Blog #3: Creating Myths

 I found that writing a new myth around a natural phenomenon, such as Hello Kitty's lack of a mouth, was fun and cathartic. I was in a bad mood when I wrote it, and writing this myth made me think about how I could frame my own experiences and feelings as a life lesson that could apply to other people. I don't feel that I was doing anything profound, like the authors and storytellers who created myths about the formation of mountains or the sources of evil, but I specifically chose to write about a set of characters, Hello Kitty and friends, who are incredibly popular right now, to the point where they appear on many people's clothing or accessories as if they were talismans. Other people have a habit of projecting their thoughts and experiences onto their favorite characters, and I think the same must be true for the people who created the myths surrounding ancient gods and spirits. Creating my own myth gave me insight on what might encourage people to write myths in the first place. My own myth is a cautionary tale, and many other myths serve as cautionary tales (this is a dramatic example, but think of the creation myth in Genesis which warns people of the dangers of disobeying God). I think students could have a lot of fun creating their own myths, and the example modeled in this class would be well-suited for high school students. For my part, I don't love computers, so I think I might have students create scrolls in class detailing their myths with text and illustrations. 

Blog #2: Writing About Poetry vs. Writing Poetry

It's one thing to read a poem or any other piece of literature and enjoy it for the artwork that it is, but that appreciation for the form goes deeper once you're made to analyze the poem. By taking a closer look at a poem, you're able to identify choices the author made, and this is especially interesting when you're able to see an author's various drafts for a single poem. Analyzing poems to identify devices, forms, and themes demystifies them and makes the medium seem more accessible. That's not to say that reading poems by Pablo Neruda made me think to myself, "If he can do it, it should be easy for me!" Becoming skilled in writing poems takes time, practice, and a certain sensitivity that I don't claim to have myself. But knowing that talented poets work at their pieces over time rather than receive them fully formed in their heads through some divine source makes poetry seem less intimidating. I felt a bit silly when I was writing the first drafts of my poems for our poetry slam night, but I was happy with the revisions I made, many of which I only thought to make after performing the poems out loud to myself. There was a difference in how I wanted my poems to flow when they were only being read as opposed to when they were being performed. With performance in mind, I made certain changes to what words and phrases I included that I probably wouldn't have made if I were writing a narrative piece. Writing about poetry proved to be very cathartic, and now when I go back and read poems, I can try to imagine what kinds of thoughts or memories the poets had to immerse themselves in to write their pieces. With regards to teaching poetry writing, I think it would be very helpful for students to be encouraged to perform their poems for classroom poetry slams to help them build confidence and provide each other with positive and constructive feedback that can help them improve their work. Even for students with no interest in a career in writing, being able to put your thoughts and feelings into words helps with communication and problem-solving, so using poetry as a creative and emotional outlet can be helpful for them outside of the classroom.

Blog #1: Media Technology

 Hello, my name is Katherine Ornelas and I plan to teach English to high school students. So far my only experience in education is with elementary school students, and my time with my young students was incredibly challenging and rewarding. I personally feel that certain forms of media technology have no place in schools, such as social media and generative AI. Social media is a form of entertainment and it distracts students from their lessons. More than that, social media use can be dangerous for especially young students. Even alert students who try to keep themselves safe from strangers online are at risk of becoming anxious and isolated when they rely too much on the internet for socialization. As far as generative AI goes, there are ethical ways to use it to assist students during the brainstorming stage of their projects, but the way I've seen it used by students has only been detrimental to their education. Programs such as ChatGPT not only plagiarize ideas from existing published works, they also regurgitate that information in such a way that it creates a "final draft soup" for essays and presentations which consist of made-up statistics pulled from made-up sources. Students who get caught using generative AI to do their homework from them have to deal with the added embarrassment of turning in a product so nonsensical and robotic that it becomes clear to those students that they could have done a much better job if they'd so much as completed the project themselves hours before it was due. At least by doing your project the night before, you have a decent chance of retaining a fraction of what you've learned for that class, which cannot be said for copy and pasting projects churned out by ChatGPT. Of course I don't think that all media technology should be kept from classrooms, but we need to try to inform administrators, parents, and students of the risks and downsides to generative AI and social media in the classroom.