Tag: Freshman

Sharing a Part of You by Kendall Snipper

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Creative Writing began the first workshopping sessions of the year this week. We were instructed to print out three of our summer work poems. Wanting something better to work with than the haiku and tanka poems I wrote, there were three longer poems left. I read each line over, making sure there was nothing to be kept away from my classmates.  Each poem was a part of myself, something I had written to express my emotions in the moment. Honestly, I thought about the different ways to avoid the assignment. Writing a newer poem, pretending to forget to print, anything so I wouldn’t have to show this part of me. My writing was never something I’d shared with others. I keep each piece to myself as if I’m rationing off parts of my brain for me alone to enjoy. 

Inevitably, the time for Creative Writing came along and we split off into workshopping groups. In a group of four, I was among a junior and two sophomores. “Freshman first” is such a common phrase at this point, so I wasn’t surprised when I was urged to go first. Each poem I printed out seemed way too cliche for me to read aloud. Reading over my summer work was just like the feeling of hearing a second grader’s joke: cringe-inducing. But I handed each group member a copy of my poem and began to read it aloud. Reading my writing to others was never such a problem to me, it was more of an issue when I knew they had a physical copy. My issue was realizing that somebody could now read over a line multiple times and see that it doesn’t make sense. Sitting at a table in silence while your older peers critique your work is probably the scariest thing I’ve done in high school so far. After each of them finished reading and annotating my poem, we discussed it. Hearing my classmate’s voices on my work was such a relief to the quiet, that I forgot about my nerves. Instead of overthinking what my peers were going to say about the poem, I sank calmly into the discussion. Each and every person was respectful with their critiques, and overall each sentence was something helpful or reassuring. I learned so much about how others can perceive your writing, and ways that I can definitely improve. Opening up the portion of my brain that once hid all my thoughts is something I find enjoyable now. I’m grateful to have a safe place to share and put my emotions down on paper.

Community Field Trips by Itzel Perez Alarcon

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When entering Creative Writing you have to know what you’re getting into… and one of those things are the field trips we go on! I can’t tell you how much (and I think I’m speaking for everyone in the department when I say) fun we have on our field trips. When you first enter CW you’ve probably heard a little about annual trip to Kirby cove. Everyone looks forward to that. But before that, we spend time with our buddies at the Botanical Gardens (among other places) to give us a bit of an orientation. Heather give us a list of where we need to go in the garden, then off we go to write an inspired poem wherever the map took us.  It’s definitely a different experience when you’re with your buddy and walking around nature talking and pointing out very little details you notice while getting to know each other. Bonding is a huge priority in the Creative Writing department. And the Botanical Garden field trip was definitely a huge step forward into getting to know and learn more about my fellow writers. 

The following week was the field trip to the Faith Ringgold exhibit at the DeYoung Museum. Creative Writing will give you so many experiences to expand on your writing and getting inspiration is key to achieving that goal. Going to see Faith Ringgold’s work enticed my inspiration even more. And there is definitely more inspiration coming our way! And that’s not all. It’s barely the beginning. If there was a different meaning for the C in our department it would definitely be community.

Kirby Cove. My vocabulary cannot express how much I enjoyed Kirby Cove. Everything we did at Kirby Cove had something to do with bonding. Snuggling and cuddling in our sleeping bags to clumping up together when the fog comes down on us in the morning adds the right amount of getting to know each other. I definitely know Kirby Cove will become one of my favorite traditions. 

All of these field trips have loaded me with joy and bonding. The best part is it’s just the beginning of the year and I’m already so excited to get to know the people in the Creative Writing community even more!

Quarantine: Take 2 by Tiarri Washington

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There was a time in the pandemic, months ago, when the only way out was a comfortable ignorance of ever escaping its grasp. Conversations flew at rapid speed, morbidly predicting next week’s body count. We were confined to each our own, white walls, linen curtains, and mind exerting screens. We forced ourselves to be content with isolation, while treasuring those fleeting, wholesome moments when everything seemed alright. 

Recently, in my transition to playwriting and the emergence of a vaccine, I have begun to confront the seclusion of quarantine. I’ve become more aware of the hundred little moments that happen all day: fleeting debates with the delivery man and sitting on a park bench and basking in the lambent sunlight, as they go back and forth between themselves. 

