Blog 26: Senior Project Reflection

(1) Positive Statement

What are you most proud of in your 2-Hour Presentation and/or your senior project? Why?

To be honest, I really liked my presentation set-up, as in the Prezi itself. I made it as I was rehearsing so that I would know what I was talking about as I was presenting, so that it sounded rehearsed.

(2) Questions to Consider

a.     What assessment would you give yourself on your 2-Hour Presentation (self-assessment)?

AE       P          AP       CR       NC

b.     What assessment would you give yourself on your overall senior project (self-assessment)?

AE       P          AP       CR       NC

(3) What worked for you in your senior project?

What worked for me the most was probably the fact that I already knew quite a bit, but also that there were so many online resources.

(4) (What didn't work) If you had a time machine, what would have you done differently to improve your senior project if you could go back in time?

What didn't work for me was probably my lack of resources outside of the Internet as well as my lack of transportation. If I had the choice, I probably would have changed my topic altogether and chosen something I could do more locally and what could have worked within my schedule. Maybe I would have transferred.

(5) Finding Value

How has the senior project been helpful to you in your future endeavors?   Be specific and use examples. 

I guess it's been most helpful in teaching me to have at least adequate writing habits that would ultimately help improve my writing skills. For example, before this project, I did little to know writing and mainly read peoples' pieces for them and critique their work. However, after said project, I was able to practice refining my habits through both of my independent components, which both focused on writing on a daily basis.

Blog 25: Mentorship

    Literal
·     Log of specific hours with a total and a description of your duties (All included in the mentorship log)
·     Press Ctrl+F and enter 'Andrew Canales' in my mentorship log. His information is there (I do not want to publish it on a public blog for his consideration)

    Interpretive
     What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?
   Considering there was a miscommunication about what I could use to constitute as mentoship, I cannot say I had an adequate mentoring experience. What I can say though is that Wordsmitten gave me a lot of experience and taught me much about both myself as a writer and what my goals as a writer are. I have come to realize that:

1. My writing is not geared towards younger audiences. I am okay with this, as long as I can practice my fiction freely. Still, this came as a bit of a surprise because of how young I am. I guess in a sense I didn't take my writing so serious that I thought writing adult fiction would be an option for me. After discovering this, I know that I shouldn't undermine myself because doubt manifests failure more often that fear.

Wordsmitten aside, the experience I gained from attending the Poly Post also helped me understand a few things. It takes a team to accomplish a whole project, depending on what type of project it is. I guess the most important thing I've learned thus far is not necessarily one of my answers, but has to do with time management. When I went to the Post in time to see how they schedule who does what story, there were at least twenty people in the room and one event had to be covered on Friday, yet almost no one had time to cover it and the person who did wasn't allowed to cover it because they had another story to cover.

Applied
     How has what you’ve done helped you to answer your EQ?  Please explain.
Throughout the year, I've helped quite a few people revise their essay assignments. Turnitin aside, people came to me to ask for a critique and I used what I learned to effectively give them feedback. Instead of reading their pieces in my head, I read them aloud and it helped me see the flow of their story or where they could improve. Multiple people have told me that my criticism is so effective, that it's better than just answering a few questions. That isn't to say the questions don't help, but there are key elements to look for when wanting to give criticism.

Since the beginning of the year, I've learned how to give criticism that is not too harsh or critical. Ultimately, I have learned to give constructive criticism that will help writers better their pieces or understand where their weaknesses are and how to improve them to become strengths.

Blog 24: Exit Interview

(1) What is your essential question?  What is the best answer to your question and why?

My essential question is 'How can a writing group best be facilitated to help writers develop their craft?'. This year I have studied three different answers which are:

• To give and receive constructive criticism

• Set realistic deadlines

• Recognize your role as a reader and a writer

My best answer of these the would have to be to give and receive constructive criticism because that is the basic purpose of a writing group or a critique group. I emphasize constructive because criticism that is vague, negative, or otherwise empty praise will not help the writer acknowledge their weaknesses, which is critical when being critiqued. 

