31st of May,

I was finally able to complete my essay and everything worked according to plan although I struggled at the last minutes. On thursday i was making some changes or improvements to the essay and complete the bibliography. I wasn't able to complete the bibliography because for some reasons the books I used all disappeared. The changes I made gave me about 20 extra words. I also deleted any repeated sentences or any ones with the same idea. I tried to use the way of saying something and then give evidence or a proof. I tried to be specific and general at the same time to keep it not too simple or too complicated. I think my essay is brief and to the point,well that is atleast what the students commented about or agreed. I also had to organise the bibliography in alphabetical order. Some of the bibliography didn't provide a name of the author or any other information so I tried to be as clear as I can. I think that my plan was a big help for me to complete my essay and try to make it as good as I can. I most of the time worked without distraction which was good and productively and pre-plannned. But I still think that I could've done better on my essay by making the organisation better. Most of the essay depended on the planning and whether or not I followed the steps of the plan. I also learned that in plan you need a solution for any twists or turns you might face while planning which I think that is very important, it is manly meant to be a backup plan, then you also need to have a backup for the backup plan, just to make sure and If you think that I am being sarcastic, well I'm not, I am serious, because of a lot students not having a backup plan, a lot of them needed extra days, almost 90% of the class, including me, and we all learned that the hard way. I am looking forward to get my essay back becaus eI didn't do my best but, I did good, I mean I could've done better but just a little more on organisation bur overall, the whole class did well.

28th of May,

Today i got a little carried away and distracted 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. The main reason was some one asked me to read their essay and he/she was despert so I thought it was pity and I helped him/her. 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.I proofread my essay today, made changes and even asked some of the people in the class to read the essay breifly 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 tolde me that I had a very good structure and transition between characteristics however, there was a few grammer mistakes but, other than that, they all agreed that I have good organizition. 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 so incase I have wrong information, I can always have something to back me up and defend my self, beside I think that I learned another thing from the essay apart of the organizition which is the bibliography, it is very important so you show to your reader that: you worked hard, you did not plagerize and incase he wants to write something it will be much easier for him. Sunday will be the day which I will try my best to put everything in and make a good essay for a good grade. (F.Y.I the person who asked me is unknown and it is a secret so yes, it s a he/she)

26th of may,

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. My essay on thursday will be printed out as a draft so I can read it over, discard and improve information. This should take me about 15-20 minutes if I work diligently. Since I lost the bibloigraphy, I emailed my self the links and did the bibliogarphy at home. This way my work amount is reduced and I just need to worry about finishing my essay and improving the information that needs improvement. Sometimes my information are explaining too much about the topic and ignore the time concept which I think is the main point of the whole essay so I have to really get the hang of it. Then I can type the improvements and look for transitions about how Time refers to the information. To make it easier for me to look for transitions refering to time, I think that I should come up with a guiding question because this will allow 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. The time concopt is really easy to use and I don't have to research it as long as I remmber the information in my text, I just hope that I don't mess it up and then stay on editing which will make me behind and maybe decrease my mark so, I will print it out, make the changes and then open a new word so incase I don't finish at time, I still have the old version and If I did finish on time then I would type it in. I think my plan was very easy to follow and I'm not regreted becasue, I'm with the schdule we were timed to. Another thing I used in this project is the method of ignoring the idea of writing unnecesary information which is a waste of time and also too complicated to understand so I wrote a few bullet points with the right information,to make it easier for me to wrote it down. I put in the right information and made it very brief, yes I did have a little bit amount of cards but, it was expand able so I had a lot or fairly good amount of information to talk about. I had a brief plan which also helped me to finish my essay.

