MYP personal project

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reason behind choosing the Greeks was that they had multiple words for love, and I wanted to give equal
importance to every type of love in my anthology, since normally you only see romantic love being
portrayed in media. This was also suitable since I was planning on taking 5 stories I’ve already written, and
polishing them up for the anthology. They were themed around at least one of Greek words for love as well.
Therefore, my product was an anthology of fifteen short stories, under the theme of love, collated into a
PDF. I chose a PDF since I knew I wanted people to read my anthology and give me their thoughts and
constructive criticism, and it’d be easier to send to people. Additionally, I didn’t want to publish this on any
platform, since it would be a little rushed and imperfect due to my time constraints. I wanted to edit first,
and get feedback from my audience, before thinking about publishing it. Therefore, a PDF would suffice for
this purpose.

Success criteria
My success criteria [Fig 2] helped me establish certain boundaries for my book, both qualitative [regarding
the content of the stories] and quantitative [the size of the book] in nature. I specified aesthetics, customer,
environment, size, function, material, quality and time. I included the book cover, as I wanted to symbolise
some of the content of the book in the cover. For the content of the book, I wanted to stress on the
importance of the different types of love through the medium of a book, so inclusivity and diversity were an
important part of the criteria. In order to do this, I added a criteria for function, where I specified that the
stories should be entertaining, promote the inclusivity of the types of love, and showcase diverse
characters. I also wanted to give myself freedom to write creatively and come with ideas without too many
restrictions. So, I planned on writing 10 stories, and taking 5 I’d already written, making sure two of each
were themed around one of the Greek words for love and the last one for the last Greek word for love. This
would also allow me to be creative and experiment, and I was confident in it since it was backed up with
research. This, along with my criteria for function, made up the qualitative part of my success criteria.

I also decided to specify a word count for every story, giving myself a range of 2000-3500 words since I knew
the amount I’d write would be dependent on the content of the short story. I then added up the averages of
the stories to come up with a total average word count, making sure it was in line with the recommended
word count for a short story anthology. This was the main quantitative part of the success criteria. I planned
to evaluate my success criteria by placing them under one of three categories: met, partially met, and
unmet. This way, it wouldn’t be too numerical or quantitative in nature. I completed my success criteria
with research back-up during our summer vacation.

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Fig 2: My success criteria with research back up.

Strand iii. Present a clear, detailed plan for achieving the product and its associated success
criteria
I created two main plans: my product plan [Fig 3] and my product research plan [Fig 4], which was
important for my success criteria. My product plan was for my entire product, and it was split into long term
goals such as “complete pre-product creation prep” and short term goals, such as “start drafting book
cover” and “write 1983 words weekly”. My long term goals were in line with the PP timeline given to us and
my short term goals had to be completed in order to finish the long term goals, and meet the personal
project timeline as well.

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project. The pre-product creation section included my success criteria, such as the types of love I wanted,
and the range of ideas for the 10 stories I was going to write. In the plan, I also mentioned the completion
of the book cover, since it was an important part of my success criteria. Additionally, in order to complete
my success criteria and understand the parameters of certain aspects of my product [the word count, my
daily word goal], I formed a product research plan [Fig 4] so I could understand the specifics of what I
needed to achieve for my product. This was specifically for my product goal, and not related to my learning
goal, since I wanted to understand the needs and boundaries of my product.

Fig 4: My product research plan

Criteria B: Applying Skills

Strand i. Explain how the ATL skill(s) was/were applied to help achieve their learning goal
Communication skills
For my learning goal, the majority of the research I conducted was primary, which meant I would have to
communicate with a large range of experts, writers and people who had finished a book. Therefore,
communication skills were extremely important.

The first part of my research included sending out emails to experts and conducting interviews with them,
as well as creating a form for writers on a writing forum. Here, I used and developed my ability to structure
meetings with people, use a variety of speaking techniques to communicate with a variety of audiences,
collaborate with experts and take effective notes.

The first thing I did was send out emails to my experts in order to arrange interviews with them. With these
emails, I had help from my teacher, who introduced me to the expert, , beforehand.
is a published writer, with 7 published books and more on the way. She’s finished multiple books,
and her point of view would be important. I was required to change the way I interacted with people
because of the emailing and the following interview; I had to be more formal and respectful. I wasn’t
communicating with someone in my school; the authors were an external source and people I had to be
polite and respectful with. This helped me develop, specifically, my formal communication skills.

I also had to prepare a set of interview questions to ask the authors, which I had never done before.
Interviewing my first expert was extremely nerve-wracking and I had issues communicating with her, since I
didn’t know how to interact with her formally, and how to conduct a proper interview. I also struggled with
taking interview notes as we were speaking. My notes were messy and I had to rely on my memory for the
most part to note down the things we spoke about. As for my interview questions, they weren’t very clear;
the expert struggled with answering them a few times and I needed to reword them on the spot to make for
better communication. After my interview with , I knew I had to work on my communication
skills so my interview with my second expert, another author, would be more effective and successful in
order to get better notes.

