Project by: Zariel Cruz (10th Grade)
Project Advisor: Candace Cunard
Student(s)’s Advisor(s): Sandra Ramirez
Description of the Project:
For my honors project, I will be writing a personal essay relating to mental health.
Final Product:
POSTER:
ESSAY:
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Open in new tab Final Reflection on Learning: I learned a lot through doing this honors project. I think the most powerful learning moment for me was learning how to structure my own essay without using a TEAC structure. What made this moment so powerful was that it opened a door for a new way for me to write essays. I had always written essays using a structure but this time I just sort of started writing and worked from there. Writing an essay like this was way out of my comfort zone but it turned out to be a really rewarding experience. I think the part that I enjoyed the most about the entire process was conducting interviews and organizing my paragraphs. I enjoyed doing the interviews because it made me feel really engaged with the community. I also really enjoyed speaking with people and gathering information, overall it was a super positive experience. Organizing my paragraphs towards the end of my project was kind of like a fun puzzle game. I had all the content and it was fun to play around with where to put my ideas in a way that made sense. Although I ended up creating a piece that I’m super proud of there were definitely some bumps in the road. I think the biggest challenge I was met with was how to conclude my essay, luckily my mentor was able to help me with this. Candace brought up a point that I hadn’t thought about, that I didn’t need to find a solution to the issue discussed in my essay I could choose to conclude it a different way. After she told me this it gave me a new perspective on how to write my conclusion and was able to write one that wrapped up my essay perfectly. I don’t think that there’s anything that I have an interest in doing over or fixing but I would definitely be interested in expanding on the work I did. If I were to continue this project and turn it into something new I would stick to the same topic but choose a different way of sharing my work. I would conduct a series of longer, more in-depth interviews and eventually turn them into a documentary, from there I would write a short reflection on my findings and the process of making the film. I am really happy that I was able to do this honors project and with the help of my amazing mentor, I produced a piece that I am very proud of.
Update on Progress from Weeks 1-3 (include any photos or video if relevant):
In these first few weeks of my honors project, my mentor and I worked on finding a topic for my essay and reading other personal essay samples. After reading a few personal essay’s I analyzed what writing strategies I liked that the author used and made notes to implement those strategies into my own writing. In these three weeks, I also narrowed down my ideas and have decided on one topic for my essay. Originally I had three topics that interested me, to narrow them down I wrote a short sample paragraph about each one. Once I had my three paragraphs I chose the one that I thought sounded the best and that’s how I ended up with one solid topic. In the upcoming weeks, I plan on writing an outline to help me structure my essay.
Update on Progress from Weeks 4-6 (include any photos or video if relevant):
In these weeks my mentor and I discussed and came up with ideas for what the central parts of my essay were going to be. I came up with the idea that I should include some quotes in my essay about my topic. Together we came up with the idea to conduct interviews. I conducted interviews with some of my peers and used quotes from those to construct my essay. In this past week, we came up with a plan to write different paragraphs that I will later assemble to create my final draft.
Update on Progress from Weeks 7-9 (include any photos or video if relevant):
In these final weeks, I have written out all my paragraphs about my 7 central ideas. Together my mentor and I edited each individual paragraph and made changes that needed to be made. Then on my own, I put the paragraphs in a certain order that I thought made sense and this left me with my final draft. Together during our final meeting, we made finishing touches on the essay and produced a final piece!
