Selina Skies
August 26, 2023 9:31 PM
Beginners - Show me what you've got by Selina Skies
It was semester two. That meant that even those who had been brand new to magic at the start of the year should no longer feel like their wand was a foreign object to them. Anyone who showed signs of feeling that way, or who was otherwise failing to make the expected levels of progress, had been invited to office hours, with the ability to refuse that invitation depending on the severity of their problem."Good morning," Selina greeted the beginner class once they were all settled. "Today, we will be completing a small challenge and a self-reflection, which will enable me to adjust the coming units to suit the needs of the class.
"You are all going to start the lesson with the same drinking glass. Your job is to use transfiguration to change it as much as possible by the end of the lesson. Who can suggest some ways you might be able to do that?" She called on a few people, taking answers and providing comments and suggestions, until they had established that they could change things like the shape, the material, the design - or even change it from being a tumbler into something else altogether. "I would like to say 'the sky is the limit' but there is a fine line between ambition and dangerous behaviour, and I don't want to see anyone crossing it. No one should be attempting animate transfiguration. That is not appropriate and will only lead to harm. There are also plenty of ways you can stretch yourself and demonstrate complexity without using that.
"Once you have finished, I would like you to write a reflection using the following three questions." She gestured to the board behind her where the chalk was scribbling out the key points of the lesson. "What worked well for you today? What difficulties did you encounter? What would you need to work on to be more successful at this task?
"I will be going around to check in on your progress, and am happy to help with any troubleshooting or discuss any points of your work with you. You may also consult with your classmates, but all wandwork should be your own. If you need your changes to be undone or need a new glass, please ask me.
"Any questions? Let's begin."
OOC: Hi. I have left this class quite open ended and want you all to have fun coming up with different ideas. However, in order to keep a relatively consistent idea of what is good/reasonable achievement, here are some guidelines:
Struggling first year: Able to change 1-2 features or less.
Average first year/struggling second year: Can change multiple features but it's still obviously a tumbler OR can make it not-a-tumbler but it still shares most features of the original
Exceptional first year/average second year: can make it into a different object which only shares 1-2 features of the original.
Exceptional second year: Can make a new object with no features in common with the original.
Remember, this is an entire class period's worth of work. They may need to practise or take multiple turns to achieve their end product.
Whilst you can use the HP wiki for ideas, you are cautioned against spells which go outside of these guidelines, even if they are listed as ‘beginner.’ The books and the video games tend towards throw away lines that are funny or look cool, rather than thinking through a logical progression of what would actually be easier/more difficult. You are very welcome to make spells up, or use past lessons.
Subthreads: Trying really hard not to show that by Quillan Arcadius with Zeus Brooding-Hawthorne-Smith
I'll do my best by Ida Stanford with Mathias Melcher
An over-inflated ego? Budding narcissism? by Desmond Brockert with Misty Brockert
13
Selina Skies
Beginners - Show me what you've got
26
1
5
Desmond Brockert
October 31, 2023 9:56 PM
An over-inflated ego? Budding narcissism? by Desmond Brockert
When it came to Transfiguration, Desmond had to say he was slightly disappointed. Oh, it wasn’t any fault of Professor Skies’. She was a great teacher who challenged them magically and academically, even if she didn’t give quite as much extra depth to her discipline as Professor Wright. Professor Skies seemed much more inclined to stick to the point, which was fine.The problem was that Desmond was supposed to be the absolute best at this class in terms of the practical side. His friends were already competition for the theoretical side, and while being a year ahead of Alma and Mathias Melcher meant that he thankfully did better than them-especially in the case of the younger Aladren, that kid was so bizarre that it would shame Desmond to be bested by someone like that, arguably the same reason he hated being bested by Liesl, which he maintained really had yet to happen, except that it still could especially when it came to getting prefect since he had really stiff competition, and the idea that he might fail where she had succeeded really really bothered Desmond to his very core-there was still Charlotte O’Malley.
And she constantly did better at the practical side of Transfiguration than he did! He was certain that he did better at the academic part than she did. After all, the Aladren was smarter than the majority of people, but that…was not the part that everyone saw when it came to school work. So, even if Desmond had a higher grade in Transfiguration and overall than Charlotte-and he totally didn’t see her as academic competition otherwise-to everyone else, it looked like she was superior to him and while in so many ways he knew he was superior-not just to the other second year but in general-here was an area where he’d expected to be the best and now everyone would think someone else was.
It could be worse though as Charlotte was at least not some misfit. Nor was she his competition for prefect, which Desmond was pretty sure she had locked down given that the alternative was Leo . Playing pranks really should be an immediate disqualification from being prefect or being on the Head Student ballot. After all, prefects and Head Students were supposed to be role models.
Which was another reason why Liesl shouldn’t have gotten it. Now Desmond was in the unenviable position of having to try and beat his roommates or his sister would have done better than him. Which was much more unacceptable than Charlotte being better at Transfiguration than he was. Well, she was better at the practical side of it anyway. Desmond was sure he was better at the theory. Completely sure .
Professor Skies started the lesson. So, it looked like they would be challenging themselves today, though the second year was sure it wouldn’t be that hard for him. He received his drinking glass with everyone else and looked it over. Where should he begin? What should he change it into? That was a real issue since Desmond was not the most creative person. Normally that wasn’t something that bothered him as he tended to think being intelligent was more important. Creative types were all too often strange anyway and so he was sort of glad to not be one. He liked fitting into society’s norms.
However, Professor Skies probably would reward them for their creativity and Desmond very much cared about his grades. Still, he couldn’t really think of anything better than other dishes. Which might not give him very many points. So, he turned to the person next to them. “Any thoughts on what object I can turn this into? I’m trying to come up with something other than another type of dish.”
11
Desmond Brockert
An over-inflated ego? Budding narcissism?
1572
0
5
Misty Brockert
November 02, 2023 4:11 PM
...No, let's try again. by Misty Brockert
Misty really liked lessons like the one Professor Skies had laid out for them today in Transfiguration. She found her attention tended to wander during lecture, and she was pretty sure no one alive - at least, no one sane - liked doing quizzes or written assignments. Practical magic was simply the only way to go. And while practicing a specific spell could also be fun (depending on the spell of course), it was always nice to get to practice a little creativity along the way.After receiving her glass, the second year flipped through her textbook and her memory to see what she could come up with to do to this thing. She eventually came up with a couple ideas that she was about to try when Desmond Brockert said something to her.
Despite having the same last name and being related somehow or another, Misty didn’t really know Desmond very well. She had never personally had an especially unpleasant interaction with him, for sure, but he just seemed… generally displeased. Misty was a very positive person and didn’t have a lot of time for negative energy, so she hadn’t really made much effort to interact with him.
“I was thinking I might leave mine as still a glass,” Misty responded, “but, like, change the appearance. I want to warp some of the sides to be, like, gemstones or something. But if you want to do something really different, you could try to make it a shoe or something like that. That’s probably really hard, though.”
12
Misty Brockert
...No, let's try again.
1567
0
5