The... End?

 Well, this seems to be the end of the road.. at least in terms of my Genius Hour thus far. 

It was definitely not easy, and I've never dedicated more time to a project to not see the outcome I originally desired. Having to come up with an idea that I had to commit time to and have really no guidelines for the expectations of the project was an entirely new concept to me, and I don't personally think I liked it. 

I found myself getting quite overwhelmed with the large goals that I had set out for myself, because I am not a person to think small but rather go big, and I definitely went too big which ended up creating a bit of disappointment for myself. I do however love the idea of the genius hour, and can hopefully find a way to incorporate this concept into my future classrooms because while it might not be my thing, it is a wonderful learning experience for students to explore different passions as opposed to what I am setting out to teach them. 

I am not as creative as I thought, or maybe if I had managed my time a bit better I would have been able to start out a part of my book. However, given the way my life is right now personally, I just don't have the capabilities to do so. That doesn't mean however that I never will. I took the research I found quite positively, and turned my product into something that I did not expect (obviously with my products original intention to be the beginning of a book or some form of writing) but nonetheless beneficial for my (and possibly others who see the blog) future classrooms. 

The poster I created which can be found on my product page is a brief reference poster for beginning to explore why, how and what we read and write. It does not go into too much detail, but rather meant to be a quick reference point for students in the classroom as we move into different periods or writing and reading for different reasons - historical documents, novels, poems, newspapers, propaganda, and so much more. 

This genius hour project caused me quite a bit of anxiety and stress throughout the course, as I navigated different ways to overcome my initial disappointment and tried to create something out of the work I had completed up to this point, but it was an incredible learning opportunity to create a resource and further explore the why and how of reading and writing myself. 

Despite the absolute rollercoaster that this genius hour was, I truthfully don't think I would change anything about my experience - and I hope anyone that comes along this blog can take away something about reading, writing, or the chaos that is attempting to write a book. 

Take care of yourselves, and don't stop reading and writing! 

-Katie <3 

Where are we at?

 Hi guys, 

It's been a little while, and I apologize again. To put simply - I cannot write a book. I put a lot of time and research into the components of writing a book, including the mental capacity, the publishing, what it means to actually create a book. Honestly, I thought while rekindling my love for reading, which mostly includes the "BookTok" cheesy romance novels that all sound the exact same, I would be able to do that. I was wrong. Writing a book is not something that can be tackled as a 12-week project, at least not for me. However, that does not mean that I have not learned a lot.

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Instead, this attempt at trying to do something I should have realized would not have been entirely feasible, has taught me more about my future career as an English teacher, and how I can help kids in their writing AND reading styles. This does not mean that I have to write a book or be a published author to do so. Let's take a look at what I have learned, and how I can take this experience and research gathered to support my future students. 

1. Your writing and reading skills CAN be improved with the right mentality. 

        -What this means is that if you have other things on your mind, or something bothering you, or you simply are distracted, it can affect your creativity and capability to produce something amazing. I have not been fully attentive to my goals, and this is part of the reason I was not able to produce something similar to a book for this genius hour, but that does not mean I will never be able to. 

2. Despite thinking "everything has been done already" in terms of ideas or content, this is not true. 

        -We as writers, readers, and English learners have the capabilities to take anything we enjoy, love or are passionate about and write something with our own personal twists to it. I had quite a few ideas for a book/short story and although they sound like they have been done already, they haven't been done by me. Do not let the VAST majority of literature out in the world stop you from creating something worth while. 

3. Everyone reads differently, and some people understand reading differently. 

        -This was one of the biggest takeaways from my research, as I explored WHY and HOW we read, and how writing can transform the HOW we read, just by a simple switch of a word. Not only was this the most interesting part of my research because it was something I had been narrowly ignorant to (especially considering I am hoping to teach English) but the idea that one word to some readers can change the entire meaning of a sentence, if it is not read and understood the way the author intended to. 

