Final Reflection

The Capstone is a unique and demanding challenge. In completing it, what did you learn about your
subject? Your skill set? Yourself?

Completing my capstone project was indeed a very difficult process. I experienced and overcame many
struggles and learned many skills along the way. In terms of my subject, which was mainly poetry, I
learned that it did not have as many limitations as I thought it would. After conducting my research for
my capstone project and having discussions with my mentor on the theme for my poetry book, I realized
that poetry is not limited to certain rules that poets must abide by, and that I actually had plenty of
freedom in terms of choosing various aspects for my book, such as theme, format, and length of my
poems. When drafting my poems, I realized that they are almost always inspired by ongoing events in
my life, and I am able to generate ideas very rapidly whenever I write. I was actually quite surprised at
my skills in terms of writing poems because I expected myself to struggle quite a bit when starting my
capstone. However, I learned that I am capable of generating and developing ideas for my poems from
my surroundings easily, and even though I may experience writer’s block from time to time, I am able to
overcome it fairly quickly. Another thing that I learned about myself through this capstone was my
ability to persevere. Although I experienced many struggles throughout my capstone project, such as
finding a mentor or obtaining a physical copy of my book, I never allowed that to discourage me and
always remained optimistic.

How is your project relevant to you, the school, or the community-at-large?

Writing has been an old hobby and passion of mine that I like to pursue in my leisure time. Being able to
express myself and portray different experiences in my life through writing is important to me because it
serves as a means of communication with myself by self-reflecting and self-evaluating. Writing, I believe,
is how I can preserve my memories as well as gain clarity on my own perspectives, emotions, thoughts,
and problems, which also often leads to solutions. My capstone project was to write a poetry book that
fulfilled this purpose, since it incorporated 15 poems, each of which depict a different experience in my
life, while simultaneously being broad enough to resonate with readers and have a wide range of
meanings. As a reader, I have often been inspired by novels with characters that are realistic and
relatable in the real world, despite having a story that is authentic to them. This is an idea that I tried to
incorporate in my book by being mindful when drafting poems to ensure that they are personal to my
own life, yet are broad enough to have a wide range of interpretations.

How did you demonstrate the six Core Competencies throughout this project?

Through this capstone project, I have significantly improved my skills in creative thinking while working
on the process of designing the genre, theme, narrative, and art for my poetry book, as well as in
drafting the poems themselves.

In terms of personal awareness and responsibility, I believe I demonstrated self-determination, self-

regulation, and well-being in my capstone project when persevering through all the struggles I
experienced, practicing patience, and reflecting on the decisions I take for this project in order to meet
the goals I have set for this project, and ensure that I complete my poetry book to the best of my ability
without any lingering regrets.

Furthermore, I believe I used critical thinking in my capstone when making major decisions for my
poetry book. A primary example would be choosing whether to market my poetry book on social media
platforms. I conducted research on poets who have self-published their books and initiated
conversations with my mentor to discuss and receive their intake on ways I could market my poems
online. This was a difficult process, which required me to analyze and make good judgements, come up
with well-developed and thought-out conclusions, and self-reflect to understand the purpose for my
work as well as consider my audience if I choose to share my poems online.

Along with critical thinking, I also demonstrated communication when making such major decisions for
my capstone. I frequently communicated my concerns, struggles, and accomplishments with my mentor
and friends to acquire their feedback and advice, which helped me tremendously in finalizing and
committing to my decisions.

Another core competency that I demonstrated through this project was personal and cultural identity.
Since my poetry book incorporates poems that portray my own personal experiences in life, I constantly
cogitated my values and their influence on my choices and priorities. I also often self-evaluated my
abilities and strengths in terms of how I could use them to my advantage particularly for this project,
which helped me to significantly improve in channeling my emotions and thoughts when writing poems.
I found that I am able to draft good poems much more easily when it stems from my own personal
experiences, which enabled to define myself in terms of my relationship with self, others, and with the
world in a metaphorical sense.

Lastly, I believe I demonstrated social responsibility in my capstone project by incorporating themes

related to mental health in my poems, which educate readers and provide a different perspective to
common mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. Moreover, I also formed a positive and
meaningful relationship with my mentor, i.e. English teacher, who was a great help throughout my
journey towards completing my poetry book.

What impact, if any, did your Capstone project have?

