What did you learn from this experience that you could use in your future teaching/life?
Studying mythology is seeing how other people have used their imaginations to make sense of the world, typically in a serious way, figuring out what that imagination meant for their everyday lives, their hopes, their dreams, their values. Creating your own myth uses your own imagination to fill a gap in the world, figure out the meaning behind some arbitrary phenomenon and making it make sense. I had a lot of fun with my myth! I actually couldn't think of anything universal questions to answer, so I took it to a poll. I asked some of my friends what universal questions they wanted the answer to, and I got some amazing responses. Some of my favorites: What happens inside a toaster? How were the Teletubbies made? Why does spontaneous combustion happen? Why do USB's only fit after three tries? Why do turtles breathe through their butts? Is the line at TSA or the DMV just preparation mirroring the line into the Underworld? Why do people lose all spatial awareness upon entering a Trader Joe's? I personally have had that issue, and the only car accident I've had in the last 3 years was in a Trader Joe's parking lot. However, the question I chose was "Why do cats knock things over?" After I wrote the story, I realized the question it answered better was "How did humans learn to hunt?" and that was my end result.
I think I might take the crowd sourcing ideas piece into my future classroom. I had a teacher I worked with who would pass out Post-its and take surveys from the students and the answers were always incredible.
Also: Check out the myth I wrote here! https://christinakramer681.wixsite.com/legendofmiao
I love how you described mythmaking as “using your own imagination to fill a gap in the world." It feels so true to the creative process of this assignment. I also think it’s really clever that you crowdsourced your myth idea! That not only made it more interactive, but also showed how myths often start from shared curiosity within a community.
ReplyDeleteYour list of possible questions genuinely made me laugh, especially the ones about Trader Joe’s and USBs, and how they perfectly capture how myths can make sense of the weird little mysteries in everyday life.
I also really like your idea of using crowd-sourced questions in the classroom. It encourages creativity and ownership while showing students that their own sense of wonder is worth exploring both in groups and individually.
Briana Lincoln
DeleteHi Tina,
DeleteI’d first like to say how I loved your first sentence because it sums up what I would describe a myth to be perfectly. It really is about using your imagination to make sense of the world. I personally found a deeper appreciation for myths and their creators after making up my own myth. Also I love how you created a poll and got responses from your friends. I wish I would have thought of that. I feel like I would’ve gotten some pretty funny responses. As for some of the responses you did get I funny enough experienced two of them today.The first was I was trying to set my Roku and I needed to plug in the USB and it honestly did take three tries even though I was putting it in the right way. The second was I had gone to eat somewhere where there just so happened to be Trader Joes and the people driving in the parking lot were beginning to overwhelm me so much that I genuinely was considering leaving all together.