Semester Reflection #2

•What is the greatest challenge facing your generation? I think the greatest challenge that will soon affect students in our generation is the ability to be self sufficient and to think for themselves. I came from a public school that did absolutely everything for their students. Life situations and life examples weren't recognized for the students. At our school, we're given the freedom to think for ourselves and we're given opportunities to understand what the real world will be like. I really understood this through Darren's American Life project. I know that the recession is really affecting families right now and doing this project really gave a sense to me what it will take in my future. No one really pays attention as a teenager to all the bills and costs that are needed in daily life but doing this project really gave me an idea of how difficult and how much i really need to work. • What in the world do u care about and what are you doing about it? I can literally say that I am passionate about a world project and that I am actively participating in it. I participate in the US State Grant Global Connections Exchange Program with students in Afghanistan. I'm a part of the group of United States students that talks and chats with them over Facebook. They ask questions about education and what it's like in the United States, and I answer the questions for them. I'm passionate about helping these girls pursue an education for their future and I have been doing so by participating in the GCEP Program for the past 2 years. •Describe your vision for yourself in pursuing higher education. After I finish high school I want to go to a 4 year college and study biology. I've always been passionate about biology. I've wanted to study and major in that topic since I was in 5th grade. After I finish my under graduate degree, I am going to get my graduate degree. I'm not sure where I want to go to college but I'm interested in going to USD, UC Boulder or Boise State. •Besides grades what motivates you in school? I'm really motivated about doing my best and becoming an overall well rounded person. I had no drive at my last school. I did what I was required, if that, and I knew it was time for a change of school after my sophomore year. I'm really driven at this school. I want to show that I can do my best. I strive myself off of being the best for my parents and for myself. I know that if I do good in school I will go somewhere in life. And if I do good in school, I will become a better over all person, especially with the projects at our school. I'm very motivated with the projects at our school. They capture my attention and light an interest in me.

Semester Reflection #1

•What have you learned about the way you learn, work, and/or collaborate? This year was my first year at high tech high media arts and it was my first year at a project based learning school. I had always been alright with working with others, but this year I really learned how to work in a group and learned how to finish a project that was amazing with the help of multiple people. I also learned about myself that I work very well with being given freedom to finish projects, assignments, and come up with my own idea for what I want to do a project on. I learned that I can’t wait for a deadline to come around to actually get the work done. I was notoriously known to procrastinate on my work last year and this year I made efforts to get everything done on time and do my best on it. •What project was most valuable to you, and what have you gained from it? The most valuable project to me this year was the Media Saves the Beach project. I’ve always had a love for the ocean. I knew in 5th grade that I wanted to be a marine biologist, so working on this project was something that I was really passionate about. I knew I wanted to work on the calendar project and be apart of the team. It was a lot of work but I gained experience with working with a closely knit team and trying to manage our time to the best of our ability. We had many dead lines that we had to meet and collaborating and working on something with four different girls was a little difficult. The humanities part of the Media Saves the Beach project was valuable to me because I learned about the beaches, the tides, ways to improve the environment and how to work as a team and make a final printed/published project. The biology part of the project was meaningful to me because it gave me an opportunity to really get out into the environment and try and do something about the pollution and what was going on. We learned about the pollution issues going on in the oceans and at the beaches but I never really completely understood this whole concept until we actually went out and did the water testing and collected the data for each of the samples. •Describe one valuable mistake you made this year. This year as a new student, I really wish I had done more getting to know people when I first transferred to the school. I’ve been playing volleyball since 7th grade and I went to one volleyball practice for the school team here at Media Arts and I never went back to play. I also knew that I wanted to participate on the yearbook team and ASB. I know I made this mistake about not doing what I knew I wanted to do and not pursuing what I wanted, but I made these decisions based on the fact of being a new student and acclimating to the new school, while trying to make new friends. I eventually started playing volleyball with the team, I went to a few ASB meetings. And I now know what I want to do next year as a senior. It took a year of being a junior to decide what I wanted to do at school and where to make a difference. I stepped up to the bat and took some leadership roles in the class this year, but I wish I had participated in more.

