Ava Ullman - Core Classes

Welcome to my Core Classes page! This page is where I will show you what I have been working on in all of my other classes outside of my tech ones. Thank you to our DATA teachers that have taught us so much this year!

Math

In math (taught by Mrs. Starr-Burt), we have learned a lot of things. We have had seven units of many topics for this year. This year we have learned topics starting with the basics like adding and subtracting integers to ending with box plots, dot plots, categorical data and even histograms. This year, math has been one of my favorite subjects because we are learning new things almost every other day. Right now, we are working on papers that help us get ready for the math STAAR test, and working on topics that will help us start off 7th grade.

Science

In science (taught by Mrs. Nuckolls) we have learned about geology, (earth's layers) chemistry, (involves the periodic table) and many more topics. In the middle of the year, we had this project where we studied mars and plan this whole way on how we would get to mars, what we would do, and what we would travel with. Science has been a lot of fun when including all of the performance assessments we take, and the experiments we do. Science is not usually my thing, but this year I actually got to be involved with what was happening in our labs/experiments.

Social Studies

In social studies (taught by Mrs. Stubbins), we have worked on a lot of different things like types of government, continents, and even learning the countries in the USA, Africa, and Asia. This entire year we have been working on this one project called "Create Your World." This project is where we get topics and we have to make it come to life with our imaginations to create our own world we've always wanted. Overall with this project coming to an end, I really enjoyed with having my own creative freedom to make a world I would love to live in. After learning all the continents in the world, we had started to have a map test every once in a while to learn the countries in different continents. This year we have worked on continents Africa and Asia, with an exception of the USA to learn about all the states in the country we live in.

ELAR

In ELAR (taught by Mr. Wayment), we have wrote an essay about a event that has happened in our life. (Our Memoir) We have learned a lot this year especially from knowing our parts of speech, and etc.

Below is my essay I have written about an event that has happened in 2015 called "The Whataburger Tragedy". This essay took a lot of work to write, but it was worth it to share it with others about my experience.

The Whataburger Tragedy

One morning in 2015, me and my family were up at Whataburger right at dawn for some breakfast. This was a usual sighting for my family since we went there about every week. After me, my brother, mom, and dad finished eating our usuals at Whataburger, we decided to go back home. If only we knew that our day would start getting worse as the day pursued.

At home, we had workers redoing our entire floor downstairs because our dishwasher had earlier flooded our whole downstairs. This had led all our floors to be ruined.

At the time we had three pets. We had one cat, and two dogs. The cat was named Charlie, while the dogs were named Peanut and Toby. Toby was my absolute favorite dog when I was younger. He was always a very gentle and kind yellow lab. He always protected me from anything that would come in my way.

As me and my family were getting home from Whataburger we went to go see how the dogs were doing outside in the backyard because of the workers downstairs. We went to look through the window and saw that Toby was laying down in the grass. All I could see was Peanut running around and sniffing Toby. As soon as my parents saw through the window they immediately ran outside to go check if Toby was alright. They told me and my brother to stay inside while they went to check something. As I was little at the time, I didn’t really think much of it until it hit me.

“Why can’t I go outside?” I say in a very sad voice.“Just stay inside with your brother!” My parents continue saying very seriously.

When my parents get to Toby, they start shaking to see if he will wake up. I stare outside the window not knowing if Toby would be okay. Both my parents come inside with their heads down and I ask “ what’s going on?” to find out that my favorite dog was gone. At first I didn’t really know what she meant by gone, but I had gotten in the car wondering where we were going. The entire way I had pondered over different places we could be going until I looked out the window and saw where we had ended up.

A few months after the death of Toby, the two other pets that were left (Charlie and Peanut) had started to go very ill. Ever since Toby had died, they had just gotten worse and worse week by week.

As the three pets had all grown up together, they didn’t really have a clue what life was like separated from each other. It’s like keeping them apart had a big defect on them. This was like a life or death situation for them.

