​Anjali Phadke's P​ortfolio

 During the poetry unit, we learned about the Parts of Speech and different parts of poetry. We also talked about how detailed snapshots were important. Now, figurative language is here for a reason. Poetry without similes and metaphors would be boring. For example, a simile is comparing things with each other using “like and as.” “His words were like fire, burning my soul is an example of a simile.” Now a metaphor is along the same lines of a simile, but it doesn’t use “like or as.” "His words were fire, burning my soul" is an example of a metaphor. Different types of poetry include diamante, recipe poems, and haikus. Poems like these express feelings in different ways. One example of this is a recipe poem. Recipe poems are usually all about you. You could talk about your features. A haiku could be different. It could talk about the four seasons, or a snapshot of your life. Detailed snapshots are important in poetry. If an awesome moment of your life was vague in your poetry, how would people know it was awesome?

We learned about poetry by reading different types of poems and we talked about the tones of the poems. To practice this process, our teacher gave us a packet full of poems like haikus. We were to use color coding to distinguish what part of speech  a specific section of the poem was. After we were done with all this, we were to describe the overall tone of the poem. The tones could also be called emotions. For example, if the poem was about sunshines and rainbows, the overall tone could be described as joyful or happy. If the poem was about a traumatic time, then the overall tone could be described as sad or traumatic. Then we created drafts. These drafts could really be about any topic we wanted. We could talk about a sad time, something we like to do or even food! The only exception was that we had to draft 4 poems for our final poetry collection. We peer reviewed these drafts and then turned in another draft. The main reason of this peer review, in my opinion, was to see if we could recognize the overall tone and what the poem was about. We gave feedback on the rules for poems as well. For example, a haiku's syllable pattern is 5/7/5. So, we focused some of our feedback on those specific instructions. Then our teacher reviewed it and we wrote our final drafts. I beilieve that our teacher was looking at the same thing our peers were. I also think that my teacher was looking at our concepts and our descriptive words. For example, if I used the word happy, then my teacher could say it was vague.  We were to make the project (final product) visually appealing and to make it fun and exciting, but also personal. This poetry collection was all about us. So, we could make our poetry collections any way we wanted to. This process is called “The Writing Process.” The steps are: Prewriting, Drafting, Revising, Editing, and Publishing.

My biggest struggle during this project had to do with the actual writing aspect part of this project. I don’t write often and I couldn’t really explain or express my feelings as well as I could with a picture or saying it out loud. Getting ideas on paper was the hardest part of this project. I looked at many models on the subject. During class one day, the whole class passed around different examples of poetry collections. I remember this one poetry collection that I thought looked ugly. It was boring and grey on the outside. Then I opened the book. The words were beautiful. They expressed so much about the reader. I felt like I knew so much about the reader just reading the first poem. Then, I tried to dig down deep. I tried to pin point those feelings of joy and happiness I have experienced through the years. I wanted to come up with 1 drop, but ended up with a waterfall. The possibilities were endless.

I loved learning about the Recipe Poem. We looked at lots of examples and I was glad that I could use my creativity to come up with my own recipe poem. I didn’t know the setup before, but I do know it now. It is like a recipe! There are instructions along with the materials and a creative name. Now writing a recipe poem is kind of like writing a story about your physical, mental or social features. The title is usually the easiest part. Then it is the actual ingredients. There are many possibilities. You could talk about your hair. As an example from my poetry collection, I wrote “10 ft. of luscious way brown hair or 2 blue green eyes.“ We also learned about using measure words. Like, a cup or a spoonful. After the ingredients, you have to write the instructions. This is basically using the ingredients to talk about your house or anything really. Mix the hair and eyes and knead until perfectly tan is an example. Recipe poems are as easy as 123! Poetry helps you express your feelings. Expressing your feelings is important. Letting it all out is a good thing. If you let your feelings in and let them build up, it could lead to bad consequences. So all in all, poetry made me learn to express my feelings.

I grew in creativity during this poetry collection project. One example of this is my actual poetry collection. My collection includes a variety of poems and stickers and decorative paper. Now, adding stickers does not mean that I grew in the quality of creativity. But, I have not really added stickers and decorative paper to any of my other projects that needed creativity to be successful. Some of these stickers include an Indian elephant for my Recipe Poem, or my season stickers for my haikus. This inspiration to grow in creativity actually came from my mom. She is creative in all projects she does, so I decided to be creative too. I grew in creativity because I pushed myself to add more to my collection. I found different ways to express myself and my poems through different colors and different stickers. Creativity is a skill that defines one person from the next. If you have no creativity in anything you do, in today’s society, you are considered “Boring.” Now creativity is not just used in projects, it could be used for art, and even emailing somebody. Every day, you use a little bit of creativity whether it is choosing what to wear or even what to eat for lunch. This project has helped me learn that I need to express myself or use creativity in everything I do so that I can define who I am. I am Anjali Phadke and I will express myself and use creativity. Creativity is using decorative items or words or really anything to express you.

I grew in inquiry during this poetry collection. Poetry is not my strong suit. Now, it was hard to express my feelings, but I did grow in inquiry. One example of this is in my poetry collection. The second page talks about why I chose the title I did and what my poems are about. This page took me the longest to write. I took about an hour to write this page. The first step that I took to write this page was writing a few questions on a piece of paper. These questions asked about what each poem was really about and why I chose the title I did. These questions helped me express my feelings about why I wrote the poetry I did. I grew in inquiry because I asked questions to help me better express my feelings. Writing poetry is not something that will carry on with me my whole life, but expressing my feelings is. I want to become a doctor when I grow up. When you are with patients, you cannot be a cold person who doesn’t care. You have to express your feelings and really help the person you are treating. So, growing is inquiry has helped me to better express my feelings as well. Inquiry is asking questions about your work to express your feelings about those specific works.