Reach for the Stars Writing Goal

Goals, we all have them to get better at doing things in life. In RLA class, I had to make a writing goal as you can see from my other blog posts I made goals for reading too. My writing goal this semester/quarter is to not have run on sentences throughout my writing, to help me with this goal I will insert my writing into a Word document. To see the progress of my goal, I will do the same thing as my reading goal, and that is to share my progress with a partner. When I'm almost done with this goal, or throughout the goal I will ask myself "Am I achieving it?" and if I'm not I'll ask myself "What do I need to do differently?" And if I do achieve this goal I will of course celebrate, and maybe even set a new writing goal.

Putting writing in Word 

Digital Stickies

Push-Up Tips

Reach for the Star Reading Goal

Reading for the STARS! Last week, we've been making new reading goals. You may remember reading my old reading goal from my other blog post, and that reading goal was to read for at least 30 minutes a night. Well, my new reading goal I decided to have is to finish a book in a week and a half. To show my progress of this goal I will use my Reading Record to record all the books I have finished and to see if it takes me about a week and a half to finish those books. Throughout the progress of this goal, aside from updating my Reading Record I will also share my progress with a partner/friend. I will also revise my SMART details to make it work, which are kind of the details that you are reading right now. And when I do achieve this goal I will celebrate, because everybody loves doing that after some hard work, and maybe I will even make another goal. This is the goal I have decided to make, so I hope I'll be able to achieve this goal really soon!

December 18, 2013
Today was the day we had to reflect on our progress of our reading goal. I think that I'm doing okay on my reading goal, I've been trying by best to finish books. I've finished one book from the time I've made this goal till now.  I think that I still need to work on this goal and finish more books. Currently I'm in the middle of a partner book, and it's called Mockingbird, and I hope I get to finish this book soon, with my partner. I'll make sure I'll finish more books so I am able to accomplish my goal.

Fastest Hand Reaction Time Experiment

Fastest Hand Reaction Time

Problem/Question

Which hand has the fastest reaction time?

Hypothesis

I think that your dominant hand has the fastest reaction time, which is my right hand because you use your dominant hand for most things so maybe it would be faster than your other hand.

Procedure

Color of cups used 

There are four cups in front of you that are four different colors, one person stands in front of the cups while one person calls out a color, that person in front of the cups will point to the color being called out. The person calling out will call out the 4 colors 10 times in different orders. The right hand will be tested first, and the left hand will be tested after, this will vary throughout the two trials. During each trial, the hand not being tested will be held behind their back. And there must be a total of 4 different color cups.

Data

Trials	Right Hand	Left Hand
Trial 1	||||||||||     00:10:88	||||||||||    00:11:37
Trial 2	||||||||||     00:12:25	||||||||||    00:11:18

                                        Line Graph 

Conclusion
In conclusion, the left hand had a faster reaction time compared to the right hand. My hypothesis was proven wrong, from all the information given above. As you can see from the table above, even though the right hand had a faster reaction time in the first trial, the left hand had the fastest time out of both of the trials. The left hand’s average time was still faster than the average time of the right hand. Once again, in conclusion my left hand had the faster reaction time.

Character Extension Essay

In today’s world everyone goes through pressures, no matter who you are we all have to struggle with pressures. These pressures help you grow because while overcoming these struggles you not only learn about life but you also learn about yourself. Some of these pressures can be easy to confront, while others may be difficult. Let’s face it, no matter how hard or easy your pressure is, when you confront them it represents that you’re growing stronger mentally. Well, in the book Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper, Melody Brooks has a lot of pressures she has to deal with, but what stands out to me about this character is how she overcomes these struggles.

In this book Melody Brooks is a 11 year old girl who has a disability/disease called “Cerebral Palsy,” this disease affects her body movement but not her brain, which makes her have to sit in a wheelchair with a board of words to communicate with other people. All Melody wants is to communicate with her classmates, family, and other people verbally without having to point at words on a board and to just fit in with all the other people in school. But there was no way to actually make her talk and communicate to people clearly, and her classmates and everyone at school thinks she’s weird for being in a wheelchair. So she spends most of her time with her neighbour, Mrs. to study new vocabulary to make her smarter. Then using the knowledge of these words, Melody received a device that let’s her actually “talk and communicate” by a push of a button, this not only changed Melody’s life but she also got to use this knowledge to prove to people that actually she was really smart  

Throughout this book you can tell that Melody has many struggles in her life, aside from her disease another hard struggle she has is making friends. Melody only has one person who she can actually call a friend at school, and that person is Rose. Even though Melody spends most of her school day at a special class with other disabled kids, when she has a class with all the normal kids they either make fun of her or try to avoid her. Especially these two girls named Claire and Molly, but not only do these girls treat Melody badly but they also treat the other disabled kids badly. They say, “Hey Claire!” Molly said, twisting her arms above her head and bending her body so it looked crooked. “Look at me! I’m a retard!” She laughed so hard, she snorted snot. Claire cracked up as well, then let spit dribble out of her mouth. “Duh buh wuh buh,” she said, crossing her eyes and pretending to slip out of her chair.” (pg. 94.) This scene clearly shows that Claire and Molly always judge people by the way they look and not how the person acts, and also that they care more about people’s flaws instead of their own.

In conclusion of this pressure point, Melody changes mentally instead of physically. She doesn’t let people’s words hurt her too much, and accepted that she would never be like everyone else. In that way, Melody serves as a mentor for a lot of us. We need to accept ourselves for who we are even when it seems like it’s hard. So the next time you are faced with a huge pressure in your life, remember how Melody accepted herself that she will never be like everyone else and confront your own struggles.

Sportsmanship Assignment

1. Definition of Sportsmanship
Sportsmanship is when you make an effort to keep the game fair and encourage the other team/person. It is not to make the opponent feel bad about themselves or to dislike the other opponents. Sportsmanship is also about sticking to the rules. It is also not to chew on your teammates out when they messed up. It is also about respecting the referee's judgement, opponents, teammates, and yourself. Even when no one is looking you also need to be honest to not only yourself but your teammates. The Golden Rule should also be applied. And that is "Treat others the way you like to be treated."

2. Why Should You Use Sportsmanship?
I think that it's good to use sportsmanship because when you do use sportsmanship during a game you feel better about yourself when helping other people. Another reason why sportsmanship is a good thing is because when you do win or lose you can tell that you and your teammates tried your best to keep the game fair, even if the opponents won, at least you made an effort.

3.Reflect on How well you Used Sportsmanship in Badminton
I think I used sportsmanship from time to time during playing badminton with my classmates/friends. I made sure we were all playing fair, and whether my partner and I lost to the other team we would always make sure to congratulate them by saying "good job guys!" Even though we had some difficulties with agreeing on the points and who won, we talked it through quickly and got it all figured out without getting the disagreement too bad. I made sure I showed my respect to the team and my partners, by letting them serve the birdie from time to time instead of me just serving all the time. Other than a little disagreement I think I used sportsmanship pretty well.

4. List 3 Ways You and I can Show Sportsmanship in Real Life.
Well, as I said in the definition of sportsmanship, I said that you had to respect the other person. So, one way I think you could use sportsmanship in real life is probably when your playing a board game with other opponents. If you were playing a board game there are two or more opponents, so if they do lose or you lose you could let them feel better or the other opponents could compliment you even though you may not have won. But any other way you should always have a fun time without thinking whether you are going to win or lose. It's up to you, sportsmanship is if you make an effort to have a great game. Another way of showing sportsmanship in real life is in just working with a partner, for example in math you might need to work on a worksheet with your partner. Sometimes there can be two very different ways on how you find the answer, and maybe your partner got a different answer than you and you guys don't know which one is right or not. And even if your answer does happen to be the right answer you should be like "I told you so!" to make them feel bad about themselves, you should say "oh, it's okay," and make them feel encouraged to finish the worksheet. One of the last ways I think that you and I could show sportsmanship in real life is maybe you are running in a group, instead of running faster than everyone else you should wait for the others and try to keep in the same pace. And if one of those people get injured then you have to stop running and ask if that person is okay or not. Those are some of the ways you and I can show sportsmanship in real life.

5.  An Example Of Sportsmanship


In this video you can see that one of the players on the other team was injured but he still played against the other team, and when that injured player hit the basketball you can see that the opponents went up to that player and hugged him. In my opinion I think that this is a good example of sportsmanship because the other team showed that they respected and were just enjoying the game and it didn't really matter if they won or lost just as long as the injured player was okay.