For this assignment, we had to make a sort of bento box using symbolic items that played an important role in our novels ranging from literary devices, the surroundings in the story, characteristics of characters, to connections to the real world. We had to write summaries on the authors writing style, the two protagonists in our story, Werner Pfennig and Marie-Laure LeBlanc, answer an inquiry question that links to the novel, a connection to either an article, video, event, or other novel, and then give a personal audio recording of our thoughts on the book and why we think it is worth it for others to read it, then do a core competency reflection.
This project felt like it took ages to finish, and now that those curtains have slowly drawn to a shut, it’s time to reflect on my most used core competency during these few weeks – critical and creative thinking. I think that those were definitely the most used skills during this project and the reason being is that obviously I had to think creatively to come up with objects, but it doubled when I had to find those objects. It was difficult since I don’t have a lot relating to the book laying around my house, but when I finally gave in to asking my mom for help, she let me look through her daycare and surprisingly, I managed to find, or create the exact objects I was looking for. I found a bunch of plastic diamonds and taped a smaller red one onto the middle of a bigger blue on to make it resemble how the writing described the Sea of Flames stone. Then I found some felt drawings for my fire, and I looked through the building blocks for my bushes. I was going to build a radio out of cardboard but remembered that my sister had one in her room. Moving onto Marie-Laure’s section, I used some shells from my trip to Greece and an Eiffel tower souvenir I got in Paris a while back. I hit a roadblock when I was struggling to find more to write about the Writer’s style and the Inquiry, but I found that going back and reading some annotated parts in the book really helped me – it refreshed my mind and sort of forced me to reflect on what I’d just processed. Plus, at the end of my voice reflection, I went off script. I didn’t want to sound completely forced, and I just talked about how I truly felt. Pushing ourselves to be better, and fighting for longer, ends in positive results 99% of the time. What I worked on during this time was working out some problems with my laptop, reflecting on past knowledge of the events, and really reflecting with what spoke to me and how I felt.
This is the blackout poem of Andy Stoyanova, and I’m using it to connect the short poem to the short story The Veldt by Ray Bradbury. This poem was taken from page 45 of the novel 1984 by George Orwell.
When I first read this poem, it reflected someone who was afraid of change, and when they finally confronted the problem they were afraid of facing, somebody superior to them dismissed it, and soon, everything would start going downhill. Connecting it to The Veldt, I think it mostly connects to George Hadley. The line which says to “apply unconsciousness”, I feel, means that the Hadley’s were living parts of their lives subconsciously. They didn’t realize what feeding into all of the advanced fantasies of their house would lead to. “Once again, act to understand.” At first, everything was harmless, or so, that’s what the Hadley’s thought. Once George and Lydia had realized what the nursery was doing to their children, they wanted to shut it off. While Lydia thought that one more minute wouldn’t do any harm, they ended up with a grim ending. No one can ever truly understand everything. “Involved enthusiastically” for me, means that the whole Hadley family was more than happy to invest in the futuristic technology, and indulge themselves in it. It was almost like a trance. They weren’t swayed by the fact that barely anyone but themselves had bought the inventors things, but instead persistent on the fact that they were lucky to have these things which ended up destroying them. “He tried to mention the impossible” is George’s warning to his family that the nursery and everything in their house was eating them alive, stripping away humanity, and George tried to change it, to make his family live freely and independently again, but, “Of course, the leader pushed backwards” was the children, trying to manipulate and beg their way into keeping the nursery, into using it once more, which ended up working. “Until they extended in great gleaming motor-cars” signifies how futuristic and technologically involved The Veldt is. With all their gadgets, and virtually advanced things, I think that they connect.
For this assignment, my group and I had to find a residential school, or a communal problem that indigenous peoples are facing and make a podcast episode about it. My group consisted of Eyden, AJ, and I, and together, we spoke about the struggles and horrible experiences first nations peoples had in the Kamloops Indian Residential School. We included anecdotes and information about the land, bands, culture, problems, and school that we did research on!
Our podcast :
My experiences creating this assignment were 99% positive, and I’m so glad for that! The negative 1% was a problem that we ran into along the way of filming and getting our podcast ready. So close to completion, we had finished recording all our lines, and citing all our sources, but when we played it back, the audio wouldn’t come out of AJ’s laptop. We were worried the audio might not come out in the turn in either, so we went down to the wave but they couldn’t figure it out and told us to come back later. After school, Eyden and I were in volleyball practice when AJ came to the door and told us that someone down at the wave had helped her solve our problem, and I was relieved to hear that. The path we took to completing this project was such; First, we picked out our school, and did research on vital and necessary aspects. Once we had all our links copied into our document, we started to write a script, trying to put as much information as we can. The three of us worked on it together, and separately over the weekend, with finishing up sentences, and doing a bit of heavy editing. Our finished product was around 7 and a half minutes long, with everyone being able to equally share our words. We recorded our script through Audacity and then cut out and reshot parts we felt we needed to redo. Finally done with the shooting process, AJ sent us the file and we embedded it into this blog post, writ our reflections and cited our sources properly.
Wikipedia contributors. (2022b, October 16). Canadian Indian residential school system. Wikipedia. Retrieved October 19, 2022, from Canadian Indian residential school system.
Wikipedia contributors. (2022a, September 20). Kamloops. Wikipedia. Retrieved October 19, 2022, from Kamloops
This is my one-pager assignment for our one-pager book reflection. In this assignment/reflection, we focused on understanding the deep meanings and thematical statements that were conveyed in children’s books. My book is “Sadako’s Cranes” by Judith Loske and the reason I picked this book for my one-pager is because I feel, that it spoke to me in a way. I read a total of 4 books but when I placed this one down it just felt like it was screaming “Pick me! Pick me!” and I think I did because I like the fact that it isn’t a cute children’s book with a happy ending. It talks about real world problems, and is more realistic. It conveys emotions such as sadness, grief, and shock, and the art is absolutely beautiful. Without further ado, my “Sadako’s Cranes” reflection!
What I found when doing this assignment was that I could tap into my artistic side at the same time as my ethical, writing side. I liked that, as they’re both something I’m very passionate about. This reflection along with the book itself reminded me to cherish the time we have with the people we love, and to always be hopeful. Even in the most grim of times, there is always something bright to do/think about. When you can’t see someone, it doesn’t mean that they’re not there. They’re never truly gone. Everyone will always be there if you keep a vivid memory, and the best most happy thoughts and moments with them. Thinking about this reminded me of my grandma. When I was younger, I was in love with the movie “The Book Of Life”, and thinking about the land of the dead after my grandma had passed was scary for me. How once you were forgotten, you would go from the fun parties and loving people, to an old ashy never ending field of despair, and that has always remind me to keep her happy and lively in my memories. That way she’ll never be truly gone.