These take-aways from my genius hour idea I feel are more important than the fact that I could not write a book as I initially intended to do for my final product. I have been more widely introduced to the concepts of reading and writing, which as a future English and History teacher, I feel are much more important than me writing a cheesy romance novel that although would have my own spin on it - has probably been done. Although I expressed it didn't matter, I personally would not have enjoyed doing that. I hope (despite my absences and limitations) that you were all able to enjoy the research I provided, and hopefully I moved someone just a little bit to further explore how their own reading or writing can influence somebody else, or perhaps my research has motivated someone else to write their own book. In that case, please make sure to dedicate the book to yours truly for the amazing ideas ;) 

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Reviewing Padlet Wishes

 Hello my friends, 

This post will be brief - I know I took a bit of a break last week as well but it has been a very tough 2 weeks in my personal life and unfortunately, I am not where I would like to be. However, I had a comment for some reader interest about where my ideas come from and how I am personally feeling about writing this book, so I thought I would share a couple of my ideas. 

For starters, there is no good time for me to sit down and write. Preferably, it would be in the morning/afternoon but seeing as I am always working or sleeping, because no matter how hard I try to be I am absolutely not a morning person, that is not an ideal condition. There is also the factor that I live at home with 4 other people in my house and 4 animals, so it is always chaotic here. That being said, I am doing my absolute best. 

Secondly, I did not really think about the load that this research and product would bring me to. I am really hoping to have a chapter or so written by this time next week, because I have some ideas laid out. When these ideas come to me, the notes app on my phone is my best friend and my saviour. I could not be as organized as I am without it because otherwise, all of my notes would be written on my hand. As I mentioned at the beginning of this project, I recently rekindled my love of reading for pleasure and that is where this original idea came from. However, as I move further along into the actual production of my project, I am slowly realizing that I should have just stuck to reading. I still plan on making a product out of all of my research, because I am determined to make something happen. What that something will be however, I am uncertain. Thanks for following along thus far, I apologize for the briefness of this post but next week will be much better and I hope you all enjoy what I have! 

Until then!

This Week

 Hello my book loving friends, 

This week I will be taking a bit of a break to continue reviewing previous research and looking into finalizing some of my ideas to go into the book/short story. Please continue reading if you are and absolutely loving it!! 

See you soon!

Where am I at now with my book?

 Hello! It has been quite a bit, and when we last left off I had not made much strides in my book research/writing. However - we have moved past this! I plan to start writing my book THIS WEEK! I know, how crazy the turn around is. That is where the research and ideas will conclude this week and bring me to next week, where hopefully I can produce a piece of writing or perhaps once I start writing, my course will change, who knows. 

Until then, I will show you the rest of what I have been working on. While before I was looking up some articles and ideas on book writing because I am not a visual learner, I learn by reading and looking at instructions. However, I thought that between last week and this week, I would try to change up the way I was researching. For starters, although it has nothing to do with the topics of what I plan on writing, I have been reading the Harry Potter set since just after the new year started. Being on book 6 now, I can't help but think about the writing styles and techniques that J.K Rowling uses and how I can transform those styles into my own writing. I have also turned to YouTube to look at a few different videos on what reading means for others, and how to write a book simply. I decided to turn my research away a bit from how to write the book because it seems to be pretty grounded in the ideas that I have come to understand. But now I want to know why? Why would I write a book? Why do people read? What kind of styles, techniques, ideas do I have to put into my book to make people want to read it? 

One video I found was from the famous YouTube site 'CrashCourse' and the video is called "How and Why We Read: Crash Course English Literature #1" 

How and Why We Read: Crash Course English Literature #1

This video was interesting because it explains the way that the English language (will be the language I am using to write, and the only language because I am only an English speaker) is used to highlight specific ideas and components of a book and explain that the idea is brought to life because of the way it is written and then the way it is read. What this means (which I did already know) is that authors WRITE for their stories to be READ a certain way. 

Another video related to this same idea is a video called "How to write descriptively - Nalo Hopkinson" on the YouTube channel 'TED-Ed'. This video was useful for my furthering my research on the ideas of writing to portray a specific feeling, adventure, event, etc. and explaining that the point of fiction is to "cast a spell". The idea of fiction might be based on a specific event that happened in real life, but is written in a way to transform the story for the reader to become intertwined in the words and understand the feelings by FEELING them. 

