American LIterature
Original Myth Creation
In American Literature, we studied the mythology of Native American Cultures, including "The World on a Turtle's Back" by the Iroquois, and Coyote Stories from the Okanogan tribes. We learned about traits of creation myths, the use of archetypes, such as the Trickster, and techniques such as anthropomorphism.
To show what we learned in class, we were tasked with writing and producing our own Original Creation Myths to explain the existence of at least one thing that we have today . We had to include at least one trickster character and an anthropomorphic character.
For the myth I chose to write about the creation of mountains along with plants and animals. I wrote a story of a god named Gola who created a contest for people to sculpt clay and then chip away at it to make mountains. It includes to bestfriends named Everest and K2 who compete in Gola's contest. Everest turns out to be a trickster and fools K2 to win the sculpting/chipping contest thus making and naming the two tallest mountains in the world.
To help with the telling of my myth I drew a few illustrations to give a visual aid of my story. I have grass and water in the first illustration to represent what the world looked like originally before there were mountains and trees and animals. I also added a visual of Gola the god and his friends, along with a representation of hi calling down to the human to give his announcement of the contest. There is also a trickster hat representing Everest tricking K2. And a visual of the tools used to build mountains.
I genuinely appreciate this project and assignment in giving me a chance to think outside of the box and use my imagination.
We read and analyzed some poetry from Emily Dickinson, and then selected one of the works to record a reading and create a "score" or soundtrack. We chose to recite the poem "I am nobody". We felt the poem would tie in well with a slow and calm kind of beat.
The poem to us was about two quiet people, nobodies, meeting and discovering that they are similar. This is surprising for them to find out in a world full of people that care more about being known and talking only about themselves.
As you can see after the two people meet and are conversing about not advertising who they are, the beat speeds up. It changes from something slow and steady to something giving a lot more energy to match the vibe of them meeting each other.
Emily Dickenson Poetry Score
Emily Dickinson Music ScoreFinal Project- Rhetoric Choice Board
For the final project of American Literature, we were challenged to either express a position convincingly, solve a problem, or write about someone we admire. And then write an essay and do a creative task to showcase our projects or themes/concepts of our project. Below is my essay attached that you can click on to read about what I chose. I also created a video interviewing high school students about the schoolyear and getting their feedback on my solution to the problem that I chose. Which was how to relieve students' stress in high school.
My Movie.mp4