The final unit project for the Poetry Unit in our class was to create a Poetry Collection. This collection required three themes, each with 5 poems each. Within each theme, two poems were written by a different writer, while three poems were original poems. Additionally, an original sonnet, haiku and cinquain were added to the collection.
I demonstrated creative thinking in this project through the writing of my original poems. When writing a poem, I first considered the theme that it was going to be part of. For example, one of my themes was “Hope”. I thought about what a person who was feeling hope might experience, and what they may be thinking of. I also used metaphors and symbols that represent hope in my poems.
Additionally, I took inspiration from other poets. I read “Milk and Honey” by Rupi Kaur and admired the way that she created mood in her poems. When writing poems in my “Grief” section, I used shorter, halting lines in a similar style to Rupi Kaur to create a feeling of emptiness and loss.
When I need to boost my mood or re-focus, I try to take deep breaths and regulate my breathing in order to draw more oxygen into my system. Sometimes I go for a walk to get fresh air, or exercise to clear my mind. I also listen to music when I want to boost my mood. I try to listen to calm or happy music so that my brain stays relaxed, and my stress levels don’t increase.
One of my preferred strategies for maintaining a healthy, balanced lifestyle includes exercising regularly for at least an hour a day, so that I stay in shape and my mental health improves. Another strategy is eating healthy, nutritious foods three times a day so that I have enough energy to get through the day. My last strategy is getting at least 8 hours of sleep a night so that I can function properly the next day.
Core Competency Reflection
I advocate for myself.
I advocate for myself by communicating with my teacher or coaches if I have an injury that is limiting my ability to participate in class or on my team. By expressing that I have an injury, I can avoid activities that may make my injury worse or lead to new injuries.
I demonstrate respectful, inclusive behavior.
I try to be respectful of my classmates and avoid using harmful or derogatory language that would put others down. When playing team sports, I make an effort to work with my teammates and pass the ball/puck so that everyone on my team has a chance to score.
I take on roles and responsibilities in a group; I do my share
When playing sports or participating in activities, I try my best to do my part and carry my weight on the team. One example of this was understanding my role in the plays that my team was running during the football unit.
I persevere with challenging tasks and take ownership of my goals, learning behavior.
Even when I’m not sure about a task or activity, I participate and do the best that I can in order to improve myself. An example of this was my participation in the softball unit in PE. At the beginning of the unit I wasn’t very confident in how to play outfield, and I didn’t completely understand how the sport worked. By the end of the unit, I was able to understand where to throw the ball if I caught it, and I understood a bit more about how softball works.
I demonstrated my communication skills by effectively working with my partner to divide our project evenly between us, consulting my partner when I needed advice or assistance, and setting goals with my partner so that our project could be completed well.
At the beginning of the project, my partner and I read the criteria together, then separated the project evenly based on the criteria listed. Once we completed the written part of the project, we shared my pencil crayons and split the poster into manageable parts for coloring so that we would both do an equal amount of coloring.
Next, when doing the written part of the project my partner and I would occasionally run into a section of the criteria that we didn’t fully understand. When this happened, we would first talk it through to see if we could sort it out, and if we still couldn’t understand we would ask the teacher for help together.
Lastly, my partner and I consistently set goals to help our project progress. Every day we would agree on a part of the project that we wanted to complete by the end of class, and if we weren’t able to finish it we would finish the work at home. This strategy helped to keep us on track, and it even helped us finish and hand in our project early.