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to me and why I fell in love with it. This helped me a lot since it was a free-verse poem, and I felt the
pressure of writing reduce, since I didn’t have any boundaries. I felt more happy and comfortable with my
choice of writing after the poem as well, which contributed to improving my writing.

Finally, I allowed myself to take purposeful breaks, where I didn’t write at all, and either read, played
basketball, or listened to music when I had free time. kept returning to my journal entries, and wrote a lot
of nonsense that didn’t mean anything but was still an act of release for me. Together, these activities
helped me regain my love for writing, and kept my flame for writing alive as I continued to work on the
book. Without the conscious choice to do these things, I wouldn’t have met my product deadlines and
finished the book.

I also learnt to fail well and analyse and attribute causes of failure. I understood the reason behind all of
my stress with my product, and the decrease in quality of my writing, was because I wasn’t able to balance
schoolwork and my writing. Along with my extracurriculars and deadlines, this imbalance resulted in me
getting burnt out and overwhelmed. It had a negative impact on my writing, which, once again, led me to
feel stressed and unhappy with my writing. I identified these reasons, and understood that forcing myself to
write wasn’t doing any better, and it led to me getting burnt out and losing motivation and inspiration for
the project. I understood that this wasn’t something I had to beat myself up about, since I was pushing
myself beyond my limits. Therefore, I chose to write as a “reward” for finishing my schoolwork, which was
good since I had motivation to finish my homework on time and also wrote happily knowing my schoolwork
was done. I also took time to write in free periods in school, and based on my classes after school, I
adjusted my writing schedule. This helped me get back on track with my writing, and I was able to regain
motivation, and my quality of writing increased as well. By analysing why I failed in the first place, I was able
to solve these problems and strike a balance between my writing and other activities. My stress alleviated
and I stopped feeling so burnt-out, and I was able to finish my product with content I was happy with.

Reflective skills
Nearing the end of my product completion, I was able to consider personal learning strategies that worked
for me, demonstrated flexibility in the selection of my learning strategies, and identified the weaknesses
in my personal strategies. My writing evened out; I was writing a comfortable number of between 150-400
words a day, with a few stops in between when I felt like I was pressuring myself to write [Fig 11]. I didn’t
want this to happen since I wanted to enjoy my writing, and so, every week or two weeks, I gave myself
breaks. I learnt from my previous mistakes of forcing myself to write until I got burnt out and unmotivated. I
stopped when I felt like it, and didn’t push myself for one more paragraph, one more scene. I was able to
identify when my writing felt unnatural and forced, and took breaks accordingly. As a result of this, I saw my
writing quality and quantity both increase. After a break, I was much happier with my writing and the word
count increased as well, which
further motivated me to
continue writing and finish my
product. With giving myself
breaks and identifying when I
was getting stressed, along
with a combination of
re-reading old work, my
favourite books, and writing
outside of personal project
when I felt overwhelmed, I was
able to complete my project
two weeks before the
scheduled deadline, achieving
my product of an anthology of
short stories themed around
love.

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Criteria C: Reflecting
Strand i. Explain the impact of the project on themselves or their learning
Before beginning the project, I had never been able to finish a book. I was disorganised with my writing and
my plans for writing; my ideas were all over the place, and I would write on impulse, work on the project for
a week or so before my motivation drained away and I would stop writing it completely. However,
throughout the course of this project, I became more organised with my writing, and with my intent to
write. I gained more confidence and faith in myself, since I know now I can finish a book. I also developed
my self-management skills and writing skills.

Previously, I believed that while writing a book, a deadline, word count and schedule wouldn’t work for me.
However, due to my learning goal research and the application of this research in my product goal, I
understood that schedules and deadlines do work, but only if they’re catered for you specifically, and only if
you understand your own capabilities when it comes to writing. I was able to create a set word count,
which, along with an achievable deadline that wasn’t overwhelming, allowed me to write regularly and
persist in my goals. This resulted in me becoming a stronger writer. Along with developing the skill of writing
regularly, I learnt to understand my limits and boundaries as a writer, and give myself breaks and rest when I
reached my limits. I’d counted days I couldn’t write on as a failure, but throughout the project, I gave myself
allowances and learned that sometimes, circumstances result in you not being able to write and that’s okay.
I understood my weaknesses and strengths as a writer: I’m not able to sustain writing at a punishing pace
for a long period of time, and I need breaks from writing every week or two. But with these breaks, I’m able
to produce good writing consistently and actually achieve my goals with work I’m happy about.

