Paper 1 Task September & November marks and goals going forward

This is the marks I got per criteria for the September Paper 1 Practice (Chevrolet Advertisement):

Criteria A (Understanding and Interpretation): 4

Criteria B (Analysis and Evaluation): 3

Criteria C (Focus and Organization): 4

Criteria D (Language): 4

Total: 15

Grade: 6

 

This is the marks I got per criteria for the November Paper 1 Practice (Journey of Water Science Article)

Criteria A (Understanding and Interpretation): 4

Criteria B (Analysis and Evaluation): 4

Criteria C (Focus and Organization): 4

Criteria D (Language): 4

Total: 16

Grade: 6

  1. How might you embed evidence more efficiently to clearly connect techniques to themes/ideas?

In the moment I am first handing a paper 1, I need to focus on improving my annotating and brainstorm. I sometimes feel nervous when starting a paper and tend to organise and outline my plan very briefly. This causes me to use evidence that may not be the best as well as I can only unpack the effect of the evidence to the reader, rather than connect it to a greater theme or idea.

2. How might you identify more prominent techniques by the author & unpack these to connect to ideas & themes?

I want to revise the types of techniques used in non-literary techniques as I often forget the specific literary devices and this limits the type of evidence I chose and the techniques I use to unpack evidence. I want to be more confident with non-lit papers by practicing identifying techniques and learning more about their effect.

3. How might you further unpack text type conventions & the author’s use of narrative form?

To do this I need to continue to review aspects of non-lit text types as well as the effects of different forms of writing such as narrative writing. This perhaps would help me develop my understanding of greater ideas, themes.

Goal:

I have 3 very clear goals. My first goal is doing more paper 1s so that I can practice the initial stages of completing the paper to ensure that my brainstorming and annotating is more in depth and clear so that when I get to the point of writing I feel confident in my plan rather than feeling like I’m ‘going with the flow.’ My next goal is to pull out greater ideas or deeper figurative meanings very early on in my planning stage so that when I embed evidence it can clearly be connected to greater themes and ideas to provide the ‘so what.’ My last goal is to revise more techniques so that when I’m looking at a text I can easily identity the different devices used, so as to embed the more effective and well suited evidence for the point I am trying to make.

 

CAS Reflection – Project Week

My project week group plans to go to Bali to engage in numerous adventure and action activities as well as immerse ourselves in the local community by partaking in various service activities. We are going to stay at the Bajul Eco Lodge and the International Surf School Camp in Bali. To begin with, before the project week process began in school, we were very keen on taking part in surfing lessons as it interested all of us and was something we knew we would fully enjoy. Then when we began to research and look at the providers and found the international school surf camp we were ecstatic. Most of us have not surfed before or have very little experience surfing. We think it is an amazing opportunity for us to try something which is not offered very much in Singapore and is an activity that will really push us out of our comfort zone. We wanted to do a sea based activity as we really enjoyed previous outdoor education trips in places such as Sibu and Chiang Mai doing kayaking and rafting but we felt as though we are quite confident and comfortable with those activities and therefore the surfing seemed like an excellent combination of a water based activity as well as something new and adventurous.

As the service coordinator of our trip, I have been closely researching and contacting our providers to ensure our trip is a combination of both action and service. The service activities which we would have the opportunity to do in Bali thanks to the providers is learn about ocean, mangrove and forest conservation work in Bali. The service activities is based in Bakul Eco Lodge in west bali national park which is far away from the tourist spots and is immersed in traditional balinese culture. Whilst doing these service activities such as learning about reasons for damage to wildlife and ocean life and the actions we can take to conserve these special and significant places we will be working with local community conservationists and educators. We would be learning about the importance of reef and mangrove ecosystems which is becoming a growing issue in South East Asia and other places. We thought that this service activity would be an excellent opportunity to work towards the climate change issue which has been widely discussed thanks to climate activists such as Greta Thunberg. As UWCSEA students, we knowingly learn and participate in activities and discussions about climate change and the importance of the environment and whilst we do some things on our part we wish to bring it to the next step. We think this service activity will allow us to do so as we will be working firsthand towards conservation and I think it will not only deepen our current understanding but also provide a new perspective on the issue which we will hold dearer to us.

 

UPDATE: Although we weren’t able to actually go on our planned project week trip due to Covid19, I still maintain that this process was extremely valuable to me personally as it allowed me to take responsibility and learn about leadership as individuals by planning, organising and budgeting a trip on our own. I wish we could of gone on project week as I was very excited for the trip we planned, however safety and health come first so I understand this wasn’t possible given the current state of the world.

