Reflection Entry #41 May 31 ,2009

I was finally able to complete my essay and everything worked according to plan. The plan was to complete the essay on thursday without making any changes or improvements and complete the bibliography. I wasn't able to complete the bibliography completely on thursday so i did part of it at school. This gave me enough time today to change, discard and improve the text in my essay. I was able to reduce my essay with a special technique I hought of earlier. The technique was simply to get rid off all the adjectives such as: using the adj "ancient" again and agin to describe Greece. This helped me reduce a great deal of words as well as deleting repeated sentences. I changed the structure of many senetnces to make their form similiar to the P.E.A. For the sturcture, i would tell them the point, the main info. Then i'd present some evidence which showed and proved the point and then I'd give an analysis; an explanantion of the point with the given evidence. I used this strucuture because I was giving a whole barrage of explnations which made it really complicated and it was hard to figure out wich explanation belonged to which point. That'swhy I moved the text around so my work became organised and easy to understand and most importantly it was to the point with a brief but useful analysis. The evidence would be used as proof or as an example to represent the point. I also had to organise the bibliography in alphabetical order. For each bibliography I also decided to write the time and date I used the source. Some of the sources did not present information of the author. So i decided it would be sensible to write: N/A on the bibliography. I think throughout my work time on the essay i worked productively, pre-planned my steps which helped me think a head of time and get through any twists and turns I'll face in the future which i planned for. I most of the time worked without distraction which was good. But I could've done a better job on being organised and not losing my essay three times. Most of the essay depended on the planning and whether or not I followed the steps of the plan. The plan needed to be good. It had to allow you to complete your task. Get you through any twists and turns in the way. Those are the main things a plan should have and they must be planned a head of time and every essay should have them.

Reflection Entry #40 May 28 ,2009

Today i got a little carried away and distracted and talekd my way through most of the lesson. This caused me to complete very little today. And I was unable to follow my plan I devloped in the previous reflection because of me getting distracted. I completed my essay, just need to complete the bibiliography. What i'm planning to do over the weekeneds is to finish the website bibliographies, then at school I can finish typing the bibliography from my note cards on sunday. What I did well today was I proofread my essay made changes and even asked some of my class amtes to read the essay and give me their feedback on how to improve my essay. Some of them said I had unneccary words, which helped me take down my word limit. They told me to stop using the word: "Ancient" again and again when referring to my civilization. Or they'd tell me to change the order I put information should be rearranged to make it more organised. Some even said that I had to improve my P.E.A. Which I did by going over the important sentences in the essay. I changed the structure and put in the Point, Evidence and the Analysis. I tried to put it in the important parts of the essay Once I did all these improvements, my essay looked pretty solid. I think the bibliography I'm going to make will need to be alphabetical and in the correct form because the bibliography is one of the important parts of the project. Since I don't have the links for all the sites I've been to, I'm going to try to find them at home, and get proper bibliographies for the websites, for the books I'll have to do them next lesson, because that's all I'll be doing, working on the bibliography. Also if I finish with my essay and bibliography, I'm going to find some pictures for the powerpoint presentation.

