Feedback - Monday October 22, 2007

* What are the qualities of a good leader?

The qualities of a good leader are, caring, generous, smart and strict. I think these are good qualities for a leader because if you are always mean then people will not like you being a leader, and they might rule against you.

* Who are the student leaders in Grade 8?

SLAMS - Georgia, Avi, Kiara & Rishi

* How do they demonstrate the qualities of a good leader?

Because they care for everyone in the school, they try to make the school better for everyone, and they are generous because they make sure everyone is having fun!

Parent Teacher Conference

I am proud of my interview piece from our Industrial revolution museum because, I received a good mark for it and because, it was the best I could write, I think I wrote it very descriptively which is quite hard for me as I am not an extremely strong writer.

The piece of work i found most challenging for me was writing about the roller coaster, because as I said before my writing is not very descriptive, so to have to write a descriptive piece was hard. It helped me to grow because my writing has benefited from writing more descriptively, I now feel more confident when I am writing.


Interview:
He sits down on the sofa, and smiles politely. You can see from is face that he’s secretly analysing everything in the room, after what seemed like five minutes he turns back to me and makes eye contact again.
He relaxes as he thinks back to his long, wealthy life. “I grow up in Belper, Derbyshire, England, it’s a little quiet town in the countryside, Birds singing, children playing, it’s a joyful place, but it’s also was very poor rural place, but you see when I was growing up I didn’t know any different, so I was oblivious to all the poverty, and just a happy child.
A small frown flashes across his face. Thinking hard he finally answers, “I first became involved in the textile industry at the age of 14, I was an apprentice to a man called” he pauses “Jedediah Strutt, he was a kind man, but very strict at times especially if I messed about when I was supposed to be working!” he takes a long breath of air “He worked for a man called Richard Arkwright, he was the owner of one of the first ever mills in Belper.”
“After seven years of working at the mill I decided I could do better than working in a dirty cotton mill, it was a dangerous job, I had to crawl in to the cotton looms to fix the broken thread, so I decided that I would study the cotton loom, memorize it in my head, and then when I had memorized the whole machine sail to America.
It was hard at time to stick to my ideas he admits, “I had a family in Belper and even if I didn’t enjoy it at least my job paid.” He sits still for a moment and closing his eyes he lets out a quite chuckle “I never thought I would actually do it, go against the law, and actually leave Belper!”
“When I thought about why I wanted to leave, it was because I didn’t want to end up like my father, all though I loved him dearly, I didn’t want to become poor and have nothing like he did, I wanted to do something big, I wanted succeed at life. So after eight years of working at the cotton mill, one night I snuck out of our two up two down farm house, where I shared a bed with my Brother and father. I had done it, I had left my home in Belper, snuck in to a large ship, I’m not sure what type of ship, but I got onto it and smuggled myself to America.
I was a stubborn man even if I had come all the way from England I wasn’t going to just build them a cotton loom, I wanted to be fully reimbursed, for my hours of hard labour” He says as if he’s mocking himself “Finally in 1790, I built a cotton mill for the Americans.
“The Americans now call me the father of the American industrial revolution, it’s a title I like, it makes me feel as if I actually have accomplished something larger in my life.” He pauses, “I have been well looked after by someone higher than us all, I’m a lucky man.”
He stands up, smoothes out his shirt, shakes my hand, then says “it’s been a pleasure” and walks out. I sigh, lean back in my chair, and think to myself, another successful and interesting interview.


Roller coaster:
As I took my seat on the long blue, trial of carriage I felt my heart jump into my throat. The safety belts lowered, and several people start checking them to make sure everyone was safely succoured in to the carriages. I looked across to my dad who grinned at me and said "You ready?", before I had time to answer the train whizzed out of the station and up the hill and the corner. I opened my mouth to scream, but the words wouldn't come out. I took a deep breath in, the air tasted sweet and humid. At that very moment I felt my stomach jump up into my chest I closed my eyes and gripped on to the handle bars tight, I felt my stomach jump in to my chest again. I opened my eyes and realised that I had just been around two loops of track I suddenly felt my voice come back and I let out the loudest scream i could so loud I though my throat might burst. As we pulled back in to the station with a Holt, I turned around and looked back. The train stopped i pulled my self out of the carriage and back onto the platform. "So how did that fell, your first roller coaster?" my dad asked "Amazing" I replied.

Feedback - Monday October 15th, 2007 WOW

Week Without Walls is a great experience because, you get to try new things, like sleeping in a tent or showering in a stream, these things are good because it takes you out of your comfort zone, how many times in your life are you ever going to go rafting on the Ganges, not many times. WOW makes you appreciate what you have, like warm showers, clean toilets, some people who are less fortunate may never in there whole life have these luxuries, it really makes you think about how lucky you are. WOW also is a good thing because it’s a great way to end a long quarter of hard work, everyone is always worrying about grades, WOW takes your mind of things like that, just for a week, but it makes you go back to school with a refreshed feeling. Week without walls is also a great way to expand your circle of friends, I never would have never have know things about people that I do now if I didn’t go on WOW. 8th grade WOW is something I will remember for the rest of my life!

End of Quarter 1Feedback

Goals for Quarter 1:
- To improve my writing in the first quarter by using more description.
- To improve my reading, I want to have read at least 5 books by next quarter.

I improved my writing by using description because we learnt about showing vs telling and that helped so for my museum piece my writing was better to read because it had more interesting description.

I did improve my reading by reading at least 5 books but however I didn't read 5 AR books I only read 2 AR books, this would have been helpful.

Goals for Quarter 2:
-Read more than 2 books for AR
-Do better in some of the quizzes/test.
-Write with more even more description.