 

 

Reflection 2 – HL Essay

Throughout the process thus far, I have been able to gain a comprehensive understanding of the poems I have chosen, the context of time the poems were published, and the life of the poet Frost himself. I have managed to write my draft, and using the feedback from Ms Wisemen I tried very hard to discover and go into depth about larger ideas, themes and further insights in the poems. Although I managed to do so, a lot of this further insight seems to be quite a big stretch from the literal meaning of poems. I fear that I may have tried to hard to grasp these larger ideas, that I strayed too far from the real meaning. I had particular trouble creating my thesis strands, as connecting them all to one larger thesis strand, as well as maintaining the meanings of each of the 3 poems, proved to be challenging. Although I thought I managed to connect them to ‘tensions between the individual and society,’ they seemed to only connect through the reaches in my further insights.

Hence, instead of changing the chosen evidence and how I have analysed it, I have chosen to re work my thesis strands to improve the overall connection between them. I also need to rearrange the structure of some of my writing, as some ideas and context would better fit in the introduction and conclusion than the body paragraphs which they currently are.

When finalising, I need to make sure that my re working does not loose the deeper insight and greater ideas, which is what I knew I needed to work on the most going into this essay. I also need to make sure I go over the entire essay in general, and ensure that my information is relevant, analytical and not a description.

CAS Reflection 13 – Marimbas for Creativity

It’s grade 12 and my mentor class is playing marimbas for our CAS creativity. The marimba is a percussion instrument consisting of a set of wooden bars struck with yarn or rubber mallets to produce musical tones. I think the instrument origins from central and Latin America, with some variations of it also coming from West Africa. I really like playing an instrument from a culture other than my own, as I can explore new musical genres and get a sense of the effect of culture in musical sound. My class has been working on a song called ‘When I Ruled the World’ by Coldplay. Although I learnt the piano in primary school, I have never been the most musically inclined. In fact I think I’m actually quite tone deaf and struggle to hear differences in notes, tempo and pitch. This has proven to be a challenge when playing the marimbas as my teacher has been challenging us to understand the notes by the sound rather than name. In the beginning, I would loose track of what note to play and since I struggled hearing the notes, when I would get lost I would just stop or pretend to be playing until we started the song again. However, in the past few weeks I have discovered what I am strong at within music. When I learn the notes and the sequence, I am able to play quite well without making many mistakes. I think this is because I have a really strong ability to focus on the task at hand, so when playing I am highly concentrated on what notes I need to play next. I am excited that I have identified my strengths with marimbas, because I will be able to use it and learn the notes and sequence to get more confident in hearing the notes without knowing them.

CAS Reflection 12 – Pottery and changes

For seasons 3 and 4 I signed up for Pottery Club to complete my creative requirement for CAS. I signed up for Pottery because when I was a kid my family used to go to this pottery class and make things. It is a memory I am very fond of, and I have always enjoyed pottery because it feels very therapeutic to me but doesn’t require the same skill level as other arts such as painting. I went to 4 or 5 sessions of pottery, and I started making a bird sculpture. I was really enjoying pottery, just as fitness, it was an activity that forced me to take my mind off of work and just do something creative and beneficial for my well being. However since our school shut for the rest of grade 11, I wasn’t able to continue pottery.

Although this upset me, I needed to plan a new CAS experience for grade 12 for my creativity requirement. After being unaccepted into Kahaani, an Indian dance performance, I realised that I wouldn’t be able to complete my creativity if I didn’t find something new to participate in. I spoke with my mentor, and many other students in my mentor were in the same boat as me. This prompted our class to initiate and plan a new CAS creativity experience we could all participate in. As my mentor is a music teacher, we decided that we would learn, play and eventually perform Marimbas this year and practice during mentor time so that we all could do it. I was very pleased with this solution, as I feel that sometimes our mentor time goes to waste and I am excited to learn marimbas and I think it will be very relaxing and fun to do at the start of the school day.

