Well, it’s that time again. The time where you must once again sit down on your favorite chair, stool or by a cozy fireplace, take out your favorite brand of whisky (or to minors and those who don’t drink, a Coke), and read a long-winded paper that merges both the ESLR’s (Expected School Wide Learning Results) and Bloom’s Taxonomy of Revised Cognitives.

That may sound long and complicated, like the name your great, great, great Cheyenne ancestor, but it’s really not. Like her name, Bloom’s Taxonomy also has a simpler definition, and in this case, it’s just a fancy a way of saying the six forms of thinking - Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation.

Using both of these elements, I’m going to recount the events during the Poetry unit and tell you, and probably myself while I’m at it, what I did and didn’t do in terms of the ESLR’s. And yes, you will here that word often throughout this journal.

The first ESLR I achieved during the poetry unit was the Self-Directed ESLR. Originally, (and these are my exact words) I defined this ESLR as “working harder and more efficiently”, but as time passed, I discovered this was not so. Now, I describe this infamous ESLR as accepting responsibility in all forms, whether it be for him/herself or others, and trying your very hardest despite any limits. A person who isn’t afraid to leave the masses once in a while to try something new and fresh. A person who constantly seeks to better him or herself.

Maybe I didn’t do all of that and perhaps I’m not the best example of a Self-Directed Learner, but let me show you the things I did do…and didn’t. The first skill I accomplished was accepting responsibility for my own learning. That just means I took the fate of my own learning into my hands and recognized that what I didn’t learn was my own fault. I probably showed this quite a few times with my book by asking numerous questions regarding poetry writing, recommendations and editing both completed and drafted ideas. I also could have really done nothing with the Teen Life project but I took the time to talk with my teammates from across the world and write a poem for them, and as for the poetry night, I took the time to listen to Mr.Raisdana’s recommendations for speaking into a mic. I could have done nothing of this, but I would have come out a less knowledgeable and perhaps a less than happy person. The second skill I completed was demonstrating competency in goal setting, time management and organizational skills. In other words, I took the time to organize myself in order to complete certain goals within margins of time. With both my book and the teen life project, I set out goals to either write poetry, talk to my team to get up-to-date with the latest information, or both. I also showed some organizational skills by putting all my poems into one folder, and then separating them by completion and rehearsing the poem I was to read during the poetry night. This skill is actually very similar to the accepting responsibility skill, as I set out goals in an organized way for both. Without setting out these goals, there would have been no way I could have completed all of this in time, or at least, no way it could have turned out well. The last skill I completed as a Self-Directed Learner was monitoring, adjusting and documenting my work in progress. This means that I looked over my work once in a while, changed and adjusted it, and kept all of it in a file. I mostly did this to my poetry, looking back at all of it once in a while and making small changes here and there and putting them all in one folder (as I said previously). I did the same thing with the Teen Life Project, checking in everyday to see if anyone had posted anything new, answering them, and making sure it was always put into a file just in case. I can’t say I did this for the poetry night, as the notion of how one would do it escapes me, but at least I adjusted the poem I was going to read there. Now, for the skill that I didn’t do. There’s only one skill that really sticks out, and that’s taking creative risks in developing untried ideas. Sure, I went out of the loop once in a while for my poetry, which turned out to be good, but my book was dull and boring, the poetry being the only original thing in it. I’m sure that I could have come up with five billion ideas for my book, but I suppose I just wasn’t trying hard enough. Perhaps it was because I believed that the contents of my book, my poetry, was more important than a book cover. Say someone hands you the Declaration of Independence, the original one, but it looks old and worn out, scratched and torn. You wouldn’t throw it away (at least I hope not). No, you’d keep it because of its historical importance and content. I’m not saying my poetry will survive the test of time, but the content is more important than the way it looks. Anyway, I’m straying from the subject, and to sum it all up, I completed almost all of the skills required to be a Self-Directed Learner, and for that, I’d give myself an A-.

