Three things I want to do during Wananga Time.
1. Playing a physical sport with everyone.
- So we can have more intimate bonding time with everyone whilst everyone having fun at the same time.
- So we can also get exercise during wananga time.
2. Study time
- There are times we have less time during classes, therefore we are wanting to have study time so we can catch up on work.
On Tuesday On the 28th of February, we had athletics day.
Since this is my last ever Athletics, I dressed up as an angry bird. Many people complimented my obscure and bizarre costume, which I liked. Probably the most memorable event for me was when all of my friends got together and played random games. However, I'm also a Head student of our school, and therefore I had to do some duties in between. It was nice seeing all of the year groups race each other.
The event that I most lived up to was the sprints. Even though I fell behind and becoming third. I had a time of 14.97s which would be my personal best. Despite not falling behind in my physical activities schedules, I was still one of the fast ones.
At the start of the day, we gave out prizes for the best dressers. The two people who won are an Octopus person and a girl dressed in all red. We practised our chant before going into the field and meeting our competitors to see who would be at the top.
Questions;
S - In the poem "Lament" by Glenn Colqohoun, the author uses many language features to convey sadness.
T - One feature he used was anaphora. The repeating use of "If" at the start of many sentences in the poem.
E - For instance, if is used to connect to the author's other language features to further support the idea of sadness. Such as, "if windows poke out their tongues for a drop of water" and "If my eyes are grey rocks in a stream".
E - Anaphora is used to have a connection between each sentence followed by another language feature. This is to highlight what he is feeling, a feeling of emptiness and sorrow. The first example is a personification; it signifies the determination and the will to do something. As stated, "if windows poke out their tongues for a drop of water" shows the struggle of getting or obtaining something. The second example shows that the author hasn't slept in days. As stated, "If my eyes are grey rocks in a stream, " he was so occupied with losing someone that he couldn't get any rest or a stream of tears. He is also trying to convey that the world is still going around even with all of this torment and repressed emotions. That it doesn't matter if one dies, the world is still spinning.
L - I have recently felt his torment of sadness, as I have lost someone dear to me. The feeling of sadness and knowing that the world would not stop spinning for just a drop of water in the sea, just like the world. Reading this poem made me feel the same as the author.
Today in our English class, we read two articles about the book that we read. And answering these questions for each.
3-5 New Vocabulary.
- Ludicrous - So foolish or unreasonable.
- Uncanny - Strange and mysterious in an unsettling way
- Sentient - Able to perceive emotions
- Beguiling - charming in a deceptive way.
- Prognosticators - A person who foretells the future
- Deteriorating - Becoming worse over time
- Monstrosity - A thing that is large and unsightly
Important themes
This article follows the idea of companionship, which is Klara's (the AF) reason for her existence.
The idea of companionship roams around this article about how the world in the book has AFs for teenagers like Josie. This is to help with their early stages of life.
This article views the story as to how Klara was able to respond to right and wrongs. Ignoring the stricture of the programing in her. She was able to correspond with situations such as Josie getting sick and doing her own actions such as destroying a Cooting machine.
Link
These two articles are linked since they both talked about how Klara gained "consciousness" to become a better companion to Josie.
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What connections can you make between "Klara and The Sun" and "Blade Runner 2049"?
The ongoing theme of discrimination throughout both texts.
In Blade Runner 2049, replicants - bio-engineered beings - are discriminated against in their society. This is because, they are designed to be better than humans, stronger and smarter. Hence why, people became envious of them and hated them.
The teenagers who are "lifted" - engineered to be better - are viewed in their society as top beings who would achieve their academic goals. They are made smarter than the people who are not "lifted. The people who aren't "lifted" are viewed as if they won't be able to get higher-paid jobs.
Love is also present in both texts
During the rain scene, Joi - a hologram girlfriend of K - was finally experiencing rain. This led to a deeply emotional love for both. As Joi attempted to kiss K, she couldn't do it, as she was a mere hologram. This shows that K can feel love.
In Klara and the Sun, Klara synthesized with the sun, to be able to save her friend, Josie. This shows that Klara cares for her friend and is willing to sacrifice herself to be able to save her. Even there's a slight chance of her recovering from an illness. This manifested Klara to have love, caring love for her best friend Josie.
What does it mean to have personhood in both texts?
One's personhood can vary on who's perspective it is. For instance, in Klara and the Sun, Rick's mother viewed Klara as a vacuum machine. However, Josie thinks the opposite. Klara for her is her best friend and someone she loves.
For Blade Runner 2049, K ignored his stricture of being a replicant and made his own decisions. This means that he was able to gain consciousness and awareness around him. Making him have a certain amount of Personhood.
Osmosis:
Osmosis is a specific type of diffusion where it mostly relates to the movement of water through a semi-permeable membrane.
