Reflection on 1001 Flatworld Stories

Over the past two or three months, my class participated in a writing project that included kids from all over the world. This is a reflection of what I thought of it.

1. What did you like best about the project and why?
I really liked how we were able to work with students our age all around the world for this writing assignment. Even though we didn't get to meet the participating classes face to face, I feel we really got to know each other. We learned the other people's hobbies, culture, and even their level of writing.

2. What did you like least and why?
It really started to bug me that I was getting lousy feedback week after week. It seemed like many of the other students didn't care about giving quality feedback. They were just saying things like, "Your story is missing something but I don't know what." It started to irritate me. I also didn't like giving feedback because it took me a long time to read a story and figure out where it needs improvement.

3. What was something surprising that you learned about the other students (from other schools)?
I mainly learned that some of the students really didn't care about school. I read one story that was about a giant pizza eating all the people of earth. You've got to be kidding me! Put a little effort into school. Not all students were bad. Some gave really good feedback and wrote excellent stories. Some of the feedback I received was very helpful.

4. How do you think the project affected your writing?
This project helped me understand what makes a good fictional story. Every week, we revised on a different writing mechanic. It told me what a good story should have.

5. Describe the most challenging aspect of the project.
Like I said before, feedback was very hard. It took such a long time to think of something thoughtful to help the writer. I spent at least 30 minutes on each story I read and gave feedback.

6. Offer some advice to future participants.
Don't get behind on feedback. You don't want to end up on the Lazy list. Three times your name appears on the lazy list and you're out of the project.

7. Other comments.
If we were to do this again, I would recommend that we have more time to give feedback. I usually had only a few days to read two stories. It is easy to revise your story after receiving feedback. I could do it in two nights. Maybe give us five days to give feedback and two days to revise, instead of three days to give feedback and four days to revise.