Freestyle Academy proudly presents
2016 Innovator Project by SachaM

The purpose of the Senior Innovator Project is use your own passion to innovate, create, and develop your own project.

Project Proposal

My project is called the 100 day poem challenge. Given that we have roughly 13 weeks, 89 days, I plan to write one poem per day. They would vary in length, type and content. Ideally each poem would be inspired by the day I had and or events that occurred. i have always been passionate about writing and more specifically about poetry. In English I would jump at the chance to write and or share my poetry. Poetry is freeing for me and it is my chance to put my thoughts, opinions, feelings and ideas into words. No specific guidelines, just let the writing flow. My hope for a final product would be a video/video series. I would like to have a video of myself reciting/performing every poem I write over the course of the project.

The project will force me to be open and creative. Writing a new poem every day will be a challenge. While I love poetry and being a poet, I’ve never written so many poems. It will be a challenge to channel the day's events and put them down in poetry form. I also expect a lot of vulnerability and honesty.

Project Productions

Read my research paper

Project Reflection

I have always loved poetry, and for a while Ii dabbled in it during middle school but let it go for a while. When i moved to California sophomore year, my teacher Ms.MIyahara reminded me of my love for poetry. We did a poetry unit in our world lit class and i was hooked once again. Freestyle only furthered that love and poetry/writing became my outlet. When we were given the Iinnovator project I had so many ideas:, social experiments, a documentary, a book etc. I didn’t even think about doing something with poetry until we actually started the project. I started off with the 100 day poetry challenge because i believed I was capable of creating that many pieces along with a book to go with it. I was wrong but that was okay. I decided I would rather have quality, meaningful poems than rushed poems I did just because i had to. So Mr.Greco and I set a goal for 3 poems a week. I also wanted to change my product, I did not want to continue with the book idea. Poetrys meaning and tone depends a lot on how it’s read, i knew i wanted my poetry to be perceived a certain way. I had already created my blog which just had text posts with my poems but I wanted more. So I settled on a short, roughly 5 min, poetry series. I wanted to showcase a select number of my poems on video and edit it together. Recording all of my poems would be too much and too long, so I went through and found the ones that stood out the most to me. I finally had a project I was happy with.

For my paper and my project I focused a lot on slam poetry, because this is my favorite form of poetry to hear and to create. During my research I found out so many cool things that i didn’t know about the history of slam poetry. I also found some negative things, like that famous quote from Harold Bloom. I had to find balance and not just rant in my paper about how Harold Bloom and other critics were jerks. I wanted to educate my reader about some basic background information on poetry in general and slam poetry. My paper even influenced one of my better poems titled, “An Open Letter to Harold Bloom.” The more I learned about slam poetry the more I loved it. It had small beginnings in a club in chicago and then became this worldwide phenomenon, but it wasn’t easy. People had to fight to keep slam poetry going until it gained enough momentum to stand its own ground. I resonated with these poets because I too have fought with critics over my work and other things.

I used Paige to bounce ideas off of and she used me in the same way. I also had Felix and Cole help me with the video aspect. Felix did light and camera work while Cole held up a laptop and scrolled so I could read my poems without looking down. Peter designed the logo for my website which gave it a little style. I used people around me in the staff room to listen to poems and offer suggestions or I shared files with other students for feedback. Overall I think I was pretty successful in my collaboration, however if I could do something different, I would try and maybe do a collaborative piece with Paige.

One of the biggest 21st Century skills I improved on was Self Direction, because that was truly very hard. It took me a while to buckle down and do work but eventually I did do it. I knew having a lot of freedom would make it hard to stay on track and I had to fight the urges to slack off but I’m proud of my work. I also improved on creativity. I drew a lot of ideas from not only my own life but the life of others. I also drew ideas from outside sources like campaigns and different poets. Another big skill I improved on was risk taking but with almost every poem I took a risk. When I wrote about my mental illness it was almost too much. There were moments where I had to stop and wonder if it was really worth it to put myself out there. I realized in the end that I needed to tell my truth and poetry allowed me to do that, even though it was terrifying. As far as learning experiences I still need to find ways to improve on my productivity and time management. I do think this was an eye opener because in college and life in general it is a lot of self direction. If I don’t prioritize my work I will fall behind but at the same time I need to manage my goals and give myself some leeway. It is good to have aspirations but it also good to be realistic.

I innovated my own education by taking control. I didn’t do some bland poems that you could find a million other versions of, I did my own thing. While I did draw inspiration from other sources, I made my poems my own. I spent a lot of my free time watching poets perform on youtube or facebook. Also the books Mr.Greco lent me helped a good deal with my writing of my paper and poems. I used the exercises in the book when i had writers block instead of just giving up and calling it a day.

I valued this project immensely for so many reasons but mostly because it let me be myself. I was able to shape this project to what I wanted it to be and that was amazing. I created this project from scratch and with the suggestions of the staff it became something amazing that I could be proud of. It allowed me to do something that I loved, which was create. It allowed me to share my work with an audience that I trusted and to channel my feelings into something positive. Doing poetry during my free time is one thing but to do it for a purpose was amazing. By knowing that I would be sharing my work with others it was terrifying and freeing. I felt like if I could make a connection with at least one person then my purpose was fulfilled. When I stood in front of all my peers and teachers I was so worried and scared. I was shaking from head to toe but I knew I needed to push through. This was my first real performance and if I want to do more in the future, this was my start. There are no words to describe the feeling at the end of my presentation. When everyone started clapping and complimenting me I was soaring. It was worth the plunge and it was one of the most rewarding things I’ve done in my high school careers.