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

During the time I've been in Wordsmitten, maintained my blog, and submitted my pieces to Fictionpress, I've come to notice that out of those three, I received the most effective criticism on Fictionpress mainly because it is run by the same people who run Fanfiction.net. These websites attract so much attention from audiences of all ages, that inevitably they are criticized on basically everything a writer could be criticized on. I did not expect this to happen though, considering Wordsmitten is a class designed to give aspiring young writers criticism.

Wordsmitten, however, has not given me as much as I hope it would. Perhaps it is because I become easily distracted in that class or because my classmates are almost all younger than me. They write stories geared to younger audiences, while I have been told my writing would receive more attention from older audiences. I don't know if that's true, but I can say that in Wordsmitten, I don't receive the criticism I wish I did. Most of it is praise or people just don't pay attention to my pieces because they're paying more attention to their friends.

Because I don't receive the criticism I wish I did receive and have received in the past, I know that if I were given that criticism, my writing would get better and I would have more motivation to write my narratives. For example, I shared with my friend, Steven, who regularly asks to read my work, a piece I had been working on for a while and when I felt comfortable enough to share with him my piece, he was quite critical about it. He didn't dismiss the fact that I was missing essential details or that my piece was too "cheesy". He told me which parts could be improved and what parts I did well on. So I took his advice and fixed it.

While the other two answers are important, criticism is, again the basis of a writing group, therefore it benefits a writer the most because they'll improve their writing without being discouraged.

(3) What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

One of my issues was finding a mentor nearby because I have very little means of transportation or contact opportunities. The few times I went to the Cal Poly Post I did not receive what I expected to. Going there made me realize that perhaps journalism is not the road I would want to go down, but perhaps being an editor would work well for me in the future. A solution that I found, however, were online groups. There was no specific mentor unfortunately, but there were experienced writers, freelancer writers for example, that regularly visited sites like Critique Circle and Writerscafe. A few of them are published authors who are trying to contribute to the writing community, young and old, beginners and experienced.

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

I purchased a book called "The Critique and Writing Group Survival Guide..." by Becky Levine, which essentially revolves around how to facilitate and participate effectively in a writing group. Each chapter is broken up into sections and Levine gives many excerpts from narratives to use as examples. 
A second source, and one I've found most helpful, would have to be my Wordsmitten class. It was through that class that I was first introduced to writing groups and where I gained most of my experience as a critic.

(5) What is your product and why?
My product, after researching and practicing for nearly nine months, would have to be conditioning myself to have disciplined writing habits. The most common advise for writers is to both read and write as often as possible, and while I read on a daily basis, writing on a daily basis was something I did not do religiously. However, after maintaing a blog for 30 hours, with almost 50 posts and 29 followers, writing has become part of my daily routine.

This habit is important to facilitating a writing group because it embodies all of my answers, in that the more often you write, the more experience you'll gain and the easier it will be to recognize when someone has been practicing their writing skills. If they have not, then that can be a piece of advice you can give them in a critique. Also writing on a daily basis would be the same as having set yourself a realistic deadline. It's not so difficult writing something everyday as long as it has coherent thought and effort behind it.

Blog 21: Independent Component 21

LITERAL
(a) I, Teresa Melendez Rodriguez, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.
(b) Click
(c) Ta-da 
(d) Initially my independent component was going to be to use Critique Circle to have my pieces critiqued but because there was a queue to wait for my own submissions to be critiqued and even then there was a slim chance someone would look at them, I chose to turn to Wordpress, a website I've been using for almost over two years now. I would post my pieces and people would either like them or share their opinions and experiences.
INTERPRETIVE
In my prior attempts to use Wordpress for criticism, I forgot one major component: tags, which are topics that can be accumulated to one webpage so that if someone were to research said topic, it would narrow down the options. Not only that, but it help my blog become somewhat more known to people. After a month or so of blogging almost daily, I now have 18 followers, none of who I know personally and just happened to stumble upon my page.This is essentially because generally my pieces would be shared in a classroom environment with people too familiar or younger than I, and that's something I wanted to stray away from. I was aiming towards and older and broader audience of bloggers who were not gravitating towards just fiction pieces. I wanted to share my opinion and here others' as well.

