Reflecting on My Experience of Myth Creation

In reflecting on how your experience of creating a myth differs from and / or enhances the study of myth, I found that my creating a myth really fell in to a lot of established parameters of previous myths, no matter how creative I thought I was being with the subject, so I just went with it in a traditional kind of myth. I really think that that is the power of myth in our society. I came up with the idea of figuring out how cats were created. I automatically came up with an earth mother creator that was called by people to help them with their problems, and something new was created for the people to help save them. 

This experience enhances the study of myth in that my mind fell quickly into traditional forms of mythological beings because that is what I have learned about over time, thus reinforcing the power of that cultural learning. Even though I started out my myth story as “Why Cats Were Created”, I changed it to, “Why Cats Purr”, to explore more an explanation for a natural phenomenon of purring. 

From this creative writing experience I learned that in my future teachings or life that to be a creative writer, being really creative is stepping outside the parameters of what is known, and trying to create something new or something that hasn’t been done before. Creative writing also involves choosing to stay within those learned parameters to create based on traditional forms or types. For instance, I now want to create a myth that is totally new like some of the really far-out myths that others created. 

Reflecting on Writing About Poetry and Writing Poetry

When reflecting on writing about poetry informed my own writing of poetry in learning about what actually goes into creating poetry. For instance, I was writing certain kinds of poetry, such as an ekphrasis, before I even knew what that was. I just wrote what was in my head. I had self-studied poetry in around 2006, but I forgot most of what I learned. So learning about and analyzing poetry is really important to actually creating poetry and recognizing what you are doing, whether a poem is written naturally or with technical knowledge.  

When reflecting on writing poetry informed me about writing about poetry because I am already a poet, so when I have to analyze a poem for a class, I pretty much get where the poet is coming from or why they did a particular thing in their poem. I feel like I see what they are trying to express from inside their heads and feelings. There’s a certain feeling when a poem begins, and I have to catch it before it disappears. Sometimes I just look at something or hear a word or phrase, and suddenly my mind is hearing a phrase of poetry.  

What I learned from this experience of writing and performing poetry that I could use in future teaching is the value of prompts. I had already learned this before, but it’s a very valuable tool for a poet. Back in 2005, I took a creative writing class at Pierce College. Somewhere in the week we wrote poetry, I was suddenly inspired, and became a poet, and was writing poetry all the time. That lasted for several years, and then I just stopped, from lack of time, or lack of inspiration (such as being miserable about romance). And, sometimes I have simply been too busy to feel creative. So, I wanted to take more classes in writing, and so I was inspired again. But when the semesters stopped, I suddenly stopped for the most part. So, I figured out that having a prompt will kickstart a poem and creativity. So, as in the exercise of the two poems that we did for class, prompts can give a poet the inspiration for a poem, even if one isn’t “feeling” it. So the value of prompts is important in future teaching in that the student can create a poem from a prompt, as we did in class. 

What Role That I Feel Media Technology Should Play in Teaching at Any Level

Hello, Readers! My name is Jennifer, aka JMo occasionally. I was always a reader, but then I became a writer, mostly of poetry, and a few short stories and narratives. I went from a passive relationship to literature to an active relationship once I figured out how to be creative by having a pencil and notebook in my pocket at all times to write down any waft of a poem past my ears.  

I have already completed all classes for my B.A. in English / Creative Writing. I am only four classes away from finishing a second B.A. in English Literature and a Minor in History. I work in a library, and plan on transferring to get a Master's in Library Information Science. Some day I'd like to work professionally in genealogy.

The role that I feel that media technology should play in teaching, at any level, is as a tool to enhance what is being taught. As a student, media technology has been used in classrooms my whole school life at least since fourth grade, when they showed an entire film in our classroom, the musical, "1776". It's one of the best things I remember about grade school! As time went by, it was slides, filmstrips, educational movies, videos, and eventually computers. But it was all to enhance the learning or to teach one to learn. For instance, the film was to enhance everything being done at my grade school to celebrate a national holiday which included a play, a gym-sized quilt display, dressing up in costumes, and listening to music. 

I have witnessed particularly effective uses of media technology as a student in the use of educational or informative videos in classes. I remember what happened in those visual tools much more than any notes I ever read or wrote down. It is amazing how visual images will stay in the mind's eye long after watching them. For instance, in 2022 at CSUN, I had a class called Popular Culture, and the professor used many film clips to support the lectures, but I remember most of the film clips better than the lecture on what aspect of culture that the clips were representing. I was once acquainted with a psychologist who used film clips to SHOW patients information about their kind of issues, which to him was better than TELLING them, and they learned by seeing.

In terms of the advent of phone use as media technology, it depends on what it is being used for. At one time a phone was just a phone for talking. Then they added texting, then pictures, then internet, then everything else. As someone who loves looking up information, I am beyond thrilled and delighted to have a pocket sized computer with me at all times, I can look up anything at any time to feed my information questions. If a student in school is just using a cell phone for social media on school time, unless it is school related, which is a part of many school's methods of disseminating information now, it should be treated the same as talking or writing notes in class. How a phone is used is the important thing.