After the death of Toby, Charlie had gone paralyzed. This left him not being able to walk freely anymore. As he was paralyzed, I had to feed him by hand, or he wouldn’t be able to eat. On the other hand, Peanut went blind and deaf. Whenever he was let outside in the backyard, we had to go with him and lead him back inside because he couldn’t hear or see us. Sometimes he even ran into walls.

As Peanut and Charlie weren’t doing well, we decided it would be best to put them down. Once all the pets were gone, the house had felt so empty. I felt so sad that something could just happen so fast. All of them were gone in not even a year. Me and my family still don’t know how Toby died, and how Peanut and Charlie got very ill at the same time.

After a couple of months of the house being empty, my parents got me an early birthday present. They took me to this house and I had no idea where we were. As we got into the house, I looked down to notice a ton of small kittens. While I was admiring them, I found the perfect one for me.

Today, his name is Myles Dublin Ullman, And I’m so happy that I got him. He is now seven years old, and I don’t regret any one of those years. I’m quite sad that it had to happen like this, but right now I am very happy how it turned out.

Below is another essay I had written about the struggles in the book "Hatchet" by Gary Paulsen.

Hatchet Struggles Relating to Life

In the book Hatchet, written by Gary Paulsen. Brian Robeson, the main character of the book, is going through a tough time. His parents are going through a divorce, which affects Brian very much. Brian is flying to see his dad for the summer, his plane crashes in the wilderness. Since his plane crashed he is having many challenges. Especially, when Brian is trying to get his first meat, he keeps trying to make a bow and arrow right. When Brian is thinking about making a bow he says “ he had never made a bow, never shot a bow in his life. Like Brian, I have to keep trying to do things right. One try isn’t going to make it perfect. You have to keep trying to get it right.

Even though my experiences are very different from Brian’s, we have similarities as well. For Brian, it takes him a ton of tries to find food, make a shelter, etc. For me, as a student who just got into middle school not that long ago, I have to keep trying to get used to my schedule, my different classes, homework, and the whole school. Transitioning from elementary school to middle school was very tough for me. There are a ton of new changes I need to get used to. At the start I had to find a new group of friends to hang out with throughout the day, but I'm so glad I found a group of friends that I feel like I have known for many years even though I have only known them for a couple of weeks. I am so happy that I'm finally starting to get used to middle school and thinking of it as the new normal for me.

Although Middle school isn’t exactly what Brian Robeson is going through, there are some Hatchet Struggles that are relating to life. Even though most of us are probably not trapped all alone in the wilderness, Hatchet is still very relatable from all the things Brian goes through throughout the book.

Below is my persuasive essay I have written about if teen should work on the weekends. In this essay, I have researched and provided sources proving why they should work on the weekends.

Should Teens Work on the Weekends?

Would you like to make your own money and gain more responsibility? If so, teens should too by working on the weekends. Working is a way to earn money and how you can survive to buy the things you need. By working teens can get their own freedom of what they can buy. According to Scoop Media “ Teens can buy whatever they want like gas for their car, or anything that they would like to spend with their own money that they had earned by themselves.” This is why I believe teens should work on the weekends.

By working teens can gain some responsibility. By this, they learn time management skills that can help them in the near future for college or their future career. Responsibility can change on how a teen can act. Teens can become more independent and start to manage their money. Scoop Media said this is “The most important thing a teenager gets in the workplace is an adult company that helps him or her to mature.”

Teens can learn respect while working as they are treating customers and coworkers with respect. Especially when teens are working in the service industry, teens will usually have to deal with customers in their jobs. They can learn how to communicate with others with respect and empathy on a daily basis when they are at work.

Scoop Media has said “ Parents have wider networks and may be able to find jobs with friends, family or in their own workplace. When parents and teenagers work with each other, the relationship redefines and often improves.” Having some teens and their parents working together can help the teen seem to appreciate their parents more because of what they deal with on a daily basis. Teens can start to understand how their parents have supported them through their life.

When teens start making their own money it can let them learn to not waste their money on one place, or one thing. Seeing teens with no money to go places with their friends is quite sad. Would you like to be not included in things just because of how much money you have? Well teens shouldn’t ether. If parents aren’t providing money for their teens anymore, teens can come and get a weekend job.

