For this as an assignment for high school students as a future teacher, I would love to incorporate it into my teachings for my students. I think it gives a structured, yet at the same time a lot of freedom for intellectual creativity. I personally really enjoyed doing the assignment because of how much creativity could be incorporated into it versus something as writing an eight to ten page research paper on myths. It made it more fun to engage in the learning of myths, and that is something that I would love to share with my future students. I'm tired of doing boring assignments that consist of a ton of rules followed by research that I wont care to know in the future, and if I feel this way I don't want my students to feel this way. I want students to enjoy reading and writing and I think this assignment could really encourage them to do so.
I, too, struggled with the assignment when it was first assigned. I think the thing that got me was that it forced creativity but also required my writing to have a purpose. I think that there was a lot to learn from this assignment; it really got people thinking about the purpose behind texts. These myths all have a purpose, whether it is to explain a phenomenon or to preach a certain ideology. I think it would be interesting to give this assignment to a classroom. I am interested in seeing how they craft their ideas around a central theme; it's about as loose as an assignment as you can give them. I think that if you can give the students a sense of direction and then turn them loose, they will be able to produce some amazing works.
ReplyDeleteI commented, but seemed to have been signed out and it was lost when I signed back in. But I felt the same way when I started this assignment, I felt lost at first, but once I got the idea in my head of what it was I wanted to write about, it flowed.
ReplyDeleteAnd I love that most of us seem to agree that making learning fun is the best way to help with retention of information.
Carissa, I definitely shared the same experience with you, I learned a lot from reading a myth and making a myth. One of the things I learned is how important myths are to a society. Good one always try to exhibit some moral or transformation a person(s) go through and usually try to explain how some things occur and why. I tried to emphasize that with my own myth, by explaining natural disasters. However, just like you, it took me a while to decide upon a subject. But once I chose it, I was able to swiftly get through it, because of the creativity it demanded, a refresher to many students like myself who undergo enormous pressure from the rest of the work that demands analyzing and critical thinking. High school students would love this assignment for this reason. They would be able to see how myths, regardless if they are verbally spoken or read, have a huge impact on not only them, but their own society.
ReplyDeleteHi Carissa! I seemed to have had the same trouble as you :) It was so hard to figure out what to write about! It took me the whole week of brainstorming to figure out anything that had the slight possibility of becoming a myth. Once I found my topic though it pieced itself together almost on its own. I also really enjoyed this assignment and would also love to assign it to my future students! Great post! I loved your insight and perspective.
ReplyDeleteSincerely,
Abby Mazenod