Of Projects and Groups ((Closed))

[Brooke McAllister]

• • • • •

Brooke had to say that so far life at the Academy was pretty great. It was turning out to be everything that she had hoped for. She and her roommate Violet were getting along pretty well and had the same classes so it was nice to know that there was at least one person that she could work with in the class. Classes were something else though, she had to get used to them since they were so much different here than back home. The work was a lot harder and took more time but it was worth it to be able to be at such a school and she'd even told her parents so when they'd asked about it. After all, one of the parts of the deal on coming here was being able to keep her grades up and she was going to do that even if it meant putting in a bit more hard work. She knew that this was where she wanted to be able to spend her years at high school, the thought of being kicked out or pulled out by her parents were thoughts that pretty much depressed her. Which was mostly why she tried to not think about that happening, since she was so determined not to let it.

She made her way into her English class, taking her seat as she waited for class to start. English was turning out to be one of her favorite classes at the Academy, she was thinking that it probably had something to do with the teacher there. Ms. Mayer was a great teacher but on top of that she was also pretty interesting, which was something that was pretty uncommon among her previous English teachers and the way that she presented things made them much more interesting than she would have expected. So when she mentioned a project the previous day that would be starting today she was pretty excited to see exactly what kind of project it'd be. All that she knew was that it was going to be a group project with each group having roughly four people in it. Now all she had to do was wait and find out who was going to be in her group and what their group would be doing. Hopefully the group would be a good one and the assignment would be fun since she expected that it'd probably be something that was difficult or at least difficult compared to projects she'd done in the past.

• • • • •

[Dakota Greve]

Dakota was still trying to get used to the work load that came along with being at Gordon Parks' but so far he was thinking that he was doing a pretty good job. He wasn't failing anything at least and he'd always been one who'd put the necessary time and effort into his school work. Of course it made it easier to have Vince around and in his classes because he at least knew that he wasn't the only one that was adjusting. And then they could help each other out with different things, with the exception of their talent classes of course. Still, having his best friend with him there had proved to be a pretty big comfort. He'd much rather that he'd actually been able to room with him as well but he wasn't all too overly surprised when that hadn't happened. After all, the odds were pretty set against them in that way. And then his roommate Oliver wasn't too bad of a guy either from the time that he'd actually spend with him. So he really couldn't complain about that because he knew that he could have been with someone a lot worse.

He made his way from the Language classroom and toward his locker, having to head to English class next. He was pretty glad to be out of Languages for the day since he wasn't really too good at learning a new language and it was turning out to be one of his bigger struggles at the moment next to math of course. But then he didn't feel too bad for not doing amazingly great in math just because he never had and then Ms. Moore was actually pretty boring too so that never helped. Although he had had to ask her a couple of questions already and she'd proved to be nice enough, it'd probably just help out if she learned to make her class a bit more interesting. As for English he did pretty well with it and liked the class for the most part, probably because it was so closely related with writing and so he usually did really well with things like the grammar exercises and words of the day because he already knew about them. He got his books that he'd need for the class and headed into it taking his seat and waiting for the bell to ring.

[Vincent Freeman]

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Gordon Parks' was nothing like what Vince had expected. Actually, it was much better. Of course, he'd known it would be different from regular school so that wasn't too much of a surprise, but he really hadn't thought it would be quite that different. The transition was a bit rough, but not so bad as what it could have been. Still, he felt like he'd jumped from eighth grade to Senior year or something like that at times. They didn't have much time to adjust, but at the same time he knew it was because the school knew they were able to adapt quickly. And he found himself really loving it, the entire environment, the challenge, even the atmosphere that was a bit different from regular schools. The only thing lacking was Val, he was used to have his sister around and it was a bit weird for her to be back home still, but at least he had Dakota to hang out with still and he figured that helped along the whole getting used to a new city and a new school away from home. All in all, he was pretty happy with the whole situation he found himself in, which was a good thing.