APPLIED

Ultimately, this helped my answer my EQ because it showed me exactly what people want to read about. Often when someone in my Wordsmitten class shares a piece, they sound either dull or generic, as in it's the same thing week after week. But on Wordpress, where I posted various types of pieces, I received opinions from different audiences as well as approval from different age groups. Depending on what type of writing group one is interested in joining, it is important to know who your target audiences is and what you expect to get from them. Because I'm still at a young age and many of my posts weren't all too constructive, and were more or less rants, I knew I wouldn't receive any distinguishable feedback. But the attention that my blog did receive was rather surprising. Every other post that I published either received likes or a comment, which was more than what I was asking for. I heard experiences from other people going through the same things I was and they gave me advise on how to deal with it. 

Blog 20: Three Column Chart

Three Column Chart

Blog 19: Senior Project and ESLR's

1.  What ESLR have you excelled in most in your senior project? 

I've likely achieved Best Communicator.
2.  Please explain why you think you have excelled in this ESLR.

I've been told repeatedly to not use Wordsmitten as an example but really, it's all I've got at this point. As one of the older members of Wordsmitten, I'm often heralded as a talented writer and it is my duty to pass on those skills. (That might sound cocky, but my writing skills have proven to be both a gift and a curse. While I enjoy sitting and writing fiction, people often come to me and ask that I revise whatever piece they've written, whether it be a school assignment or an independent piece. This has proven troublesome because it's somewhat difficult to deny them. That being said, my most effective method of revising said pieces is through Google Docs. Because both parties usually cannot meet in person, I have the students share their piece with me on Google Docs and section by section of their piece is evaluated. I don't like revising without them being present during this Google Docs meeting because it's just like having a teacher write minuscule notes on my essay rather than sitting me down to explain exactly what I could have done better: it's just not as effective.

3.  Provide evidence from your senior project to support your claim (evidence is a photo of something you are doing, photo of something you made, etc).

Here are multiple pieces I have revised

These pieces do not also include those I've read in Wordsmitten

Blog 18: Answer 3

1.  What is your essential question?

How can a writing group best be facilitated to help writers improve their craft?

2.  What is your third answer to your essential question (write your third answer in a complete sentence)?

Respect your boundaries as a critiquer.

3.  What are three details to support or justify your third answer (details are examples or facts)?

• Do not blatantly insult a fellow writer's work.

• The point of criticism to help improve the writer's craft, not disgrace it

• Effectively use diction that will clarify your needs as a writer so that the writers themselves can use it to make alterations in their pieces

• Ultimately it is the writer's choice how the piece is written - your job is to simply help them improve their weaknesses

4.  What source helped you prove this answer is justified for your essential question?

Loewen, Stanley C. "Constructive Criticism and Advice – Giving It, Taking It, and Reconsidering It." Constructive Criticism and Advice – Giving It, Taking It, and Reconsidering It. HealthGuidance, n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2013. <http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/16145/1/Constructive-Criticism-and-Advice--Giving-It-Taking-It-and-Reconsidering-It.html>

This article was very useful in that it went into depth of how to exactly approach a writing critique. The last three points elaborate on how to appropriately evaluate someone's writing in that it says things like using words of encouragement, remaining detached from a piece as a writer and acting as a reader instead, as well as allowing the writer to understand your needs as a reader's needs.
I'm too lazy to check, but I also believe this article was the one that explained an idea of "sandwiching" criticism between praise.
In other words, you would praise someone, give them constructive feedback on their weakness, and then praise them further on their strengths. This allows for the writer to receive both advice on improving as well as encouragement to continue improving their craft.

5.  What do you plan to study next and why? 

What I plan to study next is effective methods for engaging student groups on activities because group working is essential to the dynamics of writing groups and I also need it to see how I can incorporate an activity into my two-hour.

