Activity: performing my piece in the event of monsoon musing (20th to 27th November entire experience for)
Goal: to deliver my spoken poetry with an impact and leave the audience wondering and in deep thought
Did you identify your strengths and weaknesses?
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
| -Creative ideation | -nervous while delivering and reading out the poem in front of anyone(since feel like it is my personal voice) |
| -coherence to the poem | |
| -poem following rhyme scheme | |
| -a poem based on a hot topic, thus engaging for the audience |
How do you feel now that you’re aware of it?
I feel like I must work on each of my weaknesses by devising an action plan to help me better help the students.
Why is it important for us to know our strengths? Or weaknesses?
It is important to know both of them, for us to know where we truly stand. If we know our weaknesses, we know the areas we need to put in the extra effort to achieve perfection and if we know our strengths, we can make sure we use all of them to put our best foot forward.
Did you work/ or would like to on your weakness
I did work on my weakness. For my nervousness while reading, I read out the piece first in front of a mirror, then in front of my dog(living human entity), then my family; to gradually develop my confidence.
Relate one area where overcoming this weakness would have benefited you
It benefits me to grow as a speaker. There will be several instances where I have to read out my personal pieces or writings or speak in front of a huge audience. The more I expose myself to this, the better and easier it is for my future self.
LO2
What was so challenging and why?
Voicing my personal thoughts, my inner critique, and showcasing that to the people who know me, yet still ‘don’t know me. The fear held me back when I was producing the piece to be read.
Have you done anything similar before?
I have done monologues, spoken poetries but they are based on other characters and that felt easier for me; since I embodied them. This was solely about me, the voices in my head, which is why I haven’t done anything similar before.
How did you overcome this challenge?
I overcame this challenge by giving myself false hopes such as I will not read this piece and read the previous nonpersonal ones and I could just write this one for my own sake. After I finished it, I was about to but then my friends who read the piece pushed and emotionally blackmailed me, due to which I swallowed my feelings and read the personal one.
How do you feel about having undertaken this challenge? Why is it important for you to undertake new challenges?
I feel happy having undertaken this challenge, since it helped me in my delivery. The more personal the piece, the better emotional expression in its delivery, which just makes it more engaging for the audience. It is important to undertake new challenges as being in the comfort zone wouldn’t enhance my growth.
Did you discover any skills you hadn’t known or learned yet? How could this skill be useful to you in the future? How does having this new skill make you feel about yourself? Why is it important to learn new skills?
Discovered the skill of adding more personal emotions and experiences to my poem for added realism. Skill helpful to me as a writer, in my future pieces it could be more engaging and realistic for the audience. The skill makes me delighted since it improves my writings and it is important to learn new skills to grow overall as a person.
LO3
How did you organize yourself?
By planning deadlines for myself in my diary.
Are you usually an organized person?
Not really, I just make a to-do list for every single day, since long-term goals sometimes scare me. So I break it down into an everyday list, to end up achieving the long-term goal.
What was difficult? Planning or the initiating? Why?
Planning was easy but then initiating and reading out in front of everyone was the tough part because of the nervousness.
Did you discover any skills you hadn’t known or learned yet that you had to use for the planning and initiating of this activity?
Patience and confidence, I didn’t push or expect myself to be ready to read out the piece in front of everyone with full confidence at just one go. I kept my cool, gave it the time it required, and slowly and gradually worked on my confidence when initiating the activity.
Do you think planning or initiating anything in the future will be easier now?
To a certain extent, yes
Why is it important to know how to plan and initiate activities?
Planning ensures a framework and helps you stay in check with the deadlines. Initiating the plan helps you in the execution of the goal in mind.
LO4
What made this activity difficult where perseverance or commitment was necessary? How did that make you feel?
I had the liberty of reading out an old piece of spoken poetry, which helped me procrastinate and question my writing another piece. I had to commit to writing to the new personal piece and it made me feel frustrated as that tested my patience.
What commitment was required to complete this activity?
Commitment towards the goal in mind. The goal towards the end was to deliver spoken poetry that leaves a lasting impression on the audience.
Is it easy for you to commit to things? To be persistent? Why or why not? Why is showing perseverance and commitment important?
Being humans, it is not easy for us to commit to things and be persistent all the time. We lose energy, or sometimes out of stress, we tend to lose interest and lose our commitment. But at those points of time, it is important to show our perseverance and commitment, since we must push ourselves to achieve something we truly passionately want.
LO5
Is working with others generally easy or difficult for you? Why?
It is moderate as it totally depends on the person/people I am working with. When the people I work with procrastinate a lot, sometimes it is a bit difficult and annoying, since I have to give them the push and keep motivating them. If the person is active and interested in the task, then it is relatively easy. As such I don’t mind working with other people since usually, the work is distributed equally.
So, based on your answer to the above question, during this particular activity, was it easy or difficult for you to work with others? Did you have to work with anyone difficult? How did you handle it?
It was easy as I worked with my parents, friends, and family. They were honest critiques which helped me in developing my piece.
Why is it important to be able to work collaboratively with others?
It helps improve productivity, helps take off the burden, and with more brains working, produces a better output/product.
What was the importance of teamwork or leadership in your activity?
It was important for me to take leadership since it is my project and I had to take all the initiatives; in order to achieve my goals. Teamwork, since I took their feedback as audiences and tweaked my writing accordingly.
LO6
What were the issues?
The global issue that I focused on was excessive pressure on teenagers. While they are figuring out what to do with their lives, their interests, their pursuit of knowledge; there is so much expected out of them, and that sometimes nearly drowns them. The expectation and demand for perfection; on such issues, I wrote my poem.
Why are they important globally? How? Where? How did you know?
It is globally crucial since several children die because of this pressure that rests on their shoulders. I know this because of the news(children killing themselves, committing suicide), the new series coming up to spread awareness(series like 13 reasons why). This is a global issue and I felt most confident expressing this via my poetry.
How does knowing about global issues contribute to your personal growth? How does it make you feel now that you are aware of this global issue? How does your work in this CAS activity make you feel about that global issue?
It contributes to my personal growth as I ponder about it and take action on the same, in the mode most appropriate for me. It makes me feel motivated, to make a change, in a manner that supports my voice and personality. My work makes me feel proud that through my actions, I was able to address the global issue in some manner.
LO7
What ethical issues were involved in this activity? Explain
I unknowingly took a few phrases from the spoken poetry ‘the printing machine’ by kalindi and spoken poetry presented in the series ginny and Georgia. I realized after I had presented the pieces and did not cite for the inspiration taken.
Did the ethical issues affect you directly or indirectly?
It did affect me directly since I felt guilty of using the phrases from another writer’s work, even though it was unintentional.
How did the issue make you feel? What was your opinion on this issue before this activity? Has it changed or stayed the same after this activity?
It made me feel guilty at first because I felt like I stole somebody’s hard work. However, my opinion changed. I took inspiration from it, did not copy it; there is nothing new under the sun and if you look at artistic inspiration, artists can be inspired by anything. Some artists are inspired by some music, doesn’t mean they have to cite the music for their inspiration.
LP’s:
Thinker- when brainstorming and coming up with ideas for the spoken poetry
Communicator- when reading out the spoken poetry in front of a huge audience
The highlight of the experience was the audience’s reaction. The teachers, students, everyone for a minute after I stopped reading was in awe. They were in deep thought, such deep thought that they even forgot to clap, and that made me feel great. Like I was actually able to convey the message that I wanted to.
