Process Piece

Smoothie Time

Before actually beginning this process, I brainstormed a lot of options and ideas. I considered making time lapse videos of myself making cookies, doing a cool cross-stitch pattern or doing something really exciting. However, I was dealing with a few major constraints. First of all, I have next to no photo storage left on my phone at the moment, and I didn't feel like deleting or backing up all my photos (I know, I'm a silly human). Second, my life is not that exciting and I didn't have time or energy to add another huge process to my schedule. So, I decided on making an audio recording since those take up less space. Though I initially wanted to record something unique or artsy, I decided I would record the process of making a smoothie. Not only are smoothies a beautiful thing, but I was already planning on making one! #winwin #yeet! I did this on Saturday morning, and to me, smoothies and Saturday morning go together like avocado and toast (which my husband and I ate along with our smoothies). I had my husband hold the phone right next to my hands as I did each step, in order to maximize the effect of each noise and sound. I knew we were only going to get one take, so I planned out which items I would have ready to go, and which ones I would prep as we went along. That mostly entailed peeling the orange beforehand, or else it would have been a minute and a half long recording of me peeling an orange--which could have doubled as a retroactive "Ode to an Orange" assignment, lol. Anyways, I made sure to really emphasize the opening and closing of the fridge and the dropping of the ice cubes into the blender for effect. Also, this turned out to be one of the best smoothies I have made lately, so I was quite proud of my masterpiece!

As I thought about how this process relates to my own future students, I considered how students in my classroom will have access to many different forms or methods of creating. I think it will be important to emphasize that they choose a form consistent with the content or message they are trying to portray. They will need to fully understand both the content or text they are going to embody as well as the form or format in which they will do so, and understand the affordances and limitations. For example, I chose to do an audio recording because I wanted to experiment with capturing what the process sounded like, rather than making a visual work of the same thing. I also really liked Barney's discussion about authenticity and how it means to be “of its place and time.” I wanted to do something with the time that I had and the space and resources I had to make something authentic to me. And thus was born the Saturday smoothie soundbite.

In my classroom, I want my students to be able to express ideas and concepts through a variety of mediums, and I feel like this is good practice for me in understanding the constraints and limitations of audio recording. It caused me to be intentional in the way that I recorded and in the overall message I was trying to send.