Blog 17: Interview 4

1. How can a writing group best be facilitated to help writers develop their craft?How often do you have meetings?
2. Where do you meet?
3. Who can join?
4. Will members communicate only online?
5. Will there be informal or even social meetings for group members?
6. What system will group members use to decide who will submit writing during any given week?
7. Will one person be in charge of overseeing the writing group?
8. What will be this person’s responsibilities?
9. How will he or she keep the group on track and on task?
10. How short or long should writing samples be?
11. What is the most common problem you come across in writing groups?
12. How is it fixed?
13. Are there businesses that run based on writing groups?
14. If a writer is struggling, what can fellow writing members offer to spark inspiration?
15. At what stage in the writing process should drafts be submitted to the group?
16. Instead of submitting a manuscript, would the group also be willing to give feedback on scripts?
17. Since there are differences in types of writing groups, do critique groups offer the same opportunities or contacts another type of writing group would?
18. How many times can a single piece of writing be revised and resubmitted?
19. If someone feels that the group is not meeting his or her needs, how will that person make his or her concerns known?
20. What kind of feedback are members most interested in, and how will members specify these needs at any particular point? Overall meaning? Writer’s purpose in writing? Structure? Copyediting?

Blog 16: 2-Hour Meeting Answer #2

1.  What is your essential question?

How can a writing group best be facilitated to help writers develop their craft?

2.  What is your second answer to your essential question (write your second answer in a complete sentence)?

Mandating deadlines is essential to developing proper writing habits. (I couldn't think of another way to phrase it.)

3.  What are three details to support or justify your second answer (details are examples or facts)?

Meeting deadlines:

• help a writer develop responsibility for his or her piece
• allows the writer to keep a goal in mind throughout their project
• establish enough pressure that a writer will feel compelled to complete whatever it is they are currently working on
• often when meeting a deadline, it give a writer a sense of accomplishment

4.  What source helped you prove this answer is justified for your essential question?

I didn't have a resource because I was speaking more out of experience than anything. However, upon research, I found this, which essentially states the same thing.

5.  What do you plan to study next with your second answer and why?  (You would say "I plan to continue my study of answer 2 by doing ____________"?)

I will continue studying my answer 2 by further researching the importance and effectiveness of deadlines, see what professionals have to say about it, etc.

Blog 12: Third Interview Questions

• How can a writing group best be facilitated to help writers develop their craft?

• In your experience, what are the various ways a group comes together to write? Is it ever done virtually or just in person

• Are there different ways of going about revision?

• Do some pieces not make it simply because they lack skill  or have no shown progress?

• What is done when group members (or staff) fail to come up with things to write?

• How is everyone usually kept up to speed?

• How do deadlines help keep the group on track?

• Is the revision process usually done as a group or is it one-on-one?

• Through how many people does a piece go through before it is approved to be published?

• What feedback from consumers is expected to continue publishing?

Blog 15: Independent Component 2 Plan Approval*

*UPDATE*

(1) Write a description of what you plan on doing for your independent study component.

Since there are new rules regarding clubs, I don't think a newspaper can be accomplished since not many people showed interest. That being said, I have found an online critiquing group that will review my pieces and whose pieces I will review.

(2) Describe in detail how you think your plan will meet the 30 hours work requirement.

For every three pieces I critique, one of my pieces will be critiqued. Since most of the pieces are about 2000 words, it will be easy to accomplish the 30 hours if I set aside an hour everyday to not only work on my own writing but to help someone else with theirs.

 (3) How does your independent study component relate to your working EQ? 

Because this process is give an take, the fundamentals of a writing groups are still intact. Depending on which kind of critique you would like to give based on the following options:

It can be done thoroughly or just be small pieces of praise or criticism.

Blog 14: Independent Component 1

LITERAL

• (a) Statement saying: “I, Teresa M. Rodriguez, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.”

• (b) I used NaNoWriMo, an annual writing contest for my individual component. As a student of Wordsmitten, we were offered the opportunity to receive an automatic AE if we managed to complete the 50,000 word quota of the competition, but given all my other priorities, that did not happen. Mrs. Edwards was in charge of the Wordsmitten students participating in NaNoWriMo.

• (c) Provide a digital spreadsheet (aka log of the 30 hours):

I do not have an hour by hour representation of each writing session I did but I do have this:

• (d) Explanation of what you completed.

