For me, creating a myth isn't easy. Last semester, I took a class on classical Greek mythology. I loved reading the stories and studying the characters. However, now when it came time to creating my own, I was almost too surprised at how perplexed I was over the idea. Where did my imagination go??? I was almost too angry at myself for not coming up with something brilliant right away. It sounded like a fun idea, and something that should come to me quickly, but what would make a good myth? I spent a whole Saturday trying to write one, but it didn't sound right. A wise little voice (my boyfriend Jon who was tired of me pouring over ideas to him that didn't make sense) told me to just not think about it and it will come.
Studying creation myths in English 495 class really helped. Since the concepts were fresh in my mind, I thought perhaps there is where I should begin. When I think of myths, I think of how something started-- or ended. So that was what I decided to do-- write about the beginning of time and tell how something came to be. These are common concepts that I learned from studying creation myths in class. Now I needed a good story. I took Jon's advice and did not think hard about what to write. Instead, I let my mind wander about things about the world- people, animals, and nature. How bubbles came to be? Where does fog come from? What does ahhhhh! I don't know. . .why don't humans have tails? Okay. So just letting my mind wander with some ideas led me to this one. Now I had an idea that I liked. I went to bed. When I woke up the next day, suddenly like magic the story was in my mind.
I think that analyzing myths is a lot easier than creating one. Reading them and then discovering the motifs and details were not so hard for me to do for our class myth presentation. It definitely helped me create one because I was aware of what my story needed to qualify as a myth. I am happy with my myth and now that I did one, I think it wasn't so bad and I would be happy to to it again!
I definitely thought of my future students when working on this assignment. If I was having a hard time, then at least some of them would too. I don't know how I would have got along if I did not study myths before writing my own. Knowing this, I will have my students read and study myths before writing their own. I will also give them topics to help them along. For example, I will give them a list of possible myth ideas- why grass is green, why dogs bark, how the rabbit got long ears etc. for them to choose from, or allow them to come up with their own. I will also share with them a myth that I wrote or even write one together as a class. I think that writing myths is fun once you have an idea and believe in it!
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2 comments:
Hello Laura,
I enjoyed reading your blog. It is amazing how easy it sounds writing a myth. I thought it would be nothing to come up with an idea and expand upon it. However, once the process of creating the myth started, I found myself at a loss for words. What would I write about? I too asked friends about what they would like to learn about through my myth. This proved unsuccessful, because the ideas others offered were not things I felt comfortable writing about. They were all good ideas, but I didn't feel I could do any of them justice. Finally, I just stopped and thought about things in nature that intrigued me. Once the idea was developed the words came easily. Your title, by the way, is great!
I loved your insight into the teaching of myths to students. It was a good observation to include pre-determined topics for the students to chose from. Maybe a class generated list would help the students as well. Maybe an in class exercise where students are given two or three prompts and then have to write on them for 15 minutes would help them become more comfortable with the idea. It would also be interesting to see the different approaches the students took.
Hi Laura,
I really enjoyed reading your blog as well! I totally identified with your problem in the beginning. I felt the same way. It was really hard at first to come up with an idea and I got mad at myself for not being imaginative enough and then once I started brainstorming ideas, it just took off from there.
Of course, the fact that we had been reading about mythology and reading other myths helped a great deal.I too think that writing myths is fun and will love to teach this to my future students. I love your idea about giving them a list of potential myths to write about. Hopefully it would just be a springboard into creating their own ideas, but if they were really stuck, at least they would have something to fall back on. Good thinking! Oh, also, I really loved your myth!!
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