Medium Specificity

Trust Me Poem

Artist Teacher Statement:
In recording my poem, I hoped to explore the unique aspects of audio recordings as a medium. Poetry especially makes for an interesting exploration of specific affordances and limitations of audio recordings. Audio recordings of poetry can be even more expressive than a simple text, especially in the voice of the author because each person would read the text differently and emphasize different portions. This is one of the affordances of audio recordings. However, one of the limitations of audio is that it lacks the visual stimulation of a video. You cannot see what the author looks like or their facial expressions as they read. It is also limited because you cannot view the poem all at once visually like you can a physical representation or picture of the poem. Poetry has always been celebrated visually in form and layout, but people have also created poetry readings, slams, and sharing writing aloud. I felt that it was fitting therefore to represent the auditory element of a poetry reading. Being the creator of this specific poem also lends interesting knowledge as you hear the reading of the poem that wouldn't be known otherwise.

"Ode to an Orange"

After reading Larry Woiwode's "Ode to an Orange," I felt inspired to create a simple collage as my own Ode to an Orange. I used multiple types of paper, mediums, and sought to create a whimsical piece of art that fit the mood and theme of the original short story. I posted this creation, as well as a few lines that particularly spoke to me, on my Instagram account.

A creation by me, inspired by Larry Woiwode's "Ode to an Orange." "There is no proper way to eat an orange...And no matter how carefully you eat one, or bite into a quarter, juice can always fly or slip from a corner of your mouth; this happens to everyone." #odetoanorange #oranges #shortstory

A photo posted by Leah Day Smith (@flowerlkd) on Jan 22, 2017 at 3:21pm PST

This type of project is definitely something that I hope to introduce in my future English classroom. Taking one text and creating a personal adaptation of it is a skill that will be useful to any students who seeks to better understand literature and other texts. I picture myself creating an assignment where students must create their own adaptation (I feel that freedom of expression in this aspect of the project is key to keeping the attention of the students). The largest learning experience, I feel, would come from the sharing of their creations through social media. Not only would they have the opportunity to share their learning with members of their class and share comments about the different adaptations, but they'd also be interacting with people in their online social circles--family, friends, and peers. This helps them to recognize that the knowledge that they gain in their classrooms can and should be shared with others and not just in a reiterative way but in a creative, interpretative way. I'd try to make sure they included literary elements in their adaptations such as theme, characters, symbols, etc so they could demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the text. The social media aspect would need to include hashtags in order to link up with others sharing the similar ideas or other students sharing their work. Adding an edge of competition wouldn't hurt if they were encouraged to share their work online with more people by awarding a prize to whoever had the most likes or shares!

Thinking and Writing about Digital Media

Our personal media use is made up of both consumption and creation. The balance between them is a fine line that is sometimes difficult to maintain.

It wasn’t until after I returned from my mission that I finally got a smartphone. Going straight from almost no technology use to having the entire world wide web at my fingertips combined with what seems to be a naturally addictive personality, you can understand why I struggle a lot with my media consumption. Some days I spend way too much time on Facebook or Instagram. I wonder how much of my life that I could get back if I would just put my phone away where it was out of reach and out of sight. I’ve never really set guidelines for my media consumption and that’s probably what gets me in trouble. I’ll be watching a movie with my husband and he will suddenly pause the show because he realizes that I’ve been staring at my computer or phone for the past 5 minutes instead of following the plot on the screen. It’s something that I’m always trying to work on and improve!

On the other hand, despite my bad media habits, I feel like I also manage to create media in ways that are productive and enjoyable for me. Being an English major, I naturally love to read and I’ve always wanted to share that love of reading with others (part of what drives me to be a teacher). Last year I started a blog on which I post my own writing about literature, about the books I’ve been reading lately, really just anything that relates to reading or English. I’ve found it to be an outlet of expression for my love of reading as well as a way for my friends and family to engage with me on that level and keep up with what I’m doing. Creating media and sharing it with others is something that I enjoy doing on my blog.

Finding a balance between consumption and creation seems to be something important that I should work on. To some degree we can control what media we consume from a wide variety of sources, however, it is limited to just the media that is already out there. We can only consume it if someone else has created it. When we are the ones creating the media, it gives us full control over exactly what types of media we are consuming and how we are consuming it. Frequently the creation of media is what gives us energy and helps us connect with others while consuming media frequently drains us of energy and gives us “FOMO” (Fear of Missing Out) or “Facebook Envy” or “Facebook Depression.”

Both our consumption and creation habits define us and I can see many ways in which this combined balance has been detrimental or beneficial to me in my life. As a teacher, helping my students to understand the difference between passively consuming media and actively creating it will be an important part of teaching in my classroom.