I believe the biggest and most important impact my capstone project had was definitely on my own self.
Throughout my journey towards completing my capstone, I have learned many hard and soft skills,
which I believe will be quite useful in my future endeavours. I believe the two most significant skills that
I leaned would be perseverance and patience. Completing my capstone was indeed a very difficult
process made much harder by the constant struggles and hurdles I seemed to experience. Due to certain
circumstances completely out of my control, I was often required to find alternatives to my initial plan
for my poetry book. However, this led me to significantly improve my ability to persevere and remain
optimistic. Perseverance automatically required me to be patient. I learned to trust the process and
refused to give up even during times when everything seemed to be utterly hopeless. In terms of its
impact, I believe my capstone will serve as a memory I will most likely recall to motivate myself during
difficult times in the future as a way to reassure myself to be patient and persevere.
Thinking about the whole process and your finished product, what are you most proud of?

Reflecting back on my journey for this capstone project, I feel most proud of the fact that I was able to
create a piece of literature that is completely authentic to me, despite experiencing several
complications throughout the process. I feel quite proud that I was able to persevere through all the
struggles I experienced and create a physical copy of my poetry book by myself. When I started my
capstone, I felt quite anxious and did not expect myself to do very well in terms of writing poems.
However, as I wrote, I realized that I am capable of writing poems that incorporate important themes
related to mental health issues and I feel proud of myself for possessing such skill set.

What was a difficulty you encountered and how did you solve the problem?

A major difficulty I encountered was acquiring a physical copy of my poetry book. My initial plan was to
publish my poetry book and obtain a physical copy of it. However, I did not receive a response from any
of the publishers I emailed, and through my research, I found that the cost of printing a book was quite
expensive. This led me to completely DIY my poetry book and create a physical copy myself using the
limited supplies that I had. I had multiple conversations with my mentor on how I could make a physical
copy of my poetry book by myself and discussed many options such as scrapbooking and handwriting
the poems myself. I also looked at several poetry books to see how other poets format their poems,
cover page, and whatnot to gain ideas on how I could format my book to resemble a properly published
pottery book. After gathering my research and brainstorming, I formatted my poems on a Word
document according to the appearance I wanted and printed them to then glue the pages together. I
also created my own art for my book, which I chose to keep quite simple.

What is one thing about your finished product you wish you could change? Why?

If I could change one thing about my poetry book, it would likely include artwork for each of the poems.
In terms of expressing my poetry visually through graphics and drawings, I decided for a very minimal
and simplistic approach for my book, which only includes two simple drawings – one on the cover page
and the other on the back of book. Although I quite like the simplicity, I also wonder how my poetry
book would appear if I had chosen to invest time in creating my own drawings for each of my poems and
how their interpretation would change due to the drawings.

What advice would you give to a student who will be completing their Capstone Project next year?

A simple yet important advice I would likely give to a student who will be completing their capstone
project next year is to be very time-conscious and manage their time well as well as to remain
optimistic. Personally, I feel that I should have been a little more consistent and tried harder to manage
my time well for my capstone to ensure that I have plenty of time to experiment everything that I
wanted to for my poetry book. Since I struggled a little with my time-management due to academics,
volunteering, and my part-time job, I feel that I was not able to try everything I had initially planned
when starting my capstone, such as artwork for my poetry book. Therefore, I would advice students
completing their capstone project next year to learn how to manage their time really well to ensure that
they have as much time as they can possibly get for their project despite their busy schedules. I would
also encourage students to persevere as it is likely that their projects will not turn out to be exactly as
planned.

What source from your research helped you the most? Least?

A source from my research that helped me the most was a website (https://writers.com/how-to-write-a-
poetry-book) which provides a guide on the how-to of writing poetry books and publishing them.
Reading this website helped me gain plenty of information on various aspects of poetry books such as
their theme, order and length of poems, and format. This website ultimately helped me get started on
my own poetry book.

What is one thing about your approach to your project that you wish you could change? Why?

If I could change one thing about my approach to my capstone project, it would likely be to plan more
thoroughly for my poetry book. I feel that I should have conducted a more meticulous and in-depth
research when planning my capstone. Although I had plenty of freedom and was not confined to certain
set limits when writing my poems, I think I should have paid a bit more attention to research in terms of
the writing process of poets as well as the different types of poems and poetry books, to experiment
more with my work and perhaps try writing different types of poems such as haikus or sonnets.