He was especially happy that he actually happened to share all his classes with Kota. It made it that much simpler when it came to pairing up in class, unless they weren't given the choice as to their work partner. And he knew that they were actually gonna have a group project in his English class as he walked inside the classroom, taking his seat next to Dakota and nodding at the guy slightly before looking around the room to see who else was here so far. He admittingly hadn't mingled that much yet, he wasn't the most sociable person but he tried. Still, so far he mostly kept to himself when he wasn't hanging out with Kota and that was good enough for him. Though... if he was completely honest, there was one person he wished he could approach at some time. He probably would sooner or later, but he hadn't found the right moment yet. He had to keep himself from looking at her too long as his eyes fell on the blonde girl sitting at the desk two rows behind his own, turning back to face the front of the class before anyone could notice or so he hoped.

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[Elina de Villiers]

• • • • •

It wasn’t very difficult for Elina to get situated in her new school. She’d moved around so much as a child that a new one on her belt hadn’t bothered her much. And she liked this school, it was different from all the rest for someone reason. The difficulty level was a challenge that she faced with ease. It’d always been her goal to be excellent at whatever she did. School wasn’t an exception, well at least now. It’s been for a while in her past, but she’d successfully transitioned out of that mode. And here she was, in an American boarding school, one that wasn’t as bad as her mother had been lead to believe. The teachers were nice, and they knew exactly how to push their students. Classes had only been weeks in and she’d already gotten an overabundance of school that public school lessons couldn’t even compete in. It was enjoyable to be given so much to do though, being as she had nothing else better to do and she actually enjoyed studying and working hard. It kept her on track for the goals she wanted to accomplish later on.

She’d failed to actually garner any friends here. This was, of course fine with her anyway, being as she had no use for distractions. No one really approached her because she was always quiet, she didn’t speak unless spoken to, or unless she was answering questions in class – which she thoroughly enjoyed doing. And she rarely said anything to her classmates. The closest to a conversation she’d come to having was when one of her classmates asked her for a pencil, and she rummaged almost automatically through her bag to retrieve it. Though she hadn’t gotten it back, not that she’d expected to. It was why she carried extra. But English was by far one of her favorite classes, if not for anything but her exceeding knowledge of books she had. Today they were supposed to be doing a project, one that required working in a group which made her a bit nervous. She’d never relied on someone else to help her grade and she wasn’t exactly happy about the idea of having to interact with people. But she’d suck it up, she only hoped that she’d get paired with people who enjoyed work. She didn’t want to have to threaten people.

• • • • •

[Morgan Mayer]

With the new year came new students and new lessons to be taught and even learned. Of course, she missed teaching her old students and such, but there was always something exciting and refreshing seeing a new round of faces in her classroom, knowing full well that their English learning experience was in her – extremely capable – hands. It was exhilarating to teach something so dear to her and find ways to make the learning experience enjoyable for her students. Especially knowing that just like the rest, she would grow to adore most – if not all – of these kids by the time her two years were up. And just like always she started her day by writing her word of the day up on the board and awarded extra points to whichever kids could say either the meaning of the word or the root, or sometimes both. It stayed that way all day, for every class. The word ‘epicene’ was written in large, purple and orange – her color choice of ,marker – letters in the left hand corner of her whiteboard. She watched her students file into the room, somewhat familiar with all of their faces as she watched them take the seats she’d assigned on the second day of classes. Waiting until the last student took his chair and sat his bag on the ground, she walked to and shut the door before walking back over and setting herself down on the corner of her desk. “As you all know, I will be assigning an assignment for you all today which will require the usage of partnership. I’m inclined to the notion of getting to know your peers and so I think this exercise will not only be a good icebreaker, but a challenging challenge.” She said with a smile. “But for now, can anyone tell me what the word of the day means?” she asked, watching hands shoot up almost immediately. “Brooke McAllister, would you like to take a shot at the definition?” she asked sweetly.

