I am most intrigued and minorly intimidated by the
storybook/portfolio project. While I don’t have a hard time making
conversation, I have never tested my abilities to write stories. I paint in my
free time, but that so far has been the extent of my creativity. However, as I
have moved through these first few assignments my nerves have been put at ease
because it seems not only does the class move in increments but also that there
should be plenty of time to work on the assignments (one of the reasons I
started working ahead).
Never before have I had a class that required a blog, and
the closest thing that I can compare this class so far to is one I have
mentioned several times - Gods and Heroes in Art. That class was composed of
weekly quizzes and art commenting assignments with a few tests and a final
paper at the end of the semester. In it we composed our thoughts of three art
pieces and how they represented a moment in a story. It’s a stretch, a long
one, but that is probably the most comparable class I have taken.
As far as extra credit is concerned, I think the most
appealing are extra reading and Wikipedia trails. I always carry at least one
book on me and more than once I have done something similar to a Wikipedia trail;
but instead of clicking on other articles it would usually be clicking on other
people or events mentioned in the initial post.
Overall, I am glad I am taking this class; I need something
fun to balance out the heavy workload I am taking this semester (Physics II,
Organic Chemistry, Microbiology, and all the labs that go alongside them). In
addition, I still have one non-western class needed for my degree and maybe if
this class goes well I will be taking the online Indian myth class next
semester!
As I said, in my free time I paint. Below is a photo of one of my more recent and less serious art projects - Space Cactus. I was experimenting, trying to learn how to paint galaxies and threw the cactus in for fun (also love the plant in general).
No need to be intimidated by the project website, Selena: one of the great things I can say after having taught this same class for over 15 years -- it's totally doable. Every student has created a website, which means there have been thousands of them so far. The platforms have changed (we started out with a little 3MB webspace that OU gave students at something called students.ou.edu, now discontinued). It's gotten easier and easier over time, in fact, and now there are so many great web publishing platforms people can use, including the lovely new Google Sites.
ReplyDeleteAnd your space cactus painting is exactly how stories can take shape in this class: your imagination prompts you to ask some kind of "what if?" (what if I added a cactus?) ... and then things just go from there! Often beautiful things, like the space cactus.
About the extra reading: if there is a book you notice at the Freebookapalooza that you want to read for whatever reason (so many great books there!), you can let me know and I'll break it up into chunks so that you can do extra credit reading for multiple weeks. It's a great way to get ahead in the class, and a chance to read a book of your own choice, side by side with the weekly story readings. So, for example, some people have a book they want to read to go with their Storybook research. That's a big part of what the extra reading option is for. I want to encourage any/all reading that people want to do. :-)