This final project was really meaningful for me. At first, I
was very skeptical about the project and I felt like I was way out of my
comfort zone as an English major because I wasn’t used to having to perform and
I wasn’t used to having to think about material in so many ways: how the audio
track interacted with the body track and how the body track interacted with the
visual track and how the visual track interacted with the audio track and how
to present something without just saying exactly what I wanted the audience to
know like I would in a paper. But my group was amazing and as we talked about
what we wanted to take as our subject, we started talking about things that
really matter to me, and I felt like the message that we wanted to share was
powerful. So I became much more invested and interested in the project, and as
our project developed and I contributed, I realized that this project was
helping me think about this topic in new ways and it was requiring me to do the
same kinds of things that I have to as an English major—thinking about meaning,
analyze and think critically, consider the nuance of different layers,
interpret a text—just in a different way: with my body instead of my words.
Writing a paper on this topic would have been a piece of cake. Incorporating
the interviews, the research that we did, and my own experience would have been
right up my alley, and I would have been very comfortable with that. But I
wouldn’t have grown the same way that I did. Working with Emily, Jana, and
Meredith was so eye opening. Seeing how they processed information and made
interpretations and came up with ideas helped me to think more outside the box
and consider different perspectives and layers of meaning that I hadn’t ever
considered before and never could have come up with on my own. I am really
thankful for the opportunity that I had to work with them (and with Katherine J) so that I could see
how someone different from me dealt with the same subject and material to
create something meaningful and beautiful. So even though I was skeptical at
first, the project became one of the most meaningful projects I’ve ever done,
including projects that I’ve done for my more English-y classes. And I’ve
learned the value of being asked to step outside of what’s normal and
comfortable for me.
Sometimes I have tunnel vision in my major classes because I’m
used to doing the same thing over and over. Read, think, write, lesson plans,
unit plans, read, write, etc. This project really helped me consider the value
of expressing the same ideas I would write about in a different format or
medium. I think this is extremely valuable to consider. In my English
classroom, my students will bored out of their minds if all they do is read and
write. And if all we do is read and write, I will only be reaching students
like me, and not every student will be like me. Varying my assessment and my
assignments will be important to reaching every student and keeping my class
interesting. Reading are writing are certainly important, and we will do a lot
of it and even within writing, I can vary assignments so that it’s not just
literary analysis all the time. But there is also value in considering how to
have students express their ideas in other ways to help them flex their
critical thinking muscles and consider connections they hadn’t before.
I could absolutely see myself using a project like this in
my classroom, and depending on access to technology, this project might look a
little different in my classroom, but I could definitely still make it work. This
project would be interesting and applicable in many ways. Students could use
this format to respond to a theme that they think is important in a book that
we’ve read. They could start with what they think the theme means in the book,
using textual evidence, and then add layers to the meaning and theme by
interviewing other students in the class or in the school, other teachers, or
even people outside of the school that they think would have something interesting
to say about that specific theme. It would add an interesting layer of meaning
to hear what someone thinks about a theme like “love” or “what it means to be
an outsider” who hasn’t read the same book that they have and therefore will
have a different perspective. I also think this could be an interesting final
project that asks students to synthesize everything that they’ve learned over
the semester, and if they had to sum up their experience as a lesson to be
learned or a proverb or something like that, what would it be?
This project, and this class in general, has been so helpful
for me in thinking about different ways to assess and consider the things that
my students will learn in class and how I can make it more relevant to them and
more interesting and authentic. And even though I had my doubts at the
beginning of the semester, I am really thankful for what I’ve learned and
experienced.
Thanks for a great semester!
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