Tag Archives: Durham Academy Middle School

Stocks

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My Stock Recording Sheet

The beginning of this project started with a book. I know, it seems strange that a stock project would be created out of a book. But a character, Turtle Wexler from The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin, from the book we read loved stocks. And it seemed fitting to our teacher, and to us, as we would soon find out, to give us this stock experience.
The first thing we did with this project was to create a spreadsheet. A spreadsheet would record our stock information. We wrote formulas into the boxes on the spreadsheet so we wouldn’t have to calculate our gains and losses by hand, and we programmed it to do it quickly. We were warned not to mess with the columns that had the formulas, or else it would ruin our project. So we were careful.
The next thing we did after that was to choose our stocks. We could only choose up to six (me, I chose four) and we had to get as close to 20,000 dollars as we could, using the shares that we bought. The closest we could get depended on how much each share was from each company we invested in. I invested in the Boeing Company, Netflix, Delta Airlines, Inc., and Amazon, Inc. 
The final thing we did was check it from week to week. We recorded our gains or losses on an “old-timey” recording sheet. We followed our stocks for three months. Then, at the end of those three months, we calculated the total gain/loss and then wrote about it here!
Thank you for reading this blog post on my stock experience! Here is some extra information:
  1. Boeing Company – I invested in it because when I first checked it I looked into the previous rates and it had good business
  2. Netflix – I invested in this company because I know how popular Netflix is with people and how many people use the company, so I figured it was a good investment
  3. Delta Air Lines – I invested in this because some airlines are actually pretty successful, and I know that Delta airlines were one that my family has used before, so I looked into it and the shares were cheap so I invested in many shares
  4. Amazon – I invested this because I know how big a company Amazon is and how industrial it is, so I figured it would make a lot of money 
By May 25, 2021, I lost $173.14.

 

TED Talk

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Hello, today I’m writing about my TED Talk and my experience with it.

TED Talks are really interesting to do, especially with the process of it. The first thing we did before we started wasn’t even brainstorming. It was watching TED Talks on the TED website, or on the app.

The reason why we started watching talks was so we could understand what they are, how they work, and how the speakers convey their messages. TED Talks are used to make a point or to tell a story, or both. They also do many other things.
One of the things that we were meant to study while looking at these talks was how the speaker opened the talk. Did they start with a question? A statement? A picture? How did they draw the listeners in?

The next step was to brainstorm ideas for what we wanted our TED Talks to be about. I heard many ideas, like climate change, RVs and how they work, sleep, psychology, emotions, and many more. My personal topic was about how experiences shape people, and about diverse thought and action.

After we figured out our topic, we had to figure out two more things: why it was important to us and what our through line was.
The first question was pretty self-explanatory. My topic was important to me because of all of the experiences that had happened to me, and how they changed me. Equality is also really important to me, and that was a factor too.
The second question is a little more confusing. A through-line is the sequence of things you are going to talk about. In a TED Talk, the goal is to hit each point in your through-line. The through-line also helps you stay on topic, and it prevents you from going off on irrelevant tangents.
My through-line was simple and easy to complete, so I managed that with ease. For other people, it wasn’t as simple.

After we figured out the answers to those two questions, we started working on what we were going to say, and how we wanted our slides to look. A tip from a book we read, Thank You for Coming to my TED Talk by Chris Anderson with Lorin Oberweger, said that our slides should be simplistic and clear. Too much text can override what you’re saying. If you put exactly what you’re saying on the slide, the crowd would have already read your slide and would be ready to move on. If you’re going to have pictures, have them be full bleed, or have them fill up the entire background. Backgrounds should be all one color.

Tips like those helped us understand how to put together our presentation, and helped us do a TED Talk that people could understand.

Here is an excerpt from my script:

I’m going to be entirely honest; I walked into this hoping not to fall flat on my face. I was nervous. Excited, too, of course, but nervous. The nervousness changed my perception of what I was about to do because of the intense emotion I felt. But now that I’m up here, it’s slowly going away. And that experience is showing me that whatever it is that I’m nervous about isn’t as scary as I always think it is before I go and do it. This is going to change me.