25th of may,

Today I finished the editing inside the computer however, Mr.Sparks sujusted If we print it out, it will be much better so I printed it out and did a second editing where I found about eight mistakes or so which I didn't see in the computer editing. I am in my final stages of handing in the essay, I will have one more editing, maybe two if necessary. 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 reviewed my essay and got new ideas of organizing it till the end of the lesson before the bell rings by two seconds I was about to say done. When we were getting close to the end I decided it would be good if I take out the uneeded words from my essay and, other adjectives. This helped me greatly to connect between the paragraphs. I think another reason of me catching up fast is that i had my information was summarized enough and I've put in the important information instead of every single piece of an article just to get a lot of notecards and show off ( yes it is true, I know some people who did it). This let me aviod a lot of troubles plenty of times because . So the strategy I used today was: reading others essay which I really couldn't do it and I will try to do it next lesson. What I realized as we are moving toward the end of the project is that I correct with choosing my strategy which made me organised. For instance my plan: It was to write the first paragraph of each characteristic and edit carefully so it can be easily connected to the second ones and then, after finishing one characteristic I edit it and make a bridge connection between the two characteristics. Also I was always carefu when typing my essay, and I went over my note cards to decide on what I need and what I don't need. I think I've done good which will hep me endure better or deveope in the future becaus ea what I'm doing now is an experience and it is all important in order for me to be succeful.

24th of May,

Today I spent 20 minutes to complete my essay After that I worked on my editing and made sure that my bibliography is in the alphabetical order. I think if I ask Mr. Sparks for to read my essay maybe I'll be able to make additions and improvemnets in it. I really need concetrate carefully so I don't miss any words or misspell them. I think I should take some time off from typing editing and select a format or a structure I want to have in the essay. This is because I'm getting really confused with the information i had put in the essay and I'm sure that at this rate I'll have a hard time organizing it. Also it cuts down the amount of information I have to write. The other option I have is: Instead of reading my own essay, I should read others to get a better idea of how they are doing it. This way I can minimize the amount of time I will use so this strategy could be used for shortening the wasted time. Also doing this allows me to write only the important bits and not too much information which can get me to finish up everything in the amount of time. I also have to do something about my bibliography. Some of the links are missing for some reason, maybe they fell accidentaly when some one was carrying them. 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 good in the project is that: I summarized the text briefly during the research and, made it able to be expanded and read the article so actually, each note card wrote about 50 words because as I said previuosly, I used the strategy of reading one page and then summerize it so, in that way I'm not plagerising and I'm not over the word limit like a lot of other people who are having troubles right now and they can't avoid it because they summerizing was either too complicated or have a lot of uneeded information beside, researching isn't about writting down everything, it is writting down about the subjects that you are doing which yet a lot of people don't understand it. I also heard that we hae to do a presentation which is secaring me because I don't really know how to do it.

21st May,

I finally finished my essay as my goal was to. I have roughly 1385 words and so does most of the class. Today once I finished, I realized that my essay was reallywell done. My paragraphs were fairly organized. The time periods in which every event happened in the paragraph were in the right order as I also doubled check as a backup. For example Hammurabi code was before Shulgi which is the other way and it was the only one I messed up with. I also accidentaly mixed up the information of sumerian with that abylon. I changed some phrases, made them longer, shorter or more specific. 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. Pausing every paragraph or two and going back to the text kept me behind at the begining, people had 100 word and I had 500 but, now people are stuck at the word count 1300 and they are trying to rephrase and improve whereas me, I am almost 1400 and I will probably finish checking my essay by monday If we have any more time. I also have to stay aware and not jumble up any information as I did today in changing the orders of the text. I also stayed aware of the idea of writting a sentence andthen giving a proof example: Religion was important, it was used in everything, because the civilization believed that the god won't bless them without their permission. So as you can see I gave a statnment and then proved it.

19th of may,

The strategy I planned earlier, to type up every characteristic, ignoring the word limit and then improving and discarding info , seems to work. I think that I'm on track but, I will try to get earlier so I may have a chance of finishing the essay and early and go through it again, I also have to type everything down without getting distracted. The last current thing I am worried about is that I may not be able to follow my plan If I run out of time which I shouldn't because so far, I'm on track and I'm not fallen behind a lot. This will get me to catch up to the class fairly quickly and maybe be ahead of them too. 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 won't take too long, 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 which I am trying to avoid really bad. So far I finished two characteristics and I think that my word count will never reach the 1500. I will try my best and as I said, I may have a lot of time like a week or more or, I may have two to one more day, which is very short.

