Descriptive Writing

Today for writing Aung Naing and I needed to write a story from a shoes' perspective, the thing is, we couldn't talk. It got confusing at times because we both had ideas but they were nothing alike. We also needed to use the some of the senses to describe what was happening to the shoe. After that, we listened to the other group's stories and then we presented our own.

As my tired, soggy and worn out body slowly scrapes across the muddy concrete floor, I think back to what happened this morning. 

Just as I was about to fall asleep, these 5 wrinkly, cheese smelling things are shoved inside me. Their sharp tips scratch my innards and get caught in my fabric. I angrily chafe this intruder, and it responds by smacking me against a wall. As I’m unwilling to be torn on any sharp objects, I relent and let the smelly thing be. After an hour or so of running, my friend and I are forced to watch as the giant goes straight through a puddle of mud- with us still attached! It only groaned as a huge amount of water started flooding through my skin. 

Boy do I hate being a shoe.

Values Explanation

For writing this week LS2 needed to write an explanation on why respect, empathy and tolerance are necessary in anything.

Showing Values In Sport

To be a good sportsman, you have to show values like respect, tolerance and empathy on the field, court, pitch or whatever you’re playing on. If players didn’t show those values, games wouldn’t very fun to play, would they?

In order to respect someone, you need to treat them how they’d want to be- no matter how different the two of you are. To show empathy and tolerance you need to think about how someone is feeling or how they’d feel if you did something, and tolerate anything that’s happening no matter how far they go.

Think about how the referees in sports feel, they get yelled at, argued with and sometimes hit, but they have to tolerate it. If players on the same or different teams might not like each other much, they need to tolerate and respect one another during matches.

Players also need to show empathy, they need to think about what they’re doing and if it isn’t a smart thing to do, they should decide not to do it. When someone gets injured badly, empathy is something that players and fans alike could do to encourage that person to get better soon.

It’s not just players that need to respect each other either, fans from both teams need to accept that the other person’s opinion isn’t the same as theirs, and make their peace with one another. After all, there’s no point in playing sport if you can’t enjoy it.

5-7-10 Favourite Cultural Celebration

Today as a 5-7-10, LS2 needed to write about their favourite cultural celebration. My favourite celebration is Christmas because of the presents, food and family gathering. Our learning intention for this was to use commas more often and in better places.


5-7-10 | Favourite Cultural Celebration (Christmas)

Let me tell you about my favourite cultural celebration. Christmas for me usually happens at my Granny’s house, she lives in Pukekohe, Auckland. We drive there on the day before Christmas and sleep over for the next few days.

Since my brothers and I aren’t allowed to open our presents until everyone’s awake, we usually have to wait a while. When everyone is awake and we’re unboxing our presents by the tree, there’s either a lot of, “Yay, I got something cool!” or “Uhh, what’s this?”.

The lunch on Christmas is always the best. There’s nothing like having a whole table full of delicious food, and being allowed to eat heaps of it. Big plates of beef, chicken, cake, trifle, pavlova and other dessert items are quickly wolfed down. My brothers, Thomas and Daniel, are like vacuum cleaners when it comes to food. My favourite Christmas was last year on Tuesday the 25th of December, 2018 because I got a remote control helicopter.

Provocation And Opinion

 

A provocation is an action or speech that triggers strong feelings about a topic. Recently a major supermarket chain announced that it will no longer sell energy drink to people under the age of 16. My group's opinion is recorded in my DLO that also shows both perspectives. What is your opinion and why?

Explanation: Should NZ Ban Plastic Straws?

Banning plastic straws in New Zealand is a ridiculous idea, we’ve used them for years, why should we get rid of them now? Plastic straws are far better than their more expensive but less effective competition. Would you rather have a feel good item, (something that people say could save the lives of sea creatures because they’re biodegradable) or a plastic straw that doesn’t literally fall apart in your mouth?

If the government does ban plastic straws in New Zealand we’ll have to bring our own straws to fast food restaurants like Burger King and McDonald's. Also, every replacement for the plastic straw has a flaw; Paper straws break apart in your drink, metal straws can rust and bamboo straws need to be cleaned and dried. Not only that but all of the other options to a plastic straw cost more. Another thing is, if the government did ban plastic straws, what would they do with all the leftover ones?

