Part A: You, the Writer
Last year I would that I had not put a lot of energy in writing outside of class. I feel like after taking this class for the second time I have started writing more on my own time more specifically I have started writing more poetry outside of school. This year in class I also started to explore themes that I hadn’t really looked into last year like for example the theme of reality vs one’s own perspective has been one thing that I have tried to incorporate in my writing, also the theme of time and memories has been something I have explored this semester. I would like to continue the development of structure in my writing because I feel like that was something that I was really lacking last year, and although I have paid more attention to that this year I want to keep working on that, because I feel that proper structure of a writing piece can really add to the flow of the writing and also it adds to the theme and how it is presented. I don’t feel my writing style has changed a lot from last year but one thing I have tried to experiment with stylistically this year was with the structure of my poetry. I did this by placing certain lines in different places on the page or away from the main written piece. I feel like this also added practice with structure and how to structure writing which again was something I was working on this semester. One piece advice I would give to a new writer is to keep writing so that you can develop your own voice and style. One goal I have for myself is that I9 want to explore more writers and try to expose myself to more writing styles and voices.
Part B: You, the Blogger
I really enjoyed working on my blog this year, I feel that it came out the way I wanted it too and I am really proud of the work I put into it. I didn’t really like my blog from grade 10 so that was why I decided to change it completely this year and start over. I would say that I put more effort into my blog this year which really improved my blogging; I posted all of my posts in on time and also had a page for flash poetry. I also focused more on the aesthetics of my blog a lot more this year although I think I can still improve on that a little more by adding more links to a Pinterest or Goodreads, and also to blogs I read outside of school. After the course I want to make it a goal to continue posting on my blog over the summer things like flash poetry on my “words” page. There isn’t one blog that I like from the class but I will continue to check back on my friends blogs like Kayla and Liam. As for professional bloggers I read I haven’t really explored a lot of them, but I want to look more into it in the future.
Part C: You, the Student
One “Aha” moment I had this semester in creative writing was when we were working on our writers seminar. Our group did Oscar Wilde as our writer, and we decided to read his novel A Picture of Dorian Grey I found his writing to be really inspiring, and I found myself including some of the themes from his writing into my own writing. I feel like doing Oscar Wilde for our seminar really exposed me to a new style of writing which I found to be really inspiring and eye opening. As for my reading this semester I feel like I could have done better with reading in the sense that I could have read more than I did. I feel like I started of strong at the beginning, but slowed down quite a bit at the end because the amount of pressure from my other classes. One of my favourite books that I read this semester was again A Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde not only did I feel that it really challenged my reading, but it also helped to incorporate new ideas and themes into my own writing, and its for this reason that I feel that reading helps my writing; it helps me to experiment with new styles and voices as well as it gives helps me to think of new ideas. I think that this year I really tried to get out of my comfort zone with writing by writing about more personal things on my blog, which I feel like added a new depth in my writing that wasn’t there before, and I plan on continuing with this in the future so that it adds more dimension in my writing. I do want to continue taking creative writing in grade 12 because I feel that it has made a real impact on my writing skill. Some steps I want to take to further improve my writing are that first I want to read more, because I think that there is no better way to get better at your own writer then by reading others writing, the other thing I want t do is that I want to focus on the feedback I get from others and fix what I can about my writin
Part D: You, the Fan:
Writers Seminar:
I feel that my Writers Seminar really impacted my writing, because it exposed me to a new style of writing. Oscar Wilde’s writing is so unique because he will use a lot of metaphors and similes in his work which I feel is so beautiful about his writing style; it makes you feel with the character. I want to incorporate more of these into my own writing and experiment with metaphors more to see how it will change my writing. My group and I were originally going to do r.h sin as our author because we wanted to do a modern poet, but after reading some of his work we decided to change our writer. We decided to do Oscar Wilde because we thought it would be interesting to not only look at his writing, which some of us were already familiar with, but also look into his life. From all the presentations I found that I really enjoyed presentations that featured poets as their writers I found myself being really inspired by those presentations, and having fun emulating those writers. I think one author I will continue to read after those presentations is Edgar Allen Poe whose work I find to be really inspiring because his style is similar to mine.
Link to Writers Seminar Page: https://aliza152.edublogs.org/writers-seminar/
Bloggers:
Kayla- Nefelibata
Link: http://kayla824.edublogs.org/
I think that Kayla’s writing is really unique because she is really talented with descriptions in her writing. She has this continued theme of nature and the natural elements of the earth. I found her writing to be really inspiring because I liked how she personified nature in her writing, and I found that to be really creative and wanted to do similar with my writing with adding personification. You can see in my A-Z assignments that I tried to emulate her writing style in my Q if for Quay.
Liam- Solid State Reverse
Link: http://myriagon.edublogs.org/
I really liked how Liam added his own style and voice to every single one of his pieces. I found that one thing that I took from his writing and added to my own is how he explored a wide range of themes and styles in his writing and added his own personal voice into it. I realized by reading his writing the importance of voice and personal style that should be present in a work of writing.
Claire is in Space
Link: http://claireisinspace.edublogs.org/
I found that one blog that I really kept track of and read regularly was Claire’s. I think that she is really talented as a writer, and I really liked that she found her inspiration from from a wide range of sources (like how she found inspiration for one of her pieces from a podcast she listens to), and that also gave me ideas on what I could do for my own writing.
Other Writers I’m a Fan of:
- Sylvia Plath: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poems/44381
- Kristin Hannah
- Anthony Doerr
- Oscar Wilde
Part E: You, the Critic of your work
Self Portrait
Link: https://aliza152.edublogs.org/2018/04/29/self-portrait/
This piece shows how people have different sides of themselves and how they can grow to accept the different sides of their personality. The title is significant because it shows hot the individual in the poem is self reflecting the different ways they behave and how they have grown to loath certain parts of themselves. I don’t think I was aiming for a certain audience while writing this piece, but I feel it can relate to anyone who might be going through a period of self reflection themselves. I would say the biggest influencer behind this piece was the book A Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde; I played off the idea of how pictures and mirrors in this case reflect a person’s true self. This theme was present in the book when Dorian started to see the effects of his sins in the his portrait. One stylistic choice I made was that I seperated some lines from the actual poem:
“Maybe I’ll see her,
This girl, she is happy she moves through life with the same carelessness of the wind
The world is in her grasp and she is ready to take it on.
She is as free as the blue, cloudless sky seen only on a warm summer afternoon
She is the cool breeze that moves along with the tides.
She is the warm orange of the sunset.
I hate her ignorance.”
I did this to put emphasis on the distorted thoughts of the individual in the poem and also to put emphasis on certain phrases like “I hate her ignorance”. I think that this is one of my best pieces for this semester because I liked how I experimented with the different style in this poem.
Unsolved: The Jamison Family Case
Link: https://aliza152.edublogs.org/2018/05/05/141/
This was my non-fiction piece that was based on the unsolved case of the Jamison Family. The Jamison Family goes missing during a road trip to some private property they were looking to buy. Their bodies are found four years later a few miles from were they had gone missing. My audience for this piece was anyone who might be interested in unsolved cases such as this one, my purpose was to inform the reader of key information about the case, and also discuss the numerous theories behind this case. I tried to emulate the kind of voice you would see when reading a featured article, but I think by doing that I lost some of my own voice in the piece; I think I could have added more of my own opinions about the case in the piece like add some of my own beliefs and theories.
