The photo I shared with the class last week was of my students. It was taken during field day at the end of September. Before this day, these students weren’t friends with each other but they came together for this pyramid. I love the picture because I see so much joy in them. They’re all just a bunch of weirdos that found each other! Plus, it’s nice to see my students as they are–instead of as a series of data and standards, struggles and strengths.
I spoke in class about how I might be more comfortable producing writing-based art for this class. I envisioned writing poems around a certain topic. It made me happy to see Barone and Eisner mention Death of a Salesman and The Godfather as examples of arts-based research. And while I realize that these might not be where the field is in 2018, I still feel drawn to creative writing.
Over the last two years I have been doing archive research about Jack Kerouac. My plan for my thesis was to combine all my papers about him into one big… thing. Recently, I’ve been tooling with idea of doing something less straight-forward. Maybe making a graphic novel biography about him? Maybe writing a young adult historical fiction story about him? I have a lot of ideas! I think it would be nice to explore these ideas in this class and see where they take me.
Hi Regina:
The combination of joy and weirdness is compelling. It makes me think of the positive sides of being an outsider and how it sometimes helps you find the free person that is inside of you (which Toni Morrison writes about in Home). Jack Kerouac was an outsider and weird, but somehow at the same time spoke for a large segment of his generation. I recently read On The Road again, and while I was attracted to his zany free spirit, I was also turned off by his misogyny and self-destructiveness. I love the idea of a graphic novel, fictional biography etc about him. And it would be interesting to see you try to merge your creative writing skills with visual companions. Just like poetry, these don’t have to be literal and they shouldn’t be redundant. Can’t wait to continue the discussion.