Reflection Entry #39 May 26 ,2009

I worked well today and tried to put all my effort. But the information in my essay does not refer to the concept of time. Although my essay consists of plenty of useful information, I need to try to refer it to the concept of time as the essay is based on it. I've decided that I'll complete my essay on thursday, print it out as a draft, read it over, discard and improve information, if my words are over the limit, reduce them by taking out unneccesary words. This should take me about 15-20 minutes if I work diligently. Since I didn't have enough time to do my bibliography because i was so busy with my essay I emailed my self the lnks and did the bibliogarphy at home and I printed it out. This way my work amount is reduced and I just need to worry about finishing my essay and improving the information that needs improvement. The information I need to improve is that some times I explain too much about a topic, I need to delete the unneeded and try to put in information that is breif explains everyting and follows PEA. Then I can type the improvements and look for transitions about how Time refers to the information I have. To make it easier for me to look for transitions refering to time, I came up with a guiding question: How did Time influence these characterisitcs? this G.Q. allows me to narrow down my search on any topic. That's what I learned about guiding questions, they narrow down your research and only allow you to take only the information important to you. I'm not going to research this information on the web but in my note cards which have plenty of information and I'm sure that they have some transitions that refer to time. What I did well today was that I concentrated well on my work and for the first time I wasn't panicked and didn't rush. I calmly went over my notecards selecting the information i needed. and then typed it. I still regret that I could've improved my plan and made it more organised and easy to follow. My plan is a complete mess because I was in a rush. The diagram I drew has too much information in it. So another thing I learned in this project is that writing unnecesary information is a waste of time and too complicated to undertsnad but if you write a few bullet points with the right information, you can drive home the message. I learned that the hard way from my note cards. I put in every piece of information when researching and now I'm struggling to choose the right information from the massive amount of information I have in my note cards. If I made the notes mor simpler and only had the important information I would've been able to easily complete my essay.

Reflection Entry #38 May 25 ,2009

Today I was able to greatly reduce my word limit and I almost made it toward the end of the essay with 989 words. Since we are going to finish the essay on Thursday, I decided to do the bibliography as homework today (which I'm going to do after typing my reflection) and so in the other lessons I'll have time to finish, edit and improve my essay. What I did really good today, and I'm surpirsed is that I typed really fast today from the beggining of the essay till the end. When we were getting close to the end I decided it would be good if I take out the uneeded words from my essay like ancient, and other adjectives. This helped me to greatly reduce my word limit by 400 0r 500. I think another reason i had trouble with rising word limit was that in my notecards my information is not summarized enough and I've put in every single piece of information instead of the important one. This causes me troubles plenty of times because I have to choose the information I want to put in to prevent the word limit from going higher. So the strategy I used today was: When I was writing a paragraph for a characteristic, I took all the note cards of that characteristic read them through, and then remember the important information and type it down in the essay. What I realized as we are moving toward the end of the project is that I could've be more organised. For instance my plan: It was a whole barrage of ideas put in one place and in the wrong order which made it really complicated and the plan became no use to me. If i arranged the steps of my plan properly it would've made it easier for me to understand and the same thing: I put in too much information instead of making it simple and precise. Also I was always in a rush when typing my essay, when instead I could've gone over my note cards to decide on what I need and what I don't need. I really need to improve in these parts so I can do better in future projects.

Reflection Entry #37 May 24 ,2009

Today I lost 40 mins of my class time in typing my essay because of computer difficulties and only got 20 minutes to complete my essay. I worked in a rush today in the last 20 minutes and that's why my last paragraph of my 1st characteristic doesn't make sense. I think if I ask Mr. Sparks for the 40 mins I lost earlier today in break or lunch maybe I'll be able to make additions and improvemnets in my essay. I really need to boost up my speed because i have 1089 words and I've only completed my 1st characteristic. I think I should take some time off from typing everything and select the information I want to have in the essay. This is because I'm getting really confused with the information I'm putting in the essay and I'm sure that at this rate I'll exceed the word limit by a lot. Also it cuts down the amount of information I have to write. The other option I have is: Instead of copying every piece of information from each notecard, what I can do is read the whole note card and then summarize it by making it simple and brief. This way I can minimize the amount of word limit so this strategy could be used for shortening the word limit. Also doing this allows me to write only the important bits and not too much information which can get me to finish typing everything in the amount of time. I also have to do something about my bibliography. All the links are messed up. I don't think I'll have enough time to do my bibliograohy, so what i can do is go to the library at break, lunch, or after school, go to easy bib and complete my bibliography as the links are already saved on a word document. So I have plenty of work to do and hopefully with these strategies i can complete these tasks in the limited amount of time I have. The good thing is even with limited amount of time I'm still working productively and trying to complete the essay with all the information needed. And for the past few weeks I've avoided being distracted and really focused on my work. What I could've done better in the project is that: I could've really summarized the text briefly during the research, because most of the summarzing i did is too complicated with too much unneeded information and I'm having troubles in understanding my sources that's why I'm going to use the pition of only highlighting the text in the notecards I need for each characteristic and then typing the highlighted bits.