An important learning I gained from this project was the importance of visible goals. The spreadsheet my
father helped me make was instrumental in me completing my project; and so it helped me understand that
visible goals, and the change in my progress towards achieving them, help me complete something, be it a
book, an activity, or homework. Keeping my goals visible showed me made me feel accomplished, and that
my work was going somewhere, and this made me motivated. So, I decided to create a new spreadsheet for
some of my works-in-progress, particularly the ones that were longer than what I would finish in one sitting.

Fig 12: My new writing spreadsheet

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This allowed me to persist in almost daily writing. It’s still a skill I’m developing, but I’m planning on using
spreadsheets for my novels in the future to help me complete them. And compared to before the project,
where I would write a few thousand words and then not write for weeks at a time, it’s a definite
improvement.

Learner profiles: This project helped me become a more balanced person, with regards to my writing and
other aspects of my life too. I was able to balance writing consistently with all my other responsibilities,
such as schoolwork, design work, exams and my extracurricular activities. I practised taking breaks and
understanding my limits, and gave myself breaks when I needed them, and created a state of well-being for
myself and reached a new level of self-awareness. I also feel like I was a risk taker; for my product, I chose to
finish a 40,000 word book which I’ve never done before. It was a huge undertaking, and I faced a lot of
challenges and problems. I was able to successfully overcome them and see the fruitfulness of the risk I
took with this project.

Future of the book and myself as a writer: The project definitely strengthened my skills as a writer. I was
writing regularly for a large stretch of time, and my success criteria ensured that my stories were diverse,
with unique plots, characters and settings. I had to think creatively quite a lot, and I enjoyed this immensely.
I fell even more deeply in love with being a writer, since this time, I was writing with the intent to finish
what I was doing. Finishing it was a boost to my confidence as a writer. Additionally, my learning goal
research will be helpful to me as long as I write; it has tips on motivation, perseverance and tips for
completing a book. This is an extremely valuable source of information and I know it’ll help me with the
future projects in my writing. As for the anthology, there are improvements that can be made. The plots
could be better developed, with more subplots and less plot holes, and I could explore the character’s
backstories further, and exposite on the settings more. I’d like to work on these elements when I’m editing
my anthology, and once I’m more satisfied with them, I’d like to put it through further, professional, external
editing. Potentially, I’d like to look into the publishing of the book outside of personal project, despite not
going into it with the intent to publish it.

Taking what I learnt further: In my DP years, I’m planning to aim for the chief editor of the school magazine,
since right now I’m chief editor of the senior magazine. Hopefully, using the time management, self
management and organisational skills I’ve developed in this project, as well as my stronger writing skills, I’ll
be able to get this position and continue supporting my school. Organisational and time management skills
will also be extremely important to me in the future; in my college and DP years, since these are life skills
that can be applied everywhere. I strengthened them in this project, and hopefully I’ll be able to apply them
better in my future. I’m also planning to enter writing competitions, since although I’ve improved my ability
to finish projects and organise myself, I’d like to see definite improvement in my writing itself, and I can do
this through entering competitions. It’ll enable me to see where I stand as a writer amongst many others,
and understand the scope for improvement I have. Additionally, for my service as action, I’m hosting a
creative writing workshop in my school. I hope to pass on my learning from this project to people who are
struggling with the same things I am. I’m looking forward to sharing my new knowledge on writing with
other writers, and listening to their perspectives and opinions in order to improve and deepen my
perspective on writing. The workshop will also help me in my teaching skills, which will be useful since I’m
looking into the education stream as a potential career.

Writing has always been an enormous part of my life, and through this project, I’ve grown to love it more.
I’ve rekindled my passion for writing, since now I know I have the capability to complete something I’m
writing. I know writing will only get more important to me as time goes on, and with the skills I’ve
developed and the things I’ve learned because of personal project, I hope to cement it as a part of my life.

Strand ii. Evaluate the product based on the success criteria

I evaluated my product based on my success criteria in two ways: self evaluation, done through
reflection,and target audience evaluation, done with beta readers through a google form. Based on this, I
justified each criteria as being met, partially met, and unmet.

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and unique than the plots. I understood that this was because my pacing was a little rushed in some cases,
and there were a few plot holes I missed when proofreading.
Self evaluation: The target audience evaluation gave me more insights on my self-evaluation. I believe I met
the first criteria; I tried to make it so that there was a pair for every type of love [two for platonic,
committed, playful, love of the body, self-love, familial and obsessive each] and one for universal love. As I
was proofreading it, I felt like I was able to convey the types of love pretty well. As for settings and plots, I
felt like the settings could have been explained more, especially the fantasy settings, since they were more
confusing. This thought was supplemented by my target audience’s thoughts. However, the settings were
unique. For example, “theirs, mine, ours” was set in a fantasy world, “art // love” was set in the modern
world, and “corrupted” was set in the past. “can you see the stars?” was set at different points in time. So, I
feel like my settings were unique. The plots were well developed according to me, but there is room for
improvement, which I realised after my target audience evaluation. I could have elaborated more on certain
plot points, and added more subplots. They were unique in a lot of ways, though- some plots focused on
self-discovery and acceptance, others on violence, or love, or pining.

