A few days ago, I officially entered the IB Diploma with some of the world’s most challenging subjects to overcome. First day I entered Economics class (High level), we already had four sheets of vocabulary to define, and these sheets were double sided. I started as soon as I got home, and one sheet took me TWO HOURS! One hour for each side. I know that I can’t let my work pile up, otherwise I’ll be a dead man. At the moment I’m sitting in the library waiting for class to end, but I know next class will have plenty of challenges for me to overcome and many occasions for me to use my brain. Hey, at least there isn’t a dull moment. Wish me luck with the IB guys, my entire life is going to be determined by how I do in these two years.

Arrivaderci!

For our final unit in Language Arts, we read a play named The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde. The play was quirky, comedic and filled with cool situations, making it a memorable experience to read and also watch on the big screen. After reading it, we had to display our understanding of the play by creating a portfolio of different responses to the play. We analyzed each act of the play, and that helped me in developing a thorough understanding of the play, which would later be tested in our End of the Year Language Arts exam.  Besides analyzing each act, I also included fun stuff, such as a character profile for each of the main characters, saying what they are like and what I would have them dress like. I also had a creative response to each act, varying from a diorama to an animated film. To end it all, I wrote a film review of Importance of Being Earnest, which I thought was better than the written form, as plays are meant to be seen. Overall, it was a fun experience. Now, if you ask me anything about this play, I’ll give you a good answer. Hopefully.

Click on the links below to find out more about the play and it’s playwright!

http://cmgww.com/historic/wilde/

The Importance of Being Earnest

A few weeks ago, we began this year’s passion project. Some of you may remember my blogs chronicling last year’s passion project, but now I’m going to stray from writing for the project and go instead to creating. For this year’s project, I am planning on making our Language Arts classroom look like outer space. I plan on hanging starts and planets on the roof, and the stars will glow in the dark once the lights close. I chose this idea because I have a passion for outer space, since it is one of the most mysterious things ever studied, and I wish to pursue a career in the field. If this succeeds, I will be able to make our Language Arts classroom look a lot more out of this world and I hope it will be well received by my the people who view it.

The Kite runner by Khaled Hosseini is, in my opinion, one of the greatest books I have ever read in my entire life. Its use of subtlety in situations of extreme turmoil and the way it tinkers with your emotions makes it a must read. I think that the best part of the novel was after the main character, Amir, had grown into adulthood and had to face responsibilities of his own. At that time, the book managed to truly make you feel as if you watched Amir grow from age twelve to age twenty two just as Amir’s father did. The worst part of the book was probably the ending. It was vague and wasn’t as satisfying as it should have been in a book such as itself. What I find to be the most interesting, however, is the author’s decision to call the book The Kite Runner. In the beginning, I was confused as to why the title was based on a five minute kite running instance that was present in the book, but then I began to notice the metaphorical interpretation. Kite runners run to capture fallen kites after they have been defeated in kite fighting. This book had Amir always running from turmoil such as the Soviet takeover of Afghanistan and, on a smaller scale, discriminatory Afghan tribe members who disapproved of him. This book title fits the book because it has a metaphorical meaning that can only be seen if one pays attention closely to the book and everything that occurs in the protagonist’s life. However, If I were to change the title, I would have liked to call it Regret or A country worth running from. These titles would make sense because, firstly, Amir has a growing regret in the back of his mind after falsely accusing his friend Hassan for stealing, resulting in Hassan leaving him due to embarrassment. The second title would also make sense due to the fact that Afghanistan becomes a country put under martial law, and becomes a country that Amir tries to run from. Overall, title unchanged, the book is a true work of art and deserves to be read by everyone who has a library near them. I am very happy with this book!

Over the past few weeks, my partner Taewoong and I had been working on a media campaign to raise awareness for how human actions can affect animal habitats. We had to choose three mediums, and decided to use four videos and podcasts, each relating to an endangered animal, and also created flyers. We presented this past Friday, and decided to treat our audience as conference attenders rather than students, in order to create the illusion that we were professionally showing our research to real world companies. We decided that our base animals for the videos and podcasts would be the Albatross, Rhinoceros, Whale and Tiger. We chose the last three because many people know about them and it is easy to discuss them, but we  included the Albatross as well since it is an animal that is endangered and also not widely known of.  For our four flyers, we chose the Sun Bear, Panda, Tiger and Polar Bear. Once again, I included the Sun Bear as it is not as widely known as the rest of the animals but also deserves recognition as it is as endangered as the rest. During the presentation, I feel that I spoke very well and clearly. I began to speak slower in order for non English speakers to understand me, and also used a wide array of persuasive vocabulary to help prove my point. However, If I were to add anything, I would have liked to have created a website for our organization, but since we did not have enough time, we could not carry it through. If we had included a website as one of our mediums, it would have greatly distinguished our presentation from the others.  Overall, though, I feel that I performed how I should have on my grade level, and am also satisfied with my performance.

Before our winter break, we began to delve into our unit on media in Language arts class. Now that winter break is over, we have to create our own media campaign about an environmental issue in the world today. I am working with my classmate, Taewoong, and we both decided that we should create a campaign to make people further aware of how animals are affected by human actions. We need to express our campaign through the use of different media. Taewoong and I have created posters, videos, and are now working on a podcast for our campaign. We are defending many endangered animals which have a large risk of becoming extinct, such as the blue whale and the polar bear. Once we are done, I will report on the success of our campaign.