Reflection Entry #36 May 21 ,2009

I finally caught up to the rest of the class as my goal was to. I have roughly 1000 words and so does most of the class but I'm far from being done with my essay. The 1000 words are only the intro and my first characetristic. Today once I caught up to the class, I realized that my essay was really jumbled up. My paragraphs were very badly organized. The time periods in which every event happened in the paragraph were in the wrong order. For E.g.: the government form of tyranny was introduced before the form of obligarchy but I was in a hurry so I put it the other way around accidentally. I also accidentaly mixed up the information of Athens with that of Sparta. With all the mixing up going on I copied and pasted the text and moved it around. I also improved the sentences using more examples and I also tried my best for each paragraph to show how each characteristic interacted with the concept of Time. I tried to show how as time went by what devlopments the civilization made, etc. It' Ok if I did that today but I think it would be better if I concentrate on completing typing my text and then going beck to the text and improving as planned instead of pausing every paragraph or two and going back to the text. I also have to stay aware and not jumble up any information as I did today.

Reflection Entry #35 May 19 ,2009

I was able to find the essay I lost in the previous lesson. It was fortunately on my USB, so I should've saved it onto my drive as well. I needed to catch up today to the rest of the class to make up for lost time. Mostly everybody is round 1000 words but I only have roughly 600 words. The strategy I planned earlier, to type up everything, ignoring the word limit and then improving and discarding info later, seems to work. I think to catch up to the rest of the class I should get to the MM labs earlier than usual so I'll have more time on my hands. Secondly I have to type everything down without getting distracted. Third: i have to follow the strategy of ignoring the word count and typing every important information down and improving the text later. This will get me to catch up to the class fairly quickly. Once I'm done with the typing and have more time left, I'll make sure my text meets the word limit and make sure I have all the important information and not the unneeded info. Making imporvements in the text will take up to 15 minutes or so, therefore it shouldn't take me too long to complete the improvements. Whether or not I can complete my essay properly depends on the deadline. If I have plenty of time like: 4 or 5 days I'll be able to complete my essay. The main point is I must not get distracted at any point, it will cost me my time.

Reflection Entry #34 May 18 ,2009

Today I lost my 500 word essay which was in the progress of completion along with my plan. I had to restart my whole essay and now I currently have 256 words putting me behind the rest of the class. I'm hoping Mr. Sparks will give some more time to complete my essay. Since I already had a backup plan printed out already, i don't have to worry about losing the plan. To catch up on the class, today I went over my note cards to try to remember what I wrote in the essay I lost. As I remembered I typed it down on my new essay. I think I'll stick to the strategy I made earlier: I'll simply just type every important note down on my essay regardless of the word limit and make the changes earlier. This strategy should be effective because it's straight forward and I don't have to take pauses between my work time to think what I want to write, i'll just copy down whatever's on the note cards without taking any pauses or getting distracted. Once I'm finished: I'll reduce the word limit and improve and explain my ideas better in the essay or discard any unneeded information. Also, I think it would be better if I saved my work on my school drive and my USB so there's a slim chance of me losing my work.

Reflection Entry #33 May 7 ,2009

I was able to complete my plan in the beggining of the lesson. My plan which is for the paragraph structure which helps me to concentrate on the main points of eachy characteristic and guiding question. Since I used up some time in class for my plan and got distracted a little, i fell behind the class in typing the essay. Most people have about 900 words now and i have only 200. Next lesson I should really work hard and type without getting distracted and really fast. The strategy I used of just typing every single piece of information down on my essay and then organizing my essay afterward is working well. What I fear is that not all my information will be able to fit in my essay. I think if I go over my notecards and discard any repeated or unneeded info i might make it into the limit. I'm glad that the information I'm putting in th essay are the complete answers to my major guiding questions.

