Reflection Take Three

For this project each student was supposed to incorporate something they learned from internship and morph it into something that could be put into the magazine we were to make. Students were to do photo essays, interviews, or editorials. I had my internship at Cherokee Point Elementary chosen for me so I chose to write an article about the risk I took having my internship chosen for me since it wasn't an issue that was being addressed in others writing.

When I think about my writing in this project what I think I learned is how to cut the useless information in my writing, make it a concert not a pancake, an intro can capture or lose the reader and to always keep it simple.

In my first draft of my writing I had a lot of useless information that wasn’t even necessary.

To graduate in the High Tech High Village you are required to have completed an internship. We do our internship in 11th grade. Internships are required because they give you a little preview of what its like in the real world doing something you possibly would like to pursue in the future. The internship coordinator sets you up with an internship, or you find your own. I was constantly told to get your own internship because you know yourself better than the internship coordinator and you know what you yourself like.

This was a whole paragraph that I had dedicated to talking about how internship works. With more and more critiques I took the whole paragraph out.

Another rule that I learned ,that I think was the coolest, was ‘Concerts not Pancakes’ which basically means Start the writing good have it good through out the writing and end it good, just like a concert. Don't make it like a pancake, having it start good and having it end bad. I tried my best to make my writing like a concert and I think that I succeeded in doing so.

The final but most important thing that I learned with my writing is that the intro can capture or lose the reader. I’ve known this for a while but with this article I was much more aware of it. I was more aware due to the fact that there was going to be about 50 other articles that were about their internship and I wanted my writing to capture the reader and not just have them flip past it.

I learned to keep it simple when it came to my writing in the sense that I should keep the words simple because big words can sometimes confuse people, I know they confuse me sometimes. There’s also no such thing as too much editing and when it comes to the layouts keep it simple .

How I learned these different techniques were through the different critiques that we had and listening to the different podcasts that Randy recommended.

Learning all of this was important because I learned new techniques that I can use in my senior year when it comes to writing and using InDesign.

What I think that I can still improve on is working on the structuring of my writing. I think that the paragraphs could be moved around a little bit more so that I can make it flow smoother and better. I think what will help me improve next time is having someone who wouldn't even know about the writing thats assigned read it and just give me some feedback as to what they like and what they don’t like. I think this because the feedback would be more helpful because I don't think that they would hold back.

Magazine Reflection Take Two

Overall, when you think about the big picture of your writing, what improved? How did it get better? Why?
When I think about the big picture of my writing and what improved I think about all the useless information that I cut out. There was so much useless information that I cut, an example would be when I talked about what internship was and how its done. I realized that it was useless considering that whoever is reading this magazine knows our school, and at least knows about what internship is. How it got better was through critiques with different people and getting information back on what was good what should be moved, added or even taken out.

Overall, when you think about the big picture of your writing, what still needs work? What do you think will help you improve? Why?
What I think could be improved is probably the writing structure. I think that the paragraphs could be moved around a little bit more so that I can make it flow better. I think what will help me improve is having someone who doesn’t even know about the magazine read it and just give me some feedback as to what they like and what they don’t like.

Specifically, show us something that improved and describe the path it took to get better. You can quote your article, your drafts, link to evidence, etc.
Something that I improved on was my writing structure. With the help of my teacher he told me what worked and what didn’t and he was more honest than my peers were which was what I needed. I also improved on removing the useless, unnecessary information. An example my first draft started like this

To graduate in the High Tech High Village you are required to have completed an internship. We do our internship in 11th grade. Internships are required because they give you a little preview of what its like in the real world doing something you possibly would like to pursue in the future. The internship coordinator sets you up with an internship, or you find your own. I was constantly told to get your own internship because you know yourself better than the internship coordinator and you know what you yourself like.

With a few critiques i realized that I needed to take this out. Other classmates were sure to refer to the process of internship. I didn't need to repeat it.

Describe something specific (or a few things!) that you learned about writing. Theres a lot of things that I learned about writing through this project

• Concerts not pancakes- Start the writing good and end it good. Don't be like pancakes having it start good and ending disgusting.
• Intro- I learned how to make my intro start interesting and to capture the reader. In my case I started with telling a story about how i didn't get
  
• Audience- I learned that when writing I should keep in mind who will be reading this. Take in to mind that the reader might or might not know what an internship is.
• Too much copy editing- There's no such thing.
• Keep it simple- Keep it simple with your words, big words confuse people sometimes. Most likely those big words can be replaced with smaller simpler words.
  

Magazine Reflection

The reflection is due by the end of the day on Thursday. Please take your time and look through your own work as well as others classmates'.

Think of the process, which began weeks (or months ago)--you started with an idea or maybe an earlier draft of piece of work. That was edited and revised many times for content, substance and style. You created or re-used artwork or photography. This was edited and resized for our magazine. Finally, all of this was compiled into a layout that was critiqued and revised until you could do the final steps of "file > package."

1. What went well for you during the process of creating this magazine?

• Having people around that know what they are doing was definitely what went well. It went well because I didn’t really have an idea coming into the project if my writing was worth being put in a magazine or what I wanted my layout to be. With the help of my teacher and my peers I made a piece of writing that was really good. What else went really well was just everyone being ok with how the magazine was going to be made and no one really was angry if there choice wasn’t chosen what I’m trying to say is everyone was open to new ideas.

2. What challenges did you face as you moved from an early draft or idea to a final product?

• The challenge I faced was I had two pieces of writing and I didn’t really know which one I wanted to use. I overcame this problem simply by asking opinions of different people and I finally made my decision. Another problem I came into was that my layout was kind of boring to me I fixed this by talking to my teacher who gave me some great ideas.

3. What other examples of work—student and professional—stood out as exemplary and served as a good model for your own work?

• My title was similar to Nyachare’s title. I also used some of the layouts form national geographic magazine and the Atlantic Magazine as my guidelines for my layout.

In the end I'm really proud of this project and I think that it is the coolest one that I have done so far.