Analyze This

Surprisingly enough, I actually enjoyed the writing of fiction more than the studying of it this time around. Normally I'm always on the side of analysis, but after reading "A Hand in the Grave" and trying to make connections between Kanafani's story and the cultural context of his piece, I wanted to bang my head against a doorframe. Wasn't that a poem we read?

My troubles came from the research for the paper I had to write. Finding critique of this story was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I'm also not entirely familiar with the history of the Palestinian conflicts, so I only was able to obtain a surface, quick bit of knowledge for the amount of time I had to do the essay. I'm sure there is a wealth of information out there that I was unable to look at.

The writing of fiction, on the other hand, was amazingly smooth (apart from my last paragraph which I began with 'For you see,' but Lucas corrected me there). Once we were given the structured topics, and sent on our 'Under what circumstance would...' the ideas started to fly. Especially when I read that 'dread the arrival of spring' was a choice. I dread it every year, thanks to allergies, so I was able to write from something I know.

Of course, reading the other pieces of fiction prior to the writing did alert me as to how to construct a narrative, how to build up suspense, and give that surprise little ending.

I guess it comes down to them both being valuable in the teaching of English. You can't really have high schoolers experience one without experiencing the other. It is important that they realize the effort put into writing, as well as being able to analyze others' works.

Maureen's Myth Making Merriment

Unlike with the creative writing that involved poetry, I experienced no anxiety or fear over this myth writing assignment. I think the fact that I worked with trickster myths, and learned that these could be as silly as a coyote stealing a dog's asshole, it dissolved the need to be profound and poignant which taints poetry writing for me.

When I sat down to write mine, I asked my boyfriend, "What should I do a myth on?" And he asked me to expand. "Well, I can do a creation myth, a male divine or female divine myth, a trickster myth, or a sacred places myth!" The fact that I had these jumping off points made the actual creating of my own so much easier, as they gave me a basic outline on where to take my myth. My boyfriend, ever helpful, said, "Do a sacred place myth." About what? "The merging of the 101 and the 405 freeway! It is hell on earth!"

Using his fantastic idea, and the information gained from the sections on sacred places from the book and from the group's presentation, the creating of my myth came much more easily than any poetry ever has or will. Having to take what I learned and apply it to my own myth actually made the information from the book real. The points of each myth were no longer was just words on a page, but tools I was actually able to use in my writing. For example, the group presentation who handled the sacred place myths described the bad luck that followed a family who removed stones from a sacred circle, so when I was creating mine I decided to make it the opposite - when a person removed a flower, it brought them good luck but left bad luck in its wake.

It is vital that when we teach we keep to this order - learning about myths, then creating, because the first supports the second so greatly. It was perfect to do the myth studying before the myth creating, as it allowed us to see the different aspects and points in the varying myth-types and then expound on those in our own writing. If the assignment had been, "Go create a myth!" before any knowledge had been gained, I'm sure I would have struggled with this as much as I did with the poetry!