My Writing workshops this year have been a great way for me to get creative and have

total freedom of my ideas and where they go. My first writing workshop piece I wrote
this year was a poem about a penguin. It started off as simply a joke that I started to
make in class but then I kept writing it and I eventually actually found myself enjoying
writing the silly poem. At first I didnt know what direction to go in. My first draft was
simply just a random poem about a penguin with several grade school esque rhymes. I
jokingly rhymed weather with feathers and cool with mule. I took it in for a conference
and after getting some feedback I found a direction to go in with the piece. Instead of
just randomly making it rhymes having to do with penguins, I decided to give it a plot.
Now it would be a rhyming poem about a penguin that escapes from a zoo and ventures
into new york city. The first few paragraphs are the only ones I have kept throughout all
of my revisions. In these first few paragraphs I introduce the penguin in the zoo and how
he escapes from it following a bunch of school kids visiting the zoo. In my next draft I
had the penguin escaping the zoo only to become a criminal. This was kind of odd
though as I completely transformed a character from an innocent penguin into a thief. I
only made it more weird by putting in a line about the penguin wanting to become a
father. I took it in for another conference, got some more feedback, and decided to
change the direction of it. Now instead of making the penguin out to be some weird
criminal type of character, the penguin would be a more innocent character. Now, I
made the penguin venture into the great New York city only to eventually find that he
misses his life as a penguin in the zoo and all of his friends and memories that come
along with being in the zoo. I think this was a much better approach to this piece and
really bought into a full circle which develops the story unlike the other way I had

wanted to do it. Overall I found it fun and challenging having everything rhyme and
found out how challenging it can be to make things concise and straight to the point
when needed. Prior to this piece I had never written a poetry piece as long as this so it
was interesting to see how far I could take it.
Rovert Uceb was a peculiar kid is probably my favorite writing workshop piece I
have made in all of highschool. In this piece the protagonist is an inquisitive high school
kid interested in a kid named Rovert Uceb of whom has no knowledge of any social
norms and completely beats to his own drum. On this piece I think I have furthered my
own ability to develop characters in my pieces. Although I never really go into detail
about the protagonist, I think the way I developed Rovert was a great improvement
compared to my past writings. I also think that my descriptiveness when describing
characters improved. In the past I would just a basic outline of a character but never
really explain them or what they are all about. I feel as though I do a good job of this
with Rovert though. This is also the longest writing workshop piece I have written in high
school, partly because this was one of my favorite to write. Rovert is based on a kid that
my friend in my band goes to school with. Based on the descriptions that I have heard
of this kid and his antics I just had to write about it. Some of it however is obviously
made up, such as the part about Rovert being a father. Other than that however most of
Rovert is based on a real person. The protagonist is kind of based off of myself and my
reactions to hearing the stories of this kid. The narrator's point of view and overall
fascination in Rovert reflects my own fascination in this kid without ever even meeting
him.

My benchmark piece, Cops and Crawfish, was my favorite piece from last year. I
love this piece a lot for two reasons. The first reason being that it is a retelling of an
experience that happened to me when I was either twelve or thirteen that stuck with me
ever since. There are not that many moments in my life where I can remember every
single detail and every single emotion I felt but this was one of those moments. The
second being that during this piece I was taught to Show and not just tell of my personal
experiences in my writing. Instead of just telling the reader that I ran with the lit firework
in my hand, through a hedge, and into my neighbor's yard, I show the reader my
emotions as they occur so they can better put themselves in my shoes. I clearly
remember and describe my emotions throughout an entire day of my life which is
something that I had never been able to do before in a piece of writing. This is ability I
think I have been able to incorporate into my writing upon completing this piece, and
that is why I chose it to be my benchmark piece. However, if I had found my writing
workshops from freshman year I probably would have chosen one of those just because
of how absurd they are.
My ESC paper is probably the most important to me out of anything on this
portfolio. I knew how I felt about wanting to pursue music and why I want to pursue
music i just was not able to put it into words. The ESC paper helped me go through my
past to examine my love of my guitar, hip hop music, and Kanye West. There is no
single point in time when I have a eureka moment though. My ESC paper is rather all of
my car rides listening to Kanye and thinking about life condensed into one car ride. Prior
to writing the ESC paper I never really could make out a chronological order of how I
decided I wanted to pursue music. During the process of writing the ESC however, I

was able to reflect on my past and really come up with how I think the way I do. It also
helped me to realize how much the music of Kanye West really influenced me, The
College Dropout specifically. I touched on this in the paper but Kanyes confidence and
artistic ability to do whatever he wants without giving a damn what anybody else thinks
is just so inspiring.
The second writing workshop piece I wrote this year was called Paradise by the
Dashboard Light. When I heard the song of the same name by Meat Loaf I thought it
would be cool if I could turn that song into a narrative. That is essentially what I tried to
do with this piece. I set it in the seventies about an awkward teen who had just moved
from the open environment of L.A to the complete opposite that is Kenosha. At first I
didnt really know how to go about it. All I knew is that I definitely wanted to end the
story by incorporating the song somehow which is what I did. That song has been one
of my favorites the past few years so I enjoyed incorporating it into my writing. Aspects
of the protagonist of this story ar based off of myself as I at times am incredibly socially
awkward. Chaz is largely based on a more personable Pedro from Napolean Dynamite.