Even though some environmentalists may say that getting rid of the straws could be beneficial to the health of sea creatures, the truth is that the majority of the plastic pollution in the ocean is from other larger plastic items. The main reason why plastic is so common is because it’s easy to make, and getting rid of the straws would use up different materials. Those different materials would come from things like trees and bamboo forests, and if they use the trees and bamboo, where would the birds go? What would pandas eat?

Although sea creatures might get injured or killed by the straws, pollution isn’t limited to just plastic, far worse pollutants like oil, sprays and chemical waste kill far more fish. So leave the poor straws alone, if you don’t like plastic straws, don’t use them. Don’t get rid of everyone else’s convenience just because a few people are throwing theirs into the water.

Should New Zealand Ban Plastic Straws?

 

This week for writing we needed to create a point of view poster with a partner on whether or not we should get rid of plastic straws. Jack and I needed to show both sides of the argument as well as write down our own opinion on the issue. We both had the same opinion which was that we shouldn't get rid of plastic straws because they are more efficient and cost less than paper, bamboo and metal straws.

Siri Group Challenge

Today, we have been given a challenge for writing by our teacher Mrs Anderson. Our challenge was to write in exactly 50 words, a response that Siri (An automated program on Apple devices) would give us if we asked it "Why Kokako Lodge is the greatest place to take year 7 and 8's on camp?" Although Mrs Anderson wanted to make this more of a challenge. So what we could do is gain points by using different Language features that would give us 5 points each. If every feature was used, then you could gain a total of 40 points. Although for another 5 points, you needed to make sure that everyone in your group was working together, and that a learning conversation was taking place. If you had exactly 50 words, and you used different references, you could even have 100 points total! Once you finished writing, you needed to digitally create a Siri conversation showing Siri's answer. The final step was to create a Screencastify that had us voicing over the whole conversation. For this activity, I worked with Julian, Jack, and Viliami. We had a lot of fun, and enjoyed recording the most.

Stretching Sentences

 

This week for writing our task was to create a DLO on stretching sentences, which we'd been practising doing. To stretch a sentence you need to start off with a simple sentence and in the following versions of that sentence add in Who, What, When, Where, Why and How things are happening/happening to.

Self/Buddy Writing Evaluation

Last week’s task for writing was to get our writing sample and edit it with a partner, I worked with Jack and we both marked ours and each other’s writing samples. I liked marking my work because I showed me what I needed to work on and what I was doing well with. I think I do well with organising my paragraphs, structuring my sentences, finding interesting ideas and experimenting with different punctuation. Since the topic for the writing test was Caring For Planet Earth and everyone else chose to write their samples on plastic or plastic bags I chose to write mine on Greenhouse Gases. The different grades we could get are R1 to R6 or R7 for different writing features.

	Punctuation	Vocab	Organisation	Sentence Structure	Structure and Language	Ideas
Self	R5 - R6	R5	R6	R5	R5	R5-R6
Buddy	R5 - R6	R5	R6	R5	R5	R6

I think I did well with organisation, sentence structure, ideas and punctuation because I don’t usually use much punctuation aside from full stops, commas, question marks and exclamation marks. I think I did well with the sentence structure because I made sure to use simple, compound and complex sentences. I used an original idea because while everyone else wrote their explanations on plastic or plastic bags, I wrote mine on greenhouse gases since the topic was pollution. I think I need to improve on vocab and structure and language because I’m not that good at painting a clear picture nor linking my paragraphs well.

Punctuation: Alex is capable of strengthening his punctuation types used. Although he can use different punctuation types in his writing

Caring For Planet Earth

What is a greenhouse gas? Greenhouse gases are gases that are and can slowly
destroy our ozone layer, when it’s worn away we’ll be defenceless from the sun.
Two major greenhouse gases are methane and carbon dioxide.

Things that make greenhouse gases aren’t only buildings, cows do too! Imagine
that, one day the earth becomes completely uninhabitable- because of cow poop!
Even then, the main contributors to greenhouse gases aren’t cows or animals, the
species that makes the most is... us. You might think it’s because we make so
many factories but no, when we breathe in oxygen and breathe out again we
release carbon dioxide which is 81% of the world’s greenhouse gas.

