Friday - November 23rd refletion

This week during English we started to learn more about poems, and how to dig deeper, in order to find the real meaning behind what the poet, or speaker is trying to put across. We used our group skills, by discussing the poems and questioning each other on personal opinions. We also practiced our reading and understanding skills, because we had to read each poem over and over again in order to find the real meaning behind the poem. I have developed on my skill to read in between the lines, because I'm starting to imagine all of the possible scenarios and once linked, finding my solution to what the poet is trying to tell us.




I am proud of my contribution to group and class discussions this week, because others who disagree give me all valid reasons as to why I should change my mind or their views help me really put the pieces of the puzzle together. I would like to improve on my skills needed to write poems though because then I can share my ideas in ways which people need to figure out. I intend to read more poems and carry out my own in order to become a better writer all round.

Reflection - Friday 16th November 2012

This week during English we only had one lesson which was on the monday. Although missing lessons we were given tasks to do on our book never let me go, my group met up on wednesday and discussed what we had discovered so far in the book. We also talked about what may happen next and our views on what happened in the past.

I believe never let me go is going to be a book which I will enjoy, because after the first two chapters I was confused about who were the clones, whether it was the carers and those staying in the hostel or just one or the other.

I am looking forward to what may happen next in chapters 3 and 4 :)

English Reflection - November 9th 2012

This week during English we discussed idioms and found out about many different uses of idioms through a game we played which consisted of different teams. I found out that there are loads of idioms out there to be discovered, for example I had heard of the simple ones such as "pain in the neck" meaning annoying, yet not I am discovering those such as "golden handshake" which is like a bonus given when joining a company. In my opinion this was my favorite activity this week, because it gave me a wide range of idioms to use in the future.

I am also very proud of the site we made to help the class with our Never Let Me Go study guide which we will be using every week preparing for the exam. I hope we can also make some memorable videos, which will be able to help us remember more of the important topics in the book easily. My target is to contribute a lot in discussion during the period of literature circles in order to fill out our class study guide with more valuable information.

Juxtaposition Essay Reflection - 1.10.2012

Today during English, we looked at Juxtaposition which is the comparison of two or more items or topics. My partner was Wi Kiat, we worked on Juxtaposition in Chapter 8. We found it quite a struggle and it took us a lot of time to figure out two things to compare, but after talking with Miss Abena and discussing our idea of our thesis statement, we finally narrowed it down to one final thesis. After the thesis, we managed to finish the rest of the paragraph easily without much trouble at all. Overall we believe chapter 8 was an extremely difficult chapter to focus on, yet in the end we overcame our problems and are now proud of what we achieved.

Poetry Preperation - Brenon 25.09.2012

What are your usual strategies for reading a poem?
How many times do you read the poem? 
Do you read the footnotes (if they exist)? 
Do you use a dictionary? 
Do you read the poem aloud? 
Do you take notes? 
What problems do you have?

When I read poems, I usually first time round look for the obvious. The second time, around I try and pick out the various meanings, what the poet could have been trying to put across. Then I will go through it until my definition feels as though I believe the story should be told.  I do read the footnotes if they exist due to the fact that sometimes, they include hints to what the poem could actually mean, I also use a dictionary for any unknown words. I don't normally read the poem aloud though, because I find the confusion of thought a better way to help me think of all the possible outcomes. I occasionally take notes depending on how I feel about the poem. I have problems with not relating to some poems, because I believe only some are aimed towards yourself.

Friday reflecion 14/08/2012

-new knowledge you have gained
-skills you have practised
-skills you have developed
-anything about your performance in English that you are proud of
-anything about your performance in English that you would like to improve
-any questions you have about how you can move forward
-how you intend to go about achieving your targets and moving forward in this subject.

This week during english the topic I enjoyed most and learned about was making the familiar unfamiliar, I found this topic interesting and believe so did most of my other class mates. We practised many skills this week one being essay writing, with the Katniss character profile essay and also describing unfamiliar pictures to make people understand what they are. I am proud of my familiar to unfamiliar poem because I believe my object is definitely guessable, but it would take some work to find out what it really is. I may need to improve on essay writing, so do most of us I believe because we went over time during the 30 minute session.

Familiar Object in an unfamiliar way - English

The think she's good for them, that's why they can't leave. She helps them get down even when they shouldn't be, she's there when they're in need, but she isn't cheap. The last time they saw her, most of them couldn't breathe. They say she's bad for them, but they don't think she's bad for them so it's a bit of a disillusion.

