Parent Response/ Portfolio Reflection

My portfolio is all about "Santa's Things To Do." Each trait relates to what I think Santa does during the Christmas season. I feel that I picked the right examples to each trait well because of what I thought matched.

1. What I liked best about Samara's portfolio was how she gave good examples for each of her traits. I understood why she chose those examples for the traits. What I would like to see her improve on in her portfolio, other then a better layout, is to give more reason and better description on her examples. I feel that she could do a better job on make her portfolio and giving more description for her examples.

2. From my point of view, the trait that Samara attainments is "voice." I can hear what she is saying. She speaks out what she is thinking, but the promblem she has with writing out her voice is putting it together on paper. She is always repeating herself, but overall, her "voice" is her strongest trait.

3. The trait I would like for Samara to focus on mainly is her word choice. I believe that Samara needs to chose better words when writing her paper. She doesn't quit explain herself. Also, she has a tendency of writing like an 8th grader. I think if she is able to get better at these traits, she will become a better writer.

Angry Letter

Dear Department of Education,

I am a sophomore at Moanalua High School. I have been living in Oahu, Hawai'i for 15 years, my whole life, and what I would like to say is that i love it here! There is nothing that would make me change my mind. Although to my understanding, the school year has become longer by cutting down the breaks that we have between each quarter and semester. And now, with furlough Fridays, the school year has become shorter again.

After doing some research, I came across that Hawai'i is ranked 46th in the nation in academics. To me, that is a horrible thing. I would like for Hawai'i to at least be ranked in the top 20, but that will not happen if students are not able to enhance all the materials that teachers are giving us. I my self, is having a hard time with my education. Before I was at least getting a GPA of 3.0 or higher, but yet this school year I haven't been able to get to a 3.0. This year as become harder for me, not just because of all the sports I play, but also how furloughs have taken an effect on school days.

With shorter school weeks, I realized that I have to have a better time managing schedule. This past quarter, my school only had four days of school for the whole quarter. This made it harder this quarter to maintain my grades. I feel that everything is being rushed and that I need to catch up with everything. This may help me in the future when entering into the real world, where everything is all business, but for now, I am asking that if furlough Fridays could be ended so that Hawai'i's students are able to understand what they are learning. Also, maybe Hawai'i would be able to rank higher in academics.

Sincerely,

Samara Hoe

Journal#18 (Angry Letter)

For my angry letter I planning on talking about how Obama agrees to abortion and is letting it pass where women can have abortions. I think its not fair for the baby being born. Yes the baby isn't born, a baby has life the minute the sperm and egg come together. As a Christian, I believe that it isn't right for women to have abortions. It is a life that they are killing.

But yet, I'm not sure if this could be a good topic to do any agree letter on.