For my senior capstone, I co-led RocketFest, which is a legacy capstone at SLA. It’s a student-run, city-wide film, photography, and (newly this year) graphic design festival celebrating the creative work of Philadelphia high school students. Working alongside my teammates Henry Blakelock and Desmond Maggione, our advisors, Ms. Ro and Mr. Rivera, and our mentor from WHYY, our guiding question was: how could we expand RocketFest’s annual tradition to uplift and recognize district students’ voices through media as much as possible? Our process began in September, when we started building our social media presence, researching venues, and coordinating community outreach. As head of Communications on our team, I managed all external relationships from reaching out to schools and participants, to partnering with a nonprofit for printed programs, to presenting to Braskem, and speaking at a CTE fair at Temple University! Our biggest obstacle was securing a venue within our limited budget, which kept us without a confirmed location for months. Ultimately, hosting at SLA’s auditorium turned out to be the right call, and on May 15th, we welcomed over 200 people to celebrate student artistry! The most important thing I learned is that a closed mouth truly never gets fed. Every connection, venue, and opportunity that made RocketFest successful came from someone being willing to ask. I grew enormously as a communicator and advocate, and I’m proud to have carried on a legacy that gives young artists, especially those in an underfunded district, a real public platform for their work. 🚀🎥

RocketFest 2026 Photobook

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z78sUgU9RXxykQS7clXNSe-ZwyNT7Hp12ie_kF9J4eo/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/document/d/13hiy-VlgHfjQeOv4rrs7omdihd_sCficmtTmhNiW9_Y/edit?usp=sharing

I worked with Kade to create a design of a heart in a box. We created this using different types of lines and by calculating the slopes of these lines. Q2 Benchmark

In Q2, my notebook has allowed me to organize my thoughts from the book, lessons, and discussions, as well as brainstorm ideas for projects. In the future I hope to use my notebook more often in discussions and other things where it isn’t specifically needed, and to take notes on everything, rather than specifically when I need to. Q2 Notebook Walkthrough

Through this quarter I’ve learned a lot about new notation skills and I’ve benefited from what I’ve learned in the past. It’s been incredibly helpful with planning for future projects and remembering important ideas that I, or my classmates had. It’s kept me on top of everything and I plan on continuing to use visual tools and note-taking skills throughout this year, and additionally including other physical assignments in my notebook. [Here’s my Q1 notebook!] (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T2fVu_kqOF7Gv_44jhJM7vM9fI3RT_qV/view?usp=sharing)

My project is a short story about a girl named Emma’s new job at NASA. It goes through her very first rocketship trip into space. I used graphs and tables as well to help convey the algebra that I used in my story.

My short story reflects the “chosen family” trope through three friends who all see each other as their family. The story was inspired by Robin Benway’s “Far From the Tree” through my artistic choices through the writing, characters, and relationships. I utilized a few of her writing characteristics and overall the idea of what it means to be a family.

This is my Me Magazine for English 1.