Dylan finished his end of the year middle school project!!
So proud of him for his dedication, creativity and effort!!
His writing really improved! Way to go.
He is so imaginative and creative, I am excited to continue to see his writing grow and expand.
My brother and I sit down, me in my really hot closet (or storage room) with the fans that dont work super well, and my brother out in his usual living room spot and we both wait for the game to boot up. After the game has loaded my brother invites me to his group as well as my dad who is upstairs in his very well ventilated and cool office. I am jealous, of course. We join a short match called a swift play on the map pearl, which is an underwater map with a cool domed ceiling to keep the water out, and with smooth pearly white stone for walls and floor. My brother says his same sentence "Hello everybody, hope you had a nice day" in the chat. After a moment he gets a reply saying glhf (which means good luck, have fun) from a person whose username is "Oscar". We all select our characters, I chose a character named Omen who can drop shadow smokes on the map, teleport, and even blind people, my brother chose a character named Jett who is able to throw down small wind smokes, dash, and boost herself high into the air. My dad chooses to play a man named Gecko who can control little slime creatures that can make an area dangerous to touch and one can even stop one from using their hands. The game goes how you would expect, with us all having a fun time and goofing around. We bunny-hop around the map, sneak up on our enemy and do an embarassing melee kill as well as party at one side of the map by not killing each-other. Once the fifteen minute match is over, we all agree to start another one, and when we load in, my dad points out that we have two of the same people from the enemy team, on the enemy team again, the oscar guy, and another one who he is presumably playing with. We just assume that it is a coincidence. After winning the game, we decide to do our last one. so we start the match and pretty much the same thing happens, except for the fact that the same two people are on the other team. All five of us (the two of them on the other team, and my brother, dad and I) realize this and decide to friend them. After the round ends, we invite the two people that we have met into our party and they turn out to be some really nice teenagers, around the ages of 16 or 17. We have known them ever since, and it has been a full year at least.
I think that people that are communicating with other people who are toxic or mean, they will pick up their behavior, but you can meet cool people that are also into video games. People can get frustrated with the games if they are not doing very well, and so their anger can rub off onto your teammates, like the time when my brother was getting mad, so I muted his microphone, which made dad mad. Then both of the teams became mad and started throwing "comebacks" at each other. We should just accept it when you lose in a video game, because it doesn't really cost you anything. Winning also doesnt matter, because you don't get any reward other than a small dopamine hit.
jeff says that violent video games are good and Bob disagrees.
"Bob, just hear me out really quickly."
"ok, sure," replies Bob
" ok, my first point is that when you play these games you can meet realy nice people," begins jeff.
"yes yes, I know," says Bob rolling his eyes." and you can also meet super toxic people."
jeff replies "ok that is true, but let me talk about the good sides please"
"ok fine"
Jeff starts to rant again "violent video games can improve your reaction time, as well as your communication and teamwork skills. When you are playing in a team based shooter, someone needs to step up and call the shots."
"but if people are not wanting to listen or are in a bad mood, they won't listen and instead start to be mean to you," bob says
"Ok that is a good point"
"yes of course it is a good point! Violent video games are not good for you!"
"Yes they can be good for you, that is what I am trying to explain to you!" says jeff
"well I guess this is an eternal argument, until one side gets some proof," replies bob
"hmm I guess your right, let's not talk about this any more," jeff says
Dylan(14)
1 My views on writing have changed because this class helps me focus on the details, which made writing more fun.
2 Now that I have taken this course, I can tell my friends that writing can be fun with a good topic
3. when I read other peoples writing, I find myself thinking about how they explained their surroundings and how I can replicate their descriptions into my own writing.
4. I want to investigate further
5. I think about writing when I see a beautiful place and how I could describe it in words
6 I learned the most in this class when I did the believing and doubting game, because it helped my view both sides of a pretty significant argument.
7 It was hardest for me to learn in the Powerful association because I was stumped on ice cream and greed for the longest time.
8 Something else I would like to mention in this class is that I liked how you focused on writing and descriptions and not spelling, so we actually were doing more writing than spell checking
Teacher feedback (structure and style of the class) on his final writing:
Hi, Dylan! I'm going to offer you several suggestions for revision and leave some edits in what we call pinkle, and it's up to you to decide what direction to take with your revision.
I'm still wondering how you got the short end of this deal.
Ooh, I can almost see it, with all this vivid description!
What would you think about bumping up one really intense moment of the game to the opening sentence of your first paragraph, dropping your reader right into the action and loading up on vivid details like this, and then circling back to show us where you're sitting and the beginning of the game? It's up to you!
I'm going to let you take on the capitalization from here, okay?
Another option for revision and expansion would be to let your reader hear some of this goofing around, in dialogue!
I'm curious what this means! Does it mean they're playing from the same house?
You've brought me into this moment with you, and I can feel the camaraderie and warmth. I can tell that you all enjoy playing, that it makes you feel closer, and that it doesn't teach you violent or mean behaviors, for the most part. Bringing your reader into a scene can do more to convince them than almost any other writing move!
That's a good point, Dylan! Neither wins nor losses "matter" in this context, so you should just have fun and enjoy playing.
You can really "hear" dialogue and replicate it, Dylan! It sounds just like people actually talk in a conversation.
You're showing the trade-offs of this topic, here. You can learn negative behaviors, but you can just as easily learn positive ones.
Sometimes we just can't convince someone else to see eye to eye with us, can we?
You've shown the lesser-known side of this issue with great detail; I understand better than ever how video games can create and sustain friendships.
I encourage you to take a look at the Mechanics Mop-Up post and do a little cleaning up of capitalization and spelling, and other than that, it's up to you which of my revision suggestions you decide to take on! I'm excited to see what you choose to tweak.
Erin