8. Time: Partially met.

In time, I wanted to finish my product by October 1st, and write a minimum of 280 words a day between
24th July and 30th September. I finished by product by 14th September, meeting my first criteria. However, I
wasn’t able to write 280 words minimum daily. I missed a total of 24 days. Mostly because I was burning out
and losing motivation, but also because I went on a trekking trip and didn’t have access to my laptop for 9
days. I fell sick after travelling, and needed time to rest. During the project, I realised it was difficult for me
to write daily without any breaks in between. However, because of my writing spree in the first weeks and
learning my limits and regulating my writing in the last few weeks, I was able to complete the product.

Overall evaluation
Overall, I think I met my success criteria, with a few kinks regarding the plots, word count, time and quality. I
intend to work on the plots and settings when I’m editing my anthology after the completion of personal
project. I’m learning how to manage my time; it’s a constant process where I understand new things about
myself and my capabilities, and the next time I undertake a writing project I know that I’ll be able to manage
my time better.

As for my learning and product goal, I believe that I met both of them. I have a document with the
information I believe is necessary in order for me to know how to complete a book, information that will
and has helped me complete a book. I personally think this document will help me throughout my writing
journey since it has a lot of information about deadlines, goals, consistent writing, writer’s block, and prior
planning in it. And together, this information taught me how to stick with the goals I’ve set for myself
regarding a book, until I finish the book. I’ll be adding more information as I continue to write and grow as a
writer. I met my product goal, since I managed to finish 15 stories and compile it into a PDF. The anthology
was centred around “love”, more specifically, the eight different Greek words for love.

As a writer, I grew tremendously in the course of this project. I became more consistent with my writing, I
understood my process better, and I also felt more confident in myself and my writing, since I have finally
finished a book. I’m glad to see that most of my target audience enjoyed the book and its contents, and I’m
excited to continue learning more about my strengths and weaknesses as a writer, and working on more
writing projects that I now know I have the ability to complete.

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Bibliography

“15 Flowers That Mean Love to Add to Your Bouquet | ProFlowers.” ProFlowers Blog, 10 Feb.

2020, www.proflowers.com/blog/which-flowers-mean-love.

“A Bouquet for Every Type of Love.” Funny How Flowers Do That,

www.funnyhowflowersdothat.co.uk/bouquet-every-type-love.

A, Gct. “The 8 Ancient Greek Words for Love.” Greek City Times, 14 Feb. 2020,

greekcitytimes.com/2020/02/14/the-8-ancient-greek-words-for-love/.

Birch, Jenna, and Natalie Arroyo Camacho. “7 Distinct Greek Words Describe Different Kinds of

Love—Which Have You Experienced?” Well+Good, 12 Aug. 2019,

www.wellandgood.com/greek-words-for-love/.

Cannon, Sarra. “How to Create Realistic Goals for Your Writing.” Www.youtube.com, 18 Sept.

2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUbNNvFxcgY. Accessed 21 July 2022.

Collins, Bryan. “How to Write Every Day: 8 Sensational Strategies That Work.”

Becomeawritertoday.com, 11 Nov. 2020, becomeawritertoday.com/write-every-day/.

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Gray-Grant, Daphne. “How Many Words Should You Write Each Day?” Publication Coach, 13

Dec. 2019, www.publicationcoach.com/how-many-words-should-you-write/. Accessed

10 June 2022.

Senthilnathan, Smrithi. “How to Achieve Your Goals as a Young Writer.” National Novel Writing

Month,

blog.nanowrimo.org/post/680803101371973632/how-to-achieve-your-goals-as-a-young

-writer. Accessed 21 July 2022.

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Subjects, Expert. “The Importance of an Attractive & Professional Looking Book Cover Design!”

Medium, 31 May 2017,

medium.com/@bookcoverdesign/the-importance-of-an-attractive-professional-looking-

book-cover-design-2da13fce6bc7.

Thomas, Richard. “Storyville: Tips on Putting Together a Short Story Collection.” LitReactor, 3

June 2013,

litreactor.com/columns/storyville-tips-on-putting-together-a-short-story-collection#:~:te

xt=Really%2C%20it%20depends%20on%20what.

“Word Count Guide: How Long Is a Book, Short Story, or Novella?” MasterClass, 3 Sept. 2021,

www.masterclass.com/articles/word-count-guide#3-reasons-word-count-is-important-in

-writing.

“Word Counts: How Long Is a Novella, Novelette, and Short Story?” Reedsy, 13 Jan. 2021,

blog.reedsy.com/word-count-novella-short-story-length/. Accessed 11 June 2022.

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