Personal Narrative: Fireworks with the Family

For the mapping of a memory, I decided to do mine on when my brother, my mom and I like to set off fireworks during the week of the 4th of July and we would always drive to Phantom Fireworks first to buy a whole bunch of fireworks to celebrate with my grandparents. Every year, we would go to my grandparents house the day before the 4th of July to set off fireworks on top of their hill in Lancaster, Oh. In my family, it is a tradition that we go out and buy as many fireworks that were in a bundle along with coupons that allow us to get 2 free ones. We would leave early in the day, letting my grandparents know that we are planning to come down to grill out and set off fireworks. We would drive halfway into Lancaster, my moms hometown, and stop at Phantom Fireworks. 

We would let my brother choose the fireworks, since he is an expert of what will be the best to set off and which is better based on how much is in it. My brother usually picks out bundles that have 4 bottle rockets or more. We would see based on the picture of what the firework looks like when it is set off. I like these because they contain more in the bundle and they are louder than others.  Typically in Phantom Fireworks, we would be in there for an hour to look at them and the best thing I got to do was help my brother look for some and ask him if this firework would be good and surely every time, I picked out good ones. My brother and I would carefully put them in the cart, since we are afraid of dropping them. We would spend over $200 dollars but it would actually be less because of coupons and get free fireworks as well. The fireworks that are some of our favorites are the rockets that shoot up into the sky, firecrackers that we set on the ground and it shoots off mini ones with a finale at the end. My personal favorite is roman candles because you can hold it in your hand and it shoots off each rocket in the air each time. 

Finally, we would drive to our grandparents to store them until it is dark at night. We would have burgers, hot dogs, papaw’s homemade macaroni salad and drinks and share what we got and how school is going. Cameron and I would go up the hill with the fireworks and he would choose which one to set off first and I would help by setting it down and he would light it. Every time the neighbors and people were driving by, they would stop and park their cars on the grass and sit in their lounge chairs and sit on blankets to watch the show. We would hear cheering and shouting all day. 

We would use the big fireworks as what we call the BIG FINALE and we would light the biggest one and see how it lasts longer than the other fireworks. Every year we would do this, it is better each time. Neighbors and people in Lancaster would cheer and tell us to do it again. What’s funny is that my grandfather would come up the hill on his tractor with pitchers of water and pour it on the used fireworks and it is funny for us to see him coming up. I can see why it is so funny since my grandparents live on a huge acre of land and it is my mom’s hometown where she grew up on a farm, where papaw used the tractor often to water flowers.

Reflection:

While writing my personal narrative, I would say that I was able to put in a lot of detail into my narrative by saying what I did in describing what I did with my family and breaking the story into different parts. Based on the feedback I received, it was really good feedback that I used specific details that bring the story to life, mentioning my family, the types of food. My writing conveys the excitement and joy of my family tradition. From hearing from my audience of what they thought was good and it has allowed me to look back to see what I could add into my writing about the things I described about the people in the story. What I might do differently with my composition is by starting out the story by describing what is going on first and add in more detail of what is included, making it come alive for the audience to picture it in their minds. I would like to talk about why this is important in the story. I would like to go back to my writing to see what I could change to make it sound better and continue to work on it to have the audience see it come alive as they read it. What I have learned as a composer is that, adding more detail to who I am describing in the story allows the audience to read about the people in the story. It allows the audience to see what the story is about and what the story conveys.

Fireworks_with_the_fam

The State Fair

During my process for this comic strip, I used the digital tool Pixton, where it has allowed me to use background of the theme, State Fair, based on the illustrations on my flashcards. My comic strip is called the State Fair, where two girls are going to the state fair in the summer and they have always gone every year before school started in the fall. This digital tool has allowed me to create characters and customize them where I was able to have them pointing to things including, where I would have them pointing at the french fries and hot dogs. Design decisions I made in the process, was what I was going to use for the next page of my story and how I was going to tell it. During the process, it was a little difficult of what I was going to tell in the next scene and I had to think based on the theme of the story. What I would do differently is, have a rough draft of my story with notes of the theme I was going to use, characters, where it was going to take place and what background I was going to use when I made it digital. In my next composition, I plan to add more detail in the story with more colors, more shapes where it includes more details. I used proportion in my composition to show the scene to have the characters I created, along with the objects to show how they are visual to what is happening in the scene of the story. I also used movement in the majority of my comic strip where I am having the characters pointing to the choices of food on the food cart at the state fair and both of the girls cheering with their hands in the air because of the fireworks, that was happening at the state fair.

Hello my name is Haley LaTorre and I am a Senior at The Ohio State University and as a writer I would describe myself as a creative writer. I would be considered a creative writer because I like to write my stories based on things I enjoy doing such as really fun trips I went with my friends and spending time with my family. In my writing I like to start my writing with the main idea and further add details to my writing later to make the story come alive. I do like to go back to my old writings and see all the stories I have written and look at ones I am currently writing to see what I could do to improve on my writing. I feel motivated to write when I am in a quiet space in my room and it allows my brain to bring out many ideas that I can put on paper. I like to write because it allows me to see all my past work and write new stories to reminisce on.

During my time in school, I have had a really good memories that my teachers have had me share them to the class and talk about what motivated me. My goals as a writer is to continue writing about what I am passionate about and going back to my writing as well to see what I could do to make sound better and what I could change. My hopes for this class is to one day teach students in a classroom about how writing about what they are passionate about and what they like to do can be a fun experience and engaging for them to have the time to write and add more details to it, when they feel like adding to it to make the story come alive.