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point for students in the classroom as we move into different periods or writing and reading for different reasons - historical documents, novels, poems, newspapers, propaganda, and so much more.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