07/08/2012 - Reflection Hunger Games

-new knowledge you have gained
-skills you have practised
-skills you have developed
-anything about your performance in English that you are proud of
-anything about your performance in English that you would like to improve
-any questions you have about how you can move forward
-how you intend to go about achieving your targets and moving forward in this subject.

This week during English I believe I have gained a better insight to The Hunger Games novel due to the fact that we were given tasks to complete on characters where we could work as a group to try and find the best possible answers. Then we would check and mark our work. We practiced collaborating, reading questions properly in order to answer in the bet possible way. We also have developed our skills needed to check our own work. I am proud of the fact that I helped change peoples minds during the discussion this lead others to expand on some of my ideas. I intend to keep following the same track and hope to achieve even greater results in the weeks to come.

Friday reflection

During English this week I have learnt how to make annotations, by using a large piece of text and then picking out the feelings or what springs to mind. I find them really easy and straight forward after Mrs Abena explained them to us. They are also quite useful so you undrstand when you look back how useful they were. Also I am proud of my use of feedback given by classmates and my teachers on my annotations because it helped me change the way I went about them. I would like to improve on my annotations still because I believe I could find out more.

Friday reflection - 15/06/2012

During English this week I have learnt how to make my Hero sound like more of a Hero, by describing how he is a role model and now also I have found some extremely relevant information about my Hero Steven Gerrard. He own his own charity. It is named ‘The Steven Gerrard Foundation’. I have practiced more research and editing skills on my paper. Also I am proud of my use of feedback given by classmates and my teachers. I would like to improve on my structure slightly just in order to make it link better. I will achieve my goals by working hard and using more feedback.

Friday Reflection - 11/05/12

 This week during English we have done our presentations. I was working with Muhkriz on our prject which was 'Great resources for research'. This topic I found very interesting and a learned a lot from doing this, because we had to carry out research in order to support facts given in our presentation. We have practiced research and collaboration skills mainly due to the fact we had to work as a team, in and out of the classroom. I believe this has improved my collaborating skills a lot because even when we though we may have not had time to finish, we used our spare time at home to make sure it was to scratch. I am proud of the fact that we got our presentation done on time, although noone in the class got to present yet, I feel as though I was ready to present on Friday and would have been comfortable to present. I could improve on my knowledge on the topic slightly more, because there are still a few things I don't understand about the Bad side to research. Although I believe another group is doing that so maybe they could fill the gap in my mind. I believe to achieve this I need to focus really hard on what the bad research group is giving me therefore I can understand in full detail and carry out some of the main ideas in my 'My Hero' essay.

Friday Reflection - 5/5/2012 (Edited)

This week during English we have started to become more in depth with our My Hero projects and morphemes which are a new topic to me. Now I know what morphemes are I guarantee they will come in handy during my 'My Hero' essay. I also feel as though I have developed my skills by knowing how to link morphemes to real words. Now we are starting to research many different topic on which will make us improve in our essay writing, Me and Muhkriz have been given the topic 'Great resources for research' so we will be discovering and then telling the class what it's all about, in the form of a presentation etc... I am very happy that we are doing this so that I can prove my full worth in my final 'My Hero' essay. Overall I enjoyed the work given this week and hope to continue working hard, next week. I do feel as though I could improve on my accuracy in my work though. I intend to do this by checking the mark scheme to see if I am in the best band possible.

Are there any other ways to help me link my words? Similar to morphemes?

Friday Reflection - 2/05/2012 (Edited)

Friday reflection, During English this week we were doing ‘The hate games’, we had to perform an improvised play last Friday, in which we used to compare with the hate game videos we watched on Tuesday. I enjoyed this activity because we got to realize how different our plays were (if they were different) and compare them with the videos of what really happened. I believe that my groups video was merely close to what the original video stated, but since we did not get to do research and we had to think off of the top of our heads, I believe we did a good job, my role was the nurse and to be honest it was probably the closest character to the original because the description given on the nurse was easy to follow.

We also finished our literature circles and moved on to our new books, mine is ‘Touching the void’. 

We researched on a Hero and had to make a decision on what hero we wanted to do for our ‘My Hero’ project. I chose Steven Gerrard because he is my hero and I have a lot of books and articles about him in past life and how much he had to work to obtain his dream. I also enjoyed doing the hero research on other heroes, some of which I hadn’t heard of because they gave me an insight of what a hero can be.