18th of may,

Today I have 999 word essay which was in the progress of completion along with my plan. I also have a backup plan printed out already, i don't have to worry about losing the plan. To not lose the thoughts, today I went over my note cards to try to remember what I wrote in the 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 after each characteristic. This strategy should be effective because it's straight forward and I don't have to take a lot of 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. I also should work on my reflections and I hope I get a good mark because I will be needing a level 6 in humanities so I guess I have a lot of work to do. I also should search the order of the civilizations in Anceint Mesopotamia and so far I found nothing, I'll try harder next time

7th of may,

My plan which is for the paragraph structure which helps me to concentrate on the main points of each characteristic and guiding question. Since I got distracted a little, i fell behind the class in typing the essay. Most people have about 900 words now and i have only 500 which isn't too bad after all. Next lesson I should really work hard and type without getting distracted and really fast. The strategy I used is to write one characteristic and try to keep it under the word count of 400 and organize it briefly and I also used guiding questions like how did such as characteristic infleunce this characteristic to connect between the other one's which is working well. What I fear is that not all the information that is needed to fit in (the criteria rubric) will be able to fit in my essay. I think if I go over my notecards and try to rephrase it, it might make it into the requirements. I'm glad that the information I'm putting in th essay are the complete answers to my major guiding questions.

5th of may,

Today I was able to complete my plan so this might not let me fall behind as we are supposed to start the essay today. I'll have to start typing my essay with speed first so I can review what I wrote and go through since I don't now what is oing to happen and when is the essay due. 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 four days of typing.

4th of May,

Today I finalised my introduction conclusion howver, I didn't manage to do a lot of on the main structure because I wasted about ten minutes opening the computer which was weird since it didn't do that last time but, anyway I am still on track with my schedule, amybe a little bit off it but, not too far. i worked very well and in a polite manner and I tried to include every detial in my plan and beside Mr.Sparks said we should be really finished by tomorrow or the day after and I will be.In the lesson I focused on religion and government and laws, i wrote every singal detial that I though it was important such as why was religion so important or why did overnment and laws was puttin by the ruler only and, at the end when I am ready to move on to the next characteristic I say, how did religion infleunce, interfare with government and laws so I can talk about it and it is the best provided way of connecting two characteristcs and it also keep the structure of the essay with no need of writting long sentences or jumping from a paragraph to another which corrupts the structure.I think that could've improved my speed a little bit but so far I am doing good, not fantastic but, good and, all is missing is writting the essay.

3rd of May,

Today we started the real working which is the essay but, before we write Mr.Sparks handed out sheets telling us the criteria and how to make a good essay however, i didn't start writting because I thought of doing a plan which will organize my work and i don't have to keep on changing my work because, I forgot what to write or lost tracking. I first wrote a plan giving a specific detials about what should be included and why,how and so on. I finished the plan for inteoduction and coclusion and i asked Mr.Sparks about any extra detials I might need to include. I worked very hard and continusely although, you might think that plan would take five minutes while it actually it doesn't it seems harder than you imagine but, after all, it worth's the time. My order will be in the following, first I will write an introduction and conclusion which will take me about one lesson and it did, second I will be writting about the main structure or body of the essay giving what and how the information should be ordered at last, I will be writting in specific detials what I should include in my essay and order the cards and, then ofcourse i will start the essay and it should take me about two more days or so. I tried calculating or geussing how many days I will need and i will be probably finished in two weeks or less.

30th of April,

Today was the last day at research, I managed to do two cards with my new technique but, it is still not satisfying as i want it to be and, I still think that I didn'r do much but, I worked hard, tried my best, done everything I was supposed to do and, best of all, my information are excellent and there are reference pages and I didn't plagerise what so ever because concluding a whole pae or two to a small card sure is obvious that it's not a plaerise. I worked quitely although I need more time to get better information, i think I will be able to fit all my information in the essay easily, neatly and in organized way so it can be easily understood. All I'm worried about is the conclusion and introduction and since we are running out of time, I guess that I have to do it fast and I'm not quite sure If Mr.Sparks is going to give us a long time of writting espeacially when school without walls is comming and so the end of year exams. So as a overall, my attitude was stricted, not too strictted, I goofed off a little bit but, I still worked continuesly and hard to finish my work and with the best quality i can come up with.