CAS Reflection 11 – Home Spin Classes and other fitness

Despite Covid 19 circuit breaker in Singapore, I wanted to continue my fitness even though my gym classes are closed and CAS requirements are a bit unclear during this time. I felt like I had made good progress right before lockdown so I wanted to commit to it even without the classes. I think the motivation to persevere stemmed from my acknowledgement of the progress I have already made, and also out of wanting control in something when everything in the world seems so out of control right now. I actually became very motivated during circuit breaker and worked out once or even twice everyday. I did a combination of the fitness I learnt from weights training and from spin class. My mom purchased weights and at home gym equipment, so I was able to use my weights training experience to do exercises. It was a bit challenging at some points without having an instructor because I know my form isn’t perfect right now and normally having an instructor to guide and correct me really helps. Without that luxury during lockdown, I also resorted to following youtube fitness videos. A fitness vlogger I grew really fond of during this time was called Chloe Ting. She uses very minimal equipment and her videos range from 10-25 minutes, which was perfect to do during lunch breaks during online school. To continue my spin class training, I purchased this holder for a regular bike so that I could ride it in place on my terrace. It was very fun to do at home because I could watch tv whilst biking, however it was also a bit demotivating in the hot weather and without others working out with you. I went for bike rides about twice a week, and did weights twice a week too. On other days, I did Chloe Ting Youtube videos for a lighter workout. I am really proud of my commitment and ability to adapt to these challenges and persevere with my fitness. I feel a lot stronger and happier when fitness is a part of my life, and despite this years difficult end, I feel that rediscovering fitness this year was a huge accomplishment for me as it encourages me to live and eat healthier and have more balance in my life.

Here is a photo of the holder for the bike (normally its on our terrace but it has been raining for the past few days so has been moved to our garage).

CAS Reflection 10 – Challenges with Spin Class and Active Fitness

Singapore went into a partial lockdown, Circuit breaker, in the beginning of April this year due to the Covid 19 pandemic developing in Singapore. Although the lockdown was an extremely smart move to contain the pandemic, it presented numerous challenges for my CAS participation. Gym’s were closed so I was unable to continue my training at Active Fitness and attend their spin classes. I was greatly disappointed by this as I felt that I was at a point in my fitness journey where I was seeing real progress with my strength and endurance. I also saw progress in my mentality towards fitness that I didn’t previously have with weights training at school. Since weights training was always at the same time, it was easier to make time for it every week, yet I was still missing sessions to prioritise work or to go home and rest after a long day at school. Active Fitness classes were different because I had to book in whichever time throughout the week I wanted to attend class. This meant that I had a lot more freedom to chose when to work out, in the beginning I wasn’t carving out time for fitness, but rather just going once a week when I had finished all my work. It was challenging at first because I get very stressed when I have school work to do, and fitness would always go to the bottom of my priority list.  Over time, I saw progress in my mindset because I was able to actually start prioritising it and making sure I had time for it by forgetting whatever work I had and reminding myself that health and fitness is equally important. I feel that I have overcome this challenge of making working out my last priority, and I even feel blessed stressed by now knowing that even if I cut out an hour of my day to workout my work will still be done and I will still have time for myself. This was a big hurdle to overcome whilst developing my fitness skills, but since I feel that I have, I am excited to work on my own to continue developing my fitness throughout circuit breaker.

CAS Reflection 9 – A year of LEAP

Due to Covid 19, our school went online in the early months of 2020 and stayed online until the end of the school year. This unfortunately cut my in person CAS experiences short as we were unable to return to school until the start of grade 12. Right before we went online, the team at LEAP had just completed our ‘Foundation Video,’ which I have written about previously. The video had the purpose of showcasing all the sustainable initiatives at our school in order to raise awareness about the importance of sustainability and our service group. Although we weren’t in school to see it be displayed around school, it was sent out to classes to be watched.

I think that this video was one of the most important things LEAP undertook last year because I personally feel that awareness and the understanding of global issues such as sustainability is the most important step in motivating people to work towards it. Acting sustainability is undoubtably challenging because our everyday lives center on using these non-sustainable things like transport, electronics and materials like plastic. It is difficult for anyone to be sustainable, but I realised from personal experience that the more I learn about the global impacts humans have on the environment, the more motivated I am to try and act sustainably.

Through my Global Politics class, I have studied numerous governments who have prioritised economic growth over the protection of the environment. This disregard for the environment is so prevalent around the world, such as the US’s venture into Fracking, giant energy company Adani’s extraction of minerals in the Great Barrier Reed of Australia, and Russia’s mining of gas and oil in the Arctic. This is why I believe that it is so important for schools to educate younger generations about environmental protection and sustainability, and why I think that this video was so important for our service team.