Overall I believe that the week was good and I feel as though I have learnt a lot as to what a hero really is and how improvising in some cases, can turn out to be similar to the original thing.

From this I have gained the knowledge of how to improvise a play without any given script. We have practiced our mind skills and thinking outside the box whilst performing these little skits. I have developed an understanding for linking videos to reality and how sometimes they don't always go the way you want them to. I am proud of my performance as a nurse, because I feel as though I contributed greatly to the group by creating a scene which people were able to pick off whilst improvising. I could Improve on my stage movement slightly more thought rather than doing the steps inside my head and not carrying the out in the real performance. I will concentrate more on the mark scheme to make sure I check every box that is on the list, in all bands.

Morphology

Morphemes are units of meaning, which originated from Greek and Latin. When combined with words, they form mor complex words. For example, the word review has the morpheme 're' added to the word 'view', telling us that we are viewing it again. Understanding morphology increases our vocabulary sills. Hence, by mastering morphology we can improve our reading and writing.

• What are our thoughts and feeling about these situations?                                               After watching the videos, my impression of what a hero his has not changed, because I have always believed that a hero is anyone who can stand up for themselves and not care what others think of them. Although our plays were linked in ways, our role plays were different, we didn't think of the situations that they were in we just assumed what happened.
• What would have happened if people had acted differently in the situations?                    If people acted differently in these situations, things could have changed more for the worst than for the good. This is because if the person didn't stand up others may have been treated the same way, by the haters. During their situations they were always being picked or they were being put in a situation in which they feel uncomfortable in.

Fridays Lesson Reflection

During my only lesson of the week due to being in Singapore until Thursday, we had to perform a small improvised play based on a topic which was given to us on little cards, then we had to perform as to what the marking scheme said we needed to do. In my group was Kenny, Nazrel and Edwin. I believe we all worked well and contributed because we were on the same wave length. I learnt how to improvise a play when only given a short period of time, but next time I could improve on my stage movement, to get the crowd more excited.

Friday reflection - 23/03/2012

During the week we have looked at writing conclusions, our new books and also our essay writing skills, I believe that the week has given me a lot of new ideas and solutions as to what I can improve on in my essay. First of all I learnt that quotation marks are the double apostrophe and not just the one, this has given me an extra boost to find new quotations and to fix all of the old ones.

 At first I had the rough idea of what a conclusion was, but it wasn’t until my group and I actually researched what it really was that I actually understood it fully and I now know that it doesn’t only bring an end to your essay, but backs up your thesis statement which you provided at the start of the essay.

My new book which I chose was 1984, it was a boring start to a book, but then it all changed when the main character Winston started to get caught up in situations he had never faced before, also I realized it has provided me with new vocabulary due to my groups literature circle reflections.

Overall I enjoyed the week and I believe if things keep going this way I may be in for a lot more learning, in the weeks to come.

Fridays Lesson reflection

Literature circle reflection

Predictions for the ending of BISP

I believe the author has kept us waiting throughout the book for something major. I think that maybe Bruno, may move back to Berlin and be with his old friends, maybe his father dies. Also what could happen is Bruno might see Shmuel again and they could become good friends for the rest of their lives. There are many different possibilities, because of the way this book has been written, but I believe it most probably will link with Bruno and Shmuel.

After chapter 18 update
I believe now that maybe Bruno will liver behind the fence with Shmuel and may get in a lot of trouble.

After Chapter 19 update
I believe now Bruno and Shmuel are trapped in a gas chamber and will be killed.

After the book
Bruno and hi father passed away did he?, whilst his mother and sister Gretel moved back to Berlin.

I felt that this was a very great and dramatic ending because it always left you with questions because it never told you directly such as did the father die? what happened to the rest of the family if he did die? etc. Overall I think that it was a very hard book to predict further away from the end, but towards the end a lot of things became more obvious to the reader.

Lesson Reflection - 14th February 2012

The Jewish prisoners - Final Edit

 During the course of the book the author has tried many ways to describe the Jewish prisoners, who are in a ‘concentration camp’, but to Bruno are just behind a metal fence. The Jewish prisoners are static, slouched ‘trying to keep their heads up’. Wearing the same clothes ‘a pair of grey striped pyjamas with a grey striped cap on their heads’. This indicates you may not be able to tell them apart. This shows that they are some sort of group… in this case I think the author has tried to put them across as ‘slaves’ beaten and tortured until they drop… dead.