If teens don’t work on the weekends they won’t be able to start saving their money for the near future. Would you want your teenager to have no extra money for college, and have to ask parents for money? I don’t think teens would like not being able to save up for their future home or apartment.

Do you want teens to be begging to their parents for more money every week? Well, if teens have a weekend job they would be able to make the money themselves and not have to worry about asking their parents. Teens can learn how to be more independent and make better decisions on their own of what they choose to do or buy.

When having a weekend job, teens can start to have experience of what it’s like in the working world. Teens can start adding these jobs to their college applications, or to their bigger jobs later in life. Doing these things can help teenagers get better jobs in the future.

Some may think that there will be no time for school work, but if teens are only working on the weekends they will have the rest of the school week to get all of their work done. The teens don’t have to worry about school while they are working. Teens don’t have to work the whole weekend; they can just work a few hours or one day of the weekend, and have the other day to rest. From my point of view my older brother held a part time job during the weekends and still balanced school with a high grade average.

Therefore, teens will learn and experience a lot of things just by working on the weekends. By working a teen can learn responsibility, time management skills, respect, and learn what their parents go through on a daily basis. This can help teens get ready for what is going to come in the near future as they are growing up. Teens get a lot of benefits from when they work on the weekends.

Source Citation (Include your sources below the line.)

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"Get teens working." Scoop Media, 12 Nov. 2014. Gale OneFile: News, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A389700008/STND?u=j015910&sid=bookmark-STND&xid=afb7bcc8. Accessed 2 Apr. 2023.

Greenhouse, Steven. "Working Can Jeopardize Teens' Success in School and Life." Can Busy Teens Succeed Academically?, edited by Stefan Kiesbye, Greenhaven Press, 2009. At Issue. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/EJ3010578203/OVIC?u=j015910&sid=bookmark-OVIC&xid=1dba2503. Accessed 2 Apr. 2023. Originally published as "Problems Seen for Teenagers Who Hold Jobs," New York Times, 29 Jan. 2001.

Below is my informational writing and narrative retelling essay. In this essay I have written about an event in the book Hatchet as if it was written on the news.

A Plane Suddenly Goes Missing?

Earlier this week, a terrible event happened. A 14-year-old boy and his pilot had gone missing in an attempt to go to Canada. After boarding the plane to New York, their plane suddenly went out of reach. Nobody has heard from the pilot ever since the plane went out of control.

The boy boarding the plane was verified as Brian Robeson. The boy’s parents have been notified and are worried sick about their son going missing. Brain’s parents are going through a divorce leaving Brian through a hard time. He attempted to go visit his dad for the summer.

There is yet to get more information about the teenage boy and the pilot, but we will get back to update everyone once we get more information about the topic.

This is the exact type of plane that the pilot had been using before disappearing.

The story of a plane going missing with a 14-year-old boy and a pilot had

been updated with new information. As it has been fifty-four days since the plane went missing and unknown, the news crew has been informed that a helicopter had found the teenage boy “Brian Robeson” in the Canadian Woods. The boy had been living in the wilderness all by himself for almost two whole months. He had to hunt for food and shelter to survive. This must have been the longest couple of months of his life. Brian Robeson is now back home with his mom in New York City. On the other hand, the pilot of Brian Robeson’s plane had a severe heart attack when he was controlling the plane. Sadly this man had passed because of the heart attack. This man has not been identified.

On the journey to have led Brian Robeson into the Canadian woods, once the pilot had lost control Brian was in charge of controlling the plane. As he hadn’t had any experience in flying a plane, Brian had to learn on the way as he did to learn survival skills to live. Since the plane had crashed, Brian is so lucky to have a second chance in life after the plane crashed into a lake. Even though he had a rough time figuring out how to hunt food, water, and making a shelter, Brian was brave enough to learn along the way even though his life was at risk.

That has been all of my essays I had written this school year in 6th grade. Next school year our summer reading book will be Refugee by Alan Gratz.