The video would not of been produced without the collaborative efforts of everyone on our team. I personally worked closely with Tallula and Hemal to craft scripts and showcase places such as the Composting centre, Recycling centre and the solar panels on the roof of our school. We were able to use Tallula’s skills in film production, as an IB film student, and Hemal’s extensive knowledge of the Solar panels, as leader of that initiative, to produce an insightful and educating piece of the video on our specific sustainable initiatives. Being a member of the LEAP service group was extremely eye opening to me and I have left so much more aware of the importance of my actions. I have been very inspired by my time with LEAP and hope to pay the learnings I have had forward to inspire others to act sustainably and with care for our environment.

Reflection on Paper 1 Practice – What to do moving forward for my HL Essay

The two comments I received from Ms Wisemen to drive my thinking moving forward, in order to improve for my HL essay, was  about how I might provide further insight when unpacking evidence from the texts and how might I provide more discussions of ideas, themes and implications to avoid simple descriptions.

Both of these comments go very hand in hand, as providing further insight would entail a greater elaboration and discussion of ideas, themes and implications. I need to ensure that all my evidence is connected to a bigger idea or a sort of consensus in order to provide that further insight. Moving forward rather than just stating that the text shows this idea, I need to link the evidence directly to that idea being discussed. I want to try and avoid un useful adjectives and adverbs such as highlighting or emphasising because they often are followed with very basic descriptions that essentially say what the reader already knows.

I also want to make sure that my personal insight isn’t just the insight of the author. I have previously concluded with just explaining the greater ideas and insights the author is sharing, however I need to provide more about my own reaction to his insight, like my perspective on the ideas and messages the author is sharing. Furthermore, when I am working on my HL essay, I am going to double check, draft and re draft my essay and particularly my unpacking of evidence to ensure I have further insight and am commenting on the bigger idea rather than just the basic purpose and surface meaning of the text.

Engagement 3 – Quantitative Data Collection via Survey

This engagement was a survey I sent out to members of narcotics anonymous to fill out and sent back to me. The people who filled out the survey are specifically people who have gone through the criminal justice system for drug use. My questions were generally on a yes or no basis as to make it simple and quick to fill out. It also helps me as I can collate the quantitative data and make sense of it. There were 11 questions on the survey and here they are:

  1. Do you believe Singapore’s justice system supported or did not support your struggle with addiction?
  2. Do you believe incarceration left you better off or worse off in terms of your addiction?
  3. Did you learn things inside prison that made it harder for you to stay clean? (e.g. where to buy drugs, from whom, cheapest places etc.,)
  4. When you were incarcerated did you feel you were being treated as a criminal or as a person struggling with addiction?
  5. Do you believe that being able to return to the DRC instead of long term prison encourages or discourages you to stay clean?
  6. Singapore’s Prison Services reports that they put addicts through a rehabilitation process. Did you undergo any of the following
  7. How effective do you believe these programs were in helping you stay clean?
  8. Did the rehabilitation process you personally went through motivate you to take ownership of your own rehabilitation journey?
  9. After completing time in the DRC, how confident were you that you would stay clean?
  10. How well do you feel you were supported to stay clean after the DRC when placed on the Community Based Program?
  11. Do you feel there is enough mandated therapy to fully support addicts into recovery?

In the survey the questions were either able to answer by selecting yes or no or they were answering through a scale of 1-10. I set it up this way because I wanted to make sure I wasn’t asking them to take too much time off their plate to answer my survey. I was initially going to get survey answers through the beneficiaries at WeCare, however it was very challenging to coordinate and I was not getting any email replies soon enough.

As my dad attends these AA/NA meetings, he was able to get people at his meetings (whom he knew have gone through the criminal justice system in Singapore) to fill the survey out. I am very pleased with the results of this engagement. This data aligns very clearly with the learning I have gotten from my other engagements as well as through online research. I believe that this perspective is extremely crucial for my understanding – as these people have experience in the justice system to back up their opinions.

Additionally, I think that it would be very challenging to fully analyse and evaluate this political issue in its entirety if I did not include all relevant stakeholders. Through my other engagements I have the perspectives  of a SANA, which is under the National Council of Social Services, the perspective of an addiction treatment center, and the perspective of a professional addiction psychotherapist. The Singapore governments perspective can be tied to the information I got from SANA and through research on governmental pages such as the Singapore Prison Service’s and the Central Narcotics Bureau.

 

Why I believe that the perspective of actual addicts who have gone through the criminal justice system is so important is because I have learnt that not everything the government says they are doing, have they actually implemented. A lot of government information on this issue is not available to the public. Therefore, this engagement has given me insight into one of the most important perspectives of this political issue.

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