One way to stop making as much greenhouse gas is to lower the amount of
factories (It’s not like we could ask everyone in the world to stop breathing).
Another is to lower the amount of livestock in the world, because one day, due
to overpopulation, they might be even bigger contributors than us!

The ozone layer being destroyed might not sound like much, since it’s not a
huge problem yet. But the ozone layer shields us from the sun, and if the ozone
layer is destroyed the ice in Antarctica will melt so the sea levels will rise due
to there being a huge influx of water. If sea levels rise the land will sink, since
we need land to survive we’ll suddenly be slowly pushed together and fights
between neighboring and foreign countries will break out.

Although the ozone layer is healing, who’s to say that it won’t be permanently
damaged in ten years? Pollution will always be around, so try to make it as small
as possible.

Explanation Sketchnote

This week for writing one of our tasks was to create a sketchnote, at first we needed to write it down on paper and after that we moved everything over onto a google drawing. I worked together with Nyjah. In our sketchnote we have language features and things to do with the structure and paragraphs.

Bridges Explanation

Our task this week and last week for writing was to write an explanation on why people build/built bridges, we also needed to add colons and write at least three paragraphs as well as the introduction and conclusion. Since our topic for inquiry this term is structures I already knew a lot about bridges so this was easier to write.

Why Do We Build Bridges?

Bridges, they’re those long structures that we always cross to get from one side of
something to another. Ever since the medieval ages, bridges have been used for
transportation and settlement.

Since most people couldn’t swim through a fast river whilst holding their horse and
belongings, some smart person thought up a way to get across the water. Other
reasons as to why going through a river was bad are: They might be swept away
by the rapids, and if they didn’t dry themselves off in time they might catch the flu or
pneumonia.

Bridges can help with many things, people always used them. Due to continuous use
bridges sometimes broke. So instead of increasing the quantity of bridges people
decided to increase the quality. They began to use materials like: Iron, Brick, Stone,
Concrete and Steel.

There are many different types of bridges, some of them allow boats to go under
them, whilst others swing open for them. Some of the first bridges were built in 850
BC and since then thousands, if not hundreds of thousands more have been built.

So, the main reason as to why we build bridges is pretty simple, for transport. Some
might argue that they’re mainly used for settlement but they need to transport their
items to settle somewhere else.

Sensory Verbs

Today for writing our first task was to create go onto a site and then answer some questions on sensory verbs, I answered all of the questions correctly because all I needed to do was select the correct sense for the situation. If you'd like to try the test yourself here's the link. The test uses all of the senses which are; taste, sight, smell, hearing and touch. Our other task was to go through a list of sentences and place a colon in the spot that we thought it should be, I managed to put the colons in all of the right places. After that, the second part of the task was to illustrate one of the sentences.

How To Tell Analogue Time

This week for writing our task was to create an explanation on how to read analogue time from a clock, surprisingly lots of children and teenagers don't know how to tell the time from analogue clocks and watches. I tried to make this as easy as I could to understand so if you don't I'd suggest asking someone else.

Analogue  Time

Analogue clocks and watches aren’t hard to use, once you know how, they’re as easy
as reading digital ones.

The long and short hands both represent something, the long hand is used to show
the minutes and the short one for the hours. The long hand goes around faster than the
shorter one because minutes are shorter than hours. An example of telling the time
with an analogue clock is this; if the long hand is on the 9 and the short hand is near
the 4 then the time is 3:45.

One way to help people tell the time is by using past and to, from the beginning of the
hour to 30 minutes afterwards the usual way to tell the time is by saying ten-past,
quarter-past or half-past and the way for 31 minutes to the 60th is to; ten-to, twenty-to,
etc.

Although time might seem hard to tell using an analogue clock, as long as you know
what the hands are used for clocks shouldn’t be hard to read.

Quad Blogging

Today for my quad blogging or tuhi mai tuhi atu I commented on Jaxon from Karoro school's blog. Quad blogging is something that LS2 has been doing with other schools to encourage us to improve our writing ability as well as our work by using the helpful advice given to us by students from other schools.

