignorance to the the world outside of us and our lack of compassion towards those in need. Later in the week, there was a time of reviewing our study guide. Filling out a questionnaire, we were able to view other responses and we saw how unmotivated and unsatisfied we were on the project and we all sat down and discussed how we could improve.

It was a moment where we would stand back and ask ourselves, "do we really want to continue this? " Further discussion brought ideas on how we could greatly improve the site and motivate us to do better. So we had a little competition to see who could spruce their assigned page up the best and the best page would act as a model for the rest of the class. I've already done the best I can for the page and so it's all up to my other partner, Chua to deliver his side of the bargain.

Weekly Reflection 31/12 - 1/6

So another weekly reflection, with much to discuss about what has happened in the past week. But first I would like to address to Miss Abena that this weekly reflection was unable to be submitted on time due to lack of internet connection at home, thus the assignment could only submitted on Monday when I came back to boarding.

This week, we had a critical discussion on the Trello website for our group. It seems that we are not producing enough work and the work that we produce is lackluster. When I step back and look at it all, I agree with what Victoria has said, we're all playing a blame game. Let's say when person A does not finish his work, person B looks at the site and thinks, oh well since A didn't finish his work may as well just slack off. This becomes a domino effect that lead to our study guide being lackluster and off schedule.

I understand that feeling students have when they have to do something that's not assigned as compulsory homework but I myself feel that we as a class should take more initiative as students. After all, this is our study guide after all