[Brooke McAllister]

• • • • •

Brooke was too busy talking to the person next to her about the assignment that they'd gotten assigned in their last class to really notice if anyone was looking at her. And then she was never actually one who felt when other people looked at her or something, which sometimes got her into a bit of trouble because she always seemed to be lacking the ability to tell when a new person entered the room or whatever. She'd definitely gotten caught more times than an average person saying something that got her into a bit of trouble or doing something stupid without checking if anyone else was around before she did it. She kept talking with the person next to her right up until the bell rang and then turned to face the front of the class. Teachers never really liked it when a student kept talking after the bell rang and she was trying not to be that girl here so much as she had been at her old school. After all, at such a school punishments might be a bit different than those that she was used to back at home. And really getting into any sort of trouble wasn't high on her to do list.

She smiled slightly as Ms. Mayer started talking about the group assignment, feeling pretty excited about it and wanting to know who her group was going to be already. She had to restrain a sigh though as they were asked about the word of the day, of course they would have to do that first. She thought about raising her hand to try and get this whole thing over with so that they'd be able to move on to the part of class that was actually going to be interesting. The word of the day just never was for her, it was boring and a lot of the times she already knew what the word was. Today was one of those days so when the teacher asked her if she'd like to take a shot at the definition she didn't mind too much, though she still wished that she would have picked someone that had their hand up instead. She hated when teachers did that kind of stuff, if someone wanted to answer they put their hand up to answer, if they didn't then they didn't want to answer. "Sure," she said with a shrug. "Doesn't it mean something that has characteristics of both genders or something like that?"

• • • • •

[Dakota Greve]

Kota nodded back at Vince when he came into the class and took his seat, unable to stop himself from shaking his head slightly as he watched the other guy look at the desk only two rows behind his own. He'd noticed pretty easily that his friend had started liking the blonde that was sitting there even though he'd yet to actually talk to him. He didn't know too much about the girl but he thought that she was nice enough from what he did know and she was sort of pretty as well though not the type of girl that he'd really consider liking. He wasn't sure if the girl had even noticed that his best friend was looking at her but somehow he doubted, just by the fact that she didn't react. It most likely meant that he was actually going to have to talk to the girl first, he was sure that sometime his friend would work out the nerve to do so. It just probably wouldn't be anytime soon. Though it wasn't like he could talk much, his eyes glancing over to a brunette a few rows over that he had considered talking to a couple of times. He'd just have to get a chance first.

He turned his attention to the front of the class though as the bell rang, not wanting to be caught looking at the brunette anyway. He frowned slightly as Ms. Mayer started talking about the project she was going to assign, not exactly thrilled about it. He didn't usually like being assigned to groups because most of the times they weren't the most amazing groups around. Usually he got stuck with quite bossy people that gave all the work to everyone else in the group and didn't do much of it themselves. Maybe he'd get lucky and have Vince in his group, though he knew that the chances of that happening probably weren't too high so he didn't even stop to think on it for more than a moment. He was pretty glad when she took a break from the subject of projects momentarily to ask about the word of the day. His hand was one in those that went up to answer the question, as it did on most days. He brought it down though as Ms. Mayer actually picked someone who hadn't had their hand up, turning in his seat slightly to look at her while she answered.

[Vincent Freeman]

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Vince noticed the look Kota gave him after he'd been looking at Brooke and he couldn't help but give his friend a knowing look. It wasn't as though he was one to talk, he'd practically been obsessing with that brown haired girl who was in all their classes, though he didn't really know her talent or anything like that. Well, to be honest he didn't even know Brooke's talent though he was almost sure he'd seen her carrying a camera, so he'd go as far as guessing she must be a photography student, but still it wasn't like he'd ever talked to her and asked. He would, some time, but now was obviously not the time considering the fact that the teacher had just walked inside the classroom, and he figured the bell would be ringing soon too. He started doodling on his notebook while waiting for that to happen, not really noticing what he was even drawing - seeing as he never really did - though when the bell rang and pulled him out of his reverie, he teared the page out and balled it up before anyone could see it.

