Blog #3: Myths
As a child, I was fascinated by myths, but because I don’t consider myself to be a particularly creative person, I found writing a myth to be challenging and rewarding. With that said, I feel that this process helped me get back in touch with my long-lost passion for mythology and has introduced me to new myths I had not heard of before. This has enhanced my study of myth because I have had to familiarize myself with a myth’s literary elements, including theme(s) and purpose, as well as consider how I want to convey these elements when answering a fundamental question, in order to write my own. I think myths are an enriching tool we can use to help us understand our world and gain insight into other cultures, norms, and beliefs.
Creating a myth of my own has also given me a few ideas for future activities I could use in the classroom to both engage and help develop students’ digital literacy. For instance, if I am teaching a unit on Greek mythology, I might assign students a final project for which they must create their own website and/or myth to demonstrate not only their understanding of a particular myth but more importantly their ability to apply that understanding to current events that impact their lives. More broadly, I like the idea of using a website, such as Google Sites, as a kind of digital portfolio to showcase classwork or creative projects. I believe this gives students a sense of ownership over their work and allows them to reflect on their learning and progress in the class.
Hello Aida,
ReplyDeleteI relate to your experience of reading books growing up tha were centered around myths, especially Percy Jackson. I think books such as those that simplify mythology in a way that helps children grasp the concepts in a more condensed way is a factor in improving their critical thinking and creativity. I also agree that through the use of activities that are geared toward more modern influence will help students get engaged with the material. Like you mentioned using google sites or other technology to create a myth of their own or maybe doing some sort of digital drawing. I think giving students the materials to create on their own based on the concepts and material they are learning in class helps enhance their understanding because they are using what they know to craft it based on the way they interpret the stories. I also think bringing in more modern reading material can show them how myths are still relevant to modern times.
Hey Aida!
ReplyDeleteI too found this project to be very challenging and rewarding. I was so anxious to create my myth and make it as good as it could be. I think its really interesting that you bring up literary elements of our poem. I think mythmaking really relies on elements such as extended metaphor, setting, plot, etc. All of these elements are in conversation with the fundamental question we are trying to answer. You said that these myths can give us insight into other cultures, norms, and beliefs, do you think that these myths can give us insight on our classmates who wrote them? I think that in certain cases they can, depending on how seriously, or unseriously, our classmates took the assignment. I like your idea of assigning a similar project to our students as a final exam type of thing. I think that if we took it slow and made it a project completed over many weeks, the students could get a lot out of it, especially, as you say, in the field of digital literacy. Great post!