In -Class Online Lesson #2

In my opinion, I think the parents of the schoolchildren should be responsible for Margot's treatment. The boys had treated Margot harshly by bullying her and forcing her into a closet. I believe that the boys were treating Margot unfairly due to the fact that they were jealous about Margot who had come to Venus just 5 years ago and still have the privilege to remember the sun. The parents of the school children should have taught them well and not bully people when jealousy gets over them. They are just letting their children expressing their thoughts through their mean actions and I think they should have more parental control over them in terms of their principles and values. If a child behaves badly, his parents are at fault too for not giving their children proper teaching/guidance and manners. Hence, in this case, when the schoolchildren bully Margot and even lie to the teacher that everyone is here, I believe their parents should be responsible for not bringing them up well.

If I was one of the schoolchildren and I saw my friends bullying Margot, I would intervene them without hesitation. It's not right to bully people when we are jealous and we should have respect and spare a thought for them instead. We should put ourselves in Margot's shoes and I believe nobody likes the sensation and feeling of being bullied. If the schoolchildren continues to bully Margot despite my intervene, I would brought up the matter to teacher and let the school children receive punishment. Although they are my friends, I would not have tolerated these kind of bullying and prejudice. I would also try to bring Margot and other school children closer in terms of relationship so that Margot would not feel left out and the school children would no longer bully her again.

Cooperation and Discussion

For the previous year, I collaborated intensely and at length with my project members in Project Day. For our project work, we met up and discuss constantly with our mentor and also came up with a few ideas. At the start, we had a few ideas and we could not came to a solution. Our mentor then advise us saying that we should choose one that we think is feasible and we could do well in.
After we selected our idea, we went to propose a few ways to handle the problem and after a few elimination, we choose one that we think is the best and start working on it.

Throughout the working process, I learnt more about my ability to adapt to the problem and my ability to came up with some creative and cool ideas. I found out that I could get distracted easily too. However, I also realised that I tend to focus when the theme or project interest me as I wanted to find out more for my own interest. Thus, the project day that we did last year was quite interesting and I get to focus and contribute more to my group. Overall, I found out that I could focus if i was attracted to the subject, and I'm full of creative ideas too.

Reflection on Home-Learning

I find the assignment yesterday interesting and fun. It was something different and we made use of a comic strip to express our thoughts, theme through the narrative writing. I think the assignment is fun and enriching as we get to use our creativity to think up of any plot with unique characters. It also helps us to learn better in terms of the technique of plot, setting and conclusion. After I have done my assignment, I realised that the comic-drawing is a very good and efficient way to help us in our narrative writing, especially to help us to have a better understanding of what is plot, climax etc. We can imagine the first box to be our setting and introduction, whereas the second box to be the development and the climax, and lastly the third box to be our conclusion. We could also create interesting and unique characters by drawing out their significant features, their expression etc.

However, even though the comic-drawing is a very good platform for us to practise our narrative writing skills, the best way is still through writing. The comics could only show the picture of different interpretations whereas through writing, we could practise our vocabulary and grammar. But the comic-drawing is without doubt one of the best methods to actually practise our creativity and also the plotting of our theme, setting etc. Personally, I am quite surprised that this home-learning actually make use of comics-drawing to aid us in narrative writing. I expected it to just be some researching and assignments but it was better than I thought. If I have time at home, I would probably consider drawing out my theme and plot in a comic strip first so that I could actually have an overview at my entire story before writing.

I also get to know about this website: www.toondos.com that helps us creates comic strips and I would probably use this website in future for educational and leisure purposes. Overall, I enjoyed the home-learning lesson as we get to learn in a fun and interesting method of drawing comic. It not only entertains me, but also let me experience once again the different variations and choices of plots and characters we could come up with.

Comic Strip (Boxing Competition)

Brief introduction of my comic:

A burly, strong man and his small, confident opponent were getting ready for a boxing competition. The arrogant man on the right is showing off by insulting his opponent. However, the opponent on the left took up his challenge and was grinning from ear to ear, showing that he was confident.
When the match start, the burly boxer could not catch his fast and small opponent, who do a flick jump and karate kick the strong boxer. In the end, the proud and strong boxer lose the match miserably and regret his arrogant actions just now by shaking hands with his opponent and make friends with him.