Reflection Entry #32 May 5 ,2009

Today I wasn't able to complete my plan and I'm in the process of planning what I'll write in each of the paragraphs. This will however get me to fall behind the class because we're suppose to start writing our essays today. So I'll have to complete part of my plan on thursday. I'll have to start typing my essay with speed first I'm done with my plan to catch up. What i'm I having trouble with is dividing the paragraphs and going over the word limit. What I've planned is to write everything I have to on my essay without any means of organization. Once I complete writing everything down then I'll organise everything. I'll take away any words I don't need and I'll choose three good guiding questions for each characteristic and then see which information fits which guiding question and put that information in that paragraph. I'll put the plan into action on Thursday.

Reflection Entry #31 May 4 ,2009

Today I was quite confused while doing the plan. I did not understand how to explain why the six characteristics are important to make a civilization. Since this is a major part of the introduction i must have a section about it. I'm still thinking of a way to organise the characteristics into paragraphs of the most important characteristic. I'm still finding a way to connect the characteristics together with each other with certain transitions which lead from one major idea to another. I think I should've done a bit more research when I had the chance to answer these troubles. But I have plenty of information about time which I'm going to use as the main focus in every paragraph to show what the Law + Government was at the time and how it changed time to time as the civilization developed. I think to tell why the 6 characteristics are important for a civilization, I'll have to read my notecards and hopefully learn something from them to answer Why the 6 characteristics are important for a civilization.

Reflection Entry #30,May 3,2009

Today was our planning day for the essay. I decided to make my plan on Inspiration, so when I'm writing my essay it would be easier to just open another file and check the steps on the plan whether the essay follows them. I think my mind maps are a bit too complicated. In my mind map each heading as too much information. If I had subtitles it would make it easier. I should also write in bullet points. This will make my mind map simple to understand and follow. I also think I should organise my notecards and see how they refer to the humanities aspect of "time" I have to skim the amount of information i have and get it to fit the word limit. I also have to write a reminder in my plan about NOT WRITING 1st PERSON!

Reflection Entry #29,April 30,2009

Today was our last day of research and I was able to complete 85 notecards. Overall, I think I've worked in the MM labs and the library productively throughout the whole research. I think if I got less distracted and talked in the lesson I might've been able to complete more note cards. The stratgey I used which is to open two webpages at the same tiome and collect the information at the same time woked quite well and it was also easy to summarize. If I used this strategy earlier I might've been able to get more information as well as efficient. I think when I'm planning my essay I might have a hard time because of the great amount of information I have. I think I'll have to organise it well by taking out some unneeded information. I think when I'm writng in paragraphs I'll write in this order: Introduction, Law and Government, Education, Religion and Conclusion.

Reflection Entry #28 April 28, 2009

Today I tried a new strategy to gain all the information I need. I opened two webpages at the same time and collected information from both of them at the same time about the same topic. SO it's actually taking a part of one source and blending it with another. it worked quite well and allowed me to complete quite a plenty notecards. I also summarized well. I read a big chunk of text from both sources and noted down the information I needed. i think this strategy is working really well and it got be 75 note cards today. I'm going to use the same strategy on our last day for research next lesson which will hopefully put the finishing touches and wrap up my research. But i still need to improve on noting down my information well because it looks really untidy. Since it's becoming really difficult to read for me, I've decided to use a pencil and a rubber instead of writing with a pen and scribbling over it. Other than that I pretty much have all the information I need.

