Project Description
Every student was initially assigned a "buddy" at Explorer elementary who they wrote a children's book for. We read Gatsby and Slaughterhouse Five throughout the process to draw influence from. We tried mimicking their styles by structuring our stories similarly, using more or less complex sentences, developing a descriptive setting, and implementing other literary styles. We went through many critique periods, each using different formats. We would have people from our own classes critique, people from other classes write letters to us critiquing our work, and so on. We also used graph theory to analyze and better our stories. Graph theory is the theory of the properties and applications of graphs. We made scatter plots using themes and important characters as our points. We then took the characters and themes that were connected with each other, and connected them with lines, thus creating our graphs. We could then analyze our story by visualizing how much important content is actually in the stories. Then we could see how our stories grew throughout our drafts, by comparing our different graphs for each different draft.
Work Samples
Draft One: I laid in the corner, resting from the work I just did. My arms shook, and I wasn’t going back out there. “We’ve been at this for the past three and a half hours!” I barked back. “What are we even here for!”
Revised: I rested in the corner, catching my breath from the hours of labor I just contributed. My arms quivered from fatigue, and I wasn’t going back out there. “We’ve been at this for the past three and a half hours!” I barked back. “What are we even here for!”
Revised: I rested in the corner, catching my breath from the hours of labor I just contributed. My arms quivered from fatigue, and I wasn’t going back out there. “We’ve been at this for the past three and a half hours!” I barked back. “What are we even here for!”
Reflection
This project has opened plenty of doors for me. Before this project, I would have never thought about writing a book. Personally, I have never been into writing, and would have never had the interest of writing a story. This project gave me the inspiration and influence to write a story. My writing skills has also grown throughout this process. I have learned how to analyze professional work, and apply their literary writing strategies to my own writing. Then, I can compare my own work to professional work, and see if what I have produced is of that quality.