Despite my being a novice, I have concluded that some of the most important things for a playwright is connection and observation. Inspiration can come from the flippant remarks of a cashier or mundace troubles like building a birdhouse. Thanks to our artist in residence, Conner Bassett, I’ve found that we can make an entire play, beginning to end, a comedy farce revolving around the inability to follow a simple instructions manual. Conner has built his classes on providing us time and prompts to write material every class. Taking advice from WS Merwin, this time and surplus material has been a necessity as far as turning in our credited plays at the end of the week. 

Being in quarantine it is likely that characters and conflicts emerge from our own homes, subconsciously. Yet, Conner strays us from our uncomfortable dining room chairs, the hum of our fridge, and our beckoning couches to the outside world; outside our homes, city, and sometimes even our own minds. I may not have a firm grip on the technicalities of a play script but I can appreciate its originality and its erasure of cynical quarantine thinking.

Tiarri Washington, Class of ’24

The Confines of Creative Nonfiction in Primary School by Tiffany Dong

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During the summer before the beginning of my first entrance to high school and the Creative Writing department, I signed up to a program called SQUID (Summer Quarantine Undertaking Impulsive Developed). The program consisted of multiple writing workshops: Poetry, Performance, Playwriting, Nonfiction, Autobiography, and Fiction. When signing up for classes, out of all them nonfiction initially hadn’t quite piqued my interest. In primary school, it was undoubtedly the most boring genre to read for any third or fifth-grade student. The nonfiction books given were always the ones made by National Geographic and that they only ever listed details and facts about the penguins in Antarctica. There were only covers with largely font titles of “Lions” or “Parakeets” and nothing that ever caught my attention the way fiction titles have— nothing like the “Magic Tree House” or the “Harry Potter” book titles and covers would. 

It was not until 7th grade in English class when we were first assigned to read “The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind,” an autobiography about William Kamkwamba who was the first to use a windmill to produce electrical energy in Africa. I remember reading ahead while the class was following along to the teacher’s read aloud because I was simply aching to know more: Was the windmill invention a success? Did it fail? Spoiler Alert, It was a success. I mean why else would it be made into a biography? Either way, when I was taken through the narrative of Willaim Kamkwamba, from the beginning where he is struggling to buy rice for his family back home and the build-up moment to when he was asked to fly out to America– I couldn’t believe it was a biography, nonfiction narrative book. It felt like fiction because it never dawned on me how one can explicitly define every moment that has happened in their life, other than the reason that it could have all been possibly made up. That’s when I was first introduced to the world of nonfiction narratives. 

In Nonfiction SQUID class, we were first assigned to read “The Sentence is a Lonely Place” by Gary Lutz and some of James Baldwin’s essays. While reading through the essays I found myself underlining and highlighting every line. Each thought the author had, every emotion that processed through them in the narrative. I wanted to know more about their story, and even though I didn’t know them personally, it felt like I could resonate with them as if we were simply engaging in a friendly conversation about existential crises. Younger me would’ve loved this, learning about slavery or racism, about the journey of how one pieced their identity together in the first perspective. In primary and secondary school, we were taught about essays: research papers and analytical work. We were never taught about the other kinds of essays, the ones that picked at the author’s thoughts and monologue, the ones that offered the reader a set of lenses to see the same world through a different eye. While currently closing up the Fiction unit, I learned that storytelling can come in many various forms, and it’s not always fiction or fantasy, where those two worlds are unreachable or unattainable in a literal sense. Stories can oftentimes happen closer to us or around us more than we expected. 

Tiffany Dong, Class of ’24

Poetry Helps Re-Write the Pandemic by Hazel Fry

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My cursor glides over monotonous grey squares, each marked like a tombstone commemorating a missing face with a name my tongue never had to learn to pronounce, names the memory compartment of my brain has never registered with a face. I click the irritating red button at the bottom right of my screen. “Leave meeting.” Then a more prominent “leave meeting” button appears, as if Zoom doesn’t understand that the so-called class is over and I am ready to leave. I click it.

