The tales from the inner-city project was an interesting project. The complex, strange and sometimes seemingly nonsensical tales challenged my ability to think creatively. The unit involved the analysis of a few of the short stories a week, both as a class, in small groups and individually, we would then have time to prepare at the end of the unit for an in-class response to a question using a couple of the texts studied.
I started the unit unsure of how to approach the bizarre texts and finding it hard to find my own individual ideas and meanings in the text, I attribute this to my lack of creativity. I failed to think outside of the box and tended to focus more on literal meanings about the story than the hidden meanings, messages and ideas that were far more important than how each narrative would end. However as the unit went on I noticed I was calling out more in class, answering questions and raising my own opinions about far more complex and interesting aspects of the stories. In my opinion, this was a result of my effort to try think creatively and find broad meanings and messages from small aspects of images and words.
Whilst I did try actively to improve my creativity, the strategies and methods taught in the unit played a large role in helping me break down the stories. They helped me work on my creativity and my ability to analyse. Which I continue to use for challenges I face now and into the future, using the basic concept too divide into smaller parts and to handle them individually. Each story challenged me to find meanings, and with the harder challenges, my creativity had to keep up and improve to provide sufficient answers. It improved greatly with the guided techniques. At the end with my improved skills, I started to really enjoy the unit finding it very interesting, challenging and rewarding.
