SENIOR PROJECT SELF-EVALUATION

Directions: Utilize this worksheet to help evaluate yourself and your project. Be as complete and
descriptive as possible. This self-evaluation should give the scoring team a clear picture of what
you accomplished in your project.

Name - Emily Weinberg Project Start Date – January 28, 2020

Title of Project - Poetry for Prisoners Project Completion Date - February 23, 2020

1. In 40 words or more describe who your project benefited and how. In other words,
what was the impact of your project?

My project benefited two main groups of people. The first group that benefited from my project
was the mental health and mental illness community. My whole poetry slam was centered around
raising awareness about mental illness and the true impact it has on those who suffer from it. The
second group that benefited from my project were the inmates at the Virginia Beach Sheriff’s
Office. I donated over 150 books to the inmate library for the inmates to read and allow them to
have an escape from the everyday life of being incarcerated.

2. In at least 40 words explain how the project challenged you. How was this a stretch
for you?

This project was a challenge for me in multiple ways. To begin, I have never been very
comfortable with public speaking, so just presenting at my project was a stretch for me.
Additionally, reaching out to local businesses and people for help to secure information and
venues was a difficult task for me. Finally, the biggest challenge I faced during this project was
opening up about my own mental illness in order to portray how big of an issue mental health
care really is. I have always been open about the fact that I suffer from depression, but I have
never really discussed how it developed or the impact it’s had on me over the years, so speaking
about the details of my mental illness was a challenge for me.

3. List and then describe 5-8 fundamental ideas/concepts/skills of your project, which
you learned/enhanced during your project.
The skills I developed and enhanced during my project were event planning and organization,
public speaking, creative writing, advertising, and networking. In order to find and secure a
venue for my project, I networked with local businesses as well as Legal Studies Academy
alumni, resulting in utilizing a fantastic venue for my project. In addition to networking to find a
venue, I also created ads and flyers that I posted on social media to help find a venue, as well as
let people know about my project. I had never made professional looking flyers before, so this
was an incredibly useful learning experience for me. One of the most challenging skills that I
developed over the course of my project was public speaking. Throughout the course of my high
school career, I have never been very good at getting up and speaking in front of people, but
during my project, I felt calm and a sense of success that I had made it this far, allowing me to
overcome my fear of public speaking. Along with writing a short introduction speech, I also
wrote an original poem to present at my project. I have never been very good at creative writing
and have always been extremely successful with research papers and essays on a given topic;
but, much to my surprise, I was able to effortlessly create a poem that perfectly describes my
experiences with mental illness.

4. List and describe 4-8 problems/obstacles/issues you encountered in your project,

and briefly describe how you solved each.

Some problems I encountered in my project were time, cancellations, finding presenters, and
securing a venue. For the obstacle of time, I felt extremely rushed as I was the fourth senior
project of the year. I picked a date extremely close to the start date of our project planning, which
allowed for a lot of stress to come up. I overcame this by really focusing in class and getting as
much work done as I could. Additionally, if I finished all of my work in other classes for that
day, I would spend some time working on my project planning. Securing my venue was probably
the most stressful part of my project planning. For a few weeks, I had texted and spoke to the
manager of the restaurant I work at, hoping I could use it as the venue for my project. After
waiting around for a response after multiple conversations, I realized I didn’t have any more time
to wait and that I needed to look for a new venue. This situation made me step out of my comfort
zone and go to another local business, Warrior’s Taphouse, who ultimately allowed me to use
their space. Finding presenters was another difficult task I had to overcome. Many people, just
like myself, aren’t comfortable with public speaking, or didn’t want to read a poem about mental
illness. After asking a few friends if they’d be willing to present, with all of them agreeing, I
decided to reach out of some peers who I wasn’t as close with. While I did have many people
agree to present, I also faced a lot of rejection from people who were either too busy, or just
didn’t want to present. The final obstacle I faced during my project was the cancellation of
presenters. I had two presenters cancel within 48 hours of my project, causing me to feel a large
amount of stress about whether or not I’d be able to fill my allotted presenting time.

5. List materials used.

For my project, I didn’t really need very many materials, as it was presentation based. My most
largely used material was paper, as I needed it to print out my flyers to post around the school,
for my speech and poems. I also used a few cardboard boxes to collect my books in for my
donation to the inmate library. In addition, I also used a microphone and a small amplifier for my
project.

6. List all people who helped you on the project and briefly describe the help given.

I had many people help me throughout the course of my project. First, Mr. Gary Hodges was my
advisor for my project and helped me immensely during my project planning, giving me advice
and ideas on how to improve it. Ghada Culler was an extremely helpful resource as well, as she
helped me coordinate my event at Warrior’s Taphouse. Additionally, Mr. Greg Montero lent me
his microphone and amplifier for me to use at my event. Finally, Peyton Wilson, Zachary
Coltrain, Sam Casper, Evelynn McNamara, Kate Semon, and Natalie Miecowski presented at my
project with fantastic pieces about mental illness.

7. How does your completed project compare to the picture you had in mind when you
started the project? Explain the reason behind any changes from your proposal.

My completed project is almost exactly the same as the one pictured in my head when I started
the project. Everything went just how I wanted them to go with both the poem presentations and
the book drive. The only thing that was different from my proposal was the amount of people
who showed up. Although I had less people than I expected to show up, I was still extremely
happy with the outcome of my overall project.

8. If given the opportunity, explain what you would have done differently now that you
speak from experience?

If I could do anything differently, I would have allotted more time for myself to plan the
project and try harder to find more presenters. While the presenters I had were amazing and
filled the allotted time, I do wish I had at least a few more people there to present.

9. Beyond the project itself, what did you learn about yourself?

During this process, I learned that I am much stronger than I thought I was. I was able to get up
and talk openly about my struggles, as well as take the things that went wrong in stride. I learned
that I could still do great things, no matter how difficult they may seem.

10. What grade would you give yourself on the project? Justify the evaluation of your
grade in at least 25 words.
I would give myself an A on this project because I feel that I was a great success. Although there
were some parts of my project that I was disappointed in and could have been planned better, I
am still extremely happy with how everything went. I worked incredibly hard on planning every
detail of my project and have dedicated more time and hardwork to it than I have to anything else
I’ve ever done.

Grade: 95

Justification: I believe that I did a very good job in tying together my paper and my project, and
allowed for my excitement and devotion to the topic to really shine and develop. All in all, it was
a project that I gave my all too and and extremely proud to call it my own.