I wrote a young adult narrative revolving around a boy named Justin, who lives in a destructive home with his parents and younger brother, Darren. Justin tries to cope with the voice in his head that tells him crude things or encourages him to harm others. Whilst doing so, he also tries to juggle his father's abusive relationship with his mother, his friends, and his new friend, Lena.

INTERPRETIVE 

• Total, I have approximately 35 pages worth of words with 19,125 exactly. If it takes about one hour a day to write up 500 words, I have approximately 38.25 hours worth of work. Each color indicates a new chapter or segment.

APPLIED

How did the component help you understand the foundation of your topic better?  Please include specific examples to illustrate how it helped.

Whilst researching about NaNoWriMo and what people had to say about it, many said that it was a shoot or miss type of opportunity. One man had a list of 25 ways to complete NaNoWriMo and each step seemed to be asking a lot from writers. Most said that a writer must be disciplined in writing each day, though that is common advice for writers working in general. Each day required approximately 1,667 words minimum. With juggling this quota and other schoolwork, I found it extremely difficult to meet the requirements, which is why the total word count was as low as it was. 


This helped me better understand my senior project because it allowed me to experience what it may be like for working writers - those who write for magazines, newspapers, or book publishing companies. It really challenged me because while I do enjoy writing, I don't do it on a daily basis like I should. I lacked the discipline to write a minimum of 1,667 words. It became very frustrating to keep up with the competition because you have to start from scratch and coming up with a 50,000 word, 175-page minimum narrative is extremely difficult for someone who lacks the discipline to write so much in one day and juggle other aspects in life.
Ultimately, I do no think the competition was for me, like many others. I write when I need to or when I'm inspired, but to do it on a daily basis without proper preparation is too overwhelming for me. It was a nice try though.

Blog 11: Mentorship 10 hours Check

1.   Where are you doing your mentorship?
Cal Poly Post in Building 1, Room 109(?)

2.   Who is your contact?

Andrew Canales

3.   How many total hours have you done (total hours should be reflected in your mentorship log located on the right hand side of your blog like your WB)?   

I have approximately 22 hours and 10 minutes

4.   Summarize the 10 hours of service you did.

For the most part I used my 10 hours at the Cal Poly Post newspaper office. I'm generally give a handful of submissions done by the college students and expected to revise what I can (I also pick up a few tips along the way as to contemporary  newspaper grammar [They don't use the third Oxford comma anymore... :( ])

The additional 5 hours was used to help my classmates revise their college essays. Each had a different prompt so it took a few hours to get through each, check the grammar, spelling, and clarified any unclear sentences as well as restructured what didn't flow properly. From this I was able to practice my editing skills, which I generally like to do more than writing.

5.   Email your house teacher the name of your contact and their phone number.    

Andrew Canales

I do not have his number, but here is his email: andrewcanales16@yahoo.com

Blog 10 : Senior Project Update

(1) What are you currently doing in your independent component?

NaNoWriMo just ended yesterday and I barely achieved 19,000+ words in a month. If there's anything that can be said, I don't think this contest is for me. Some people have the ability to write in the same mindset for long periods of time, and I am not one of those people. One of Steven King's pieces of advice from his book On Writing, is that he creates a piece, he puts it away, doesn't think about it for a while, and then takes it back out so that his mind is clear of any...writers block, and I think that's the kind of advice that applies to me. I found that as I was writing, I was gradually becoming more and more bored with the content of my piece. I was throwing in random things that were not in my initial idea, they were tangents if anything. The piece itself seems rather dull and at some point, I lost hope trying to fix it because doing so would have meant getting rid of most of it and that to me didn't seem like progress, especially since NaNoWriMo is a daily thing and after a while it because so tedious to go back and write a story I wasn't enjoying writing.


Some of my friends who were also participating in the contest said the same, that as they were writing it felt like nothing in their pieces was happening, though one friend found it simple to continue the venture, but she had participated the year before and exceeded the 50,000 word minimum (I'm not going to name names but to say the least, she's accomplished more in her high school career than I have in my entire life, so this contest probably wasn't much of a challenge for her). Being someone who did not write on a daily basis a minimum of 1,667 words, it was overwhelming and required me to brush aside my other priorities, adding stress to dealing with all the other work I had to do with school, spending time with both my family and friends, as well as getting a decent amount of rest.

