Tag Archives: books

My TED-like Talk

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At the end of the school year in Language Arts, we had to create our own TED talk. We chose our own topic, made our own slides, and wrote what we were going to say. At first I was a little freaked out. I mean, that’s a lot of stuff to do. And it’s at the end of the school year! But once I picked my topic – 6 Good Books to Read in 6th Grade – it got a bit easier. I compiled a list of random books that I read and have liked, and put them together on slides. It was hard finding copyright free book cover images, but I managed.

Our teacher gave us a list of tips from someone that had done TED talks before, and those tricks came in handy. Some examples of the tips were stuff like, “If you have more than one image on the screen the background should be black” and “Think simplicity and contrast.” There were a lot more helpful tips that I tried to use. Once I had put together the slides, the real challenge came-what I would say. The hard part wasn’t what to say, it was how long it took. I had my talk memorized without ever writing it down, but the problem was that it was way too long. We had 5 minutes to give our TED Talk, and my talk… was 9 ½ minutes. My friend helped me write it down so that I could see what to cut. She said, and I quote: “write the summary of the summary”. And you know what? It worked!

This whole process took a while, especially with the fact that I procrastinated in the beginning. Because of that, I was the 2nd-to-last person in the class to go. When I got up to present, I was pretty nervous. What if I blank? What if no one laughs at my jokes? What if I take too long? What if? What if? But once I got up there and started speaking, I did it! I knew what I was going to say and it felt pretty good. And let me tell you something. It feels GOOD to be done with that. When you start it’s annoying and looms over you, then as you get closer to a deadline you start to panic and work on it nonstop. Then you are done! I would highly recommend trying this, even if it’s just with friends and family.

The Last Cuentista and My Ideal World Process.

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This year, in Language Arts class at the beginning of the year, we read a book called The Last Cuentista. The main message of the book is that stories matter. If we don’t have mistakes to learn from, we’re just going to make them again. If we erase our history, what makes humans human, is the stories. Whether it’s a simple story about your parents as kids, or a life changing event, or even a kids fairy tale, those stories or what they are based on can change people’s lives.

 

After reading The Last Cuentista we had to write about our own “ideal world”. When I started to write mine I was writing about an ideal world, but as I continued to write, I got lost in the story, and started it to make it a real place, and not just some story, not just something ideal, but real. I thought it was really interesting how some people reacted to this challenge. Some sent their planet into the past, some into the future, and some just started from scratch. Everybody has a different version of “ideal” but so many people had the same basic things in common. You can see my ideal world story in a previous post.

After we wrote our ideal world stories, we started to turn them into books. We did this with the help of local artist Peg Gignoux. First we used a special ink and some leaves to print cool designs and colors onto pages. Then we took a huge piece of paper and folded it up into a book with a pop-out section. Then we took the leaf prints and cut them up and pasted them in the pop-up section. We used more leaf prints to do the outside of the pop-out in a scene, from our ideal world. Then we cut out part of the book so that we could see the inside scene of the pop-up. Even after all of that, we still had more to do.  We glued on painted cardboard sheets as covers, and then printed out our story and put it inside. It was really fun! 

In the end, I thought it was a really cool, fun, and enjoyable project. The Last Cuentista was a great book that actually makes you think about what makes humans human, and why stories aren’t just for bedtime.  It was also really enjoyable to do art in Language Arts. I also enjoyed how we used nature for the prints to help us create something totally different. All in all, it was an awesome experience.

Window and Mirror Books

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A book that I read recently that I enjoyed was the book Vanishing Act, by Laura Martin. It was the sequel to a very good book known as Float. Vanishing Act was a reread, but it was even better the second time around. I think this book is a bit of both for me, a window and a mirror. A window book is a window into something that’s unfamiliar. A mirror is a book that’s like your life already. Like the protagonist in the story, Hank, I enjoy being “seen”. But unlike Hank, I don’t need to be seen all the time. I think that this book is more of a mirror though in some obvious ways. For one, I’m not a boy. Two, I don’t have a RISK factor, which is a huge part of the story. A RISK factor is like an uncontrollable, often potentially dangerous superpower. I often choose window books rather than mirror  books because I like going into new worlds, but I also often choose mirrors.