Mass Communications at Lincoln High School

         I'm not exactly sure how I came to choose my story - I think that it was probably because my mom had come home from work recently, so events involving her were fresh on my mind. The general summary of my story was I was sitting in our family car with my mom, when we won, against all odds, one of those radio competitions you hear all the time.      When practicing reciting my story with my classmates, I noticed that I was slowly improving on deciding when to put emphasis on words and when to add in pauses - something that came more naturally as I kept reading. I enjoyed the project overall, and think it definitely helped enhance my reading and writing skills.     I enjoyed hearing my classmates stories - I thought it was interesting to make the squares on the screen in my classes feel like real people, something that can be hard with online classes. I think I mostly learned more about my writing style and process, but that is something that I'm still discovering - which

 When choosing a story to tell I instantly thought of dance. Dance has always been an important part in my life, so it was easy to choose a topic. I decided to talk about the dance class when I realized how important dance is to me, not just as an extracurricular. From this I wanted to explain how dance was an escape for me from life, and that even though I can't dance now, it was still a life changing experience. I practiced telling the story to my friends, which also put me out of my comfort zone. Even though they weren't strangers or classmates, it was still challenging to be animated or not use words like "um" or "like". I wasn't there to hear other peoples stories. But from this project I realized that I needed to improve my public speaking skills.

  Choosing a story to tell was kind of hard, both because I am not very good at coming up with ideas for stories (when I was first given the prompt, I couldn't come up with anything on the spot) and because I wasn't sure what type of story to go with. I didn't know if I wanted to pick a story that was low-stakes or one that was more personal and serious. I chose to go with a pretty lighthearted and simple story, which was a ropes course field trip in 8th grade with a focus on teambuilding and group exercises.  I practiced public speaking when I was talking to classmates, which although I don't think I'm awful at, is something that I'm generally uncomfortable with and tends to make me pretty nervous. I did enjoy the storytelling project, though, once I actually started telling the story. It's pretty fun to just talk about stuff that's happened to you from memory, even if it's not perfect because it's unscripted and because you don't really rem

This event happened around more than a year ago, I specifically remember the date in which it was October 27 on a Wednesday. But let's go a little before that, a little background information always creates the opening in the tunnel. I was 15, a sophomore in Lincoln High School, and living the normal wake up routine. I wasn't exactly perfect, my grades were pretty mediocre with a 3.3 and I wasn't so focused nor cooperative. I was also playing football, with one more game to finish I was pretty bummed, after that there will never be a real home field until after graduation. I was pretty negative throughout life, only focused on the "what if" negative answers and being self pitied. One day I had a small hint of my issue, it was Tuesday, the day before the event. We were doing one on ones, and at one point I just randomly threw a teammate to the ground without thinking, and realized that something was wrong, and feeling a karma kick in. Things were rather conflicting

I wanted to pick a story that was somewhat personal and still fresh in my mind. The story I picked was one that took place in my freshman year of highschool, where my bad habit of procrastination ended up getting me a C on my first test of the year (as well as the first time in my life).  Some skills I learned were how to better articulate my thoughts, and how to speak smoothly without awkward pauses or filler words. The storytelling project wasn't my favorite since I personally like writing out my thoughts more than speaking them, but I enjoyed the different set of skills we learned with this project. It also allowed me to become more comfortable with speaking in front of other people.  I was able to learn more about my classmates personal lives as well as important moments in their lifetime that changed who they are. I was pleasantly surprised with my presentation of my story, and I learned that I'm somewhat good at thinking on my feet.