Saturday, October 22, 2016

Creating a Myth vs. Studying Myth

Creating my own myth and teaching/ studying mythology was similar; yet very different at the same time. I don’t want to be repetitive and say that creating my own myth requires creativity, just like writing my own poetry, but that is what overlaps when you write or create your own piece. When writing your own myth, there are really no rules or limitations, so it allows you to think outside the box and explore your creativity. Although most existing myths are considered to be fiction, you can even create a fictional myth based on a non-fictional story. I think writing your own myth or any kind of piece really allows students to experience different types of writing styles and is definitely a chance for them to try a new writing style that they always avoided. Although writing your own fictional story can be a burden at first, it not only pushes you out from the comfort zone and make you realize that writing is more than just being creative. Teaching or studying mythology was a bit different. It definitely helps students to experience different types of writing by reading and learning about numerous myths; yet in order to attain each story properly, it is important to understand the concept and structure of the story. While creating your own myth has no rules or limitation, studying or teaching myth requires you to follow certain rules in order to absorb the lessons in the myth. Every myth can be perceived and understood differently depending on each student’s perspective, yet they still need to follow the structure that is given within the myth. Both experiences can be very contrasting and similar at the same time, it is true that they both provide students with new learning experience.  

2 comments:

  1. Hello Hyunjung,
    I agree that studying and creating a myth was very similar and different at the same time. Like you said it’s hard not to be repetitive when saying writing your own myth takes a lot of creativity, just like when we had to write our own poems. I thought the same thing, that I was being repetitive but creativity is a huge process of creating our own work. I agree that writing our own work does help students with different writing styles. I also feel that studying and watching the group presentations also helped experience different writing styles. All the myths we read from the presentations differed from one another and all the presentations also differed from one another. I think understanding the concept of the myth that was taught helped in realizing the myth you created also helped when creating a myth. It helps because then you think of the concept and structure your own myth has to incorporate

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  2. Hello Hyunjung, excellent post on your experience writing your own myth. I found it interesting how you pointed out how this assignment overlapped with the poetry assignment. That is true how they are both similar in that they both allow for the writer to be creative rather than focus on the purely academic side of writing. Writing the myth does allow the writer freedom especially when there is not an actual prompt/guidelines on what makes a “myth”. I also like the point that you brought up about how myths themselves are fictional, but the background elements of the myths are necessarily fictional, and how the stories can be base on actual real life things.
    Also that is a great point that it is important for students to read about mythology before they write their own, so that they can have an understanding of the structure and how the myth should be/look like. Great post!

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