Finally, after the writing and planning and practicing was over (we did a LOT of practicing!), we started to present. It took four days for everyone to present, and over that time I learned so much about so many topics! TED Talks are interesting, engaging and there are so many things to talk about.

Thank you for reading this blog post of my TED Talk, and the process.

Me giving my TED Talk

 

Tree Books

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On the week of March 15, we began our tree books.

We worked on these books for two months, going through several steps to get them ready for the Frank Gallery in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. We worked with local artist Peg Gignoux (visit https://gignouxart.com/ for more information on her and her work), and she helped us create works of art using Akua ink, screen printing, and many more tools.

The first step we took was when we started these books. At first, we had to paint big pieces of paper blue for our sky background. We folded several parts of big paper to create the structure of our tree books. Then we Screen printed parts of poems that we wrote onto the shell of the book.

Next, we collected plants and parts of nature that we could create prints of. Of course, it couldn’t be something like a pine cone because of the density of it, but leaves and flowers were ok. We spread ink onto a jelly plate, set the plant down on the plate, took a piece of paper and a brayer, and rolled the paper onto the plant. When we lifted it, there was a gorgeous print of a plant! We used several different types of paper, like dictionary paper, map paper, and blank white paper. When there was a lot of ink on the jelly plate, we could make two or three prints from the same plant.

After that, we started to collage the prints onto our books. We cut up the Akua ink prints and made shapes and a natural background out of them. Then we glued them onto the book, which was now ready for more steps.

Then we took envelopes and hid them in different parts of our books. We collaged over them so no one could find them, making them look like the natural background on our books.

After this step, we started to make our writing pieces. Our first one was the Salute to my Roots, which was an essay about someone important to us that was related to us, or we considered family on a very small scale. I wrote about my cousin and my grandmother, two very important figures in my life. To me, it was easy. I had so much to write about them.

Then we wrote a Life List. A Life List is a list of things you want to accomplish in your life. Mine was really big because I have so many things I would like to accomplish. I hope to do all of them, and I will work as hard as I can to do them!

After we finished this, we had two more writing pieces to do. Our next one was our When This Is Over poem. It listed things that we wouldn’t take for granted after this pandemic is over, and it listed things that we hoped would stay the same in our lives. Here is a part of mine:

When this is over, may we never again take for granted

The laughter of children playing together

The hug of a grandparent

The take-off of an airplane

The everyday conversation with our neighbors 

A crowded grocery store

Long school plays

When this ends I hope for

The doorbell ringing from a delivery person 

Bringing dinner

As we sit in the living room

Getting ready to watch a movie

The time we revealed

To play board games with our families

Without any hurry

For other things

The last thing we wrote was titled My Wish. This (or these) was (were) a wish or wishes that we hoped for. It made me really stop and think about what I wished for. I know that there are those wishes that you make at the moment, like on a holiday break you wish it won’t end. Or how you wish for a thing or your birthday. But I don’t remember the things I’ve wished for on my birthday in past years. I remember these wishes that I wished for this writing piece because they are so incredibly important to me.

The last thing we did to close off this project was we read the book Wishtree by Katherine Applegate. It has many empowering statements that really made me think about my life and my hopes and dreams.

Thank you for reading this blog post about the Tree Book Project!

Frances Dowell Story

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Just Write from CreativeCommons

Hello and welcome back to my blog! I am going to be telling you about the story I wrote while working with author Frances Dowell!

Francea Dowell is an author who lives in North Carolina. My classmates and I worked with her on our stories for three to four months using the methods below.

The process started with What If? questions. We generated questions that started with “what if”, like “What if I could fly?”. Then we would take that what if question and turn it into a starting scene.

The starting scene had to have action to draw the reader in. We had to generate a paragraph to kick the story off. We didn’t put too much detail in or too much information about the character. We just created action.

After the starting scene, we wrote something called a background check. This is where we would share information about the character and their background. We detailed who they were and what their families were like.

Then we did stick and stone problems. These problems were problems that got bigger as the story went on. The stick problem was just a little problem, a “stick” in the path. Our characters could get over this problem pretty easily. The stone problem was a little bigger, but our characters worked to solve it and with a little time and effort, they fixed the problem.

