The exercise in part 1 is the same type of thing we’ll be asking you to do for your third and final folio task, so it’s a bit of a test-run to make sure we’re all on the right track 🙂 Like the Textual Intervention task, you’ll do two versions of this final task. And like the Textual Intervention task, you’ll be using another creative text as the foundation of your work. And also like the Textual Intervention task, you can approach this in just about any creative format you like. But unlike the Textual Intervention task, you’ll need to stay close to the meaning of the text you’re using. Instead of making something entirely new, you’ll instead by trying to explain your chosen text to a specific audience in a way that they can understand and relate to. If you’ve done the week 6 part 1 exercise, you should have a pretty good understanding about how to approach this task 🙂 Communication This task is really all about communication and how we can communicate differently and creatively in different circumstances. I’m sure we’ve all been in situations where we’ve really struggled to communicate with someone. Sometimes it might be because we just can’t find the right way to put what we’re trying to say into words. And sometimes we might think that we’ve found the right words, but the person we’re trying to communicate with just doesn’t seem to “get it”. Even when we think we’re communicating well, we can never really be sure that we’re saying everything we intend to or that everything is getting through to the other person the way we intend it to. Let’s face it, communication can be difficult and complex! As an exercise, draw a couple of stick figures and imagine that one of those figures is trying to communicate something to the other one. In between the two figures, try writing down everything that might get in the way of that communication being delivered or received exactly as intended. See what you come up with and then compare with some of these possible answers: Age, culture, gender, power, status, language, jargon, method of communication, tone, education, wealth, terminology, personal history, personal experiences… (to name just a handful of possibilities!) None of these are bad things! They’re differences between people that could potentially impact or influence how a message gets from one person to another. Or, to look at it another way, these are things that we might “negotiate” when communicating. For example: Power: You wouldn’t speak to your boss at work the same way you’d speak to your childhood friend. A difference in power between speakers might impact how one speaker speaks to another or expects to be spoken to. An overly casual tone might detract from the intended message, for example. Age: We might also find ourselves changing our tone and frame of reference depending on the age of the person we’re talking to. You don’t talk to children the same way you talk to adults. We may also find ourselves speaking differently to people much older than ourselves. We may not only change our tone but also the things we refer to. For example, I’m not going to drop in a reference to Beyoncé if I’m talking to my grandparents, and I’m not going to make a comparison to Play Video if I’m talking to a young adult. There are all kinds of things that cause us to instinctively change how we communicate, of course. But it may be a mistake to look at the things listed above as problems. Communication is never perfect – and it probably never can be. So, as writers, we can see the things listed above not as problems but as the building-blocks of our communication and creativity. Instead of trying to communicate a message in the same way every time no matter who we’re talking to, we can instead start to think about how to best get our message across to our specific audience. As writers (or any professional!), one of the most useful skills you can develop is knowing your audience and being able to recognise the different methods of communication that can help you get your ideas across to them more effectively. This is a very valuable and powerful professional (and creative) skill. Creative communication Nobody likes to be bored! So creative communication can help people engage with content that they might otherwise ignore. Here’s one famous example. First of all, take a look at this (the Periodic Table): (Zzzzz.) Now, take a look at this song by Tom Lehrer: Play Video (If you’re not able to access the YouTube video, you can find the song’s lyrics here: It’s a joke song of sorts, of course – but it’s also re-communicating the information from the Periodic Table in a format that doesn’t send me to sleep. There’s a trade-off, of course. We’re missing the order of the elements and some important scientific information (which is why it’s not an educational or scientific document): but there’s also a core of information that’s communicated, and (personally) I’ll probably remember more of the elements from this song than I will from staring at that table for an hour… Incidentally, you can see Daniel Radcliffe perform the song here: Play Video Creative formats Communication isn’t just about writing. You should always feel free to try out different methods when it comes to creativity and communication. Folio Task So what’s the folio task? Well, if you’ve done week 6 part 1, you’ve already done a version of it 🙂 For your third and final folio task, you need to read a text. And then you