To say the least, senior year is not a good year to be participating in NaNoWriMo, especially when it is not my current highest priority. That's just the reality of it.

(2) What is a recent piece of research (article, interview, or audio-visual) that have you reviewed you would say was significant in helping you understand where to go next in your senior project?  The piece of research should be something you reviewed in November.  Please explain what you learned and where are you going next because of this piece of research.

It's been difficult to actually focus on my senior project, what with missing several Friday's to go to my mentorship (There was a day I couldn't go, another was during the break, and one when no one was there), plus with Model Assembly and my other classes, my senior project has been the last thing on my mind. That being said, I do follow blogs that discuss different methods of how to construct a narrative. One of them, at the top of my head discussed the different ways of expressing your characters' emotions through mannerisms, such as posture, facial expressions, and hand gestures, not just tone of voice or not...blatantly stating the characters' emotions as the narrator.

Another piece, which was not professionally posted yet has proven helpful, focused on revealing the backstory of a character.

I recently started a new narrative revolving around two companions with lawful purposes and supernatural powers. Their story, which is also a mystery to themselves, needs to strategically revealed through...surprise and secrets. How that's going to be done, I'm not sure just yet, but it's proving interesting to write and there's not much pressure to go off on tangents as it was with my previous NaNoWriMo piece, Easier Said Than Done. This current fictional piece is still untitled because I've come to realize whenever I name my pieces, it feels too final, like I've set an expectation for myself, and I think that's where I went wrong with NaNoWriMo. I went back and edited my piece often, which was one of the number one things bloggers and other participants had advised against, but I am an editor. It's actually what I do best.

(3) Provide evidence from your independent component or the piece of research as something you recently did.  For example, a photo of something you working on for your independent component or your notes from the video you watched.

Individual Component # 1 Update - 11/14/12

Research is seen above

Blog 9: Science Fair Proposal

1. What is your topic?
Writing groups

2. What is the driving problem behind your experiment and the quote by an expert to support that problem? (Expert citation must be MLA format.)

"More than 50% of students answered that writing is the most difficult part. The second on is grammar. The least difficult part is speaking although writing and speaking are related to productive skills. The two sections needs to have grammatical knowledge and coherence. Given that fact, students feel more under pressure about what is written than what is spoken. Compared to speaking, in writing, students felt more under pressure in dealing with grammatical errors."

Kim, Jung Hwa. "EFT Writing Problems in the Korean Students." Paaljapan. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Feb. 2013. <http://www.paaljapan.org/resources/proceedings/PAAL8/pdf/pdf018.pdf

3. What is your hypothesis? (Must be in If-Then form.)

Given seven minutes to write, students will likely commit more grammatical errors depending on how great the number of words they achieve.

4. Write a paragraph summary of how you will perform the experiment.  Include the tools you plan on using.


I will be using the Wordsmitten elective as my test subjects. There are at least 20 students in the class so each will hand in to me their Quickwrites on Tuesdays. They will be given seven minutes to write based on a prompt and after I will collect their papers, tally the word counts, and document all of the grammatical errors they have. I will then average their grammatical errors and word counts individually. I will also take into account whose first language is English and whose is otherwise, because I believe that may play a role in how well their English syntax may be.

Blog 9: Working EQ

(1) What was the working EQ you used during your presentation?
"What is the best way to becoming(?) a successful freelance writer?"
(2) Did you decide to revise your working EQ after your presentation? If so, write your revised EQ here. If not simple write "I am not going to revise my EQ at this time".
After speaking with Mrs. Ortega, I think I'd like to revise my EQ to something along the lines of "What is an adviseable way of maintaining a sustaining career as a freelance writer?"
(3) What are possible answers to your current working EQ?
There are multiple fields of journalism or reporting that one can go into in order to become a freelance writer and earn a living.
- Get involved with local events and find contacts
- Intern for a local or major newspaper
- Enter contests
- Write fan fiction (It worked for E.L. James)
- Daily practice of writing

Blog 8: 10 Minutes Presentation

Google Document

Blog 7: Individual Component Approval

(1) Write a description of what you plan on doing for your independent study component.
Every November, starting November 1 and ending November 30, a site called NaNoWriMo holds a novel-writing contest, in which in the span of one month each contestant must write approximately 50,000 words (Or 175-pages) worth of material. The novel must be written from scratch and must be composed of actual plots, not a single or two words repeated multiple times. In that one month, I will spend numerous amounts of time writing and pouring my ideas into a potentially published novel.