The Inchcape Rock

This week, the task for poetry was to first get into our groups and read a poem called Inchcape Rock, after that we needed to each read the verse that we'd chosen out to the rest of the class and create a DLO on the verse that we'd chosen.

Dialogued Text

This week during writing the task was to write out a fake text message strip and then create a text box with all of the writing dialogued in sequence without the fake text message website, creating this was slightly difficult because we weren't allowed to use the names of people in our class and we also needed to punctuate everything properly.

Poem

This week for writing the task was to first read and then somewhat replicate it using 5 different words for a chosen word out of run, big, small and pretty. After that our other tasks were to figure out the joke at the bottom of the original, find five synonyms for nice that aren't in the original poem and to list the literary devices used in the poem.

Original:

Never use the word NICE, our teacher said.

It doesn’t mean a thing!

Try…beautiful, shining, delicious,

shimmering, hopeful, auspicious,

attractive, unusual, nutritious –

the choice is as long as a string!

But please, never use the word NICE,

it just doesn’t mean a thing!

(She’s nice our teacher.)

Our version:

Never use the word RUN, our teacher said.

It doesn't mean a thing

Try… Dart, Dash, Drop, Scuttle, Scatter, Sprint

Tear, Trot, Trample -

The choice is as long as a string!

But please, don’t use the word RUN,

It just doesn’t mean a thing!

5 - 7- 10 Descriptive Writing

This week for 5 - 7 - 10 we were given a photo of a "tunnel" made out of wood or vine, I chose to make my short descriptive narrative a first person story about someone running around a forest. Since the main point of our stories are to create descriptions of not only the character but the area around them too, I needed to think of many was to describe.

There I was, stumbling blindly around the forest, without a care in the world as I rushed through a spiderweb and leaped over a log. I was dressed in my best ‘adventuring’ clothes, head to toe with camo coloured gear. It seemed like I’d been running for hours. A while later I accidentally tripped over my own feet and landed before what looked like a tunnel. It wasn’t really a tunnel but it resembled one because of a transparent blue tinged casing, which made it look like a tube. Filled with curiosity I slowly walked up to it and reached my hand out... Bzzt! I was thrown back, and forcibly slammed into a thick oak tree.

Descriptive Writing

LI: To notice the language features in a character.
LI: Use different sentence types to add interest.

This week for writing one of the tasks was to create a piece of descriptive writing using simple, compound and complex sentences. To give us an idea we were shown a picture of a man standing in a field with long grass surrounded by floating chairs, we were also told to show, not tell.

The man calmly stood still, as the blades of grass around him proudly swayed in the wind. Dressed in a cement coloured hat and vest, his ocean blue pants and a cloud coloured shirt. With a simple gesture, an army of wooden furniture rose above his head. Although the items were in the air, they floated without moving. When the strongest wind hit them they didn’t move an inch, and when the man touched one himself there was no movement.

5 - 7 - 10

LI: To notice the language features of a description.

This week for writing one of our tasks was to do 5 - 7 - 10, for 5 - 7 - 10 the 5 represents five minutes of non-stop writing, the 7 represents seven minutes of talking and changing with a partner and for the last part (which is the 10) we were supposed to use the time to finish and polish the story. We were given the ideas for the story from a website that randomly shows a photo.

Getting Lost

There I was, tramping in the bush… spending hours and hours walking back a forth
and recording everything onto my map. Even after years of trying I’d never mapped
the whole thing. You might think that it was because I was lazy, but the real reason is
because it’s easy to get lost.

On this unfortunate day I was wandering around the deepest parts of the bush when I
was suddenly hit on the head by a falling log, instantly knocked unconscious. When
I woke up it was already dark and when I tried to turn my flashlight on it barely
flickered, the result was expected because I’d landed on it when I’d fallen. After
searching around for what seemed like an age I finally just gave up, falling over a
stone. Sending me sprawling.

After all of that my head was getting pretty sore, because when I tried to stand up I fell down again. Hurt but determined I rose up again but this time I tripped over some tree roots and rolled down a hill, landing inside of someone’s backyard. Seconds later a dog started barking and someone ran over to me and asked for the reason why I was in their property, and I replied with ‘I got lost’.