English

Flash Fiction Story Description of Project The purpose of this project was to have the students learn about the difficulty of making a good story- with characters, plot, dialogue, etc.- in around 500-600 words. My ideas came from the picture that Ms. Harris showed to us, and said that the building in the picture was to be our setting. The process of completing the project was very difficult. I worked on this project for about 4 days a week, for 3 weeks, at home and in school. When I began the story, it took a few days to get a basic plot started, and the rest of the story came to mind as I went along. Eventually, after about 7 revisions, I finally got a good story within the word limit. I always tried to improve the ending, because the ending always went by too quickly. I hoped that my project would show me as a creative person, because inspiration has always been hard to find for me. The inspiration for this project was difficult, because the picture only gave a setting, not any inspiration. Once I was inspired with a basic plot, the rest of the project was easy. For each revision, I always tried to make the characters and their dialogue realistic, not too cheesy or over-dramatic. Now that I look back on the project, I wish I could put more detail into the story, but that would send the word count way out-of-bounds. I would keep the basic plot the same, but change a lot of the little details. Flash Fiction Description of Qualities I used persistence during the production of the story. The school website defines persistence as, "sustaining a problem-solving process over time while remaining focused and producing multiple drafts, much as a skilled artisan, to achieve success." I define persistence as a quality that shows determination. This project shows my understanding of this quality because I made several drafts of my story to get it to the best of my ability. My understanding of persistence came to a whole new meaning, because I used to think that persistence meant trying hard throughout one draft, but now with 8 drafts, 7 revisions of one story, persistence means trying to make something as good as possible, no matter how many drafts are needed. The process I used to show persistence was making the 8 drafts. Just revising it again would show major persistence in my mind. I also used creativity when making this story. The school website defines creativity as, "approaching new and perplexing problems with positive energy, uniqueness and originality of thought, drawing from their own personal experiences and prior knowledge." I define creativity as being able to come up with your own ideas and not copying off of others. This project shows my understanding of creativity because I came up with my own story using a single picture of a flowered building shown by Ms. Harris. I don't think my understanding of creativity changed too much throughout the completion of the story. My definition of creativity changed a little, before it was just being able to draw or paint well, but now it is to create your own ideas for any medium, whether it be in art or English. The process I used was just getting inspired by the picture and then letting the ideas flow from there. If I were to revise it again using creativity, I might come up with a more creative end to the story.