Day 5: October 13th, 2007

In class we explored the idea of what makes a good story and what is expected in a story. We came up with several ideas such as a plot, theme, narrator, characters, climax, etc. We generalized that every good story should fall into a genre. We then presented our homework assignment which was to find three different pictures that when brought together tell a story. The class had some interesting stories; moreover, some were easy to comprehend and others were a lot more difficult to understand.

My story was about teen pregnancy. I chose three pictures that told of a girl finding out she was pregnant, revealing her secret to close friends, and last her being upset with her condition and feeling regretful. Most people got my story because the way I arranged the photos made my story very clear. Some people had their own twist but for the most part everyone got the idea. After we all presented our ideas we watched a TED presentation.

The woman presenting at the TED gathering was Elizabeth Gilbert. She is a writer and the author of "Eat, Pray, Love" who feels very strongly about changing the way artist perceive their creative abilities and the creative process. She presented an interesting idea that explored the possibility of, what if creative abilities came from a higher source and the artist himself had no way of turning this ability on or off. What if creativity is given to us rather than acquired. She stressed that if this were so it would take the pressure off the artist to produce great work. Her way of viewing the creative process was refreshing and inspiring. Her ideas and thoughts were very new and made a lot of sense.

At the end of class we were assigned homework which was similar to today's homework instead we would find one picture and come up with 10 different words or short phrases each of which changes the way we view the photo.