I click it every morning at 9:55, again at 10:55, and again at 11:55. Then I click “leave meeting” at 2 pm, and some days at 12:44. I was eager for high school, the dramatic wonderland almost every teenage movie is about. Eager to be the awkward new kid who makes unlikely friends, who trips and drops my books in front of my crush’s locker, and breaks into song un-ironically like they do in the movies. I was eager to sit in the Creative Writing classroom and be able to bump knees with whoever was sitting next to me. I was more than ready to leave behind the friendship “cliques” in middle school. But high school so far has been me sitting alone in my room surrounded only by computer “clicks.” My dad comes home late afternoon from a job where people can’t mute themselves when they’re bored of talking to him, or vanish into a grey square when they realize there’s food on their lip. I’m jealous of the luxury of conversations. 

Creative Writing is the only environment where I am able to have full conversations without random mid-sentence-muting. The community is close knit, and Heather leaves room for the freshman to get to know the people in the rest of the department. Being surrounded by all these incredible writers that I am envious of, has motivated me to write more and explore my creativity. Phrases I hear, insignificant interactions, one footed pigeons on the sidewalk, poetry I read, and major events in my life inspire me to write. One would think that the person deeply inspired by one footed pigeons must feel inspiration to write about the pandemic. One would be wrong. Starting my freshman year of high school sitting on the wooden kitchen chair that I moved into my room, in my house, is beginning to feel more real than I would like it to. The day ending by closing the Zoom tab on my computer, and clicking on the “Google Classroom” tab to begin homework from the same neck straining position I’ve sat in all day is beginning to feel more real than I would like it to. The simple, usual notion of my parents asking “How was school today?” sending me into tears every time is beginning to feel more real than I would like it to. 

Writing poetry allows me to escape into the unreal. Poetry is much too beautiful an art to be insulted with my worry that my family will get sick every time they leave the apartment, and my fear that I could kill my own grandparents by laughing with them, by hugging them. So, when I write, the pandemic feels like a short story I began but didn’t like and decided to rewrite.

Hazel Fry (Class of ’24)

The Escape From My Pandemonium by Tiarri Washington

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This pandemic has molded my world into something I no longer recognize. A routine I follow through muscle memory while my mind is distanced from the surrounding chaos. Every day, my computer, the color of stewed cherries, is perched in front of me as I sit at my dining room table. My mind wanders and I struggle to find the clarity to care enough to take notes on formulas and upcoming assessments. From nine to twelve, my mind is as detached from my body, as I am from the rest of the world. 

It’s only at the slightly tardy stroke of 1:47 when the call connects to Creative Writing 1 that I begin to feel something. Creative Writing 1, is meant for us freshmen and sophomores to be introduced to the basics of CW: the literary critiques, poetry devices, and more that will aid us in our success as writers from then on. Taught by the department director, Heather Woodward, who has taken time, two weeks, thus far to teach us the process and thinking behind the analysis. Yes, our whole group discussions, reviews, and workshops can be unnerving and overwhelming, especially to newcomers. Yet, our teacher takes time from our classes to stray away from the technique and allow us to breathe and enjoy each other’s presence. 

In class, I hear Heather’s bright and joyous, “Hello Tiarri,” followed by random music from varying genres. We’ve heard the unforgettable lyrics of Billie Holiday to the shivering reeds and sensual voices of Soul Train. During this, the chat, filled with sass, compliments, humor, and bribery never fails to bring a smile to my face. These few minutes serve as a gradual transition into the class, followed by a warm-up, given by another student, that explores unique prompts that lean on poetic devices. 

One day out of the week, we’ll break away from all teaching and dance to Youtube videos so our sophomores can receive their PE credit. At the following dance session, we are graded on our performance before we start for the day. This serves as a great motivator and makes the dancing even more entertaining. I currently hold a solid 9.75/12, a decent score that I assure I will increase in the upcoming weeks. Despite the freshman not being required to do partake, most of us enjoy the break anyway. 

I must also note the casual flow of CW 1. This period from routine more often than not. Sometimes, an existential question may come up in the midst of a discussion, that grips everyone’s attention. We abandon the to-do list for the day and casually ponder our lives, desires, and even such a mundane topic like conversations we had with a hairdresser. Before we know it, it’s well past two and our time with each other is up. 

