In this assignment, our group (Helen W, Joie, and me) was supposed to be able to "Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says," "Explain how an author develops the point of veiw," and "Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings..." Well, that was what the standards said we should be able to do. Some other main things that we did in the project that were requested by Ms. Aubrey were to express creativity and originality. The main project itself, as described in the title of this block, it to compare Dragonwings, the novel by Laurence Yep, to the ongoing Syrian civil war and refugee crisis. For example, one of the topics in this project was immigrants versus refugees. The assignment shows my abilities to learn because although the project wasn't too interesting, I did learn a few facts along the way. Nothing particularly surprised me, and I would think that all the information that was put into a fun and creative way could really have been done in probably a few hours just taking notes and Googling stuff. The assignment shows my growth as a person/learner because I didn't complain NEARLY as much as I used to. Instead I have redirected efforts to complaining about the flaws of the education system as a whole, instead of a single aspect. Bam. It also shows my patience for it, and the amount of work I put into it is greater than usual, probably because we had to do stuff, but the amount I put in is still less than the other things I do, like FUN stuff. I have decided to include this peice because I have spent a lot of work on this with my group, and also partially because the teacher said by the end of the year we had to have one assignment in each category, and there wasn't much else to put in.