Funny Stuff

Bro Rape: A Common Problem that Needs Attention

and now fictional stories

To me writing fictional stories is very different from writing about fiction. Like myths though they do reinforce each other. Basically all of us have spent our time in college learning about the fictional canon or the techniques these people used so writing about fiction should be second nature to us. Like I said in my myth blog they complement each other and knowing one makes you stronger in another.

Looking at this particular assignment I had much more fun writing a story than writing about someone elses story. Again it allows me to be creative and outside of the standard norms we have to write our academic papers in. I don't actually think my writing about fiction enforced my writing as much as the numerous books I have read over the years has influenced the story I wrote though the short story I wrote about did influence the style somewhat.

In a way you could see my story as a kind of pastiche of the authors and stories I have read over the years. I added echoes of Palahnuik and his references to real life trivia, I tried to emulate Salinger's stream of conscious style from Catcher in the Rye though a bit looser. I tried to create an insane characterization I have seen before in Richard Matheson novels. Almost everything in my story is influenced by what I love in what has come before.

In teaching this is better suited to students who read less than me. Like the myth exercise you can use the two to reinforce each other. Have the students write about a story to see the elements and then use the learned elements to create something they identify with or cn be proud of. Same kind of learning just a diferent genre of literature.

myths or not

Writing a myth and learning about myths was obviously very different but in a way they complement each other. I can learn all I want about the myth and putting it into practice reinforces those ideas. That is probably the best way to retain the knowledge is to put it into practice after you learn it. Obviously though they are going to be different to a degree because these myths evolved over time into what they are now as opposed to the evolution of my myth in my head over the time writing it. But we are learning the elements of myth in general. The elements that all myths, no matter the origin, share and through this we can understand the myths better and create a convincing myth showing we know these elements.

This basically showed the core of teaching. We learn the elements of what we are supposed to learn and put them into practice. This would be a good strategy to implement in the classroom. Have one assignment relate to the study of myth and the elements that make it a myth then implement those myths into something that is creative and see how close the two can get. I would frankly just ape this assignment wholesale because I see it as a valuable teaching tool that could be changed to fit any kind of literature type, myth, modern, horror, classical, anything really. So I basically learned to steal from this assignment. Or it could evolve even further into something more complex, its an open book really. The End.