He looked up at the teacher, putting his doodling notebook away and opening his other notebook which held the notes he'd taken during the previous English Lit classes, scribbling the date of the day at the top though he didn't actually bother writing anything else yet. He knew there were some people in the class who actually wrote down the word of the day, which seemed to be something that would be happening during every class with that teacher, not that he minded, but he didn't exactly think he'd be needing to use any of those words. Like today's word, he had absolutely no clue of what it might mean and he pretty much hoped he wouldn't be picked to give the meaning because that might be just a tad embarrassing. He was relieved when the teacher went ahead and picked someone else, noticing that she'd actually picked Brooke and listening to the girl's answer, glancing back at the professor to see if she'd given the right answer. Though to be honest at this point he just wanted to find out who his partners would be for the group project so he wished she'd hurry up and tell them already.

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[Morgan Mayer]

It wasn’t very often that Morgan actually picked on people who didn’t raise their hands, in fact there was usually a reason why she picked on someone. In this case, there wasn’t, her eyes landed on Brooke first after she’d asked the question and so she was the one she’d chosen to pick it. Besides everyone in the class would be picked eventually, she was making mental notes of who she’d addressed the weeks before and now so that she wouldn’t pick them for the word of the day again until the rotation in class had ceased. Better now than later she always said. It wasn’t done purposely to call someone out or upset anyone, she really did it to test her students vocabulary skills, putting them in group levels and grading them based on that. Not everyone was on the same level, so she couldn’t grade them based on that high level. And she wouldn’t because it wouldn’t be fair to give them a grade based on the level of their peers, she also found that it gave her students a better level of success. She listened to Brooke’s answer, nodding her head. “It does mean that, belonging to or partaking of characteristics of both sexes.” She repeated, excitedly. “A hint for you all, make sure to copy these down, there’ll be a pop quiz on them sometime soon.” She grinned, walking over to the bored and grabbing a marker to write down the definition as she spoke it aloud under her breath. Moving over to her desk, she grabbed a pen a wrote extra points on the same line of Brooke’s name under the date in her gradebook. “Very nice, thank you Brooke.” She stated, smiling as she recapped her marker. “Alright, so, who can give me the root?” she asked, watching as hands raised quickly, her eyes landing on blue as she stared back at Elina, smiling at the hand in the air as she nodded and addressed her. “Would you please give it a try?” she asked, propping herself back up on her desk before remembering to walk over to the board to write it down. She waited for Elina to finish before writing the roots on the board and moving to give her the points she earned. "Very nice. And now, groups. On the underside of your desks there are taped numbers, your numbers match three other people in this room. Please get into them now."

[Elina de Villiers]

• • • • •

Elina sat quietly in class, keeping to herself and keeping herself entertained by visions inside of her own head. She couldn’t wait for dance class, it was exciting to her to think about what they’d be up to today. All she could imagine was herself and prancing about the floor doing what she loved. Not to get her wrong, she loved English, but they weren’t really up to anything interesting yet. The word of the day was pretty damn easy, and anyone should really know the definition to it. She imagined herself pirouetting around the stage in her dance wear, going across the floor with her peers as her teacher threw out commands for them to follow; dance moves for them to complete in that second. And she also imagined watching her favorite dancer in the school, well besides herself. She’d seen Taylor dance a few times and it excited her to know that this school had a dance program to perfect technique. She also imagined that Taylor must have been dancing all her life, kind of like Elina. She admired her.

Looking up as Ms. Mayer chose Brooke to answer the question, she watched the other girl, her eyes venturing over automatically to Dakota as he turned around to watch Brooke in her peripheral vision and then almost immediately her attention focused back on Brooke, listening to her answer and then reciting the definition in her head before Ms. Mayer recited it aloud and gave Brooke her points. Well if not for anything else, those points would help raise her average in this class, and by the end of it she should have the perfect grade. Well…of course if she got great partners on this assignment today, ones who liked to work. She sighed, raising her hand at the next question so they could get it over with and get their assignment, nodding when Ms. Mayer asked her question. “This particular word has two roots. From the Latin ‘epicoenus’ meaning of both genders and from the Greek ‘epíkoinos’ meaning common.” she finished, nodding as Ms. Mayer walked over to the board to write it down. When she began talking about thr groups she perked up, reaching her hand under her desk and pulling off a one and instantly looking around for other ones.

