Independent Study Review, by Brianna Badley

 This year at Seattle  Lutheran High  School we embarked  on a two-week-long  schedule called J-  term. There was a  list  of courses we  could  choose to take  and I  chose  Photoshop  and  Independent  Study. I chose to take Independent Study because there weren’t a lot of classes that I was interested in taking and I prefer to work alone.

For the course we had to pick a topic with a driving question and we had two weeks worth of work to answer that question or come up with a solution. I couldn’t decide on anything, so in the end I picked the Great Depression because I like history and that era especially. The thing about Independent Study is that you design your own course; we made and organized our own schedule. I made a table and divided it into a morning block and afternoon block, for week one and week two. For the first week I researched five sub-topics, took notes, and listed events. The second week I constructed a Power Point and put together a timeline of the events of the Great Depression. I worked in the Student Center with a couple of other kids doing Independent Study, so it wasn’t loud and I was able to use all my time wisely.

At the end of J-term I presented my Power Point to several people: my mentor Ms. Knaff; my history teacher Mr. Christer, who was in charge of J-term; Mr. Kranich (I don’t know why he was there); and a few students who were playing a The Lord Of The Rings board game. It was a long and informational presentation because it was serious topic. Independent study was a great way for me to learn more, see how my organizational skills are, and help me explore different ways of learning. I learned that when it comes to history presentations, I work better alone.