Shelldrake Reflection
Project Shelldrake was one of my favorite things that we have done this year in seventh grade so far. It was definitely an experience that we learned so much from and will never forget. I think that it is interesting that this project started off with our class reading Mr. Pumumbras 24 Hour Book Store and turned into having Robin Sloan come to San Diego and write a short story with us. Now this story is enjoyed by people from all over the world.
Before Robin Sloan came to San Diego and told us his ideas about writing the story, I honestly had no idea of how our story was going to be about, where we were going, and what exactly what we would do there. I think that Robin did a great job explaining his ideas for the story and explaining his methods of starting the story. Not only did I learn a lot from him but I also helped write a book with a real author!
For this project our class went to three places that we used in the story. These were North Park Produce, Viva Pops, and the Geisel Library at UCSD. North Park Produce was a grocery store that sold food brands that were not very popular, well known or sold at most stores. When we were walking around the store we saw foods such as banana juice, lamb balls, lamb hearts, fetta cheese soaking in greenish water and so many more exotic foods. Viva Pops was a fruit pop store that sold unique types of flavors. The library at UCSD had a very unique shape that almost looks like a ship. We went in and walked around about four different floors of books. I really enjoyed visiting all of them but my favorite of the three was Viva Pops. I walked into the store not knowing what I was about to see and taste but I was pleasantly surprised. Viva Pops had so many different flavors I have never heard about before and they tasted amazing. This place was a perfect fit for our story because it is not very well known to San Diego, and the people reading the story probably would have never guessed before reading it that there was a fruit-pop shop in such a mysterious story.
I think that the way we started the story was very interesting and I never would have used that method before Robin showed it to us. We started by rolling out a really big piece of white butcher paper and hung it on the wall. There we wrote names, phases, and things that we thought were interesting and we could use in our story. After our brainstorming session Robin circled the ones he liked and we started talking about what characters we wanted to be in the story and how to used the circled words in it also. Personally I prefer to start a story by think of the base idea first and then including the little details. Robins way worked well for this story but in the future I think that I am going to stick with my way of starting my stories.
I think that this Shelldrake project went extremely well considering the time restraints we had. I would have liked to have spent more time looking at the interesting food at North Park Produce. Also, i wish I could have attended at least one or two of the weekend events. Because there wasn’t a show on that weekend Robin was in San Diego we didn’t get to see the place that I wanted most to see, The Technomania Circus. Another thing that I think we could have maybe done differently is write the story ourselves and not just have Robin Sloan do it for us. For this project we thought of the ideas, went to the places and edited but I think if we had more time we could write some of the story ourselves and just have Robin Help.
Over all I am very proud of the finished story. Not only our class but people that follow Robin, people at TCS and our parents were amazed by the outcome of it. I loved working with Robin on it and really enjoyed learning about new places in San Diego!
