Term 1 Week 7- Weekend Assignment

I have learnt many things from the enriching language arts lessons in school, especially about how to write good short stories. During the classes, we have revised the elements of a short story that we learnt last year, and at the same time teaching new ones. The teacher taught us how to describe a character in a story vividly and realistically, using sophisticated vocabulary and other methods to portray a character that the reader could picture in his mind what the character was like.

I like the language arts program because our teacher, Mr Lum, teaches language arts with passion and a lot of feeling. Also, he also puts a lot of effort in making the classes as interesting as possible, instead of just writing a pile of essays. He prints out short stories to show and exhibit the proper techniques in writing a good short story. Also, although he is strict in terms of handing up homework and a certain level of discipline in class, he is not too strict, and even laughs at some of my classmates' jokes, unlike some teachers.

To be honest, I think that how the class is being conducted currently is almost flawless. However, I think that there are not enough ACE opportunities for language arts. As of now, we have only one way of getting ACE points, which is blogging. We have not received any assignments or chances to participate in external competitions, such as Doors to Diplomacy for Intergrated Humanities. Since ACE is part of "Independent Learning", we should be able to get more by doing our own independent work instead of just through the assignments given by the teacher.

I particularly liked the lesson where we read the short story " All Summer in a Day". I felt that the story had a lot of good literary devices and elements of a good short story that we can learn from. Also, after answering the questions behind, we learnt the story's true meaning. The Sun appearing once every few years symbolizes opportunities that are rare and only come once in a blue moon. We must learn to seize them and use them to their fullest potential. I thought that the story was excellent with an original plot and and meaningful moral of the story.