The experiment includes filing 3 beakers with the same volume of water. One beaker must be filled with sugar, another one must be mixed with slate and the last one shall be left in its natural state. All beakers will have one gummy bear each.
Hypothesis: I believe that the gummy inside the saltwater beaker will be smaller than its original size. While the gummy bears inside water and the sugary water will expand in size.
Questions:
1. Was your hypothesis correct for each? Two were correct and one was wrong. The gummy bears are inside the slat water and the normal water. my prediction were right. However, I have not taken into the thought that the gummy inside the sugary water would roughly stay the same.
2. Did the bear get bigger or smaller?
Sugary water - Roughly stayed the same
Saltwater - Decreased in size
Water - Enlarged
3. Does that mean that the gummy bear was
- Hypertonic? The gummy bear was hypertonic of glucose, therefore water went inside the gummy hence why it enlarged.
- Hypotonic? The gummy bear was hypotonic of saltwater, hence why glucose went out of the gummy and the size decreased.
- Isotonic? The gummy bear was isotonic to sugary water, meaning equilibrium. This is why there is hardly no change in size.
Who is Hine-nui-te-po?
- She is the goddess of death in Maori mythology.
How would you describe the tone of the poem?
- It started off with an indifferent tone as they drink for happiness. As the poem progresses, it becomes tiring.
Identify where in the text the author uses a simile.
- "hair like kelp,"
What is the message of the poem?
- A welcoming death.
What is the purpose and effect of this use of contrast/juxtopostion?
That death is not always terrifying but can be an embracing grace.
"Today in English we are writing our practice paragraph for an upcoming assessment"
In the scene where K goes back to his apartment, the director uses lighting together with character to show meaning.
We see this when K goes into his apartment and Joi - his virtual hologram girlfriend - became online. The whole room was filled with grey and dull colours. A negligible room with no signs of life. This then reflects K’s Character who rarely shows any emotions.
The director did this to show the emptiness of K’s life and has a virtual girlfriend to feel more human. This then connects to personhood, he hopes that he would be more human. This is important because we begin to feel empathetic towards K. This means that as K evolves into a more human-like being, this then asks the audience a question in their mind, “What is a human?”
Through the use of lighting and character, we can see that K portrays himself as his room. A grey and bland apartment. The techniques demonstrate that K doesn’t really have friends or families, his only way of happiness was, Joi.
This connects to the book of “Klara and the sun”. Klara, an AF (Artificial Friend), develops emotions towards. This is connected with K because, similarly to K, Klara began to understand humans and make her own decisions, and throughout the movie, K is also learning to defy his superiors. This means that Artificial intelligence can gain consciousness.
For this week's blogpost for English, we are reading an unfamiliar text and writing down our thoughts about it.
Questions:
3 Words that I don't know from the text:
Cellist - A person who plays the cello
Remnants - A part of something that has been used or destroyed.
Fraudulent - Obtained, especially done by criminal deception. FAKE
Identify 3 examples of emotive language
- He would very much like to feel his father's hand on his shoulder again.
- It wasn't always like this
- The fingers on his flesh told him that he was loved, that he has always been loved, and that the world was a place above all else the things that were good would find a way to burrow into you.
What is the tone of the excerpt?
I believe that the author is feeling amazed and also proud that the cellist was brave enough to play his cello throughout the bombardment of mortars and war. Often expose to danger.
Identify an example of imagery from the passage:
"It screamed downwards, splitting air and sky without effort. A target expanded in size, brought into focus by time and velocity. There was a moment before impact that was the last instant of things as they were. Then the visible world exploded"
Personal reflections
In my opinion, I believe that the cellist of Sarajevo was super courageous and reluctant. He stood for days playing Adagio. Overall, the passage had a melancholic and sad flow.
Text title: Parents can 'relax', study shows violent video games don't impact youth aggression.
Text type: Article
Text creator: Brittney Deguara
Text purpose: To inform parents that violence in-game does not affect youth aggression.
Date: 08/11/21
Summary
This article says that a study shows that violent games do not meaningfully increase the players' aggressiveness. A New Zealand-led study, published in the Royal Society Open Science, and Dr Aaron Drummond found that violent games don't lead to an increase in youth aggression. A meta-analysis experiment was conducted with 28 existing studies, which featured around 21,000 participants who played violent games for longer than three months. In conclusion, with their study they recommend the parents to be more relieved. However, rather than worrying about whether if it's violent or not, he says that parents should look out for the contents of the game. This is because some games need some maturity to be responsible.
Critical Literacy Question: Why are you reading this text?
Study shows that violent games do not affect youth aggression. For instance, the article "Parents can 'relax', study shows violent video games don't impact youth aggression" claims that violent game doesn't necessarily mean they would affect the players' behaviour in the real world. This means that parents can relax about what their kids are playing. However, the author of this article tells that that they should be careful of the content. I am reading this article because I have a similar situation at hand.
