Category Archives: Reading

“My Time at Heathcote” – Ignite

Posted on by

This Ignite was a practice one for Capstone. For Capstone, you could either do an Ignite, or a Ted Talk. So we started practicing, to get what it feels like to decide which one we wanted to do for Capstone.

An Ignite usually has 20 slides, 15 seconds each, 5 minutes long in total. But since this is our first Ignite and just a practice one, our Ignites were only 7 slides, 15 seconds each, 90 seconds in total.

We could choose any topic we wanted, as long as it was about us, and it was a story. I was a little unsure of what I wanted to talk about (I explain this in my Ignite), but I eventually got an idea from Mr. Casal.

I did my Ignite about my time at Heathcote; the good times, and the bad, too. I also talked a little about middle school; my hopes, and my feelings.

On the day, I was very nervous. I spoke kind of fast, so my slides didn’t exactly match with my words since I rushed ahead. But, I hope you still like it:

Debatable Issue – Should we be More Focused on Underwater Exploration or Outer Space Exploration?

Posted on by

Our teacher Mrs. Edwards assigned our class a debate project. She split our class into teams, in our reading/writing groups. My reading/writing group consisted of me, Ally, Kevin, and Sam.

Each team got to choose their debate topic. The choices were: Should animals be kept in zoos? Should people be more focused on underwater exploration or outer space exploration? Should we ban plastic bags? Should you drink tap or bottled water? Should we be more focused on protecting sharks from humans or humans from sharks? Kevin and Sam wanted to pick Should people be more focused on underwater exploration or outer space exploration?, but Ally and I wanted to pick Should animals be kept in zoos? Eventually we let Kevin and Sam have their first pick, but the second and third pick would be ones Ally and I wanted.

Mrs. Edwards used sticks with everyone’s names on it to pick which group would go first. But, there was another group that wanted to pick Should people be more focused on underwater exploration or outer space exploration? Luckily Mrs. Edwards chose Ally first, so we got our first pick.

After everyone chose a topic, we started reading articles that were in our debate bin. We couldn’t decide what side we would be on during the real debate, because we all wanted to be on the outer space side.

We had a lot of arguments, but with the final debates nearing closer we decided Ally and I would be on the outer space side, and Sam and Kevin would be on the underwater side.

We had few practice debates because we always were in different places with different schedules and other things to do.

But our final debate went better than I thought it would.

Check it out:

Mystery Book Club

Posted on by

In A Jigsaw Jones Mystery, The Case of the Vanishing Painting, Jigsaw Jones’ class makes art and they will display it on Parents’ Night. Geetha, the best artist in the grade, made a piece of art but it got stolen! Jigsaw and his detective partner/sidekick, Mila’s first suspect was Joey (a boy who devours food) because on the piece of art there was a Everlasting Gobstopper. But then they realize Joey wouldn’t steal the art ’cause you couldn’t eat the art, just the gobstopper because he only would eat the gobstopper.

After that their suspect is Geetha herself because Mila went to get a drink of water but secretly she was listening to a conversation between Geetha and the art teacher. The suspect is Geetha because their conversation was that the art teacher asked if Geetha wanted to make a different piece of art and hang it up on Parents’ Night but Geetha said no. Since Geetha is shy and she said no, they think Geetha stole it on purpose just so she didn’t have to hang it up. The only thing is Jigsaw Jones and Mila Yeh need more proof.