Reflection Entry #27 April 27, 2009

Today was the lesson when we got the full priveldge to go on any site and research. On my research today I found plenty of videos on brainpop.com which gave great help to me. This time it wasn't all repeated information some of the information was that I didn't even have. it's good that now I'm finding the information i didn't have because THIS OUR LAST WEEK OF RESEARCH! I think today i used my time wisely, and collected the information only useful to me and not information i already had or didn't need. Though I also wasted plenty of notecards and jumbled them up. My notecards are becoming really difficult to read and today I accidentaly messed up my notecards and instead of putting my religion note card with the other religion note cards I put it with education, maybe because I wasn't awake or I was too careless. I also have to try to be more careful and aware of what's happening in the surroundings because i'm also missing on certain instructions from the teacher. But i forgot to note down 2 URLs for the bibliography. i'm going to go back to the site tommorow and hopefully notedown the urls onto my bibliography.

Reflection Entry #26 April 26, 2009

Today I was able to complete 5 note cards double sided which is a good thing. This is of course a very good thing and gave me quite a lot of information about all three charcateristics. I still haven't completed summarizing the text so next lesson I'm going to continue work on the same website. I think I should write my notes much neater since what I write on the note cards is a complete jumble and is even difficult for me to understand. SO I'm going to try to write my information neater. Also I shouldn't just stick to one website I should try to got to different websites and get a wider information on the certain characteristic. I also did not get distracted in my work. I think I'm writing too much information, including the information I don't need, I should also try to only note down the points I need not the points which I already have or points which I don't need at all.

Reflection #25 April 23, 2009

Today I was a very bad day for me as I wasn’t able to find too much information. The information I found was info I already had, so I wasn’t able to complete too many note cards. But I was finding a lot of information about other characteristics like: Social Class, Variety of Jobs and Art Architecture. But I was still able to get some main points on Religion. This would however help me in my essay because everything I have including the tiniest pieces of information will help. I think once we start using new sites I might be able to get more note cards, but I’ll have to work extra hard in the future lessons because I think I’m behind my class and need to catch up.

Reeflection Entry #24 April 21 2009

Today I wasn't able to complete many notecards, again I got distracted by one of my class mates and I was able to complete 2 notecards this lesson, i'm sure I would've beeen able to complete more notecards if i concentrated hard enough, with all that important information. The distractions have become one of my major weaknesses and preventing me from completing work. Also, as i said in the previous reflection, my summarizing looks similar to the text on the source, today my summary only consisted of the main points and looked like a summary rather than copies of the original text, so therefore I have learned to summarize properly and i'm sure that will make my reseacrh note cards more easier to understand. Next lesson i'm goging to solve the problem of being distarcted by other students.

Reflection Entry #23 April 20, 2009

Today I was able to complete plenty of note cards and catch up to the time I lost last lesson. Grolier Online is a really good source of information and allowed me to get information on all three chosen characteristics. (Law government, education, religion). I think I would’ve done even more if I didn’t get distracted talking to my friends. But what I’m really worried about is that I’m not summarizing the text good enough, for some reason it looks similar to the text on the source. So next lesson I’m going to try to read the whole text and then summarize it, rather than by reading one sentence and then summarizing the text. I’m also going too fast so it might be that I’m in so much of a hurry that I begin to copy sentences. Today I went back to my note cards when I couldn’t find information and then I began to make the information I had more simpler and only with the main points.

Refelction Entry #22 April 19 2009

Today was the day when I got most distracted in the whole project. Since my computer wasn’t working I had to switch with someone else. It took me a long time to log into my new computer. It took me more than half a lesson to start work because the multimedia shortcut was not even on the desktop; therefore I barely completed 1 note card. It’s good that I did not fall behind the whole class as I already have 48 note cards and most people have quite less than that. After everything was ready I got lazy and didn’t bother to write much. If I had put in more concentration, and a little bit more effort I might’ve been able to note down more important information. Next lesson I’ll try to concentrate a little harder and try to put in more effort. Also I’m getting the same information again and again at Grolier Online and Britannica, so it’s getting harder to get more not cards perhaps I’ll be able to get more when we are allowed to research other websites as well.