As for this project, my group was supposed to be doing a manga for our passion and love for anime. However, this changed because we didn't have a lot of time. Therefore, we just made collages full of different kinds of anime. The people that were in my group were Rojan, Tristan, Ian and Daniel.
Group Reflecting:
At first, there was not a lot of productivity and we changed our project midway. However, our second project went well and much more fast productivity rate because we knew what to do. I think, some people in my group did more work than others but it's still ok because everyone participated at the end.
Self Reflecting:
I learnt that I work well with people that I know and get work much faster. Also, I would plan out the whole entire project before going at it. This is because we didn't really know what to do for our first idea on the project. Therefore, considering other aspects that might hinder us from doing our passion project will help us in the future.
Introduction:
What did you do for your project?
- As for this project, my group was supposed to be doing a manga for our passion and love for anime. However, this changed because we didn't have a lot of time. Therefore, we just made collages full of different kinds of anime.
Why did you do it?
- My group did this to show our love and passion for anime.
Who did you do with?
- Ian, Roja, Tristan, and Daniel.
Part 1
What was your driving question?
We had a driving question which was "How to write a good manga" but we changed our project therefore, we don't have any now.
Part 2
What will you do differently in your planning next time?
- The best option for us is planning our time management and our availability. I also think that each person should have a specific time.
Part 3
What went well with the creating and implementation?
Reige research all anime and print the photos of anime then me, Daniel, Rojan, Reige, Ian cut all the anime photos. After finishing the cut all the anime photos then put the glue in the back photos. Reige put all anime photos in the picture. Daniel writes the anime quotes.
What didn’t go well for the creating and implementation?
Our first idea for the passion project.
What did you learn about yourself during this phase?
I learnt how to give each of my friends an appropriate job they could do for the project from their type of person.
What did you learn about working with others during this phase? (Please be respectful here!)
I learnt that some types of people are not very good at decision-making.
Work hard
Conclusion
What did you learn about your passion?
I learnt how to make a big frame with my father over the holidays.
Text title: Squid Game: How a hyper-violent Korean series became Netflix’s biggest hit
Text type: Article
Text Creator: Robert Moran
Text Purpose: To inform its audience that Netflix's biggest show is the now-infamous "Squid Game"
Date: 19/10/21
Summary:
A violent, blood gushing Korean show has made it to the top of Netflix's charts! It's a show about indebt people who are in need of money are introduced into a brutal, death, money game. Each death would add up to the prize money. There's a total of 456 players. The players are said to play 6 games, on who stands at the top will win the prize money all by to himself/herself. However, the winning player was too traumatized by the fact that many people died for just a sum of money for him. At the end of the series, he got in contact with the people who are controlling the game. Then a sudden dark screen moves in place. This means a second season would probably come out.
Critical literacy question:
In whose interest is this for?
This article is mostly to let the public know that Netflix's biggest show has changed. Netflix is one of the most-watched and well known watching app worldwide. Therefore, having its biggest show changed had an effect on many people. For instance, some audiences might have different biased shows. In conclusion, this article is really for Netflixs' customers' interest.
In my opinion, the best lessons we had for this year's Esol class is the games period when we had too much time for the year. This is because it was a good way to relieve the stress of subjects.
I enjoyed doing some grammar lessons and reading the book "The River" because Ongrammar was one of my biggest weaknesses and the book was interesting.
One thing that I am proud of was my speech assessment. This is because I am normally shy about public speaking.
A thing that I could do better next time is not to talk loudly and listen more to the teacher.
Overall, the Esol class was great this year.
Text title: Butterflies
Text type: Short story
Text creator: Patricia Grace
Text purpose: To evaluate that people have different perspectives.
Date: 09/29/21
Summary:
In this short story, the author begins with a girl getting her hair done by her grandmother. The girl was recently started living with her grandparents and this morning she was getting ready for school. Both of her grandparents are caring for her and wanting the best for her school. As she arrives home from school, her grandfather was hoeing the cabbages and her grandmother was picking up some beans. Both stopped their work to go to their granddaughter and ask her about what her story was about. She began reading. It was a story about a girl killing some butterflies. Whoever, her teacher wasn't so pleased with the story since the teacher thinks that butterflies are beautiful creatures. As the girl gaze in confusion, the grandparents answered "because you see" the grandfather said, "your teacher gets her cabbages in the supermarket". This means that they view butterflies as pests towards their vegetation.
Critical literacy question:
What does the author want us to know?
The author wanted us to know that everyone has different perspectives. For instance, the teacher's response towards the girl's story was the opposite of what the little girl's perspective perceives. Meaning that the teacher sees butterflies as elegant creatures whereas the grandparents see them as pests towards their garden.
