Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Portfolio Reflection

Throughout my first semester of high school, I learned a lot. As I looked back through all my essays to put in my portfolio, I realized how much I have improved on my writing skills since the first day of school. If it weren't for my english class, I wouldn't have become a better writer.

One achievement that I am most proud of is my Roots and Recipies Essay. I am proud of this because it was one of my first writing pieces I had since the beginning of this semester. When I wrote my rough draft, my Roots and Recipies Essay wasn't that great. But when I put all my new writing skills I have learned, I improved in my writing and ended up getting a better grade on my final draft. I am proud to see myself learning from my mistakes and getting better in my writing.

The four traits we were focusing on this year, have been a challenge for me because I'm not used to it and I had to change my writing techniques a bit in order to show that I fully understand each trait. One of the traits that have been a great challenge for me was word choice. I don't know much words and when I learn new vocabulary, I tend to forget what most words mean. I learned to not repeat words (although I still do,) and to look up synonyms for words that I do repeat a lot.

Some goals I have set for myself for next semester are to expand my vocabulary, and have better ideas in writing. I want to expand my vocabulary to make my writing more descriptive and effective. I don't want to keep repeating the same words over and over again. I want to have better ideas when I write because sometimes, I have no clue what to write and I end up getting off topic.


After all my hard work I have done in school and all the effort I put into my portfolio, I would really love to have your thoughts on what you think of my portfolio.

This a great opportunity to comment on my learning. When commenting, please answer these following questions :

1. What did you like best about my portfolio and portfolio conference? What would you like to see me improve on in my portfolio?
2. From your point of view, which of my attainments of the 4 traits of writing is of most value? Please explain why you feel it is important and what about my documentation of it impresses you.
3. Which of the traits of writing would you like me to focus on in the coming semester?

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Theme Essay: Interdependence

The word interdependence, means to depend on one another. We may not realize it, but interdependence happens everyday to everyone around the world. Everyone depends on each other whether it be during sports, school, or just your personal life. For me, I never knew what interdependence was until I came to Moanalua High School in the MeneMAC program. We were in class when our teacher gave us a project where we had to make a name tag with the words, empathy and interdependence, as our theme. Every since that day, I understand the meaning of interdependence. I think about it all the time when my classmates or teammates and I, depend on each other throughout the day.

From the time the school bell rings and from the time it ends, friends, classmates, and even teachers, depend on each other. When it comes to group projects, my group mates and I depend on each other to get each part done to receive a good group grade. For example, for English class, the KC3 project is where we depend on each other a lot. If we have an essay to write, we depend on each other to comment the essays so we can get a couple of comments in return. We depend on each other for the comments because in order for the teacher to give us their feedback, we need to give two comments and get two comments. In health class, we also show interdependence. Since we have partners to do CPR, the rescuer needs to depend on their partner to be the victim to pass. For example, my partner in health had to be the rescuer, so she depended on me to tell her what to do in order to pass. School is where a lot of interdependence happens, but when the bell rings at the end of the day, it also happens outside of school.

I play outside league soccer and JV soccer for high school. But soccer for school or not, on the soccer field, the whole team depends on one another. Interdependence is shown on the field all the time. When the game starts, everyone depends on each other to pass the ball to each other so we can work our way up the field to get a shot at the goal. If the ball gets past the offense players, then the defenders are depended on to clear the ball and get it back up the field. When I play soccer, I depend on everyone to do their part as everyone else depends on me to do my job. If someone scores a goal, that means the team depended on each other and helped each other very well to get the ball up the field and into the goal. Without depending on each other, the team wouldn't have been able to score and the game would be a lot more difficult to play.

Interdependence is much more than just in school or on the soccer field, people depend on each other and on other things everywhere at all times. The world depends on us to take care of it as we depend on the Earth to let us make a living. Overall, interdependence happens all the time and when people depend on each other and do their parts, people accomplish many of their goals.