Flatworld Project Reflection

1. What did you like best about the project and why?
The part of the project I enjoyed the best was how easily we were able to share our stories with one another. In previous English classes I have been apart of, we only shared our work through hard copies. Because we could only see our peer's work in class, we could only read a few different stories. But in this class, with the flatworld, we were able to share work online. By having our stories online we could access them anytime, even at home. Because of this we could see the stories of so many people, even stories from other countries. Because the stories were so easy to access, it also made it easy to edit. I was really impressed and valued how we were able to get our stories edited by so many people.
Another thing that I really liked were the podcasts. Creating the podcasts was a new skill for everyone and they were very easy to do. They were also extremely effective for expressing our story. By listening to the podcasts we get a better idea of how the story was intended to be heard.

2. What did you like least and why?
One thing I didn't like about this project was the small yet abundant complications. What I mean by this was that there were many different things that were slightly problamatic, but because they happened so often they became a big problem. One of these problems was how nearly everyone was unclear of what to do. The different countries seemed to have different schedules. I was constantly confused of deadlines. Another problem I encountered was how I didn't recieve feedback from everyone. The project would have been much more effective if everyone was responsible enough to edit each others paper on time. I know that many of these problems could not be helped. I also realize that this is the first time anyone has ever done a project like this, so of course there are going to be complications. So I hope that in the future these problems can be fixed so this project can reach its full potential of helping students.

3. What was something surprising that you learned about the other students (from other schools)?
One thing that I learned about other schools was honestly, how the skills of Punahou students seemed to surpass those of other schools. I was also surprised when reading stories by how their cultures and issues are very similar to ours. For example, the kids in South Korea have the seem to have the same values, talk the same and even listen to the same music and watch the same television shows as we students in Hawaii do. Also we shared many of the same types of experiences dealing with things such as school, family, war, etc.
4. How do you think the project affected your writing?
Honestly, I do not think this project helped my writing much. Of course my writing skills improved slightly but I don't think they improved too much relative to the time we spent on the project. I think we spent around six weeks on the project, but I think I could have improved the same amount through a regular writing project that would only take around one week. One of the reasons this project wasn't very effective was the feedback. Although we recieved feedback from many different people, it wasn't very helpful. We were given a format for the feedback that everyone used, and because of this all the feedback was pretty much the same. The format also limited the advice we could give.

5. Describe the most challenging aspect of the project.
The most challenging aspect of the project for me was generating the basic plot of my story. It actually took me days to think of my initial idea to build off of. I chose to write about something I experienced but I had to think of many different twists to extend the story and make it more interesting.

6. Offer some advice to future participants.
I would advise future participants to keep up with the deadlines, whether it be giving feedback or revising. Giving feedback is very important to finish in time becuase other students are depending on you and waiting for you to help them. Also, it is important for you to finish revising in time so you won't fall behind. I would also advise to take a lot of time of creating your initial idea. You will be writing a story about it for a very long time so make sure you like your idea and it is something that is interesting and something you can write a lot about.

7. Other Comments
I think this project has a ton of potential. The idea is fantastic but some complications need to be fixed. One suggestion I have is to get rid of the feedback formats. I think it would be better to just give a main subject to focus on each week but allow students to have the freedom to assist the writer with anything. I also think that the project could be shortened. It seemed that a week or two could have been cut. The deadlines for revisions and editing could be shortened to do this; they only take one night...