Daniela Sandoval Q4 Portfolio Branching Out | Page 6

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Wave (Q4) Prose pg. 11

This piece began as an assignment for april in which we could write about whatever we wanted. At the time I was feeling really stressed out and instead of doing a piece that would explicitly describe how I felt, I decided to make a narrative that could represent it. Given that this was a piece I submitted for the Spring edition of Sin Fronteras, I received a lot of feedback. Most of it referring to rewording part that didn’t seem very clear such as the starting metaphor of “fight or flight” as well as other ones of description and plot holes—mainly not making the clamor of the scenery seem repetitive. Like most of my pieces, I believe that objectively the narrative has very strong imagery through the language used and furthermore after some editing it flowed very nicely through the chaos. Subjectively, I feel like this piece really demonstrates the pressure I have felt accumulating over the last couple of months. In the quote “The breeze whispers as it dances through the palm trees and it gives my skin warm kisses. The sand is prickly under my thighs, as I sit crossed legged beyond the soothing waves,” I think it demonstrates the strong descriptions which are vital for the story. Nonetheless, for further improvement, I tried to make some of the sentences more neatly structured. It seems like some are cut in the middle and continued with the next one.

I'm Fine (Q3) Poem, Villanelle pg. 12

This piece was the trial for a new types of poem we were learning called Villanelle. During those days, a long time friend had been having a rough time with school and family—which was in part the inspiration to this poem. The process of creating this piece was a whole deal on itself, since you have to keep the rhyme going, while still making sense of the message. Once I managed to have a clear idea of the poem, my peers didn’t really have any suggestions to make to it (I’m serious). There was only one line that sounded awkward, but I couldn’t really modify it without changing part of the meaning and stanza. I am really proud of this poem since it is a style I had never tried before and it turned out pretty well. I think I did a good job at keeping the rhymes making sense and at the same time still demonstrating the idea of sadness I wanted to convey, like seen in “To every god you would prey,/ Cursing when everything left in a whim.” An area of weakness I think is how sometimes the repeating line “But you were gone the following day” begins to contradict some of the past lines. I’d try to find a way to keep the rhyme and message of that line but in a way that it could fit into every other stanza.

Big Fish (Q4) Poem pg. 13

“Big Fish” began as a creative piece during a free writing period where I was unable to summon any new creative ideas. That day I had told a friend I was feeling particularly down and unaccomplished; which made no sense since finally I was around classes with more ‘over-achiever’ students. She dismissed my attitude and said it was called the “Big Fish” effect. So I decided to look more into it and write a piece describing my experience with it. While drafting, some peers suggested I tried to give more closure to the piece. That is why I decided to add at the end how even though I’m feeling down, I’ll eventually feel up to level with them. Objectively, I think the ideas are well stated with a sort of ‘cause and effect’ system to them. Subjectively, I think this piece really represents the way I had felt for a pretty long time and getting it off my chest felt liberating. An example of the flow of the piece can been seen through “So I did./I worked hard,/Barely slept,/Turned everything in,/Got mostly A’s.” Most of the piece is structured that way with conventions so one thing leads to another. Nonetheless, I would still try to improve the ending and the message the piece leave. I think I was so concentrated into leaving my experience that I wasn’t able to dig deeper into myself to leave any idea in the piece.