Then came the big monster problem. This was the hardest problem to solve, and it required a lot of effort and thinking to get through it. Our resolution came after the monster problem scene, and that’s when everything got fixed.

After we wrote our stories, our classmates and Mrs. Dowell gave us feedback. This was a time for revising and editing what we had written. I learned a lot from the feedback my friend and Mrs. Dowell gave me, such as to make sure that I had equal parts dialogue and informational texts, and to make sure that I described things that people maybe couldn’t picture on their own.

I love to write, and this project was super fun to do. I am very proud of the work that I did and I owe a lot of my help to Mrs. Dowell!

Check out her website below!

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What Kind of Punctuation Am I?

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I think that I am a period because I like to end things. I like to resolve conflicts and settle disputes by finding a solution and then stopping the problem. 

I could also be an ellipsis, because sometimes I like to draw things out and think about the situation to try to find the best solution. 

Mainly, though, I think I am a period. A period does end things, yes, but it also can end things too quickly. Sometimes I just want to get something done instead of making sure to do it well, and when a period just gets thrown onto the end of something, it stops it, it finishes it, even when it might not be done all the way.

Another thing that a period does is it draws everything together. I like to make people happy by finding a compromise, and when a period is put on the end of a sentence of a compromise, it makes it finished, like how I like to end things. This is why I think I am a period.

 

Virtual Week #1

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Computer keyboard from CreativeCommons.

Hi everyone and welcome back to my blog! Today I am going to be talking about my first virtual week.

Last week the students at DA took a virtual week after Thanksgiving to quarantine. During that time we did all of our lessons virtually.

The pros during that week of virtual learning are that I could spend more time with my family, I could work at home where I can be slightly more relaxed than sitting in a desk all day, and that I could get my work done at my own pace. Some cons are that it was definitely louder in my house, Wi-Fi was sometimes a problem with so many people using it at once, and sometimes it was harder to stay on schedule.

A thing that really helped me through this was my calendar. I was able to access my calendar easily and I could clearly see what I had and when.

I was also doing soccer through that virtual week, and that helped me be able to get out, see some of my friends, and to exercise in a COVID-19 friendly environment. I did a lot of reading during that time too, and that helped me stay calm and it gave my brain a break from all of the work.

I stayed organized by having my own space upstairs with a desk and outlets for chargers, and a place to put all of my materials. Having those things at my disposal really helped me to not have to get up and walk around to get things, especially when I was on a call and I needed to get materials.

If you’re all remote for school, I recommend finding your own space where you can work by yourself without any huge interruptions. I would also recommend having all of your materials where you can get them at a moment’s notice.

I would also have chargers on hand for your devices, because all of the screen time that goes into virtuality can seriously wear down your battery.

Thank you for reading about my strategies, my ideas, my experience and my recommendations for the virtual week that I had.

6th Grade Through Covid

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Student with mask on.

This is me on a school day wearing my mask, sitting at my desk.

This year hasn’t been a normal year. Everyone can relate to that simple statement. But as the world rebounds in the way that we always do, Durham Academy Middle School has gone back to school.

We’re on a staggered schedule, last names A-L on Mondays and Wednesdays and M-Z On Tuesdays and Thursdays. On days where we’re not at school, we’re virtual, learning through apps like Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams.

Other things in my life have gone from nonexistent to existent. For instance, my soccer team, 2009 Barcelona (Triangle United) have started doing contact soccer. I have played in one game as of right now, and I have more to look forward to. My first game was in Wilmington. When I stepped out of the car, I could smell the salt we were so close to the ocean!

Covid-19 has provided me with more opportunities than not, if you can believe it. I got to spend more time with my family, which is always fun and interesting. Normally we all have activities every day of the week, and so it was nice to be able to spend time with them.

As the whole world works through COVID, I know that we will pull through. We have faced things like this before, and we have gotten through those stronger than ever. This will only make us stronger, believe it or not.

But right now, if wearing masks and staying six feet away is what we need to do to stay safe, I encourage everyone to do those things! This will not just go away on it’s own. We have to take the necessary precautions to help this virus to go away. I know we can do it.

Thank you for reading my very first post!