The author has also put across that the captives are tired, stressed and depressed. They are hard working, but treated with extreme low. Nothing goes their way and they have to fight or even be killed just to prove a point that they are right.

I believe the author has tried to show us that they are treated with a lot of disrespect and they are also treated extremely unequally. ‘A soldier marched in front of them, his mouth opening and closing quickly as if he were shouting at them’

Overall I think the author is suggesting that the Jewish people get treated with so little respect. They also have no clean clothes, or anywhere where they are treated the same as everyone else to stay. Also I think the author may be trying to put a sense of disbelief into the reader by showing that Bruno (who is a German general/sergeants) son is speaking to someone ‘behind the fence’. The fact that Bruno’s father hasn’t told him what goes on behind there. So this made me think, that there will be a twist somewhere towards the end of the book.

Starter challenge (Connotations)

1. Happy, delighted.
I am happy to see you. (Can replace with delighted)
I'm happy to take you if you need a lift. (Can't replace with delighted)

2. Look, examine.
I looked at the fish. (Can replace with examined)
I looked up at the plane flying by. (Can't replace)

3. Sad, mournful
I was sad. (Can replace with mournful)
I felt sad looking at the man who killed himself. (Can't replace with mournful)

4. Walking, strolling
I was walking in the park. (Can be replaced with strolling)
I brought at ice-cream whilst I was walking my dog. (Can't be replace with strolling)

Week Reflection - Brenon

During English this week, I have gained a lot of knowledge about World War 2 and how the Nazi’s came to power. Also we played a game, in which we got a word and found out the definition, and then we wrote three answers to what the word could mean one that was the actual definition and made others find out what one was real. Then if they got it correct they scored a point.

We practiced listening and reading skills, also forming a group to put together a comic life version of the book ‘The boy in the striped pyjama’s’. I also developed these skills with some extra such as working collaboratively in a group and making a comic life. I think I performed well in a team and helped out our group well, because when we didn’t have ideas, I decided we should first even though we had a short amount of time to have a quick discussion about the book to get some ideas for the photos needed. Although I feel I have done many good things, there’s always room for improvement so I believe I need to not get as distracted easily and give full attention to my work. To achieve my targets I believe I need to focus more, check things twice or maybe even three times and also try to work as fast, but efficiently as possible with quality.

Hints of danger - Critical analysis - The boy in striped pyjamas

Hints of Danger

In a pair, make notes on the following extract, showing which words and phrases hint at danger and how they achieve this.

‘Look over there,’ said Bruno, and Gretel followed the direction of the finger he was pointing and saw, emerging from a hut in the distance, a group of children huddled together and being shouted at by a group of soldiers. The more they were shouted at, the closer they huddled together, but then one of the soldiers lunged towards them and they separated and seemed to do what he wanted them to do all along, which was to stand in a single line. When they did, the soldiers all started to laugh and applaud them.

(page 37)

Your notes: ‘A group of children huddled together and being shouted at by a group of soldiers’ gives me the impression that they are being tortured.

Mocking them by ‘one of the soldiers lunged towards them and they separated and seemed to do what he wanted them to do all along, which was to stand in a single line. When they did, the soldiers all started to laugh and applaud them.’

The boy in striped Pyjamas - Predictions

1. The boy may be a young and mysterious character.
2. He may come across an unusual sighting behind a fence.
3. It says 'We hope you never have to cross such a fence so' What is behind the fence may be dangerous.

Presentation Nazi's - Feedback

My group was Jack, Edwin and Myself. We produced a powerpoint presentation on the Nazi's, then presented infront of the whole class.


What feedback from your assessor do you agree with and why?
My assessor told me I should have used more time for questions and answering, also he told me I spoke clearly and made it easy to understand. I agree with both of these statements because this was exactly how I felt when I had finished my presentation.
What feedback from your assessor do you disagree with and why?
I disagree with the fact that he had told me we needed to dispute the work evenly between the group because I believe we did that well.
What did you find most difficult about this presentation?
Remembering my lines.
What could you have done beforehand to avoid this difficulty?
Revise them slightly more and use keywords to help me think of them. What did you find easiest about this presentation?
The researching.
What did you do beforehand to make this so?
Prepared and thought about who was going to find out each of the different aspects.
What will you work on next time you do a presentation?
Using more questions to make sure the information stick in my audiences mind.