Week one Reflection
The first day of school we played circle games that helped us getting to know each other and
develop and build physical skills, and other similar activities that helped us awaken and
familiarize with performing and listening. We were also introduced to Dr P’s Digital portfolio,
and write club and its rules.
SOME EXAMPLES OF THE ACTIVITIES WE DID
Circle games: Walking across while playing fun music, when the music stopped we had to find
a partner and talk about the topic Dr P wants us to.
Short activities that involved jumping, high fiving people and trying to high five your partner
three times in one jump.
Later on the week we were put into groups and were assigned a chapter from The House on
Mango Street. we were asked to read the chapter with our group and decide how we were
each gonna break it up in order to “perform” it in front of the class. For our performance we
didn’t have to memorize the chapter, but we had to add sounds that symbolized something in
it.
At the end of the week we made a popsicle stick poetry, which consisted of us writing about
our homes and how it felt, sound, and tasted we wrote our answers on a popsicle stick,
afterwards we were put into groups and we had to put our popsicle sticks together and
arranged them in whichever way we wanted and make it a poem, By the way it didn’t had to
rhyme.
Week two Reflection
We practiced reading a photograph and we tried to figure out the story behind the picture and
discussed it as a class.
We read a really funny and nonsense that was about this rich kid with a really big white house
at first no one got the purpose of reading it including me and after we did different things like
highlighting what could be robbed from the house, etc. Dr P told us that we did that to
understand the importance of reading with a purpose.
The following days we pretty much read articles and discussed them as a class, we also did a
socratic seminar about cell phones and our thoughts on them being banned from schools, and
continued to dig deeper in this topic since Dr.P wanted the class to develop our thinking on
this subject because in High Tech we always multitask.
This week we also started reading the Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. we wrote in
write club how we connected to it because the first chapter had important stuff.
discussed it as a class.
We read a really funny and nonsense that was about this rich kid with a really big white house
at first no one got the purpose of reading it including me and after we did different things like
highlighting what could be robbed from the house, etc. Dr P told us that we did that to
understand the importance of reading with a purpose.
The following days we pretty much read articles and discussed them as a class, we also did a
socratic seminar about cell phones and our thoughts on them being banned from schools, and
continued to dig deeper in this topic since Dr.P wanted the class to develop our thinking on
this subject because in High Tech we always multitask.
This week we also started reading the Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. we wrote in
write club how we connected to it because the first chapter had important stuff.
Week three Reflection.
our team teachers assigned partners and interview them with critical questions and take notes
as my partner spoke
then we had to start writing the poem based on the notes we took and a graphic organizer
given by Dr. p, I wrote about Adrian Fernandez
We studied different poems to get inspiration, like: “Lost Voices” by Darius Simpson
“accents” by Denice Frohman
also read other poems to get examples of sensory images and vivid examples
made multiples drafts and turned them into google classroom, those draft were peer critiqued
by Adrian and dr p also by verenice patino.
as my partner spoke
then we had to start writing the poem based on the notes we took and a graphic organizer
given by Dr. p, I wrote about Adrian Fernandez
We studied different poems to get inspiration, like: “Lost Voices” by Darius Simpson
“accents” by Denice Frohman
also read other poems to get examples of sensory images and vivid examples
made multiples drafts and turned them into google classroom, those draft were peer critiqued
by Adrian and dr p also by verenice patino.
Week seven Reflection.
3.What do you remember best from the interviews you heard/read this week?
This week I read/heard several interviews, the interview that stood out the most to me, was
the one about the guy that killed the lady’s son and years later after he got out of jail, she
forgave him and treated him like his son; one of the things I remember was she saying she
didn’t get to see her son graduate or go to college so she was hoping she could see him to do
what his son didn’t get to do.
2. What was the most interesting interview you witnessed in class? were you a participant
or an observer? What made it so interesting?
The most interesting interview I witnessed in class was the one I talked about in the first
question, since I admired the lady for forgiving the guy who killed his son, that just tells the
listeners what a sweet kind woman she is.
3. Who do you want to interview? why? What do you want to hear stories about?
I want to interview Mathew Tafoya, because I am really close to him and I would like to hear
more about where his family come from and hardships they’ve gone through or are still going
through, also stories about his childhood and most special/important moments in his life.
Week eight Reflection.
We started off this week by doing some refreshing on capitalization since Dr. P noticed there
were many errors on our Digital Portfolios assignments such as Chicano Park photo essay
and the Tribes Project. We continued to go through some refreshening exercises to fix our
work on tuesday too but this time it was about correcting the titles in italics. As you can
probably tell our team had many errors on their essays and Dr. P gave us links to pages with
information about the murals of Chicano park and it’s history, since we were supposed to
annotate the information about Chicano Park as the guy was talking but it was obvious that
the majority of us didn’t. We continued to revise our photo essays throughout the week and
fixing them using Dr. P’s feedback. We also practiced interviews with help of a graphic
organizer in order to take notes on body language and to help the interviewers get specific
and helpful feedback, also we read a little about The Humans of Southbay oral history guide in
order to learn how to conduct high quality oral history interviews .we basically spent most of
the week practicing and learning how to get the interviewee to go into more deep and
descriptive answers and feel comfortable to share about them. Lastly we annotated on our
write club the number of pages we read daily to keep track of our independent reading.
