This course has been challenging and rewarding at the same time. The learning curve was substantially high at the beginning of the course, yet rather than being daunting, I feel that the experience has inspired me. This post is a summation of my observations about the academic blog, and my emphasis on Renaissance Teaching Methods. I have built a personal learning plan that reached the following working thesis. I call it working because while it does make a specific claim, that claim is mostly based on my learning process thus far, and given additional time, would likely further adjust becoming even more specific. Here is that thesis:
Returning to the Renaissance Teaching Methods employed to teach English, particularly the practice of the Imitation of subject and form, will help students develop a system of analysis that they can apply to texts in visual, audio, tactile, and written formats.
Let me explain how I got here:
I began this blog with minimal focus. I knew that I wanted to study Shakespeare, but other than that, I had little independent interest. Because of this, it took a while for my blog to take off. I spent a large amount of time in textual analysis looking at comparative characterization, inter-textual parallelism, even structuralism, but my personal edge was lacking. I read the texts and when I applied my “personal” angle I essentially did rhetorical analysis. It was what came easiest to me, and what I found interesting; however, it was not really a personal flair. It was not till I decided that I wanted to write a play loosely based on Shakespeare’s works that I developed a focus.
I wanted the play to mimic the creative process underlying Shakespeare’s works. So I set out to learn what those processes were. I set out to find how Shakespeare took someone else’s work and adapted it so successfully that the original became passé. In essence I began to focus on what made Shakespeare Shakespearian. In my process of examination I determined that the best way to identify this was to look at how Shakespeare received his education. When I began to examine his education, I noticed that there were certain aspects of the renaissance teaching method that I thoroughly enjoyed. I set out to describe these techniques in part in my post about teaching motivations, but found that there was a specific vocabulary used in that period which my readers might not be accustomed to. Hence, I made two posts about critical definitions (1) (2) needed to describe the teaching process. I then had the fantastic experience of practicing what I had learned about Renaissance Imitation. This proved to be a difficult task, but I really enjoyed it.
While learning about this technique, I realized that understanding the art of renaissance literary Imitation broadened my ability to apply the tools of “rhetorical analysis” to other text formats. I explored this somewhat in my analysis of Shakespearean viral games. I further practiced this skill when I attended the technology forum at BYU where I found myself analyzing the response of the Senator, and comparing it to Zuckerbergs’ because I was noticing that the audience in this case had a tremendous impact on the dialog of the speaker. I was looking at how they were structuring their sentences, but beyond that I was thinking about how the intonation of their voices was impacting the presentation. I was wondering what would happen if “X” were different, or “Y,” or what if they were speaking in prose rather than verse. I really began to notice just how impactful learning the tolls for rhetorical transformation could be. I noticed how understanding how to transform a text from one format to another, or how attempting to keep the format the same while altering the content, gave me a new perspective on the malleability of language.
With this understanding, as I look back over my posts at this point I can see that what I originally thought was simply my default to textual analysis had a strong root in the desire that I have to recognize better teaching practices. Even though I do not plan to become a teacher, I definitely have a desire to create a clear method for teaching that produces strong results, and I think that for that reason I spent so long focusing on analysis-I found that it worked great to teach. Now that I have explored some of the Renaissance teaching methods, I have found a tool that I think is great for developing creativity: Imitation. I love what I have found!
I have not really discovered anything new. My thesis is unique in that it points to my personal application of a relevant finding, with which many academics may agree or disagree. But, despite this, I think that somehow the point of this experience was the process of discovery and recognition. I discovered the information and focus through my own efforts-there was no prompt to this assignment other than learn and explore Shakespeare. I recognized that I was learning because of my own efforts, and so my attachment to my discoveries grew more important. All of these learning processes were ultimately framed by my audience. The audience has impacted my learning because rather than only dealing with criticism at the end of my paper-the final draft- I was receiving input the entire time.
I have been fortunate to have a fairly consistent audience throughout my blogging experience. My thanks go out to all of you who have given input.
Overall, this has been very enlightening. I have learned a lot about the methods that I studied; however, the constraints of time have also made me realize that my initial endeavors were too large. I anticipated completing many other exercises demonstrating practice examples of the methods I studied, but it took a fairly long time to develop the study and so I didn't have time to get to all the things that I wanted. Also, although the play that I began to write with the help of Martin is close to completion, it is still not done, perhaps it was too much to take on along with all the other aspects of the course. I still hope to have it completed soon, but the end comes quickly and I can only try and hope.
In the meantime, it has been awesome.
