For this activity, the eleventh grade was divided into groups, and each group was assigned a continent. Based on the continent, the team had to choose royal families, and create a wedding environment using different text types.

Date: 10 January 2019

My participation description: I was assigned to create two text types. A blog post, and an article about the royal weddings that we showcased (the weddings of  Jordanian prince Rashid bin El Hassan, and the princess Zeina Shaban, and Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and Sheikh Suhail bin Ahmed bin Juma Al Maktoum from Dubai). Additionally, I had to present my text types to our audience.

Learning outcomes that I achieved:

LO1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth (as I understood how I could not only finish my own task, but as well as help other members of my team to complete their tasks).

LO2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process (since I don’t have a regular practice in presenting my works to an audience, I was challenged in my task’s presentation due to my latent presentation skills).

LO3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience (in the beginning of the activity, me, and my team members were not ready with our research, and activities that we would be performing on the day of the event. Therefore, we had to frame a plan which consisted of the roles of each team member, submission dates, and resource requirements).

LO4, and LO7: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences (it was apparent for all the participants that commitment was eventually an option for them for the participation in Whakanui. As many participants, including me, considered to be ethical in completing tasks with the other difficulties (such as loads from academics), we ultimately showcased our commitment, and perseverance for Whakanui).

LO5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively (to be outstanding in Whakanui, completion of work was required. The completion of work was achieved by team collaboration as we helped each other with the making of the text types, and other items).

The identification of my strength, and weaknesses took place in Whakanui. I surprisingly found out that I can manage to not only complete my task, but also help others in their tasks’ completions. This was astonishing because I always underestimated the fact that with dedication, and taking interests, multitasking can be done easily (as you take an interest in different tasks). This underestimation of mine can be considered as a weakness as it can lower down my enthusiasm for working in general, and makes me pessimistic. As I know how the aforementioned practice can negatively affect my performances, I feel very energetic because now I know one of my weakness, as well as the fact that I am going to overcome as it is important to make me feel better about myself. In order to internally grow as a person, I need to know about my strength (so that I can use it to become successful), and weaknesses (so that I can make improvements to become a better person). Overcoming underestimation is an act that I would like to practice, so that I do not miss any opportunity because of my close mindedness that makes me believe that I am not fit for that particular task.

Overcoming the aforementioned issue was challenging as I had never tried to improve myself regarding it, and I had to instantly change my mindset for Whakanui, in order to achieve success. I have not been involved in activities like Whakanui which made me do multitasking (which also helped me to quickly plan, and initiate the event). I feel very fortunate that I undertook this challenge because I learnt to overcome it through participating in Whakanui. It is important to undertake new challenges because it immediately showcases your strength, and weaknesses to you. Ultimately, it is an opportunity for me to identify my strength, and weaknesses.

I organised myself by listing down the requirements my tasks in a document, and following each requirement at a time to complete it. All of my works were saved in a common group folder where all of my team members were able to view it. The aforementioned manner of organisation was easy for me because I am usually an organised individual. Planning, and initiating our activities was tedious as a huge amount of research on the royal weddings took place. Planning, and initiating an event in the future will be easier than Whakanui as now I have an experience in planning, and initiating an event, the proper manner of Planning, and initiating an event, and I know my weaknesses which I can overcome to make the aforementioned act easy.

The commitment, and perseverance for Whakanui was ethically necessary for event to be successful. If the participants were not committed to the event, there would have been incompletion of tasks which would have resulted into failure of the event. The commitment of completing the text types, helping other team members, and being present on the day of the event was necessary for the completion of different works, and eventually success. It is easy for me to commit to activities, and be persistent because I have a bad habit of predicting the results of the activities, and achieving an excellent result is a must for me which makes me persistent.

Working with other is usually difficult for me as I make an attempt to collaboratively work with people that I may not know. During this activity, I was working with people that knew me, therefore it was not difficult for me form a communication with them. It is important to work collaboratively with others because in future, you might find yourself working in a team at your job, and to be successful, you need to have a professional communication with your colleagues. For Whakanui, if the team members did not have a proper communication between them, and a proper guide, than the team would have faced an evident failure.

Learner profile:

1. COMMUNICATORS: AS I COMMUNICATE WITH MY TEAM MEMBERS FOR INFORMATION TO COMMUNICATE THAT INFORMATION TO THE TARGET AUDIENCE.

2. THINKERS: AS I THINK OF DIFFERENT MANNERS TO CREATE AN TEXT TYPE WITH ORIGINALITY IN WRITING, AND DECORATING.

This CAS experience was directly connected to the English subject as it was an opportunity to explore the IB English learning outcomes.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:
DEMONSTRATE AN AWARENESS OF HOW LANGUAGE, AND MEANING ARE SHAPED BY CULTURE, AND CONTEXT: PROFESSIONAL LANGUAGE IS USED TO CLEARLY DESCRIBE THE CONTENT WITH VERY LESS OR NO BIAS. THE STYLE OF WRITING MAKES AN IDENTITY FOR THE BLOG. OVERALL, THE WRITING STYLE IS A HASH OF FORMAL, AND INFORMAL WRITING DUE TO A POSSIBILITY OF THE TARGET AUDIENCE BEING A MIX OF YOUNG ADULTS, AS WELL AS OLD PEOPLE BECAUSE MANY CULTURES WITH A TEMPORAL CONTEXT OF THE CONTEMPORARY TIMES INCLUDE PEOPLE WITH AN INTEREST OF READING BLOGS ABOUT ROYAL WEDDINGS.

For our team, success was showcased when our team was voted to be the third best team of the event. It made me feel hungry for the first place! But along with that, I also felt satisfactory with my accomplishment (to multitask). My final takeaway is that an individual is potentially capable to do a lot of activities, and if they think it is not possible, than there is a potential problem with the mindset of that individual.

The pictures: