#5

I am in the last stages of the Unfamiliar Genre Project and while I will most likely use this in my own classroom, I am very excited that it is almost over. This project has pushed me to do things that I normally wouldn’t get to experience while just writing something as basic as “five-paragraph” essays. My middle school self who got a low grade on a paper because I could not write within the box, is screaming because now it almost feels the other way. This project has really shown me the importance of writing in a different light than we, students, normally get to write in. If this project was given to me a couple years ago my mind and thoughts would have ran with it, and yet this has been one of the hardest things I have done in college solely because there is so much room in where we could go with it. Normally I feel as though most of the papers I do tells me exactly what I can and cannot do, which has caused me to struggle because I feel I am not meeting the “requirements” because there are so few.

While I am refreshed with this new style of writing I wish that I was not so “drill and kill”ed in every schooling up until this moment. I can feel the frustration again that I did because I couldn’t fit within the guidelines, no reversed because there are no guidelines. The guidelines are ones that I am creating not ones given to me. I have gotten so “advanced” as fitting within the box that I have lost my own personal style. Even when I can feel moments of it coming back there is almost a PTSD about sharing it with someone or a grade. I am so hesitant with writing it because I don’t want to misinterpret the grade requirements and fail the project, and so I haven’t really made much advancements until it is running down on the wire. Now rather than enjoying the whole process I just want it to be over.

This whole process has shown me how important it is to always be growing as a writer, even as a teacher. I can imagine how frustrated students are being forced into this box, because I too have been there. I believe that introducing students to this creates a hole in the box so they can work on crawling out. In hopes that they don’t end up like myself and come to something like this where there is no set rules and feel hopelessly lost. I never knew how important creative writing is to grow as a writer. Yes, grammar and spelling, are great ways to show how advanced you are in writing, and yet I feel as though the greatest telling of how advanced you are as a writer is the content of what you are writing. This whole process has shown me how amazing it is to further my writing experience even as my educational journey is coming to a close.

#4

I am in the process of actual writing my Genre and I am struggling! I am trying to capture the essence of my genre and yet add my own taste to how I am writing it. I want it to sound like me and yet not give the reader this feeling that they cannot place what genre they are reading. I am struggling with not feeling as though I am not doing the work justice in the sense that someone would read my piece and want to write one of their own. I keep redoing what I have written because I cannot find a sense of the perfect balance between the style of what I would like to say through the genre and the tone I normally write within. I think it is because I am so used to just rewriting what the teacher has already told me, I am almost overwhelmed with all this freedom that this project gives me.

On the other hand I have found that this has sparked something inside me to keep writing something each month in a different genre because this has tested me some much. It has really made me sit down and think about what my voice is within a work. Before everything I wrote was like a bland oatmeal and I got to add the spices of my choosing. While doing this work I have found that I need to combine my spices I write with, with the spices of genres already established. I have found that it takes a more skilled writer to write in a “wild” genre rather than one that takes only the skill of regurgitating knowledge. I have found a beauty in both the “classic” version of writing, aka a five-paragraph essay, but also the craft in picking a more out of the box writing, like the interactive fiction.

I am finding a few moments of “flow” amongst all the “wobbling”. There are moments when I find the groove and I don’t feel as though I have to delete everything I have written. Only creating one path, the path that leads to my belief, I think it has made it a lot easier to get my thoughts on paper. Rather than worrying about how everything is going to connect I can focus on what I am trying to say. On the flip side I think that is why I am struggling. Most of the examples I have pulled up are about the story telling, more about the journey than what the journey has to say. Most of the stories hope to really place the reader within the world that has been created. My story is trying to place the reader within an abstract version of the schooling system. The whole concept of my “Choose Your Own Adventure” is about the understanding what my journey is saying, I am still trying to make it about putting the reader in the feel of being a student who feels demolished by the schooling system in place now and yet it is abstract so the reader may not comprehend it in the way I was hoping.

“Dear Vincent”

I think even beginning this project I was a little apprehensive. I want my work to be amazing, I want what people to see is what I saw while I was writing it. But at the same time I know it is art so how I interpret it is not how the next person will. I don’t want to seem foolish in how I am writing. That my work is too childish for the audience, the class, that is reading it. I know it was hard having a pieces that really weren’t appreciated until after your time and I feel as though this is the place I am leading myself down. What I see in my work will not be recognized the way I hope it will. Like anything pertaining to art there is always that risk, and I am worried that my risk won’t pay off. My goal is to start with just getting words on paper and hope I pull things from this work that I enjoy enough to keep and form the rest of my work around it. I think where I am at is just experimenting still. Especially because this is a genre I have never written in before I am scared it won’t come across as the same genre I am trying to mimic. I am also worried about getting my beliefs throughout the whole paper. I know how I want them to appear at the end but I am worried about using them to “guide” the chooser through the correct path, the path that will show what my beliefs will do to improve the educational system. I think overall I am just worried about the grade I know I will be getting at the end of this. Everything comes with a price, and getting a low score on this because I didn’t meet the means of the project through interpretation scares me the most. I just want my work to come out how I see my work.

#3

I have been “playing” different types of video interactive fiction of different varieties to get a feel for what the layout would look like. I have been experimenting with the “freedom” of choices and the actions of giving the reader that much choice. While I want to invoke this feeling of freedom I debate whether or not I want to give complete freedom with the choices. With playing a version of the first interactive fiction, “Adventure” by Willie Crowther and Don Woods, where the is a place to enter any word combination of two words, I felt overwhelmed. While I was free to travel as though I was there my mind was taken over by making the “right” choice almost. I did not know where to go from my first choice. Maybe it was because this is my first time playing such a game and with more experience I would know where to go from there but I stopped playing the game because it was too much. On the other hand I played an independent version that had specifically two to three choice for the play to play, almost like a fork in the path. Being a noob at this style of literature, and knowing that my audience is in the same shape as myself, I am thinking that I will limit the choices to be max three per path divide. I think it will give the illusion that the common core standards give, they will act as bumpers for the reader so that the person who has no experience will know where to head but the more advanced reader will still enjoy the story.

I have also started to think about the genre within the genre. While most take place in a known place, so the author can describe the scenery with the reader knowing where they are located, I battle with having it take place unknown. Because my idea of this educational world is unknown should I place in a world that is more fictional as well. Yes I will have more fictional characters to face the hero but will having it in an unknown world push it to far? Will it lead the reader to the same place as having too many choices? Using unknown words like Doctor Seuss works in the sense of taking preconceived ideas out of the use of the character stereotypes, but when there is no visual to help convey how the character looks is it smart to use that? How will I make sure the reader is seeing the same room that I see when I am reading it? Because this genre is so based on the tools of the senses through imagery I struggle with seeing how I can create sense that don’t exist. Yet I really want to have this idea already formed in someone’s mind just because of my word choice. I want my beliefs and concepts to seem fresh as I am presenting them. I chose this genre because anyone could be placed within the role of the hero because no details are given to describe him/her. I hope to find some way to carry that through the rest of the work.

#2

After a lot of help from the class and a lot of digging, I am going to pick a “Choose your own adventure” genre. Stemming from the new movie on Netflix, Bandersnatch, I got the idea from asking my sister something she thought would create a cool spin on the project. With a genre like that, the reader makes choices within the story that puts them on a different path. For example, the reader, who is the adventurer, comes across a creature of sorts. The writer of the book gives the reader two or more options as to what he/she would like to do with the creature. Each option will point the reader to a different place in the book to continue reading. Say you, as the reader, chooses to tame the creature the book would then tell you to turn to pages xx-xx to continue the journey. The hope is that the reader picks the “correct” path that leads them to one of the few endings. By doing so the reader picks a path that they want, they pick the adventure that they feel should happen, rather than having the story already laid out for them. I think this works really well with the theme of the class. By incorporating my own beliefs this helps show the students what a social democracy can create. The idea of the book, and picking their own adventure helps show what it would be like if students could speak up and pick an educational path that works for them. Yes, the endings are different but the student got to choose what works for them rather than someone prewriting the story on their behalf. The thing I think I am most nervous about it making sure my beliefs are nestled in ever storyline. I am also curious to see how many endings I will get to, or if I will give the illusion that there is more to give the idea of the genre, but limit myself to two so that the pieces I have are really strong.   

#1

Day one of this “Unfamiliar Genres Project” and I feel like my head is going to explode I have no idea where to even begin. I know I have more questions than probably humanly possible, and yet am left with no answers. I know this project is focused around us writing in something other than a traditional essay, but should the piece still be formatted formally, or even in the sense of nonfiction? If the answer is no and we can journey into fiction, how does one even go about it? Are we a character in the story expressing to the reader our views as a teacher? Are we supposed to have a completely new story and have the morals at the end be a belief? I feel as though I am in the middle of a lake with a paddle but no boat to keep me floating. I am paddling and yet I am still sinking. I need something to kick off of so that I can get my bearings and maybe swim to safe land, but who knows how long that will take?? All that comes to mind right now is Rihanna’s song SOS because PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME!

“Pose, Wobble, Flow”

I think my biggest “wobble” about this project is that my mind thinks a lot faster than I can usually produce work. Meaning I am scared that I will generate more questions than answers while beginning this project. Just like how I have to write a plan before I begin writing so I don’t overwork concepts, I will really have to make sure that I fully think through each idea I come up with. Spelling is another thing I struggle, “Wobble”, with as a writer. I have nightmares about spelling something wrong on the board in front of my students. I think they look to you as someone who is “wobble”-less and when you aren’t there is a wavering feeling in the students that you aren’t someone they should listen to. On the other hand, I hope to show the students that it is okay to be a wobbler, to mess something up and have that help from someone else. Again leading back to the idea of leading by example. Rather than getting flustered at them helping me, I hope to use my wobbles as teaching moments to establish my “morals” of the classroom. It does have that feeling that they will think less of you and that that is something I as a teacher will have to weight. I think overthinking in front of my class will be a “wobble” as well. I will have to use that like the prompt, or pre-writing, to help students develop their own “overthinking” that will help in a discussion in class.