28th of April,

Today I tried my plan, it didn't really work as i expected, I only made one card which is fine but, it still didn't work so, this time i will be using the questions i wrote on my characterstics, although i used it in britanica online and other sites but now we are open search so I will give it another shot and, maybe with some hope I can finally reach the number of fifty. After this week, we will start writting our eassay about the ancient civilization and because I don't have a lot of information, it can be easily written and structured together, the only thing I'm afraid of is having little amount of information and, I think that the minimum is two pages but, as i said my notes can be easily expanded and connected to each other which will I think give a good well written and neat eassy. The lesson was very good although, i didn't get what I exoected, I still think that I didn't go out of the room empty handed because, after all it was an experince that I might or will use in next year or assignment what so ever which I think and probably is the aim or point of this whole assignment and even If I didn't do well, in next year I'm possitive that I will do better because all what I'm doing is an experience

27th of April,

we finaly were allowed to use google and other sites, i did raelly well, i wrote two cards which is an improvement for the number of cards i did in searching with specific sites. Unfortunetly we are going to write our eassy after this week which is a stupid thing because i did not have the chance to search a lot, well i did, it is just that i can't find anything so, I have a plan because, general searching is an absolute failure, I will try to be more specific like searching in titles like: "who wrote the laws in sumerian times" or " how did Ziggurats infleunce art and artitecture" in a hope of getting quicker and better results because I'm short of time and so far i have thirty cards which is, well okey as i guess but some people they reached hundered and above, I am also writting in a small hand writting but, still I'm not satisfied with my results and I will try ti fix it but, I don't think that I will catxh up so it's like doing nothing. I am satisfied with my results, they are open information and easy to write means, the subject can be easy to go and expand it, i concluded atleast one page in one card which is good and it is a proof that i didn't plagerise. I worked hard and I worked quitely sensebily and I payed attention for every instruction.

26th of April,



I am very bored of the sites, i can't find anything, it is very useless and pointless to search on a certain site. I am really looking forward to use the free searching which I think will be easier and harder at the same time. The peoblem with my searching is the histoty is mentioning the people who discovered and revealed the artifacts which I really don't need or appriciate that much because, this is not what I am looking for.

23rd of April,

I have nothing to say today or discuss but, I think that we should really move to the googling stage, that's every one, well almost everyone's opinion, I know I am and my friends, the only thing I'm afraid of is the idea of collecting an inncorrect information which is every one's purpose to avoid and, I think it will be explained at the class how to avoid it and if it doesn'r, I will make sure on that by my self.

22nd of April,

Silence was the kingg of the day, for some reasons the lesson was very quite which didn't distract me howver, today I had no cards and, I'm sick and tierd of this, right now I should have atleast thirty to fourty cards although I have a small hand writting but, still I think that I should've done better and what could improve me is maybe if a find a specific search not general one, in that way, i might manage to find some famous people and their invention.

21st of April,

As soon as I finished the site, I went back to the Birtanica sitesbut, suddenly I remmebered that there was four sites and I only went back to the other sites. Today I was very noisey well, I only said " it depends on how you define fun" to AlJawhara when sehe said detention is fun then, Mr.Sparks said that I can come to define it by my self. This day I produced two cards one of them was the steps and omens of bad and good luck and the other explaining how art and artitecture infleunced religoin.

20th of April,

Today I almost finished the site, the searching is really hard, in this rate i'll never finish unlike books, I used to proudce atleast two cards a day. I'm really looking forward to use google, it will be faster and much easier although, it will be harder to recoganize between fake sites and real ones and perobably Mr.Sparks will rip our heads off and feed it to the fish If we take a wrong information.

19th of April Sunday,

Today, we were supposed to move to the next step in our search which is using lessons other than www resources anyway, for some reasons, Mrs.Flatechur (is that how it's spelled ?) didn't show. The new sites are better they are much more useful, I produced one card, I know it's not much but still, it's better than nothing. I think that I'm still behind, I only have more than twenty cards whereas some other people have sixty which is a lot

16th of April

The search is still going on and, finally after reading five pages in a row, i wrote about almost one card which is pathetic, the sites are useless, they are not straight to the point and they only mention how the archeoligists managed to find these ancient whatever artifatcs. I really books and I rather them over internet because, the search is limited and we can only use two sites therefore I'm not satisfied and it's not me only, a lot of people are having the same troubles like me. We are getting a really hard time searching.