1) I chose the background as a boxing stage as my characters are having a boxing competition. I drew the strong boxer with enormous size, strong and big muscles to show that he was mighty and have more chances to win. On the other hand, I drew his opponent with small-sized body and skinny body to emphasis on the fact that he was bound to lose in comparison of their strength and size.

In the first box, I drew the small opponent with a smile to show that he was confident while the strong boxer was enraged as he was arrogant and appeared fierce. On the second box, I drew the strong boxer with a surprised and appalled expression as he did not expected that his small opponent could escape his attack and do a counter-attack instead.

In the third box, I drew the strong boxer with his eyes half close which shows that he was getting weaker and injured by his small opponent's mighty kick. In the last box, the strong boxer had a smile on his face as he learnt something valuable in this match and his had made a new friend as well.

2) The first box shows the setting, with 2 characters getting ready for match start on a boxing stage where there were audiences in the background. The second box is the climax as the readers and the audiences did not expected the small opponent to counter-attack the strong boxer with ease.
The third and fourth box is the conclusion and the ending as the match ended with a lesson learnt and the theme displayed.

3) I made use of the fact that the arrogant boxer lost the match to emphasis to everyone that we should never be arrogant and underestimate our opponent. We should get ready at all times and not brag about our achievements or our strengths etc. I also made the small opponent smiled at the end of the match to show that even though he won the match, he was not proud about it and instead remain humble.

I purposely drew the difference in size of the two boxers and the result ending in the small boxer winning the match. This is to emphasise that we should not judge a book by its cover and made assumptions just by the appearance and our thoughts.

I also want to tell the readers that even though we are at a disadvantage situation compared to other people, such as in terms of size and strength in the comic strip, we should still give in our best and play the game with a positive mindset. Only when we believe in ourselves and determine till the end, we have a chance to win our opponent. We should not be disappointed and give up, instead we should face the challenge and be resilient, no matter how impossible the challenge is.

Lastly, I drew the boxer smiling and be friends with his small opponent as it's alright to make mistakes. Nobody is perfect and everyone is bound to commit mistakes. However, we should learnt from the strong boxer and reflect about our mistakes and action. As long as we turn over a new leaf and never commit the mistake again, people will still accept us like how the small opponent accept the strong boxer as his friend as he had already repent his mistakes.

Learning goals for this year

This year I wanted to learn more vocabulary and also to improve my understanding of a piece of poem/literature writing. I wanted to improve my vocabulary as I wanted to improve my narrative writing through using some profound words instead of those shallow words.
Through improving my vocabulary, I can also improve my understanding of a piece of poem or literature writing. Last year, I am very weak in the understanding of a poem thus I hope that I could improve this year so as to answer the questions correctly.

Reflections

Today, we go through a handout of reflective writing and I'm trying to apply what I have learnt in the lesson in this blogpost by reflecting on what I have learnt.

Today, I learnt about reflective writing and how to go about it. As I listen to Mr Lundberg's teaching, I felt that that reflective writing, in short, in actually your own experience, feelings and chain of thoughts. I felt that throughout this lesson, I understand more about reflective writing and even some tips or guidelines for us.

I disagree with Mr Lundberg when he said that the government did not actually ponder about their own mistakes. I believe everyone makes mistakes but the real leaders should actually take a further step to think about their mistakes, why they commit it and how to improve it. The government actually do reflect upon their mistakes, just that we do not see it in public. Through experiences, the government know their mistakes and try to amend it by organising more flawless activities. Do you actually realise that every year's activities and events are better than the previous? Why? It's because the governement actually ponder and not commit the same mistakes again!

For me, I reflect on my actions frequently, just that I do not know the proper way to pen down my thoughts and reflect upon myself. But, today I learnt how to write a piece of reflective writing and I believe it's going to help me in the future or even now. I felt that reflective writing is actually not as hard as i thought, as long as you put in some effort and your opinions in it, anyone could come up with a piece of reflective writing.

The most valuable thing I have learnt last year.

For me, the most valuable thing I have learnt last year was the figurative language in the poems. It’s the most valuable thing I learnt as I had the chance to learn more about the language in the poem, how it was written and why is it written this way. In fact, the language that I learnt could also be used in my narrative writing or any other piece of Language Arts essay. It’s very useful for me as when I gained the knowledge, I could understand other poems as well and the meaning behind it.
The figurative language helps me in my language use too and I could use variety choices of language such as onomatopoeia etc. After learning the figurative language, it really helps me in my language and understanding of the poems.