October SDA Reflection

In a way, having no rubric made me feel a little lost during the assignment. Since I was starting from scratch, I found myself just staring at the blank page multiple times. Along with freedom, another negative for me was the word count of 500. I already tend to be unclear in my wording, so being limited pulled that out more- but I also have to work on being concise, so placing a moderate word count for myself may be helpful in the future to ensure I don't go off-topic. The freedom I got, however, was also one of the positives of this assignment because I could write about what I wanted- making the project truly a reflection of me. Since the story was short, and I mean short, it only took me about three hours. One hour to plan, and I'd say two hours to write. The main discovery I made was what my theme will be throughout my short stories this year. I want my linking idea to be coins/change and have them show up in various ways for multiple reasons in every story. Also, I discovered the main problem with how I write is that my message is unclear. It's a problem I will have to address in the future. In not wanting to give too much away, nothing gets explained. I contemplated having a blurb at the end to "explain" what was going on, but at the same time, I knew that would defeat the purpose of storytelling. Again, the most important thing I took away from this SDA was finalizing my focus on coins. Much of this reflection is influenced by the feedback I received. I feel like the art of identifying a problem depends on one's ability to problem solve along with one's ability to ask questions and share knowledge despite being proven wrong at times. Feedback is part of the art as you see issues you may not have seen before- at least, I did. While I know my stories will improve from here, I am still proud of the play on words I had with change and change (physical vs idea). However, as I mentioned above, getting that feedback is key. I asked one English teacher to be my mentor, but they were too busy so I plan on asking a different teacher by the end of the week. Since I struggled most with a clear plot line, I'll try to focus on creating one in the future with a strong lesson throughout. I had two perspectives going on in the October SDA, but, again, it was extremely unclear, so I made a new essential question: How can I write a story in two different chunks from two different perspectives in a cohesive, clear, and engaging manner? Writing the dual perspective in two chunks may make it easier to understand. I hope to use everything I have learned and can't wait for the upcoming SDA (without a 500 word count!!!)