I say all of that to say that CW 1, is a pleasurable suspension from the mayhem of typical online classes. All of these activities, with these people, allow me to tune out the noise of my home, tether my mind with my body again, and connect with people outside the four white walls of my dining room.

Tiarri Washington (Class of ’24)

Why It’s Important to Struggle With Your Work Sometimes by Pascal Lockwood

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Creative writing has always been somewhat of a “love-hate-but-mostly-love” situation for me.  I enjoy the community, I enjoy my classmates, The fun games we play, the interesting challenges that get posed for me, and I enjoy learning new ways to think about my writing, but there is one part of that system that I have not yet become accustomed to. This is the lit crit. Before I share my personal troubles with the lit crit, It’s important for me to explain what the lit crit is. A literary critique, in the Creative Writing Department, revolves around us Creative Writing students having a poem selected for us or having you select your own. We then write an essay about the poem based on how we understand it. Three paragraphs make up the body, along with a conclusion and a beginning, and you have your lit critique. 

 It is not necessarily that the main idea of a lit critique is troublesome to me, it is simply the most recent issues I’ve had to work through are among the most frustrating moments of my schooling days. The constant struggle of pushing around words on the paper and making them sound good is actually harder than it sounds, but I have faith that one day I will be able to look back on this and laugh. For the time being, however, I think it’s best if I vent my frustrations so you may understand what I’m going through. 

Back in marking period 4, I had written a literary critique about a poem written by William Carlos Williams entitled A Portrait in Greys. It wasn’t the best essay I had ever written, but it wasn’t half bad either.  Just like that, this meant I had to do it over again. The frustrating thing was, I knew I had written better essays, but I did not anticipate the feedback. While I had been writing about the ideas the poem presented, I was actually supposed to write about the literary devices. I know it sounds like I’m whining and moaning. After all, it was my fault! I had written three other lit critiques prior, and I had done them all in the style that was now getting called out over. None of my peers or my teachers ever explained that what I was doing in the lit crit was incorrect, or if they did, I didn’t get it. I wish I’d had the feedback I needed on each of those previous lit crits. If I’d let rip three of  my unearthly stinkers in class, I’m sure someone would have put me straight.

Determined to fix this, I decided to go back with the help of another student and tried to fix my previous essay in an attempt to get a better grade. It was hard at first, considering how stubborn a person I am (If you believe in that Horoscope malarkey, I’m a textbook Taurus) and unfortunately took to criticisms and new ideas on my work like a duck to acid. After a while, the other student and I finally found a rhythm. So what had to happen next? Another lit crit I’d forgotten about. I. Was. Livid. It was bad enough that I was worried about having to work on a completely new essay for this marking period, but I still hadn’t even finished the one from the last marking period. After starting again, and again, I’m stuck at paragraph 2 for the third time. A truckload of other work is also beginng to beat down on me. 

Moral of the story? Always ask about homework before leaving class with ‘no’ work. What that means is, if you’re unsure about something, like I was, you should never be afraid to ask your teachers (or even your peers!) for assistance. The consequences will really suck. Your writing buddy, who usually is a Junior or a Senior, will be a fantastic resource for helping you out when you need it. What I’m trying to say is, enjoy working with and alongside Creative Writing students on subjects you’re confused on. Not once, in any situation, should you ever neglect these resources that are right there for you. I messed up pretty badly with my work more than a few times, and even then, I was still able to get back up onto my feet thanks to the help of my other students and teachers. I know I have a lot to learn, but I really feel the support of the community of Creative Writing. To quote Steven McCranie, “The master has failed more times than the student has tried.” 

I’m learning the hard way; now is my time to fail.

I want to say to anyone looking to join the Creative Writing department: Please do not be discouraged from doing so because of what I wrote. Our department is a lovely place filled with lovely individuals that you should definitely get to know. What I have written, I intend to be a somewhat cautionary tale on why it is so important to not only get help when you’re struggling, but why it’s important to fail sometimes. We grow with each trip and bump in the road. That lit crit I’m re-writing is stronger and more put together than anything else I could have written first-time. 

We fall hard. 

We get back up harder.

