I began to write this essay about how to define humanities, and I honestly thought that was an acute angle to take. However, it turned out to be obtuse, an angle everyone seemed to be taking. Since I wanted to be unique, I scratched out what I had already written and started up on a different essay. As soon as I started, I knew what I could write about, the one way this class really improved my views. You see, this was one of the few classes that combined both an academic approach as well as a chance to use some creativity. I loved writing stories about the people and events I studied, and being able to use my conversational tone of writing without being graded down, as I would be in English class, was greatly appreciated. Being a journalism major, I’ve been taught to look at a subject in every possible way, then write about the most appealing and distinct angle. This class gave a new meaning to the lesson I thought I had already learned. Although I won’t be writing you’re a-typical English essay in a five-five paragraph format, there are a pair of reasons I would like to highlight in order to explain how this class tapped into my creativity and bettered my writing.
The first way this class forced me to use some creativity and change my style from writing normal essays was the topic choice. No matter what topic I chose, it had already been done. For example when I chose to write about Simon Bolivar (The exact opening to my Simon Bolivar essay, by the way) I didn’t want to simply report the facts and make Bolivar seem like another boring figure in history. I wanted to clearly inform my audience of the facts and add some insight. Rather than making the website summarizing three other websites about Bolivar and writing a lame one-hundred word letter, I made a personal page for Bolivar, complete with a list of accomplices and significant others, and wrote a story about what his life may have been like. Letters, no matter how much you try, aren’t original or interesting – or at least that’s my take on it. A story about Bolivar fleeing through the perilous rain forests of South America, now that’s attention-grabbing. I could have done the projects with a book report style, but adding a little flare to the writing made things much more fun, and it didn’t hurt in the grade book either.
Besides changing my approach to a topic and trying to make things as interesting as possible, I was appreciative that my writing style was acceptable. In English classes, my conversational tone and insight in essays is an abomination – normally it is, anyway. I can get away with the conversational tone in some essays, depending on the topic, but adding opinions would be asking for an “F.” Since I was able to use this style of writing, I was more comfortable with the assignments and could more easily get my point across.
Just for the sake of making this an official five-paragraph essay (It just seems more formal this way, even if I’m writing in a very informal manner), I would like to point out some of the more intriguing facts I learned about during this class. Before looking into the Popol Vuh, I didn’t even think much about Native American religion and their creation stories. I had a mental block that stopped when the conquistadors began to force Catholicism upon the natives. It seems stupid now that I look back on it, but I honestly never thought about what kind of creation stories the Mayan, Aztec, or any other people had before the Europeans came. In project three, I was glad to finally put to rest my curiosity about Francisco Pizarro. Before the assignment, his name was just something I saw in textbooks. For some reason his name always stuck out in my mind when I remembered the famous explorers of the Pacific Coast, but I knew nothing about him. It’s not like I pondered Pizarro’s life every day, but whenever I saw the name, I got a bit curious. History is an interesting subject, and learning about the people who sailed up and down the very same coast I live on is even more interesting. I will skip project four, since I’ve already mentioned it in the essay, and move on to the 1968 Olympics. The Summer Olympics are an obsession of mine. Every four years, when the Summer Olympics occur, I’m glue to the T.V. watching them. Every event, from archery to track and field is amazing to me. Looking back to the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City was a dream assignment. Learning more about a story by my track coach, Ron Whitney, about John Carlos and Tommie Smith was fun, and understanding why the Olympics were doomed to be controversial was fascinating.
Now that I’m running out of synonyms for interesting, it’s time to wrap up this essay and the final assignment for this class. Looking back on it, I couldn’t have made it through Humanities 7 without adding my Frank-isms, or else I would have bored myself too much, and I couldn’t have learned as much as I did without having some fun with the assignments. I had a ton of fun taking this class, and I’m glad I devoted enough time to learn some great things about the America’s below us. I hope my college studies will allow me to take another class like this, but, regardless of whether I take another class or not, I can honestly say I will pursue other topics I didn’t choose try to inform myself more about a culture I still know little about (I heard that Sir Francis Drake guy is a pretty famous explorer, perhaps I’ll check him out).