Reflection Entry #21 April 16 2009

Today I was able to complete 6 notecards, which got me a total of 46 notecards. Today I also learned how to do the bibliography properly as I was doing it the wrong way. it's good that I learned to do the bibliography properly or else i would get a bad presentation grade. I think i'm finding pretty good info on my chosen characteristics but now most of the times the same information is popping up. i think I should also learn to write neatly becuase my writing is getting very difficult for me to understand. I think i should also learn to follow instructions properly because today i did not follow the instruction of doing the proper format of the bibliography, lucky for me Mr. Sparks warned so i was saved from getting bad grades for presentation.

Reflection entry #20 April 14 2009

Today was our 1st day at the MM labs we learned to use certain internet devices to our own benefit in the research. I did not get a chance to use the sites I got from the books in the library. today I was able to reach one of my goals: Not to get distracted and lose time. i was able to work hard today with britannica online and able to get a lot of info about law and education. I think if i continue to be less distracted and work hard I might be able to get all the information i need. I am still working on, to make my work as summarized as possible, which isn't really working out it seems my work is a bit too much same to the text, this might be because i'm in a rush and aiming to get many notecards. But its quality not quantity and i will try to calm down and read the whole article and in the end summarize it.

Reflection #19 April 13 2009

Today was the last day in the library, so we had to work extra hard, I was able to complete 3 notecards with a total of 35 notecards. Mostly about education. I was also able to find certain websites for my research in the MM labs next lesson. I think I used my time wisely by taking important notes and at the same time taking important websites for future research. SO I think i have to work as hard as I did in the library, but even harder. I must not try to get distracted by anyone and always stay constant in my work. i think i should be able to work harder in the MM labs since I have taken a few websites to research and so i am prepared and i have found my weaknesses and find a way to overcome them and complete my work.

Refelction Entry #18 April 12 2009

Today I did not manage to put in maximum effort because we were meant to got to the lab today but we went to the library for those who did not get enough info. I have been through all the information in the books and so today I just went over the notecards and searched for any information I didn't have. I found some good information but unfortunately i got distracted and was only able to complete one notecard so I think i should try to put in more effort in future lessons which is one of my weaknesses of completing my work. I think the best thing i could've done in my time in the library was find a table where nobody who i talked with sat and then I could've complete more work. i think i could've also done better summarizing skills. I did not take a big chunkof info and then wrote it in my own words. I did this sometimes when the information wasn't too complicated. So i have to improve my summarizing skills.

Refelction#17 April 2 2009

Today was our last day at library and I did not find it ideal. today a lot of time was wasted since we had to go to homeroom at 2:05 and I was being disturbed diliberetly by one of my fellow class mates as a result I was only able to complete 2 notecards but with useful information. it is good that we are moving to the MM labs next week as I am not finding any useful information in the libraries anymore. I think, in the libraries, i have put in overall, a lot of effort and have collected useful information to help me in my essay, though I need to continue this when I get to the MM labs. I think to improve and get more information on religion and government and law ( due to the fact I do not have enough information for them). I will also watch some useful videos in the MM labs as well as search on wikipedia.org and I will also have to complete my bibliography electronically.

Reflection Entry #16 March 31, 2009

Today I was able to complete 30 note cards, by working diligently and hard on researching information on law and government. Today I discovered many books on law and government. I also chatted with some of the people on the table but still kept on working. My guiding questions are guiding me well through my research and I have also come up with many answers to them. Today I was also able to put in a lot more effort than last time. I think to improve for next lesson I should try to come up with more guiding questions for all the information I’m getting and try to get at least 37 or 40 note cards this week as we will move onto the MM labs next week.

Reflection Entry #15 March 30, 2009

Today was not a good day for my research as I only finished 2 note cards; I am worrying that I might fall behind rest of the class. This was because I was got distracted too often and so I only got to complete 2 note cards, just like the previous lesson. SO next lesson I’m going to sit on a different table to complete more cards. I am now getting a lot of information on religion and education but not too much on law government. My goals for next lesson are: Sit on a different table and work harder, try to complete more note cards, and find more useful information.