• • • • •

[Brooke McAllister]

• • • • •

Brooke was pretty glad that she'd apparently gotten her word right if not just for the extra points because she definitely wanted to be able to have some if she were going to be doing a group project soon. She always hated the grading of group projects since it never seemed to come out fairly but there really wasn't much that she could do about it since she did know that in life she'd have to work with people she didn't necessarily want to and there would be times in life where the credit of work done wouldn't be given properly. Still, she just wished that life would be fair instead of having to learn with the things about it that weren't fair. But the chances of that happening were probably about as likely as world peace so she might as well just learn to suck it up as well. She grabbed her notebook out from under her desk and wrote down the word of the day, even though she'd already known it. What she hadn't known was the information that Elina provided next about it. She was a bit unsure about the spelling of the words so she guessed.

She grinned in excitement as Ms. Mayer finally got to the point that she'd been waiting for since she'd gotten to class. She quickly reached under her desk and pulled out her number, smiling as she saw the one. Now to find her group, there was two ways she could do so. She could either look around and try and spot people holding up their numbers or whatever else or she could just draw attention to herself and wait for the rest of the group mates to find her. Hmm, such a hard choice really, not. The only problem with what she was going to do was that she was a bit short so to remedy that problem she just stood on her chair before she made her announcement. "Ones over here!" she called, doing a quick wave of her hand and grinning slightly when most of the class turned to look at her. Well there, that saved a whole lot of trying to get through everyone else. She hopped off of her chair and unto the floor, waiting to see who else was going to come over holding a piece of paper with the same number as her. Hopefully a good three other people.

• • • • •

[Dakota Greve]

Dakota wrote down the word of the day even though he really didn't have to do so, but it was just a habit that he had of writing down stuff in case he did happen to forget it for some reason. Usually he knew most of the words of the day, sometimes he just had problems figuring out the roots so that was the main reason why he even bothered writing them down. He turned to watch Elina as she got to answer the question of the root today, proving that not only was so cute but that she was really smart too. He wrote as she spoke, getting everything down before he put his notebook away, figuring that he probably wouldn't need it too much for the project. If there was a secretary or anything it definitely wouldn't be him because he happened to have pretty messy handwriting. He'd tried to fix it before but it never seemed to stick especially since when he had a new plot line for a story he always rushed to get it all done and then just when he had a burst of inspiration he was the same way. Most of the time he did happen to prefer typing but sometimes he wrote in notebooks too.

He glanced up when Ms. Mayer got to the part about groups and curiously reached under his desk to find what number he had. He nodded slightly as he looked at the number one on his paper and then turned almost reflexively to see what number Vince had gotten. He didn't really expect them to be the same but it was just an old habit. He was surprised therefore when he saw that the other guy had the number one on his sheet of paper, smiling a little bit. "Sweet," he said, turning when he heard someone calling out something about ones and having to keep himself from laughing a little bit when he saw who the person was that was calling the ones over. He turned back to Vince. "Looks like this group is going to be a good one for you man," he said slightly teasingly before he picked up his stuff and started walking to back where Brooke was standing. He held up his sheet of paper to show that he was a one as well. "Good job at getting everyone's attention," he complimented the blonde. It'd made things easier that was sure.

[Vincent Freeman]

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Vince couldn't help but sigh lightly when he heard Mrs. Mayer mention in passing that they should be taking notes because there would be a pop quiz sometime about these words they were learning about. It was probably a good thing he had a pretty good memories about these things, he knew that people had trouble remembering stuff even if they studied it for hours, but he could usually read something two or three times and then it'd be stuck in his mind. Still, he grabbed his pencil and messily scribbled down the word along with its meaning, adding its origin when she next asked someone about it and then wrote it on the board. It was often strange to a lot of people that he was so good at art but couldn't for the life of him write neatly, except when he was really, really applying himself because he had to hand in an essay or an exam that they couldn't write with computers. And well, while he was able to re-read himself pretty easily, it made it impossible for him to lend notes when one of his friends or some random classmate actually asked for it.

he looked up and closed his notebook when the professor next told them to get into their assigned groups for the project, adding their numbers were taped on the underside of their desk, reaching for it and reading the number one, looking over at Kota's number at the same time as his friend looked over at his, grinning slightly when he saw he'd be actually teaming up with his friend, which was definitely a good thing. Now they only had to figure out who else they would be with. He looked up when he next heard a voice call out for the same number as the one he was holding in his hand, wondering if he was really getting that lucky when he realized it was Brooke, though he sent Dakota a glare when he heard the guy's comment. "Aren't you the funny one," he grumbled, smirking a bit though when he noticed the brunette his friend had been staring at quite a few times heading over to the same direction they were going. "Looks like that won't just apply to me, smartass," he whispered at his friend before they reached Brooke's desk.