Writing Reflection

At the beginning of this school year I came in not really knowing what would be expected of me in the writing department. The first writing assignment that I was given was the American Icons project. Below is a link to my final My American Icons project: http://thesearemyshannanigans.blogspot.com/2009/09/blog-7-final-draft-american-icons.html I’ve re-read this piece of writing that I started out with this year and I see it as a good starting point for what I’ve learned this year so far. At the beginning of the year we hadn’t really learned many writing tips. The first week or so we learned about the loop which is starting with a strong idea, having support detailing in the middle and then ending again with that strong idea. We also learned about make meaning early and concerts not pancakes. This concept basically says to have the information at the beginning of a sentence or paragraph. When there is a verb or a main idea at the beginning of a sentence then the piece of writing will have a good chance of being stronger. Looking back at this article, I can see how much my writing has improved throughout the year. In my first piece of writing I can see that I didn’t have evidence, any back up information or even a strong idea that I really actually focused on throughout the entire piece. My most recent piece of writing was my Ampersand article. I personally thought that this was one of my best pieces of writing. Throughout the entire year we learned many different writing tips. I applied each of them to the best of my ability in this article. The amount of drafts and rewriting I did for this article is unbelievable. I think I had about 10 people read my article over and over again to try and make it perfect. I had a new draft nearly everyday. I learned that quantity improves quality. The more I worked on my article, the stronger it was. I’ve never really written something that had to do with a life experience of mine, so coming up with an idea was a little difficult for me. Having the freedom to choose what we wanted to write about was refreshing but I had to search my brain for an idea that I felt passionate about and was interested in writing about. When I did come up with my idea, I knew exactly who to go to so I would have precise and exact information for my article. I had primary sources and even someone to talk to about the whole program that I was writing about in my article. I’ve learned that writing about a life experience of your own produces better quality of work. I know that being able to put my input, thoughts and ideas into an article was ten times easier than writing about an informational topic that doesn’t really relate to yourself all that much. With Ampersand I was really able to express myself through writing. I was able to write about something that I care about and then input my ideas in about education. Ampersand is my piece of writing that I am absolutely proud of. In the future, I am really hoping to improve upon my writing. I’ve always been one to keep up with my writing with journaling all the time. I never really put that much effort into my writing prior to this year. I’ve learned different tips, techniques and how to set up an outline for producing a good piece of writing. This year I really learned how to write. All the concepts from before were put together and producing a good piece of writing was the goal for the year. I succeeded with this with my Ampersand article. I want to keep writing and also improve upon it. I’ve never really thought about actually writing, but being told that my Ampersand article was amazing really inspired me. I’m hoping that in senior year, I’ll have more opportunities to learn more about writing. The most important piece of writing that I will need in the next couple months will be my essay for colleges. I’m hoping to produce an amazing piece of writing and I know all of the tips that I’ve learned this year will contribute to that.

Historical Reflection

If I were to meet anyone in college that we have learned about in class, I would definitely choose to meet President Ronald Reagan. I think that I would want to have him as a professor and have him for at least one lecture. I’ve always been inspired by Ronald Reagan. I remember doing a project on him when I was as young as 3rd grade. I think I would want to hear about his ideas of stimulating the economy. I would want to hear about how he used tax cuts to help reduce government spending and helping the economy. I admire that Reagan made a friendship between the dictator Gorbachev and persuaded him into changing to a diplomatic government, further ending in the breaking down of the Berlin Wall. I would choose to meet Ronald Reagan because I think that he was one of the best presidents in the United States and in my eyes he was the reason for the end of the Cold War. "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" “I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there’s no purpose and worth to each and every life.” “There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder.” “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

Literary Reflections

If I were to bring any character from any of the books we have read this year, I would probably bring Billy Pilgrim from Slaughterhouse 5. I would meet Billy Pilgrim as a student in one of my classes. In Slaughterhouse 5 Billy Pilgrim always had the best luck out of everyone. He miraculously survived in situations in the war where he was supposed to die. Billy Pilgrim is in my classes after he has been deployed in the war and he wants to receive a further education. I would probably think that Billy Pilgrim is close to insane with his ideas of the Tralfamadorians, but I think that some of his philosophies that he picked up from the aliens, I would find really intriguing. Billy Pilgrim speaks about some of the Tralfamadorian philosophies. He talks about how you can life never ends, you are always alive at some point in time so you are never actually gone. The memories that you had and lived in are what keep you alive. He talks about how you can live in only happy moments if that’s what you want. Billy Pilgrim says that the Tralfamadorians do not see life with negatives, but that you can live your whole life in happy memories. He says that there is always a destiny and that no matter what you try and avoid in life, it will happen because your life is already laid out completely. If someone were going through tragedy and someone had died, Billy Pilgrim would tell them not to be sad because that person is always alive at some point in time in their life. To Billy Pilgrim, death is about sadness, it just means they go to a different part in their life that they are living.

I would quickly become friends with Billy Pilgrim. Half the time of my friendship with him, I would wonder if he was completely on his rocker and if he was not insane. I think I would be really intrigued by his ideas of the Tralfamadorians. A lot of the philosophies of the Tralfamadorians are about happiness of life and living in the happy moments. I think everyone needs a little reminding of that sometimes and I think that if Billy Pilgrim were a friend of mine, he would tell me to think of the happy moments in life if I were going through a hard time.