(2) Describe in detail how you think your plan will meet the 30 hours work requirement.
Writing takes time and investing into 50,000 words is hard work. Last year, second semester, I achieved about 33,000 words, but that took multiple months. Because this is done in one month, more time will be invested into it in order to reach 50,000 words

(3) How does your independent study component relate to your working EQ?
From what I've researching, the most common advice I find is "keep writing." If I do reach the goal of 50,000 words, even if I'm not satisfied with my work, it was still hard practice and ultimately will help me as a future writer in whatever field.

Interview 2: Mentor Background Questions

1. What is it exactly that you do? (I didn't have a summer mentor so I'm only just starting to work with mine this Tuesday)
2. How long have you worked under your titled and how do you think you've improved?
3. What are some issues or challenges that you come across and how have you overcome them?
4. What did you study in order to gain your position?
5. What are the benefits of working at the Cal Poly Post?

Blog 4: Project Reflection and Working EQ

The Pentagon: 
(1) Positive Statement: What positive thing happen as a result of what you have completed so far?

• I've a better visual of how to go about taking on a writing career. My initial fear was being thrusted into the working world with no idea how to even begin working, at least as a writer. Fast food restaurants seem easy enough. I like having a goal, but more often than not, I have trouble taking the proper steps to reaching that goal, so knowing where to begin and what steps to take will really help me succeed.

(2) EQ Content:  Pick a piece of research or your interview.  How has it helped you improve your understanding of your topic?

• I really like Michele Pariza Wacek's artlice "How to Succeed As A Writer" because it eased my nerves at attempting writing. Although it is a passion, there was always that doubt that I would not do it properly or that people wouldn't like it, but Wacek's article addressed the fact that you don't need to be that well of a writer to succeed. Not that you should slack off, just don't be too hard on yourself. That being said, there is less pressure to be the best, which in the writing world is quite a challenge given how much competition there is.

(3) What has worked for you so far in the senior project?

• I'm not so sure what this question is asking.... I guess what has worked for me is the research. At any other given time, I wouldn't have looked up such specific things, like the requirements of becoming a writer, the different fields, or even the issues of becoming a writer.

(4) What hasn't worked so far?  

• I'm having a bit of an issue thinking of what I'll ultimately do during presentations or for Science Fair. I don't have much access to professional writers as I would like and not everyone enjoys writing, so when the presentation comes up, I'm nervous my activities won't be effective.

(5) Finding Value:  Based on your experience so far,

What possible question or questions come to mind regarding what you would like to study this year (don't list questions about the instructions relating to the senior project)?

• As in core classes? I'm still not sure what topic of math Ogden is teaching, but I guess I'd like to know what exactly we'll be studying in English. Aside from poetry, I really like English class and it's usually one of my favorites.

 What is your end goal this year with your senior project (don't say get a good grade or gain knowledge, put specific things you want to accomplish in your senior project this year)

• Ultimately, I want to be able to apply what I've learned these last three years into my final year, my final project. I won't lie when I say I never wanted to come to this school, and multiple times I've near begged my mom to let me leave, but I made it three years in and I feel that's an accomplishment. I want to do my senior project justice and prove I can (sorry) get a good grade on my own. I guess I just want that sense of accomplishment that I managed to graduate.

Who would you like to talk to you next? Why?

• Maybe a published novelist. I spoke to Doug Spoon, my first interviewee, and he pointed out that newspaper writing is not the same as novel writing. While I don't mind doing either, I would like to focus a little on novel writing because that's the path I'm looking for. Eventually I'll get in contact with a published novelist, I hope.