How has your essential question changed throughout the 6 weeks? What did you expect to learn and how does that compare to what you did learn? How do you anticipate this experience changing you or affecting you going forward? What do you most want others to know about your SP Experience?
Prior to the events of Covid-19, Hanna and I came up with the following essential question: How can the same story be told in multiple ways? When we had to adapt to be able to complete our project within the limitations of the virus, Hanna and I reframed our project by coming up with a new question: How are stories changed based on the perspective(s) from which they are told? Though during my Senior Project experience I didn’t really notice this, it is clear to me now that neither of these questions were right for our project. Actually, the question that perfectly guided our project was the sub-question we had initially, which asked: How can different mediums and factors of storytelling (e.g., photography, writing styles, formats, social media, settings, perspectives, etc.) change a story. The way we had written in it originally was a bit less clear, but it was essentially asking this same thing.
The project Hanna and I ended up completing is definitely partly related to the newer essential question about perspectives, but it is also so inclusive of other storytelling aspects such as setting, format, and style, that it feels wrong to leave those out of the scope of the project. So, ultimately I think the question we were really answered throughout these last six weeks is the one about the different mediums and factors of storytelling.
During the planning process of the project, I thought I was mostly going to be learning about (some of) the differences in storytelling and how to actually apply that to my own writing. However, one thing I learned that I didn’t value that much in thinking about it was the work I did on character development. Looking back, I actually spent a considerable amount of the first week of SP Experience just figuring out who my character was. I also did some practice journal entries, some of which made their way into the final piece, just to get a feel of the voice and make sure it was different enough from my own. I’m really glad I was able to learn how to bring a character to life because I think it’s a skill I’ll use a lot in the future.
I definitely think I met my goal(s) for my project. Especially considering our current circumstances, I think Hanna and I were able to produce a lot of great work that demonstrated the new ideas we’ve learned. I also think that we will come out of the Senior Project Experience with a very unique piece of writing, largely because of the fact that it was co-authored, and that it was in many ways an experiment to see what we could accomplish by playing around with elements of storytelling.
Most of the challenges Hanna and I faced were logistical things such as how we could write the letters, considering the fact that in order to write one, we needed to have read the previous one. So we had a bit of trouble at first just figuring out a reasonable timeline for getting all of this done. Another challenge for me personally was coming up with an appropriate conflict for my character. I wanted it to be something that really contrasted Astrid’s (Hanna’s character) conflict because I thought it would add to the distinction between the two characters. It took me a while to find the right conflict, and my process largely consisted of writing journal entries and bringing different conflicts in and seeing which ones worked and which ones didn’t.
Ultimately, working on this project has definitely shown me that if I do want to pursue creative writing in the future, I would be able to do so. Though there were some deadlines given by the school, most of the deadlines were created by myself and Hanna, so now I feel confident that if I choose to pursue this, I have the drive and motivation to produce something strong.