Journal Entries
Throughout K-12 I remember two very significant "writing" moments in my life. The first occurred during my sophomore year of high school when my friend, Lauren, gave me a journal complete of a collage of inspirational words for my birthday. At the time I was going through a transition in my life and needless to say Lauren's gift to me couldn't have come at a better time.
After all this time I've continued to write in that very same journal given to me years ago. From time to time I will go through and read old entries and reminisce on my past. The writing over the course of the years has drastically transformed from the handwriting itself, the details added to the stories and thoughts, and the way in which I express myself and grasp the emotions of that particular moment in my life.
It is through my friendships and relationship with others, songs symbolizing periods of time in my life, and the writing I've recorded in my journal that reveal the road I've traveled to get to where I am today. What I've come to realize through this assignment is the significance of our individual words and how just a simple word added to a piece of paper can some day become the window to a cherished memory.
Unknowingly Lauren gave me a gift that forever changed my life. The journal went from a simple place to record the events of the day to over the course of time became a safe haven for me where I could express myself however I desired. The endless pages of writing in the journal symbolize the precious memories in my life, the end of friendships as well as the beauty of new friendships, the story behind my relationships, the obstacles and hardships that I've encountered and overcame, but most of all it symbolizes me and the person I've become.
After all this time I've continued to write in that very same journal given to me years ago. From time to time I will go through and read old entries and reminisce on my past. The writing over the course of the years has drastically transformed from the handwriting itself, the details added to the stories and thoughts, and the way in which I express myself and grasp the emotions of that particular moment in my life.
It is through my friendships and relationship with others, songs symbolizing periods of time in my life, and the writing I've recorded in my journal that reveal the road I've traveled to get to where I am today. What I've come to realize through this assignment is the significance of our individual words and how just a simple word added to a piece of paper can some day become the window to a cherished memory.
Unknowingly Lauren gave me a gift that forever changed my life. The journal went from a simple place to record the events of the day to over the course of time became a safe haven for me where I could express myself however I desired. The endless pages of writing in the journal symbolize the precious memories in my life, the end of friendships as well as the beauty of new friendships, the story behind my relationships, the obstacles and hardships that I've encountered and overcame, but most of all it symbolizes me and the person I've become.
The second significant "writing" moment presented itself during my senior year of high school. My ELA class assigned our class a final project that required us to put together a book of our examples of poems, short stories, narrative, pictures, ect. Fortunately the students were given the freedom to do as they pleased in putting together the assignment as long as it met all the requirements.
I've always loved putting together artsy crafts so it was simply a matter of how I was going to tie in my creative, personal self with my perfectionist, academic self. Putting together the poems surprisingly came the easiest to me. Although I was aware that the freedom given in this assignment was only to an extent, I felt more at ease in writing the poems and short stories because as long as I met the requirements I could express myself however I pleased. Similar to our literacy narrative assignment my ELA final project was difficult to get into but once you took the leap into the assignment suddenly it became a matter of choosing which pieces should be a part of the final product and what had to be cut. At the time of this particular assignment I wasn't able to see the reflection of who I was through my writing on the pages. A few years later as I was spring cleaning I came upon the very same scrapbook. It felt as if I went through time as I looked over the assignment and was brought back to that moment in my life. Far too often do so many of us take for granted the piece of ourselves that we put into our writing. It is so fascinating to me that the poems, short stories, and my own narrative that I put together my senior year appeared to just be any other writing assignment. Four years later and those very same words, their detail, the stories they're telling can instantly bring me back to that precise time of my life and all I was going through. |
Final Project: Scrapbook of our personal literary pieces |