Pascal Lockwood (Class of ’24)

The Mind of an Enclosed Writer by Tiffany Dong

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If I were to describe Creative Writing as one of the new freshmen in six words, it’d be out-of-my-comfort-zone. The sixth word containing my internal scream when I am called on to read my writing out loud in front of others. There were two separate departments— one specifically designated for spoken arts, so my naivety gave me the idea that there would be no speaking or talking required. 

Before fully diving into the gist of Creative Writing, I had the opportunity to attend summer courses for poetry, fiction, autobiography, and more, where I met the upperclassmen prior to the start of the school year. This allowed me the chance to question them about what to expect, despite the given circumstances and differences they had when they experienced Creative Writing and my upcoming online distance learning experience. They warned me about the major requirements, of course– where the aspect of workshopping played into the part of what to expect. As a middle schooler who has freshly emerged out of the habit of blending in with the crowd and never taking the initiative to voice my ideas, Creative Writing was a scare. Therefore, I’m thankful to have something that prepared me for the upcoming monitory that I call “workshopping.” It is a knee-buckling, stomach-churning, and head-spinning sound. Though, nothing is worse than the word, “presenting.” Both workshopping and presenting enable you to showcase your personal work to others. That was a problem. Surely, writing is also quite personal to me where it was considered as my safe space. To have people claw into that space felt like an invasion of privacy or comfort. Of course, that’s what I used to think. I despised the simple idea of a pair of eyes scanning through my work, so it would make sense that I can’t possibly stand a group of people thoroughly analyzing them. Writing here is a crucial passion that lives in every one of us in this department, and we all have our own definition or sacred relationship with writing. 

Heather, the department head once said, “To show your writing is to show your vulnerability and open yourself up.” Even that took a lot of understanding and time to grasp that concept as someone who constantly struggles with the idea of opening up. Now, during this time of distance learning, I realized it is dire to be understanding of our given circumstances. I may not be meeting my upper-classmen face to face this year and that already sets a blockage between us. Through a screen, it is already difficult enough to communicate and genuinely become a part of this writing community, who’s always been supportive and patient regardless. 

It took a lot of mustering up the courage to fully become adjusted to this new environment with many new faces. But as of right now, I’ve decided this is a turning point to finally take a step out of this little bubble I’ve barricaded myself in.

Tiffany Dong (Class of ’24)

A 2020 Freshman by Esther Thomson

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I’ve recently learned that if you travel to Pluto, you would see what the earth looked like 10 years ago. So basically, you would travel back in time. It would all look the same, because ten years isn’t long enough to change so wildly that you can see it from 3.197 billion miles away, but maybe if you looked hard enough you could see a difference, smaller clouds, bigger forests, etc. So I guess what you could get from this is that nothing is important, we’re only tiny beings in a huge universe, and everything we do doesn’t really matter. But, that isn’t true.

When I thought of socially distance learning, I thought of facetiming with my new cool SOTA friends while doing “cool SOTA things,” but of course that hasn’t happened. Our teachers did not give us any time to talk to each other, all of our classes are just lessons, with no time to talk to each other. Though the teachers are not the ones to blame since it isn’t anyone’s fault. When we are put into breakout rooms, we turn our cameras off, and mute ourselves. I mean, what are we supposed to do, talk to each other? Weird. 

It’s almost two months away from half way through the school year and I feel like it’s still the second week of school. We haven’t really gone anywhere with school, or so it feels like. I feel like I’m just sitting at my screen with someone talking to their screen, and I write things down for the next hour. We haven’t made any moments to be remembered, because everyday is endlessly repetitive—just listening all day. Occasionally getting to say something, even if it’s just a hello. I mean, it feels like the whole concept of time is just a social construct. Time has gone by so fast, it doesn’t seem real. It feels like someone is just lying to me on what day it is. How is it possible that almost 4 months have gone by?

So maybe time’s just a social construct that was just invented so we could plant food at the right time when we were cavemen, and now we can’t live without time. We can’t function without time. But if time is really just a social construct, why would we be able to see earth ten years ago from Pluto. I don’t think Pluto has a society, so maybe time has always existed, and we just labeled it time just like we label everything. Nothing feels real anymore, everything is digital, and usually I would love to be on my computer all day, but it’s been half a year, and I want this to be over. I want to be able to make memories with people. I want to be able to laugh with someone. 

Esther Barad Thomson (Class of ’24)