Refelction Entry #14 March 29 2008

Today I was able to get alot of information about the variety of education in Ancient Greece as well as how and when their education developed and which people where allowed to get education. ( pooror rich.) I think today I did not put too much effort as I usually do and was able to finish 2 notecards, so i need to put in more effort because in the previous days I have been able to complete much more notecards. I am also worried that I am not getting enough information about Government+Law. SO next lesson i'm going to try to put in more effort and try to complete more notecards and not fall behind the class and find information on Government and law.

Reflection Entry #13 March 26 2009

Today was not a very good day fro research as I got somewhat distracted by some people on the table, so next lesson I need to speed up a lttle and complete as much as I can. By the end of this week I was able to complete 22 note cards, which is pretty good. I am getting a lot of books with a lot of information about education and religion. Types of festivals ceremonies, alphabet and writing system, etc. which is also leading me to better guiding questions which leads to better research. I am still working on my summarizing skills, trying to summarize it into my own words with all the important information.

Reflection Entry #12 March 24 2009

Today I was able to complete 19 notecards, mostly about education. I'm beginning to get good information about religion, I am glad that my amount of notecard exceeds the expected amount of notecards at this rate. Today I felt that I didn't give enough detail in my work so I went back and changed some of the layout of the text, discarding and adding useful information. Today I also found a whole batch of books talking about ancient Greece with all the characteristics we have been talking about in class, I didn't have enough time to use them, so next lesson I will use these book to hopefully inrease the amount of inofrmation I have. I also feel that my summary needs to be more of my work because I think it sounds a bit too similar to the original, so i am also hoping to change them a little next lesson.

Reflection Entry #11 March 23 2009

Today I have completed 15 note cards, mostly about education and Law+Government. I did not get as much religion because, even though I was able to find a lot of information about religion, some of the information was unneeded, but some of the information allowed me to make more guiding questions for the research. These guiding questions were general and not narrowed. I think I should continue coming up with these type of guiding questions for the research, they allow me to get the information I need and give me a broad understanding of the aspect.

Reflection Entry #10 March 22 2009

Today I used a variety of books for the research. Most of them ended up with summarized note cards about law. I was able to find the main structure sof law and government in the Greek cities. It was monarchy and democracy. Though the majority used democracy. I also wrote what each consisted of. I was also able to get plenty of notecards for education. Even in education cities were different. Each city with different subjects and different way of teaching. It was good that they had a variety of each aspect, it allowed me to have more information on the aspect and by the end of today's lesson I have 13 notecards. Next lesson I'm going to work on religion and by the end of the week try to get to at least 20 notecards.

Reflection Entry #9 March 19 2009

Today , I went straight to the library, grabbed the book about ancient Greece and sat on a table. I was looking for important information about education. In fact, I found a lot of information about education in ancient Greece, since some cities had different forms of education. My research was delayed because some students on our table began to annoy us, so we had to move to another table. There I only worked on education and not the other two, and at th end I was able to complete 6 notecards. I rushed them, so I don't think I wrote it in enough detail. So next lesson I'm going to go over it and improve it.

Reflection Entry #8 March 17 2009

Today was out third day for research, we went straight to the library. This time I have brought several new guiding questions with me and then they really come in handy with the new book I research in. I get a lot more information for education than I expected. I have also gotten a good amount of information about religion, though I was not able to get as much information as for Law+Government. I also jolted down the rest of the four guiding questions onto the process journal and looked and thought hard for guiding questions for law and government, even the information about law+government was tough to understand. Next time I come I will try to search more and ask Mr. sparks about the points I'm unsure of!

Reflection Entry #6 March 15 2009

Today was our first day of research. We went to the library, I grabbed two books about Ancient Greece and started work. Right after we got notecards and process journals I began to search information for government and law since one of the books I chose had a lot of info about it. Summarizing was easy. As practiced in class I read a whole chunk of the info, closed the book and then wrote down what I learned after reading. I did a note card for each of the characteristics I chose. I also wrote the bibliography at the back in the same format as the teacher told us to. Today I used my time wisely and I think I don't have enough guiding questions ( 4, because there was no space to write the rest.), for the tremendous amount of information in the books so I have came up with 4 more questions which I'm going to write in the process journal tomorrow since I ran out of time. Other than that everything else is going well!

