j00kiE’s Blog

My school has its own Expected Schoolwide Learning Results. (ESLR) These ESLR’s help students achieve their desired goals. These are the five ESLR’s: Academic Achiever, Critical Thinker, Involved Citizen, Effective Communicator, and Self-Directed Learner. In this journal, I will talk about how I used these ESLR’s to participate in discussions, reading the novel and to prepare for my project. Although you might be clueless about the ESLRs at first, after you have finished reading my journal, you will get a clearer picture of it. You will also realize that these ESLRs are extremely important throughout life.

The first ESLR is an Academic Achiever. An Academic Achiever must be able to access information from a variety of sources. We must have the skills to find out information from the library or the internet while preparing for projects. I am keener to finding out information on the Internet, because it’s faster and more efficient than searching through a large library. This ESLR was incredibly important in completing the reading of my novel. I had to re-read some parts of the novel, which I did not understand, so that I can participate well in the discussions on the following day. While being an Academic Achiever might be important, it would be useless without the supporting ESLR of a Self Directed Learner; nevertheless, you would need both to succeed. Because you will need to have responsibility and willpower to make changes and to look back and actually read the chapters. If I could have changed anything about my project, I should have used the Bloom’s Taxonomy sheet, which is a guideline for our journal to check whether I have used all the six points in my project, to check whether I have left some of the important skills out. I believe that this ESLR was best used for completing my project because I would need to access information from the Internet and the library, without the skills of an Academic Achiever I will not perform well in this task. Overall I think that I have performed this ESLR fairly well because I did reread some parts of the novel to ensure that I understand every detail.

Another important ESLR is to be a Self-Directed Learner.  A Self- Directed Learner is someone who accepts responsibility for their own learning. They are mostly very organized. Self- Directed Learners are the ones who are very independent and are able to survive on their own and still perform very well. This magnificent ESLR is also found in my project. Since I chose to do a seven-day journal, I set a goal of doing two journal entries a day so that my workload is spread to get the project finished. This ESLR cannot work without the supporting ESLR of being an Academic Achiever. Even if you are exceptionally self- directed, you would still need the skills of an Academic Achiever to become successful. This ESLR a Self Directed Learner alone is almost meaningless. I would definitely require improving in this ESLR, because generally I leave work on the day before class, forcing me to rush through, and also causing me to forget information. If I was more of a Self- Directed Learner I would apparently do better overall in class. I think that being a Self- Directed Learner is important throughout your whole life, because the decision of how and when to complete the project is of my own choice. I suppose I have performed this ESLR well because I try to be independent and solve problems on my own. I would rather figure out solutions on my own rather than asking a teacher. This ESLR was the best in finishing the novel because we mostly read our novels at home, which allows us to use the skills of a Self- Directed Learner.

The next ESLR is an Effective Communicator. An Effective Communicator is basically someone who is able to work well within a group, they are able to contribute ideas to the team and also listen to his or her teammate’s suggestion. I used this ESLR mostly in group discussions, because I contributed my thoughts and ideas, and I also listened carefully to my fellow classmates. It’s important to have an equal balance. This ESLR is especially similar to being an Involved Citizen, because even though you are tremendously excellent in communicating your ideas, but you are not being an Involved Citizen and listening to your fellow teammate’s suggestions and building on their ideas, you will not be able to work well as a team. If I could have changed anything, I should have been more of an Effective Communicator and ask questions when I was not sure. Sometimes I was afraid of asking simple questions because I might get laughed at. I believed that I have performed this ESLR fairly well, but I still have room for improvement. This ESLR is definitely most prominent to use during class discussions; with this ESLR you are able to express your thoughts and ideas to the class, which would be the building blocks of a successful discussion.

Next we have Involved Citizen. An Involved Citizen is someone who seeks to improve the lives of others in their community; they demonstrate care and compassion towards their environment. They are also very respectful people, despite of our different race or culture. If you seek to help others, others will also seek to help you. This follows by this popular quote “..…. you reap what you sow”. I used this ESLR in the overall English class, because sometime during this year, I would need some help from my fellow classmates. If I was not an Involved Citizen, they probably would not help me. This ESLR works well with being an Effective Communicator, if you seek to improve the lives of others, you would also need to learn how to communicate with them. Next time I should improve the lives of others, not only my friends. Normally I tend to improve the lives of only the people I know and the ones which I have a strong relationship with. I should try to become an Involved Citizen to others too. I did not perform this ESLR well because I have a tendency to care more about myself rather than my friends and peers.

Last but not least is to be a Critical Thinker. A Critical thinker uses resources effectively, they are tremendously good in problem solving and coming up with successful strategies Being a Critical Thinker helps us think out of the box, It helps open my mind to new ideas.  This ESLR helped me when I was planning my project. I had to think critically to find out which project best suits my gifts and talents. This ESLR is similar to being an Academic Achiever because to be able to become an Academic Achiever, you would need to learn how to think critically. When a problem arises in the future, I should use my knowledge to think decisively, because normally I would take the straightforward approach to solving it, instead of using different strategies and approaches. This would help me gather enhanced solutions. I would also need to have the perseverance and determination to aid me in this process. This ESLR is best used during my project because if a crisis were to appear in the middle of my project, I would need to think critically and try to find ways and solution to solve this crisis so that I can finish your project in a timely way.

At first, these ESLRs seem like the most possible boring subject that you will ever write. But after deep analyzing, I realize that they are exceptionally important. Without these ESLRs, it would be almost impossible to get through this process. I wonder how life would be without them.

6 Traits: 

Ideas and Content: I have performed this six trait basically by narrowing down my topic. I have taken the enormously large topic of the ESLRs and narrowed it down to how I used them in participating in discussions, reading the novel and preparing for my project.

Organization: I have successfully arranged my journal into 7 paragraphs, one paragraph for each ESLR and an introduction and a conclusion.

Voice: I have performed this ESLR by showing interest in my topic. I have used various expressions and terms to show how I liked the topic.

Word Choice: I have enlightened my word choice by taking out most of the boring and clichéd words and replaced them with accurate and exhilarating words. Here are some words that I have changed:

Very to incredibly

Most to mainly

Very to exceptionally

Need to require

Normally to generally

Most probably to apparently

Better to enhanced

The best to most prominent

Extremely to tremendously

Help to aid

Sentence Fluency: I have changed almost half of my sentences because most of them were IDs. I have added some spices to my journal by having a combination of ID’s and Ds.

Conventions: I performed this trait by correcting my grammar, spelling and punctuation errors. I have revised my journal a few times to correct these errors.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 15th, 2006 at 8:36 am and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.