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

Would To and Used To

A simple exercise last Tuesday tested our knowledge on a simple past tense difference, would to and used to. When I was doing the exercise, I didn't really understand the actual proper usage of used to and would to and the only way I determine whether I was correct was seeing if the sentence fitted.

After doing some research, I finally understood the difference between the two:

-"Used to" is used when you talk about a past state that does not happen anymore in the present

Example:

I used to work in a cactus farm two years ago until my accident happened

The "used to" in the sentence is acceptable because he is not working at the cactus farm in the present, so "used to" can be used


-"Would" can be used to talk about repeated past actions not past states

I would always go the pond Correct
I would stay in Georgia 4 months ago Wrong

-'Used" can also be used to talk about repeated past states


I used to live in Canada 3 years ago  Correct

Weekly Reflection 19/11/12-25/11/12

This week, we had a language session which we discussed collocations. Unfortunately, Miss Abena either didn't explain what a collocation was or I wasn't listening properly as I still don't know what a collocation is. We were given a worksheet where we had to match a noun with a given verb. This exercise seemed easy at first, but as the words we filled in I doubted whether my answers were correct as the remaining nouns didn't match the verb. I was also surprised to find that several collocations that I used to thought was right were actually wrong for example you can't "give someone a compliment" you can only "pay" and there were some which I presumed were wrong but was actually right for example, "cut a tooth"

Then came the second round of literature circle which went smoothly as last time. There was much talk about Madame, significance of the student's artwork, whether they were clones etc. We were able to keep track of this information via a shared Google Doc as it seems that these questions would aid us in examination preparation. I'm really satisfied with the group's overall effort and I know that with this dynamic effort we can give meaningful and insightful knowledge into our class study guide that we are currently creating Overall, Never Let Me Go was far better than I expected and it really showed to me that you should never judge a book by it's cover.

Later in the week, we analyzed a poem called Base Details. When I was analyzing the poem some stanza's in the poem gave away the what the entire poem was talking about in general. Basically, the author who is a solider imagines himself as a bad general and how he loathes the comfortable lifestyle that they live. I have learned through this activity that you should have some background knowledge on a poem beforehand, this allows us to read between the lines much more easily. Also, I have learned that there are just as equal interpretations of a poem. When we were doing the mat circle, I tend to easily shoot down opinions that contradict mine. I learn that analyze poetry is like looking at a piece of modern art, each person is entitled to their own opinions.

Overall, I feel that I have been successful in analyzing poetry this week. It's really quite interesting cracking the insides of a poem, revealing meanings and interpretations that give you that sense of awe and wonder.

Weekly Reflection 12/11/12-18/11/12

This week as we only had one English Class, we did quite a lot of individual and team assignments outside of class. This week, we began looking at our exam text, Never Let Me Go. At first glance, it seemed like a dull book, but after reading up to Chapter 4, the story has grown on me a bit and I'm interested to see where the story will develop.

During presentation time for our pre reading topic, disaster struck us all. Chua could not make it due to an eye infection and he had the actual presentation with him and what he left us with was a sloppy presentation that he made up in 10 minutes. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, we had no choice but to go impromptu. At the end of it all, we learned a lesson that we had to come prepared for any mishaps like this in the future.

This week, we began work on the study guide on Never Let Me Go that was planned last time. There was quite a lot of work ahead of us as we had to do various elements for our study guide.We were divided into lit circles and thankfully I got Brenon, Syahirah and Chua as teammates. Before we began working, we made a solemn "vow" to make sure that we all worked our hardest at any time. Then became the first session of many literature circles and unlike other groups we had a face to face discussion at the discussion room in the boarding house and I had to say I was quite pleased with the progress we've made so far. Everyone was very open minded and flexible and agreed to take on any task that we set as a group.

Hopefully during our second literature session, we can achieve the same kind of seamless discussion among group members either face to face or online.

Juxtaposition Essay Reflection

This week, we faced a particularly difficult task, which was to write an juxtaposition essay (which is basically comparing two things within the essay) I had some good ideas for this essay, but unfortunatly the chapter choice that Brenon and I wanted to pick was already taken and we got stuck with Chapter 8. There were quite a few challenges along the way to the completion of our essay.

- We were not able to find possible connections within the chapter and if we did we were not able to make a strong link between the two elements
-We didn't understand how to create a juxtaposition essay, we tried referring to other people's work but it didn't really help us understand how the essay would be completed

Although this task was particularly confusing and challenging, we were able to gain some new knowledge such as we currently roughly know how to create a juxtaposition essay and we have gained some knowledge on comparing and contrasting events to find their significance. For the completion of this task, we had to consult teacher, peers, online resources and offline resources. By working together with Miss Abena and with peers, we were able to get the support we needed to finish the essay.

In my opinion, I don't feel as if I have acutually achieved the success criteria as I am still in the dark about many things regarding to this lesson. If I am going to consider myself successful at this lesson, I would strongly suggest that another lesson be carried out on this topic to clarify and strengthen our understanding on the matter.