As for my ideas about what I would like to do for my UGP I think I am still teetering. I know that fiction is my go to, something that offers my brain to expand and offer an allegory for my beliefs rather than state them right out the gate. I’m thinking around with the ideas of a detective novel something darker along the lines of Poe and his work, but also the intelligence that Sherlock Holmes has in his pieces. I don’t know how to mesh the two though which makes me nervous.

“This, Too, We Believe”

I think the world that sticks out to me the most is the word “Community”. In every classroom, there should be this sense of a community the idea that we share everything. I think in my mind I see the classic “Farmers Market” esque idea where everyone is bringing what they have grown and sharing it with the rest of the people, who too have brought goods to share. Maybe it is just how I picture it but I think this describes a classroom as well. Everyone brings their strong points to share with others who may have different strong points. It isn’t that what they are bringing to the table is any less but it is different and beautiful in its own way. Someone who is bringing the most beautiful apples may lack the necessities to grown oranges, but their neighbor has the right tools for oranges. By sharing what everyone needs it is easier to establish that comfortably in a classroom that I think is important. Understanding not only what a student’s strong points are but understanding what their weaknesses are and sharing it in such a way that you can mesh them with another student who is lacking or gaining in the opposite as the other student makes sharing a little easier. There is a sense of Unity in the word Community as well that brings back the idea of everyone being equal. Just because they can grow the most amazing apples doesn’t mean that they are not working to grow something else. I think as humans we like to compare ourselves to one another and think in terms of being the same in aspects that we don’t need to be the same. Unity provides the idea that we are together but not the same. It helps prove to students each of you have different strong points and different weaknesses, but when we are all together we are equal in the fact that we are all trying to learn. regardless of what we bring to the table, we all are unified in the fact that we are present at the farmers market, willing to gives those things that our neighbors need and hoping that our neighbors will be willing to share what we need in order to succeed.

“The Song That Gets Me Through”

It is either between White Knuckles by Ok Go or, This Year by The Mountain Goats. For some reason when I am down I just want to know that there is a reason I am fighting or a reason that what I am doing could be worse. WHite Knuckles is one I sing in my car as loud as I can because the lyrics are just soothing in a way. It talks about how taking your medicine wasn’t as bad as you thought it was and the thing that you were most dreading could be a little less painful once you get through it. I think that is how class is. That one student you dread to deal with every day or the assignment that you wait till the last minute to work on is usually the one that really wasn’t that hard to do in the end. The music video also has these dogs in it and for some reason every time I hear the song I can see the video and I mean who doesn’t love dogs? The second song I heard right before my second year here and my first year at CSU was no cup of tea. I essentially was dreading coming back and needed a sort of anthem to get me through the year. Each verse of the line talks about how the day, week, year gets worse and worse and yet there is still the mentality that they are going to get through the year some way somehow. It’s that kick in the butt to get out and take a hold on the year. Make those bad things a little less awful or make sure they don’t hold you down. I think this too comes back to education in the sense that everyone has a bad day, or week, or year, but the mentality is that you can get through it. You can make that mental switch to take the punches standing up rather than lying on your back. I think the combination of both songs really help me to sit back and take my bad situation with a grain of salt which is what you need when life gets a little too much to handle.

“This I (Now) Believe…”

I still believe that love and enjoyment should be back in the classroom. We as a being get used to what we are comfortable with and in most cases that are thinking, acting, being with other people who share those thoughts. It is causing a major gap in the way we are teaching and educating. We are used to what we, as the teacher, should be addressed in school. Which is clearly not working, it is leaving gaps and holes that no one knows how to fix. Not that I believe I have the solution to fix those but I think that by creating this feeling of love and enjoyment the children are more willing to step out of that comfort zone that normal classrooms put them in. I think especially with talking about social justice and inclusion of different cultures, we need the flexibility to enlighten the students on new situations. Help them feel comfortable enough to step out and be okay with failing because they know that we won’t hate them. I think having that love for the students and showing the students how to love and respect the other students makes them more eager to want to try. The more we read “Why We Teach Now” makes me understand that there are teachers who share this as well, but not enough teachers believe in the love that they have and so they are giving up when there is a little resistance. Like I said prior it’s uncomfortable in sharing an emotion that many have a had time even giving words to, but that’s exactly why I feel we should do it. We should lead by example showing that it is okay to break that box and create own ideas. Ideas that may fail but the failure is what we should be looking for to give them that feedback, help them dust themselves off and continue where they left off. I think to shelter kids and showing them that whatever they do, even the mundane stuff, is praised should rather be filled with showing them, prompting them that it’s okay to fail but it is going to happen, prompting them to work together as much as they hate group projects.