Marissa Perez
Humanities - Henry Maxfield
December 15, 2016
The Power Within Reflection
Through this project I learned that my power is my ability to recognize the value others and life itself holds. From the beginning of this writing process, I knew what story I was going to be writing about; I just didn’t know exactly what power came out of it at the time. Through this process I evaluated and considered many different things that could be my power because I learned a gained a lot of knowledge towards life from this specific experience. Each draft I shifted my focus to become more and more narrowed down to what my possible power could be. I initially did not know what my power was or how it would directly relate to this story, but my peers encouraged me to choose this specific story. Towards my last two final drafts, my power became very clear, which led me to end up in an unexpected destination.
During the writing process of this assignment, I learned many different skills that I will carry with me through my next stages in writing. Learning how beneficial it is to be specific as a writer was something that was constantly said by my teacher. If we create a specific storyline for our audience, the listeners stay engaged in the story and are completely drawn into what we have to say. When we create a piece of writing that is not specific and does not dive deeper than surface level, it is easier for an audience to drown out what we’re saying and consider it unimportant. After learning this, I learned about how valuable it is to have multiple rounds of critique after every draft that is created. Sometimes there were things in my writing that I thought were important but once I read it to a group,they helped me see what was valuable in the story and what was not as needed. I believe that our critique sessions are what evolved my writing. Our critique groups were a safe environment where we were able to brainstorm ideas about how to better our stories and mechanics of our writing. What I appreciated about our critiques sessions was format and structure. When I would hear the pieces of my writing that my peers appreciated, I would keep written notes of what exactly those lines did for the story. When I would hear critique on things that did not need to be in my story, I would again take notes on what was unnecessary. This was beneficial to my developing drafts because I could understand what the audience wanted to hear more or less about.
This project was definitely difficult for me. Through my writing, I struggled most with opening up and being emotionally honest. I struggled with this because the story I chose to write about was not a time of my life I ever expected to speak about again; nor did I expect to write about it and share it with a bunch of strangers. The thought of me having to revisit such a tough memory from my childhood made me closed off towards the beginning of this writing assignment and hindered my writing process. If I were to be able to start this project over and do it again, I would have decided to become emotionally honest through my story in much earlier drafts. I think that if I would’ve done this from the start instead of in my last few drafts, my final draft and performance could have been more impactful. With that being said, I am still very proud of the final draft that I performed at The Power Within exhibition. I am confident it was my best work that I was able to produce and best performance I was able to put on.
Humanities - Henry Maxfield
December 15, 2016
The Power Within Reflection
Through this project I learned that my power is my ability to recognize the value others and life itself holds. From the beginning of this writing process, I knew what story I was going to be writing about; I just didn’t know exactly what power came out of it at the time. Through this process I evaluated and considered many different things that could be my power because I learned a gained a lot of knowledge towards life from this specific experience. Each draft I shifted my focus to become more and more narrowed down to what my possible power could be. I initially did not know what my power was or how it would directly relate to this story, but my peers encouraged me to choose this specific story. Towards my last two final drafts, my power became very clear, which led me to end up in an unexpected destination.
During the writing process of this assignment, I learned many different skills that I will carry with me through my next stages in writing. Learning how beneficial it is to be specific as a writer was something that was constantly said by my teacher. If we create a specific storyline for our audience, the listeners stay engaged in the story and are completely drawn into what we have to say. When we create a piece of writing that is not specific and does not dive deeper than surface level, it is easier for an audience to drown out what we’re saying and consider it unimportant. After learning this, I learned about how valuable it is to have multiple rounds of critique after every draft that is created. Sometimes there were things in my writing that I thought were important but once I read it to a group,they helped me see what was valuable in the story and what was not as needed. I believe that our critique sessions are what evolved my writing. Our critique groups were a safe environment where we were able to brainstorm ideas about how to better our stories and mechanics of our writing. What I appreciated about our critiques sessions was format and structure. When I would hear the pieces of my writing that my peers appreciated, I would keep written notes of what exactly those lines did for the story. When I would hear critique on things that did not need to be in my story, I would again take notes on what was unnecessary. This was beneficial to my developing drafts because I could understand what the audience wanted to hear more or less about.
This project was definitely difficult for me. Through my writing, I struggled most with opening up and being emotionally honest. I struggled with this because the story I chose to write about was not a time of my life I ever expected to speak about again; nor did I expect to write about it and share it with a bunch of strangers. The thought of me having to revisit such a tough memory from my childhood made me closed off towards the beginning of this writing assignment and hindered my writing process. If I were to be able to start this project over and do it again, I would have decided to become emotionally honest through my story in much earlier drafts. I think that if I would’ve done this from the start instead of in my last few drafts, my final draft and performance could have been more impactful. With that being said, I am still very proud of the final draft that I performed at The Power Within exhibition. I am confident it was my best work that I was able to produce and best performance I was able to put on.