were many errors on our Digital Portfolios assignments such as Chicano Park photo essay
and the Tribes Project. We continued to go through some refreshening exercises to fix our
work on tuesday too but this time it was about correcting the titles in italics. As you can
probably tell our team had many errors on their essays and Dr. P gave us links to pages with
information about the murals of Chicano park and it’s history, since we were supposed to
annotate the information about Chicano Park as the guy was talking but it was obvious that
the majority of us didn’t. We continued to revise our photo essays throughout the week and
fixing them using Dr. P’s feedback. We also practiced interviews with help of a graphic
organizer in order to take notes on body language and to help the interviewers get specific
and helpful feedback, also we read a little about The Humans of Southbay oral history guide in
order to learn how to conduct high quality oral history interviews .we basically spent most of
the week practicing and learning how to get the interviewee to go into more deep and
descriptive answers and feel comfortable to share about them. Lastly we annotated on our
write club the number of pages we read daily to keep track of our independent reading.
Week nine Reflection.
Well I have to say we prepared a lot in class Dr. P really put time into it and gave us so much
useful ways to get the interviewee to feel comfortable opening up and “getting deep”. The
highlight of our prepping was when that actress came and made us do a really funny interview
practice where had to agree to whatever you and your partner said for example:
interviewer: I heard you have a turtle farm is that right?
interviewee: yes yes, I have a turtle business in la jolla I have all kinds of turtles!
interviewer: oh yes! Is it true that you have flying turtles?
interviewee: yes! those are my best selling ones, they are amazing.
I interviewed my 7 year old brother and what really surprised me is that he was so serious
about it and after I interviewed him he went to my mom’s room and he told her he felt really
important because I chose him and not anyone else in the family so that really surprised me
because I am glad it made him feel special. Also his perspective on cars and how we think
little kids usually don’t notice what’s going on in the family but he notices everything!
Something that I used in my interview that I learned the previous week was body language
and eye contact.
Something I would definitely change or do next time I turn research into a piece of writing is, to
remember to be really detailed about my interviewee and don’t assume the reader already
knows something because they don’t!.
useful ways to get the interviewee to feel comfortable opening up and “getting deep”. The
highlight of our prepping was when that actress came and made us do a really funny interview
practice where had to agree to whatever you and your partner said for example:
interviewer: I heard you have a turtle farm is that right?
interviewee: yes yes, I have a turtle business in la jolla I have all kinds of turtles!
interviewer: oh yes! Is it true that you have flying turtles?
interviewee: yes! those are my best selling ones, they are amazing.
I interviewed my 7 year old brother and what really surprised me is that he was so serious
about it and after I interviewed him he went to my mom’s room and he told her he felt really
important because I chose him and not anyone else in the family so that really surprised me
because I am glad it made him feel special. Also his perspective on cars and how we think
little kids usually don’t notice what’s going on in the family but he notices everything!
Something that I used in my interview that I learned the previous week was body language
and eye contact.
Something I would definitely change or do next time I turn research into a piece of writing is, to
remember to be really detailed about my interviewee and don’t assume the reader already
knows something because they don’t!.
This weeks Reflection.
When I started my Downdraft It was about how I started running and how I got injured in cross
country, but Even though I had good ideas for that I found it really hard to write about I have
no idea why but It was, so I was trying to find another topic to write about when I read
Verenice’s Downdraft I came up with the idea of writing about my grandpa’s disease. I’ve
expanded by also writing about how it changed my life for the best. The most helpful feedback
I’ve gotten was Dr. P’s when he told me to write more about what my new house, school and
neighborhood were like, also when he said to keep the reader updated on my grandpa’s
health. Also Verenice’s feedback when she corrected some of my sentences like there’s one
particular sentence where she really helped
Original sentence: “I was that girl you see in the movies crying in the restroom because she
misses her old friends and life and because she has no friends now, I was that girl”
Improved sentence:
“You know that girl you see in the movies crying in the restroom because she misses her old
friends and life and because she has no friends now? well I was that girl”
Lastly in order to make my piece awesome I would really really really like help with the ending
and my second paragraph.
country, but Even though I had good ideas for that I found it really hard to write about I have
no idea why but It was, so I was trying to find another topic to write about when I read
Verenice’s Downdraft I came up with the idea of writing about my grandpa’s disease. I’ve
expanded by also writing about how it changed my life for the best. The most helpful feedback
I’ve gotten was Dr. P’s when he told me to write more about what my new house, school and
neighborhood were like, also when he said to keep the reader updated on my grandpa’s
health. Also Verenice’s feedback when she corrected some of my sentences like there’s one
particular sentence where she really helped
Original sentence: “I was that girl you see in the movies crying in the restroom because she
misses her old friends and life and because she has no friends now, I was that girl”
Improved sentence:
“You know that girl you see in the movies crying in the restroom because she misses her old
friends and life and because she has no friends now? well I was that girl”
Lastly in order to make my piece awesome I would really really really like help with the ending
and my second paragraph.