The next ESLR may perhaps not seem to have much importance in this subject when compared to the Self-Directed Learner ESLR, but it’s equally important. In the past, I thought of this ESLR as “thinking outside of the box and solving problems carefully”. Well, now in the present, I think it may be a bit more than that. I think this ESLR describes a person who thinks far beyond the realm of normal thought and uses problem solving skills to resolve everyday things using a variety of methods from knowledge gathered in both past and present. You may think that the Critical Thinker ESLR is not an ESLR you would use often in a poetry unit, but you’d be surprised. Take this skill, one that I achieved, for example: apply problem solving skills to facilitate learning. You may think, well what problems? I mean, all you have to do is write poetry, put it in a book and talk to a bunch of people. But it’s nothing like that. The first problems came with writing the poetry. Some poems, like haikus for example, require a strict number of syllables, while others sound horrendous without it. Rhyming can also be difficult, as it has to make sense and rhyme at the same time, but I had a number of strategies to solve each one. Sometimes, I simply free wrote and it came close to the final product, so only minor revising and editing was needed. Other times, I’d make poetic sentences, cut them up, change the wording and rearrange them. As for rhyming, when I couldn’t find a suitable word that rhymed, I simply changed the word or rearranged the sentence. More problems came with the book. I had to find a way to put my poetry in the exact order I wanted it to without making a mess of things. My first thought, or at least Mr.Raisdana’s first thought, was to print the words on the sheet. But that would mean a confusing mess of numbers and words, using both sides and the back, so I simply discarded that idea. Then someone suggested we print it out on pieces of paper and stick them completely over each page. That seemed like a waste, but my final solution was not so far off. I made my book, printed as many poems I could on a separate piece of paper, and then cut them out and stuck them on their according places. I suppose I took the easy way out, but at least I didn’t waste that much paper and it looked reasonably okay. Then the Teen Life Project came up, and a whole other slew of problems came up. Communication was one of the biggest problems because of different time zones and culture, but we soon got over that by using MSN and the Wiki spaces. The next problem was telling people what to do. It’s a bit difficult to tell a guy in America to give you a good two pages of research when you’re in Asia, but after the first few days, we all learned to collaborate. The next skill that I think I completed was building meaning and understanding using prior knowledge and new information. What that’s simply saying is that I used ideas past information that I already knew and things I had recently learned and put them together to get a better picture of things. I did this a bit with my poetry, as I had a minimal knowledge of what similes and personifications were, but by learning about them properly, I was able to grasp their meaning better, just like many other things. These other things included communication with the outside world and learning to talk and collaborate with people I’d never met or properly speaking into a microphone will standing in front of a crowd. As for the skill I didn’t do, I think that gathering, analyzing and processing information from a variety of sources was my weakest point. Sure, I got information on how to write poetry by my teacher and during the Teen Life Project, I looked up a few websites on global warming, but I never looked at too many different places. In the end, if I had to give myself a grade on my performance as a Critical Thinker, I think I would give myself a B+.

The next ESLR (bear with me, we’re almost at the end) is perhaps a bit shorter and not as important in this unit as you may think, but being an Involved Citizen can save a lot of stress and pain. Once again, in my original words, I wrote that an Involved Citizen “had to be kind to the environment around them and to be kind to their peers”, but perhaps I had not quite grasped the subject. Now I see an Involved Citizen as someone who is aware of other cultures, respects them and the environment, seeks to help others, and a person who can show that they are responsible. I am not the perfect model for this category, but I did however manage to accomplish quite a few of these skills, enough as to not to be called evil. Anyway, the first skill I completed was demonstrating responsibility in active decision-making. That means that I took part in deciding things instead of skulking in the back or not being able to make up my mind. I definitely did this during the Teen Life Project by helping decide who would do what, or more specifically, what jobs they would do within their area and how they would do it. It’s quite impossible to start, let alone finish, a project if no one makes any decisions and everyone turns up doing nothing. Another skill I showed was being able to interact respectfully with people of diverse cultures and demonstrating awareness and respect for the rights of others. Once again, this relates to the Teen Life Project as I didn’t insult anyone culture or religion, mistake or otherwise. I also talked normally to the people on my team, instead of talking straight out slang before knowing who they were. Although I did all these things, it seems that I ended up caring more for people than the environment. It may have not made such a big difference, but I skill I certainly didn’t do was demonstrating care and concern for the environment. I used excess paper, bought ridiculous amounts of it, and then tested on it, rendering it useless forever. Apart from that though, I think I made everyone’s life a little bit easier, and for that, I’ll give myself an A.

