Sophia X. - Final

Context and Reflection

The assignment I’ve chosen is a slice of life that I wrote in the middle of the year. It’s about a paper mache dolphin I made last year in 6th grade, and what I thought about it. I chose this piece because I saw several things that needed improving, like grammar, spelling, etc. I also thought that it would be easy to add on to, since it was rather short.  

The Piece- Never had a Chance

It was humiliating. I stared in disgust at what I’d just created.

“Maybe it’ll look better if you just turn it at a certain angle.” said the person across the table, with fake enthusiasm in his voice.

I looked down at my creation, a horrid paper mache “dolphin”. It looked like a blue blob, with a tube sticking out, meant to be it’s nose. Not to mention it’s creepy painted on eyeball. It was a psycho dolphin gone wrong.  It was absolutely horrible, I was scarred for life. To think I had spent the last week working on this. I wanted to just toss it out. But NOOOO, we had to take a picture of it in order to “preserve the memory”. Afterwards, I shoved it in my backpack to take home, not even caring that I had just crushed it’s head. I had decided, that once I got home, I was going to use it as a punching bag and destroy it.

I got home, and showed my creation to my brother. It’s head was hanging on by a thread. One look, and he burst out laughing.

“WHAT IS THAT?” he asked between chortles.

“It’s a decapitated dolphin idiot, can’t you tell?” I said in a sarcastic tone. But I started laughing with him anyways since we both agreed it was hideous. I took up the “dolphin” to my room, still laughing,  and placed it on the floor. I stared at it, then took a picture, just to preserve the poor paper mache dolphins last dying moments. Then I smashed it against the wall. Little paper shreds started floating down around me. Like Angels singing that it had gone to a better place, away from this judgmental world. I slowly looked up, as if wondering where the dolphin had left to. I burst out laughing again. What a waste of material. I hated that dolphin so much.

About the Author

My name is Sophia Xu.  I am a 7th grade student at Dewitt, in Mr. Scott’s third period english class. I feel like my writing has improved somewhat compared to last year. In 6th grade, I was a decent student in English, but I didn’t really care about grammar that much and would always put commas in the wrong places. I have gotten better at using them, but I definitely still need to work on them. I believe I have made an improvement through this year’s 3rd period English class, and will continue to improve in future years.