What's Your Spirit Animal?

As the name of the post suggests, the Writing Center Staff Tutors asked a really hard-hitting and serious question regarding the kind of animal each tutor identified with based on the animal's characteristics and their own in terms of similarities. It was a very fun and thoughtful way to pass the time when it gets lonely quiet around here!

If I can recall, it all started between Lead Tutor Jenni writing each of Staff Tutor Hillary's top 5 characteristics on the chalkboard. Hillary described herself as... It then boiled down to an elephant and horse to which Hillary decided horse because... horses are cool, I guess.

Soon, each available Staff Tutor joined in afterwards. Some of the ones I remembered was: Greg was a two-toed sloth (even though most of us thought he'd be a Labrador by just how cheerful he is), Talea was between an ostrich, because her sense of humor and silliness is a lot like how an ostrich looks, and a giraffe. I was a "rabbit riding a parakeet" only because we couldn't decide if I were a rabbit or a parakeet.

The only parameters were it had to be an animal in our world so sadly, unicorns weren't allowed. But if you wanted to be one so bad, you could always choose a narwhal, the unicorn of the sea.

Writing is FUN!

I think writing is fun because IT IS FUN.  That's my one thought to you.  Every time I get a paper I have to write, I ask myself: HOW CAN I MAKE THIS PAPER FUN?  And then I make it fun and it's fun. 

Let me explain: I was told that I should write a blog.  I asked myself: what should I write to make this blog fun?  I'LL WRITE ABOUT FUN.  And now I am and it's fun. 

You can make your paper fun too.  You will get a prompt from a teacher and be like: man, this is lame!  But even the strictest prompts can leave room for fun. And fun doesn't have to even mean, haha funny, but usually it does, 'cause fun is in FUNny, but NO.  Fun means writing what you like.  Tying things together that you like. 

We had a paper that compared education systems.  WOW - how can we make THAT fun?  Um...EASY.  What's the funnest part of fun?  Writing about what you like!  And what do you like?  YOURSELF.  Students should tie papers to their own life experinces, because it's fun to talk about yourself, it's fun to tie in knowledge to your personal life - and guess what - it's more fun to read too!  Isn't learning about yourself fun?  Isn't learning about others fun?  Answer: YES. 

So, the next time you have a paper you don't want to write, think about how you can make it...well, you know.  Be creative.  Be specific.  Be you. 

BE FUN.

-Tim Moore-