The next to final ESLR is actually quite similar to other ESLR’s, such as the Involved Citizen ESLR, the Self-Directed Learner ESLR, the Critical Thinker ESLR and even the final (isn’t it nice to hear those words?) ESLR, the Academic Achiever. All of these have skills that are very familiar to the Effective Communicator ESLR so bear with me if I repeat myself. In any case, my original definition of this ESLR is

because I have no evidence that I ever wrote one, so here’s my most current definition of an Effective Communicator: a person who uses a different variety of media to express their ideas while effectively collaborating with others. And so I’m sure if it’s no surprise to you that one of the first skills that I reached was demonstrating the skills of effective collaboration. I used this skill a lot in my Teen Life Project, along with the skill of incorporating technology as a tool for communication, by talking to my team mates using the Wiki spaces and doing as we were told to do. The last skill achieved by me while being an Effective Communicator was listening respectfully and asking questions to facilitate learning and achieve insight. The just means that I asked a lot of question to understand what I being told, and I did this for both the Teen Life Project and my poetry book. I asked my team mates what exactly we had to do, or what they had to do, and I asked Mr.Raisdana for some tips on how to write poetry. I don’t think I didn’t do any of the skills, and so for that, I’ll just give myself an A-.

The last and final ESLR (insert trumpet sounds here) is the Academic Achiever ESLR. I put this ESLR last because I find this one slightly difficult, but I think I’ll survive. My first simple-minded definition of being an Academic Achiever was “to improve on your existing skills”. Now, that’s not very accurate, but in order not to confuse you, I think I’ll leave at that. And with that, I’ll just tell what skills I did and didn’t do. I definitely demonstrated the ability to work both independently and collaboratively (that just means working alone and with others) by creating the poetry book by myself and working with others over the web to complete a project. The last skill that’s quite obvious that I accomplished was demonstrating technological literacy and the use of technology as a tool for the efficient and creative completion of a project. That’s just a really long way of saying that I showed that I could use technology in order to complete a project. Can anyone guess when I used this? That’s right, I used this skill during the Teen Life Project (along with photography for some of my poems), technology being the computers and the internet, to complete this project. I don’t think I accessed information from a variety of sources though, another skill in this ESLR, as I only used the internet and few books, and for that, I’ll give myself a B+.

Overall, having the poetry book, the poetry night and the Teen Life Project crammed into one unit was quite an evil thing to do, but I think we all pulled through with sighs of relief. Looking back at all of this, if I had to do it again, I would have tried a little bit harder to come up with more creative ideas and gather more information from different places, but apart from that I loved every second. As for the ESLR’s, I think that the best ESLR’s that one could use to make a poetry book would be the Self-Directed Learner ESLR and the Critical Thinker ESLR. They’re absolutely necessary for this part of the unit because all of it and what goes in the book is up to you, and how you put it in their. The ESLR that was probably the most important for the poetry night was the Effective Communicator ESLR because you had to convey your expressions through the poem you had to read that night. As for the Teen Life Project, the ESLR’s that I thought were the most important included being a Self-Directed Learner, because you had to check up on your team once in a while, the Effective Communicator ESLR, because you used technology and you had to convey your ideas properly, and the Involved Citizen ESLR, because you showed you could work as a team. If I had to grade my performance on this entire unit, then I would probably give myself and A-, as I did every ESLR, but I didn’t complete all the skills in them. In any case, if you’re still alive, then I congratulate you for surviving this long. Good job.