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[Morgan Mayer]

Morgan liked the idea of having group projects so early in the year, often teachers waited until the end of the year, which could be potentially bad for grades. She liked helping her kids succeed. In a number of different subjects. With group projects the learned discipline and the ability to work well with others – sometimes – and with this particular group, they learned how to talk to peers. And responsibility that they’d have to share. It was interesting to see how they’d work together and split the work. There were some people who worked well together and some who didn’t and overall, besides their oral report, she’d be judging them on that too. After all, it wasn’t likely that people who didn’t learn earlier in life to work with others would succeed in the work force after high school was over. She felt obliged to start teaching them that even if it were a life skill that many people just picked up on their own time. She watched as her students scattered about, quietly moving about the room, writing notes about her students in her notebook. All she’d really done was split the number of students evenly which created six groups of four and then she’d written those group numbers on index cards, shuffled them up and stuck them to the bottom of the desk with double-sided tape. Her attention shot upwards from writing in her notebook to the girl screaming in the middle of her classroom. Any normal teacher would find that rude and uncalled for and would probably have reprimanded her but she was all for freedom of expression and if that was how she’d get the attention of her group, then so be it. Besides it made her smile and scribble in her notebook. “Alright people, listen up!” she shouted over the chatter. “This is a book assignment. You will create an oral presentation on the book you choose from this here velvet bag that each member from your group will come up and pick. Come up by number. You will choose one book from the four you pick out. Choose wisely. On a side note, hint hint, oral presentation is a loose term. Take it however you want to. As long as there’s speech, it will be accepted. Good luck.”

Booklist:

1984 – George Orwell
Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
Daniel Boone – James Doughtery
Death of a Salesman – Arthur Miller
Peter Pan – James M. Barrie
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
The Crucible – Arthur Miller
The Diary of a Young Girl – Anne Frank
The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinback
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Pearl – John Steinback
The Prince and the Pauper – Mark Twain
The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
Treasure Island – Robert Lewis Stevenson
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

[Elina de Villiers]

• • • • •

Searching about the room for her teammates without getting up from her chair she found herself pretty happy when Brooke made her announcement. It was cool to get paired with someone she knew would actually do the work and who seemed smart enough to actually be forced to work with her. So she was all smiles when she saw and heard her shouting out for ones to join her and she looked around curiously to see who else would be joining them. Though she couldn’t describe the slight sense of mortification to learn that her final two groupmates were the slacker twins. At least they seemed mostly like slackers, she didn’t know their work ethic yet, maybe it was too soon to judge, but she couldn’t exactly be happy about the other two she’d gotten stuck with. In fact she was trying hard to keep her gaze on them rather than slamming her head repeatedly into her desk.

She stood up, grabbing two of her mechanical pencils and her notebook to go and join Brooke, taking a recently vacated seat right next to her and smiling lightly at her before turning her attention back to Ms.Mayer, briefly looking up as the guys joined them, throwing friendly smiles though she really just wanted to get it over with. That Dakota kid kinda creeped her out with his staring, though she’d only caught him a few times. Pushing her hair into her face as she leaned forward and placed a hand covering an entire side of her face, she listened closely to her teacher’s direction, nodding despite the fact that she was addressing the entire class rather than just Elina herself. Apparently book projects weren’t all that popular listening to al the groans, but she happened to read a lot. Given the opportunity to move out of her seat, she took it, walking up and digging blindly around in the bag and pulling out ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ and grinning happily down at her paper. It was one of her favorites.

• • • • •