Specific words and writing styles touch the readers senses to portray qualities, expectations, ideas, etc. to bring the reader into the story and become wrapped up in the words to feel what the characters are feeling. 

That wraps up the majority of my research I have been doing into looking at WHY we write a specific way for a reader to READ that story that way. I will also include a screenshot of what topics of books/short stories I have come up with so far. My next blog post will hopefully include a defined topic and I will have started writing that story or at least come up with some foundations like a time period, characters, setting, plot, etc. 

Until next week, thanks for checking in and hopefully you'll still want to follow along to see what kind of creative story components I come up with! Bye for now! 

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Continuing My Research

 Hello everybody!

This week has been quite a long week, and I was not able to get too much done which was the trouble with this week. So much personally going on that I will need to catch up for our next Genius Hour. However, I have decided that through the research so far - I am not in the right spot to be writing a book and so I have decided on using a space that my boyfriend can provide for me once a week to begin writing my book. 

Given everything I have been through in the last year with losing my sister, I have decided I will be trying to write a somewhat original (because that is the whole idea that I am not writing something everyone has read before) family story. I'm not sure if it will involve the death of my sister, perhaps about navigating life without someone you never thought you'd lose. This is where I am at right now - or I will not be writing about my sister and the hardships at all and try to come up with an original love story. I think I will be going with the first one because I can speak more personally to it, and feel as though the words and the story will come more clearly to me once I begin writing. 

My biggest question right now is as someone who has been a reader her whole life, but took somewhat of a 'break' the last couple years, how do I know if what I am writing about actually hasn't been done before? It's unlikely that it hasn't given we are in 2022 and there are a vast majority of novel's out there I could never possibly examine them all, but if my goal is to write an original story - where do I get the proof it is original? This is going to be the question that guides my research this week and by next week I will have completed my research, have a story plot/theme decided on and hopefully have begun writing the first chapter. I apologize for being so behind, I have a few more notes on the concept of writing a book but it was a tough week overall and as mentioned last week, my mental has to be in the right space in order to really commit to this and that is what I am working on now. 

Until next week, thanks guys and keep reading!! 

Beginning my Genius Hour

As expressed before, my genius hour idea is going to be how to write a book with absolutely no background in book writing or creative writing. Do I think this is insane and probably not attainable? Absolutely. Am I super excited anyway? Yes. 

This week I decided it would be best to pull out some of the old "writing a book for dummies" links, so I did some research on what steps people go through to write books in their experience. I haven't come too far with it yet, and so next week I will be continuing/finishing up this research and attempting to come up with anything to go with my book - i.e. a theme, concept, character, setting, idea, plot, anything at all to get the gears rolling on moving towards the first chapter. Even if I cannot write an entire book in the span of this class, I would at least like to get a few chapters or perhaps a short story. Either way, some of the research I did and the links I looked into are below. 

Throughout this research and inquiry about the steps that go into writing a book, I've come to realize it's not necessarily about the content or the idea which I thought it was. Most of what is suggested within the concept of sitting down and writing a book is about your mental capacity to do it. Some of the questions asked on one website were "Do you have the time and energy to commit to writing a whole book?" and one of the suggestions underneath as the #1 tip was to have a consistent writing space. I knew environment had to do with writing because you can't write a book in a room full of screaming kids, but I never considered how much time and energy goes into book writing. Not to mention if you hate what you write, or a deadline is approaching, or you get writers block the level of anger or frustration that must arise. Some of the other websites I looked at mentioned similarly along the same lines of the first one - about environment, mental capacity and the phases or stages or writing, editing and publishing. Here they are below: 

        https://goinswriter.com/tips-writing-book/

        https://self-publishingschool.com/how-to-write-a-book/

While it isn't huge strides towards my genius hour product quite yet, I feel as though the information from these websites made me more consciously aware of how much energy and time really goes into writing a book - which from the side of the reader can be deeper appreciated on behalf of those authors who do this for a living. That's it for now - until next week when I finish the research and start brainstorming ideas!