The Road to Nowhere: SPANISH/HUMANITIES Short Stories
The last project we had for both humanities and spanish was the Road to Nowhere project. It was a project that still focused on immigration, but we now brought in the creative writing aspect. We were to all write a short story about immigration. We would be working in groups of three to each write a section of one large story. We were to all collaborate as a group to create a whole unified story.
Spanish - In our groups we were given a specific country in Latin America, whether it be Colombia, Argentina, or Mexico, etc. Based on that country we would integrate that setting into our story. In each group there would be at least one spanish 3, in which they would write their story in full spanish. All members that are spanish 1/2 would have to integrate at least 25% of the story in spanish. We had to include some sort of history or culture in our writing that had to do with the place. We learned about the individual countries in spanish class.
Humanities - We would each be given a section of the story to write. Over the weeks we would first develop a plot and characters. We would be given examples and articles that show how to define theme, how to develop a character, how to identify climax, etc. We had opportunities to practice writing and developing a great story. We would then write for 3 weeks straight, aiming for about 3000-4000 words. We would late receive much critique and drafting from our peers and other group members.
ALEX/ANNIKA/JUAN. Enjoy our story. This is my part of the story, called "UNA NUEVA IDENTIDAD" (A New Identity)
Our Story Overview: Annika/Juan/Alex W. The country we received was Mexico. We decided to have it mainly about immigration between Mexico to the U.S. I was given the last part of the story, while Alex got the beginning, Juan got the 2nd part
Improvements? We all received a lot of critique from each other. Other classmates read each others and we all gave feedback to each other. The teachers as well made sure to make all the necessary corrections for our writing. We had various rounds of editing. There was first critique in which they looked the general plot and flow of our story, but then there was editing in which they looked at the grammar and correct sentencing, formatting, spelling.
Reflection: I have always loved writing and I enjoy writing stories. It's been awhile since I've written something creatively. In the year before, we didn't get a chance to freely write. This year, I was glad to have been able to write and to do all the small exercises in poetry and stuff. I liked the idea of the combination between spanish and humanities, for I really enjoyed the historical things we learned about Latin America. I was really glad to be with Alex and Juan. They were both fun partners to be with and I believe they were the ones that really pushed and made all the cool ideas and plot twists of my story. Without them, my story would've been a lot different. They had so many good ideas and they brought our stories to life and actually made them interesting. My main problem in this project was the limit with words. I ended up writing too much! I should've wrote at least 3000 but I ended up going double the limit. It was so hard for me to cut down the important scenes I had. I really loved what I had written out as a first draft but I had to kill of parts. I need to work on writing really crucial scenes since it is a short piece. I enjoyed this project so much. We worked in a group, yet we worked a lot on our own. I enjoyed getting back into writing and I was really glad to have been a part of the book. I had written almost everyday, and I had felt really happy correcting my mistakes and making my story greater and greater as I made new drafts. I was happy when people read my story and I was really excited when I saw our book printed. I loved this project so much.