We have just completed our unit on Power and Leadership, and now I will reflect on:

• How what learnt connected with what I already knew.
• What extended my knowledge?
• What challenged me?

HOW DID MY NEW KNOWLEDGE CONNECT WITH ME?

Throughout the unit, as I was learning about power and leadership, I felt that what I was doing connected to me in some way. For example, I already knew that power and leadership were somewhat dependent on one another, as a good leader can use his power well and a bad leader can use his power badly, so when we began discussing traits of a leader, I had some background knowledge on what to expect from a good or bad leader. When it came to presenting information, I felt that the way that the information was meant to be displayed was familiar to me, as I knew how to create artistic ways of presenting new knowledge. Also, when I started to analyze Osama Bin Laden, I felt that, even though I was analyzing a distorted version of my religion, it still made the unit have a more personal affect on me.

WHAT EXTENDED MY KNOWLEDGE?

When I began the unit, I thought I had a deep understanding of Power and Leadership. However, I was soon proved wrong as I realized that power can be taken in many ways based on people’s objectives. When I was analyzing the movies Captain Phillips and The Power of One, I discovered that power can be used in other ways rather than wealth or strength, such as knowledge or language. I also figured out that power can be used badly due to past experiences, and that is what I analyzed in my essay, along with people’s objectives. Lastly, I found it as a good way to exercise my writing abilities, and go further toward analytical writing rather than creative writing.

WHAT CHALLENGED ME?

Many things challenged me through the course of the unit. Before I began writing my essay, I had to develop a new way of analyzing sources to help create a viable thesis statement. This involved gathering a broad range of ideas, gathering the similarities between them, and then using them as evidence to help support my thesis statement. Up to writing my essay, I used to believe that more ideas resulted in more quality in the essay. However, after submitting my draft, I realized that too many ideas can make the essay lack focus, and so I needed to find a way to support my thesis statement using less ideas and more focus. I also used to believe that more words resulted in more quality as well, but then I realized that, in order to build focus, I needed to get my ideas through in as little words as possible.

Overall, I found the tasks that we took part in very engaging, and I think that they greatly enhanced my view on power and leadership.

P.S. The title is Latin for “the job is complete”.

  Over the past few weeks, we have been working on our Power and Leadership unit in Language Arts class. We worked on projects demonstrating a certain aspect of power, and now we are working on an essay to confirm our knowledge of power, leadership or both. My thesis statement for the essay is “the way people use their power, either for the good or bad, depends on their individual needs and goals.” I came to this thesis statement after compiling my notes and analyzing any similarities between the literature I read and the movies I watched. I saw that each character in the sources I was analyzing had a specific objective that influenced the way he used his power. After witnessing this, I became interested in the topic, and created my thesis statement. I have started work on my draft, and am going to use the sources I read and watched as evidence to support my thesis statement. I will patch in once more when the job is done.

Last Friday, my classmates and I presented our projects on power and leadership. My infographic received applaud, and many people learnt from it. However, in this post, I wish to talk about what I learnt from other people’s presentations. One of my classmates, Camille, did a very intriguing presentation on the power of groups. I learnt about how the individual affects the group, but also how the group affects the individual, and how power in groups isn’t always a good thing. Joey’s presentation on how power causes corruption taught me that power can define a person if the person cannot control it him/herself. In Mert’s blog post on edublogs, which you can read at http://mertgirginer.edublogs.org/2015/10/07/power-leadership/ , he talked about Osama Bin Laden in a different lens from how I saw him. He talks about how he was very kind and generous but became corrupted, and also described many events in his life that could have contributed toward Osama’s outlook. Jay’s Prezi that he put together, which was a “fun” power point, talked about many revolutions that occurred in China, and how the people involved displayed power and leadership. From Margot’s visually appealing sketch note, I learnt about the characters in the books she was reading and the movie she watched, and how the three all displayed aspects of power and leadership. Bruce’s interactive presentation, which he carried out using paper interpretations of characters from the book “Animal Farm”, talked about the pig in the book, Napoleon, and how he, when he came to power, became greedy. I learnt that power can be twisted into different positions, and that one must be able to control their power before they can use it. Jan displayed creativity through her “experiment” that she did on us. Each of us got a card with a color on it. People who had the same color sat in one group and so on. Everyone got lollipops, but then had to share them with others. The end result was that one person had an exceeding amount of lollipops than the rest. From her presentation, I learnt that power isn’t always fair, and that the person in charge can do things that suit him rather than the majority. Lastly, Taewoong’s presentation compared and contrasted the books “The Wave” and “Che Guevara”, and also the movie Gladiator. He analyzed the characters from each source to see how they showed power and leadership.

Overall, it was a fun project. I had interest in me throughout, and I am glad I learnt so much from others, and I hope they learnt as much from mine.

Our grade ten Language Arts class has almost completed their project to end our Power and Leadership Unit. I was reading a book on Osama Bin Laden, so I decided to create an “infographic” talking about how he gained power using the Al Qaeda and how his organization compares to the Taliban and ISIS/ISIL. You can find out about infographics and make your own at Piktochart (www.piktochart.com), a website I used to make my infographic. It was fun to make an infographic, as I had experience and there were some very entertaining effects I added to make my infographic very “visual.” The information was enough to combat the visuals, and I have just finished setting it up on one of the classroom boards. I will present it soon as well. I think that I have done a good job in demonstrating my understanding of power and leadership, and also in showing that power can be used in many ways, and not only good. I will reflect on my presentation as well, once it’s done.