The beginning of this year was quite hectic, I was thrown into new projects, old projects, and pretty much everything in between. However, when I came across this project, I was actually surprised on how easy and enjoyable it was to me. Although I was not here for most of our classroom’s other Hero’s Journey projects, this is one I did get to complete. In this project, us as a class were thrown into the world of storytelling and looking deep into ourselves to find deeper meanings and ideas. I used to be in a theatre class, so standing up on stage was like walking back into an old house you sold years ago. I loved how interactive everyone was during the setup and performance. We all seemed to come together, making jokes but keeping a constructive level to our work. Overall, I can certainly look back and say this was the most fun I’ve had yet
Transcript
What did you do during this project?
In this project, I had to look over my life and pick out the parts that I thought were the most interesting. A good story is comedic, or dramatic, and I wanted mine to be both. At first, I was not really clear on what the “Hero’s Journey” was, I thought it was just a silly term that Alley had whipped up. However, I soon learned that you cannot have a story about growth and depth (that is done well) without the Hero’s Journey guidelines. Throughout this project, I used these guidelines to create an excellent story. At first, I had a story that was more focused on a relative of mine, instead of me. After some brainstorming with classmates, I realized that I had to change my path and focus on personal growth than others growth. My story began to take form into what my final project is today, and I certainly liked it.
How did you grow during this project?
In Bayfield school, most of the learning is based around academics, while at Animas we look more into emotion intellect. This project really showed that. I grew a large amount during the duration of this storytelling. I learned how to look at emotion in writing rather than facts in writing. When I got here, I was already wrapped up in theatre culture and understood PVLEGS; however, there was much more to it than I had anticipated. My listening skills were already good, but I grew up a bit and learned to listen more to the story of another person and less of the grammar. If I will ever be in a situation like this again, I will definitely work on my refinement of my story before just skipping to the cinematics of it all.
What enduring understandings will you take away from this project?
Normally, I let my own inner, pompous artist come out during projects like this. I tend to get caught up in my own creative genius that I judge people harshly on their own work; simply for the reason that I think my work is like best standard and nothing else can come close to it. After this, I now have an understanding that creativity comes in different forms. I used to believe that many of my other students were not as “creative” as me simply because their work didn’t look like mine. Yet now, I can see that a story about mountain climbing can be just as amusing and creative as a story about burning your hand on the stove.