Text title: Killed By a Knife
Text type: Short story
Text creator: Tom Ensor
Text purpose: To show the understanding of figurative languages through the use of a short story.
Date: 21/09/21
Summary
In this text, the narrator talks about how he felt through slitting through the neck of an old sheep. This sheep was on their farm for years now and he was given the opportunity to kill it. At first, he felt as he was a candle melting away with nervousness. looking through the sheep's eyes at it trembles with calm fear, the narrator held it and quickly slit its trough. At the end of the short story, the narrator talks about regretting what he has done to the old poor sheep.
Critical Question - How are children, teenagers, young adults, and adults constructed in this text?
In the text, "Killed By a Knife" by Tom Ensor, young adults are portrayed as if they were sensitive killers. For instance, in the last two sentences of the short story, the narrator talks about how the blood came running down from its trough and the last sentence "I rose in a dace, hardly believing what I had done". This means that the narrator was ordered to kill the poor old sheep, and hesitated so to do it. However, at the end, he still did it but regretted it.
Today we've read the poem "Sad Joke On A Marae" by Apirana Taylor and coming with an analysis at the end. Link
Write the following questions, with their answers, in your English book:
Text title: The little girl
Text type: Novel
Text creator: Unknown - This is because we've only read an extract from the novel.
Text purpose: To motivate people to be an individual and follow their dreams.
Date: 06/08/2021
Summary:
The story has a father that has 4 daughters and it is viewed on one of his daughters named Jo March. Whoever, in their society women, are expected to do lady stuff such as, cleaning, making tea and cooking dinner. Jo March was different, she didn't give up on her dreams. So she decided to write a story and send it to a big competition. She kept it a secret from anyone else before renouncing what she has done. When she was about to give up, a letter came up and said that she has won the competition. She was shocked. She excitedly showed everyone the delightful news. Even her mother was happy. Whoever, her father expected her to do better despite winning the competition. Eventually, at the end of the story, she would become a book writer.
Critical Literacy Questions:
Why are we reading this text?
- Our class studied this text because it had many extensive vocabularies and was written like in the olden days. Also to help us understand more complicated written texts. For instance, I know new words such as adequate, linguistic and stupendous. Adequate means acceptable in amount, linguistic means relating to language, and stupendous meansextremely impressive.
This week we are starting to study the world of persuasive language features. Therefore, today we are learning what is Pathos, Logos, and Ethos.
Pathos - Having the feature to recall the audience's emotions. For example, many advertisements use pathos by having an adorable animal drink their brand/product. This shows pathos because it is relating to the customer's feeling through having a cute animal in the advertisement.
Logos - In other words "appeal to logic". It is a way of convincing the audience through facts and reasonings. For instance, This world is suffering from a global pandemic since carbon emissions have been increasing fast throughout the years. This shows logos by having facts backing it up.
Ethos - Ethos means getting the audience's trust. For example, if the text doesn't show any credibility the audience would not reside towards that text. Ethos is a way to persuade the audience that they can trust your side of the argument and have the authority to do so. For instance, As the president, I am qualified to say that this would be our best course of action towards the military decrement.
Blog questions
What are we doing?
- In this blog post, we are studying what pathos, logos, and ethos mean.
Why are we doing it?
- We are studying this because this will help us with our current assessment.
What questions do I have?
- I would like a more refined definition of ethos because I do not quite understand the meaning still.
Reasons why it should be just enjoyable:
This is our time to take some stress off school and some students don't have enough to go on family trips on their own time. Therefore, having an enjoyable will not just boost their component, it will relieve their life's stresses. Another good reason why it should just be enjoyable is that some educational trips make some students not wanting to learn because most of them find it boring. Furthermore, we hardworking students deserve to have an enjoyable trip because it is a time where students can hang out with all of their classmates at the same time.
The place that I recommend going is to the Christchurch Gondola place or the Alpine Ice skating venue.
Text Title: Maori astronomer claims Matariki has 9 stars, not 7.
Text type: Video
Text creator: Te Karere TVNZ
Text purpose: To inform people that a Maori astronomer claims that there are 9 stars in Matariki instead of 7 stars.
Date: 02/07/21
Summary:
TVNZ informs there is a Maori astronomer that claims there are 9 stars instead of 7 stars in Matariki. A man named Dr Rangi Matamua that there is Waiti and Pohutukawa. He then talks about having an extra month, 13 months, in every 3 years or so. This because of the constellations and the time telling by using the stars.
Critical Literacy:
In whose interest is this?
- in my opinion, this text is targeting Maori related people. This is due to their religion and strong belief in Matariki.
What genre does this belong to?
- This genre probably belongs to the news and more of a religious Maori community.