14th of April


Today was our first day at the multimedia lab, it wasn't that exciting as i expected, infact it was very boring and we were only allowed to use two resources of the internet. The search was horribile and a failure one, the articles only talked about how archeologists found the ancient civilization or any of the treasures or whatever. In my opinion, books were much, much, much better.

13th of April

Today is the last day at library, I only wrote one card and so far i got 30 cards or so which is i guess it's good. I think searching in books was very succeful although my characterstics were a bit hard for some reasons but, I managed to handle it. I'm really excited for the multimedia lab computers and start googling or Encyclopidia searches.

12th of April

The vacation is over and so the time at the library as every thought but, strangely it wasn't, Mr.Sparks gave us two extra days in the library to search espeacially for the people who are fallen behind. I personally wrote about two cards that day, it's not much but that's all i found. Tomorrow will be the last day at the library and as i said om looking forward to work at the multimedia labs.

2nd April

The holiday starts from today, i think that i've done good and i find it easy to search in books, well mainly easy but still, it was better than what I expected to get. I'm looking forward to use computers but, I'm afraid since a lot of the sites are not real, in another words "fake" so, I think I will have a bit of a hard time searching.

30th of march


This day, i was working really hard, then at the end of the lesson when the electricity gone off, the devil whispered to me to talk with my friends, so i was opening my hands wide, and Mr.Sparks said if i was acting like and airplane, and i stupidly replied yes, os he said if i don't stope, he'll throw me out of the window whuch every one laughed about, i thought it was funny too. I wrote about four to five cards and it was an exciting lesson which i did a job well done in, i think.

29th of maech 2009

This day was my first day after coming from Suadia Arabia, and as usual i went to the library and took the organizer and write in the little cards. I worked really hard, although i wrote only two cards, but i found more information for tomorrow. I worked quitely with my friends although the other table was annoying with it's talking people, they never stope. i would say that nothing speacial happened and i should've wrote more cards.

15th of march 2009


This lesson we didnt do much, we only read the books and summerized it in little cards, its like taking notes. the lesson was quite and not alot of action really happened, although MR.Sparks sperated the groupe because we were talking i guss, and i think that Alia tolde him, which i really disapprove because i only asked them about my pencil case which i left in music class, but otherwise i did a fairly good reading and i wrote two notes down.

12th of March 2009


this lesson we were tuaght how to make a new section in our blogger, it was really simple and short lesson, the teacher showed us also how to hyperlink the blogger link. the lesson was good, i finished everything, were behaving really good. Although the teacher tolde us to switch off the screens, but it was only to keep us focused, i think it was a satisfying lesson.

10th of March 2009


MR.Sparks was back, but ofcourse we didn't party, we only did our usual work. The lesson was about how to summerize a piece of writting and changing it into our own words, with a safe way were we don't plagerize others work. There was a teacher who tuaght us how to use hyperlink and hyperlinking our bloggers and making a ew blog at the same account. Every one behaved, we used our time wisely and we all finished our work, i think it was another good lesson

8th March 2009

Today we went to the library and took a lesson on how to search and look in books, the librarian showed us all the details and information we would use in our search. I chose Mesopotamia which i came from, it is a big civilization, and a big job. I think that lesson was very good, when the teacher was explaining i was listening really well and carefully, and i think i learned a new thing or two from that lesson.

Reflection for humanities

5th of march 2009


First we started voting for three characteristic, then after that MR.Sparks started checking our homework, all the class did it including me but three people. After checking our homework MR.Sparks made a deal with those three people, he said if they came up with one good guiding question, they may sit. I think that lesson was good, i came up about six or actually four guiding questions, I'm not so sure, but I'm sure that i was in good attitude, used my time wisely and did all my work in class that i was supposed to.

On Thursday Mr.Sparks was absent for some reasons, so a substitute or his helper did his job, the substitute gave us a paper to write in eight questions for three characteristics. We were able to choose two of the characteristics we already did and one on our own, i chose government and laws, art and architectures and religion. The lesson was very good and i worked quietly and constantly and in general the class behaved.