On Writing my Myth [Homework Week 10]

Writing a myth was very different from studying myths, but both are enlightening. Of course, as with writing/studying poetry, the two crafts simply require us to use different skills. When studying myths, I felt like I was really learning about cultures and creative ways to explain the ways of the world before science. Writing a myth was completely different. I had to actually be creative. I found this especially difficult because of my typical reliance on scientific explanations for EVERYTHING. I felt really challenged when I was trying to think of a creative explanation for something that I already kind of understood. Of course, as with most creative endeavors, the hardest part was coming up with an idea. Once I vaguely knew what I wanted to write about, it was easier to elaborate and make up details.

I think after writing a myth I was reminded of how difficult it is for some students to begin writing essays. It's important to keep in mind how difficult writing can be because as English majors, we tend to forget how difficult it can be because we've been writing essays for four years on a weekly basis, or at least that's how it is for me. We should keep in mind different strategies for getting started on essays, like free-writing or brainstorming with a friend. The way I came up with my idea was through talking about the assignment with my boyfriend and talking about different possibilities. I think sharing these experiences with students and letting them know that writer's block is normal might help them overcome writer's block and allow them to better express themselves on paper.

Comparing and Contrasting Analyzing and Writing Poetry [Homework Week 7]

I thought writing about poetry was very different from writing my own poetry. Writing about poetry requires a greater understanding of poetic structures like theme, plot, genre, rhyme schemes, and more. Although analyzing the poetry for our last assignment was challenging, it was helpful in preparing me to write my own poetry. Because I had to look deeply into a classic poem, I felt like I could use what I saw in that poem to model what I wrote in my own poetry. I think doing these two separate assignments was useful because the assignments helped me understand that these two writing strategies are completely different. It seems that some students may prefer one of these formats over the other because they involve different faculties. In addition, I think assigning students to write about poetry before writing actual poetry would be useful to the students. In other words, it seems that assigning students to write about classic poetry is helpful in preparing them to write their own poetry because it allows them to look closely at a successful poem and take into account specific structures that they might use in their own poetry.

Across the Universe [List Poem]

Living in a foreign country for three months taught me
How to say good morning in seven different languages
How Turks view the Armenian genocide
How people in other countries perceive Americans
How the Israel-Palestine conflict affects Israel and Palestine
How to communicate using only gestures
What happened when Amadinejad stole the elections in Iran
What it’s like to live in a country where you don’t speak the language
That the United States is not the center of the universe
But that the music produced in the United States is heard across the universe--
Particularly the Beatle’s track “Across the Universe”
What methods NASA used to explore the moon
How globalized economies affect daily lives in times of depression
How difficult it is to learn a new language
And how to teach children who speak English as a fourth or fifth language.
I did not learn about the lives of celebrities like Rihanna and Chris Brown
Or why humans live in such complex societies.

Believe It Or Not [Wrecking the First Person]

You may find it strange that I share caves with bears in the winter
Or that I lived in the faraway land of Turkey for kicks,
Not the Turkey you know--the one on planet Pluto!
You won’t believe that I robbed banks at the age of 12
Or that I was bitten by a wombat three years later.
But I hope that you acknowledge that I had the best orgasm in history
And that I created a Helter Skelter cult that killed at random
As I explored the greenest parts of South America with fellow university students.
I am Charles Manson
And I love my Vietnamese boyfriend.