need to explain (to a person or a group of people) what the text is about, what it’s saying and why it’s relevant to them. That’s it! In some ways it’s quite simple, but it’s also complex in some of the ways we’ve discussed above as well. If it helps, you could think about it this way: Because you’re a Creative Writing and Literature student, you’ve been asked to give a talk/presentation on a famous literary text. (They’re gonna pay you heaps.) BUT your audience couldn’t care less about that famous literary text! You can tell just by looking at them that they’re all very bored and not happy to be at this presentation. So how do you explain what the text is, what it means, and why it’s relevant to them in a way that they’ll find interesting and engaging? So, to complete the task for your folio: – Pick one of the famous literary texts linked in the “folio resources” section of the course page. (Read them all first! They’re short :P) – Think about what the text is saying and make sure you’re happy with your understanding of the text. You can do some research on the text if you’re uncertain. Note down any words or phrases that you don’t understand. Look these up and don’t be afraid to bring any uncertainties into the forum to discuss! – Pick an audience. Make this a specific audience (ie. a meeting in a bank’s corporate boardroom, a group of people in a retirement home, a class of seven-year-old kids, a group of fans outside a football game, a room of professional wrestlers, etc.). – Create a short piece in any format you like (up to 500 words or equivalent) explaining the text to a specific audience. Explain what the text is about, what it means, and what significance and relevance the text has to your audience. As with all of the folio tasks, you’ll write a commentary (approx 200-250 words) to explain your approach to this task: eg. what meaning from your text did you try to communicate, what communications did you make to help communicate this to your audience, how did you develop this, and how does it relate to one/some idea(s) from the textbooks. Remember, focus on how you communicate this information. Who is your audience, exactly? How can you communicate your ideas effectively for them? Some things to keep in mind: – As with the intervention task, you’ll do two versions of this task. You only need to do one this week. We’ll discuss the second version after the break in week 7. For each version, you’ll use the same literary text but choose a different target audience and try a different format/approach. – Remember, there’s no such thing as normal language. The language, tone, content and method of communication you use will depend on who your audience is. – It’s not just your language that will need to change. The meaning/relevance of the text that you focus on may change for each audience as well. – The more specific you make your audience, the easier it will be to make decisions to complete the task (ie. The more you know about them, the more you can direct the information towards their interests). – Use quotes from the text to help explain what it’s about. For example, you can mention a quote and then explain what it means and why it’s relevant. – Make sure you mention the TITLE and AUTHOR of the text so that your audience knows what you’re talking about. You’re not just summarising some general ideas from the text, you’re letting them know all about the text itself. – Creativity communicates! Don’t be afraid to take a risk or try something different. For example: I am going to explain my chosen text (“The Myth of Sisyphus” by Albert Camus) to an audience of astronauts on the international space station. I want them to understand why they should find this text interesting and what Camus was trying to say when he wrote it. To make it relevant to them, I’m going to show how Camus’ message/ideas could be applied to ideas about space travel and exploration. To help communicate this and make it personal to them, I’ve written my explanation as a personal letter that I’ve hidden in their space-luggage. I would then write this letter (up to 500 words) and submit it as part of my folio assignment. The super-quick version 🙂 – What is your text? – Who is your audience? – How can you make your audience understand and care about this text and what it means? How can you make it relevant to them? Attendance task part 2: For your week 6 part 2 attendance, I’d just like you to get started on this third folio task. You’ll do a second version in week 7, but you just need to focus on one version for now. Here’s what I’d like you to do for your attendance: 1. In the “folio resources” section, read the linked texts that you can use for this task. 2. Pick one of the texts and let us know which text you picked and what you think the text is trying to say. 3. Pick an audience you could explain this text to and let us know what audience you picked. (The more specific and narrow your choice, the easier this part is! If you pick, a group of senior citizens at an astronomy camp, you know that you could use age-appropriate references and also astronomy references to help you explain your text!) 4. Briefly discuss how you could make the text relevant to the lives of your audience and what format you’d use to explain it to them. (ie. In what way do you think your audience might find this text relevant to their lives?) Here’s the article I’ve chosen rg/poems/54810/truth-56d2359ad24ba