Reflection Entry #7 March 16 2009

Today was the second day of research. As I went to the library, I couldn't find the books I used yesterday since they had really important information about the three characteristics I chose. When I looked into the information about government+law in these books it said something completely different than the book I used yesterday. It said: In Athens there was a democracy which had an assembly anyone can attend, the poor or the rich. The book I chose yesterday said: In Athens the democarcy was made by a gang of wealthy people. I checked in one of the other books and it proved that anyone can be in the democracy as well as make decisions. I realized I had copied the info wrong, so I copied the correct words down. By the end of the lesson I had two notecards for each characteristic. I forgot to write down the other four guiding questions in process journal, I will hopefully do that tommorow. Right now the information I'm getting is really important so its becoming hard to choose the right amount of information on the notecards.

Reflection Entry #5 March/12/09

Today we went to multimedia lab 4 to make a wikispace and a new blog for the ancient civilization project. In the wikispace we had to create a link for our electronic process journal. After this we had to copy all the reflections we did in the red book onto our blog. I decided to take away some fillers ( unneeded info) away from my reflections, so after I completed copying my reflections, I decided to improve them. The improvements they needed were longer lengths and a better way of reflecting what we focused on during class. It would also be better if I give examples of what I did and learned. These changes need to be made to help achieve a higher grade for the project. After making these improvements, perhaps my reflections will be much better!

Reflection Entry #4 March/10/09

This was probably one of the most important lessons which will come in handy in this project. We learned to summarize texts and excerpts from websites and books into very simple, into very simple paragraphs and then into very brief bullet points for the presentation. I think I need improvement on making simple bulletpoints for the presentation, I will try to make them as simple as possible while simutaneously using the important information. I also need to change the way I'm writing, not to use the same order of the words but to move them around and use my own understanding of the subject after reading the original source. This will show that my work is not plagiarised, but shows information of my own understanding of the subject.

Reflection Entry #3 March/9/09

Today we got our process folders. We got six pocket folders which we stuck inside the folder. We had to write a title for each pocket ( Intro, characteristic #1, " " #2, " " #3 and conclusion.) We had to write our guiding questions on the folders labelled characteristics 1,2&3. Some of the guiding questions I wrote on the folders needed improvement, so after i completed writing the g. questions I improved my questions by making them better "how" and "why" questions. While we are doing the research about the project, I might be able to make better guiding questions.

Reflection Entry #2 March/8/09

Today we learned to write a bibliography using easybib.com We had to choose a source and then fill in information about the title of the book, the publication information and the date of publication. I think it is going to be a little challenging since I did not really understand properly, It would be better if I could just do research on the internet, but it is a must to do it in the books as well. After learning about making a bibliography on the internet, we got a chance to look at some of the books in the library about the ancient civilizations. I found the books about the ancient Greeks interesting, the ancient greek civilization also fits into the three characteristics I chose. Most books show clear and understandable information about the government and law of the ancient Greeks, their religion and their education. It is also going to be easy to do the research about the Greeks since I already did a previous project about them in 3rd grade!

Reflection Entry #1 March/5/09

Today I chose three aspects of civilizations to research: religion, government+law and education. I was able to come up with eight questions for religion, seven for governmnet+law and seven for education. I struggled hard to get hard to get guiding questions for government+law, I should've just copied some questions when we were brainstorming questions in class. I tried to interact each aspect with each other. E.g. for the religion I said: Did they use any means of art and architecture for the religious beliefs?, I also forgot to bring my homework diary, this is because i already don't use a homework diary since I can remember my homework. During our class discussions I tried my best to participate in getting good guiding questions.