Will Close Portfolio Reflections

[0:00] Blank screen

What defines literature? Is literature confined to words on a page, bound together in a book? How can it be something different? How can we take literature beyond the written word?

[0:12] Silent clip of e-poem plays as narration continues

This was the purpose of our English 150 class this semester. We were challenged to look at literature in creative new ways. We learned to read differently, to discover the hidden potential in a poem or a story, and then tap it. We made multi-media presentations weaving video, sound, and poetry together to create something completely different. Through this, we were able to explore our own creativity. The things I did in this class were things I’d never done before with literature.

[0:40] A clip from No Country for Old Men plays

Most people will close a book and put it away once they’ve finished the last page, but what I practiced in this class taught me to take those words with me, breathe a new life into them, and create something completely unique

Our first assignment was to take a poem we like and then analyze its meaning and write an essay on it, bringing in our outside research to support our argument. Thom Feeny, the father of one of my closest friends, is a poet, and I chose one of his poems, “Emma,” for this assignment. Through this exercise, I learned how to read a poem critically, focusing on the literary elements and forming my own opinion about the poet’s intention. But. like Doctor Gerald Puccio said:

[1:15] The quote from Puccio appears on screen:

“Creativity moves beyond mere synthesis and evaluation.”

[1:21] The e-poem reappears

We did move beyond that when we moved onto the e-poem assignment. For this assignment, I wrote an original poem and built my multimedia presentation around it. This assignment presented me with a problem: How to pose this electronic poem/ what material to use. I had to get creative to solve the problem. I browsed clips for a while, saving the stuff I liked, and once I had enough stuff to work with I went to work putting them together. It was a great way to test the creative waters, and I got a lot out of the assignment. Working with different forms of media was a great way for me to unleash my creativity and learn a lot about framing literature with sound and video. In an article in the Journal of Effective Teaching, Jose Gomez wrote:

[2:01] The quote appears on screen:

“Using multimedia in the classroom increases creativity, innovation, problem-solving and improves communications between people.”

He’s right, and it was a great call by Daniel to have this assignment as part of the curriculum. We heavily revised the poetry essay and e-poem, and those assignments were most of what we worked on this semester. We also did walkthroughs of both the first and final draft of our e-poems. The walkthrough assignments were helpful, because they forced me to analyze why I made the choices I did in my e-poem. By doing this, I gained a better understanding of my work, and was able to make a more effective revision. It added a whole other creative layer to the project. This course served to teach me a lot more about ways to use and interpret literature, but it also taught me new ways to unlock my creativity. This course would be a great asset for anyone trying to better tap into his or her creative side. 

[2:53] The quote from Kaufman and Goleman appears on the screen over a background image of a large wave.

Because, “When the creative spirit stirs, it animates a style of being: a lifetime filled with the desire to innovate, to explore new ways of doing things, to bring dreams of reality.”

[3:06] Credits appear on screen, it reads:

“What do We Know About Creativity?
By Jose G. Gomez

“The Art of Creativity”
D. Goleman, P. Kaufman

“Learning to Think Outside the Box”
By Laura Pappano

Music: “Stars” by Future Generations

Thank You, Dan!