Doing Research

One week down out of four, and I am staying right on track for my Genius Hour plan. Week 1 was all about research, so I went to my local library and checked out a bunch of children's novels. I thought about explaining to the librarian why a twenty year old was checking out 4 children's novels, all the beginning of different series, but then decided that I didn't need to explain myself. Since when is there a rule that adults must stop enjoying children's novels above a certain age? Despite deciding that an explanation was completely unnecessary, I couldn't stop myself from excitedly telling the librarian about the project. She smiled back and told me that she couldn't wait to see my book on the shelves. I highly doubt that she was surprised to hear about the project, since when I was in grade 6 I had checked out every book that I could find about the Middle Ages, excitingly telling this same librarian that I was going to write a story set in the Middle Ages, and that I wanted it to be as accurate as possible.

The books that I have read so far have been Jane, the Fox and Me by Fanny Brit and Isabelle Arsenault, Midnight for Charlie Bone by Jenny Nimmo, and I am currently reading Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer. Other books that are on my list to read are Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (The Harry Potter series), The Bad Beginning (The Series of Unfortunate Events), The Magician Nephew (The Chronicles of Narnia), The Capture (The Guardians of Ga'hoole), The Field Guild (The Spiderwick Chronicles), Coming Home (Heartland), Dark Sunshine (The Phantom Stallion), as well as others that I took from the library that I can't remember anymore. I don't know how many of these books I'll actually be able to read, but I certainly won't be able to say that I couldn't find anything for my topic. Many of these books I chose because I read them before, loved them, and found them inspiring, while others are new. I had planned to only research fantasy novels, but happened to pass by the shelf of novels about horses, and couldn't resist grabbing two books from there that I had loved as a kid. This experience made me realize that we are shaped by many books and genres, not just one. Although reading contemporary novels about horses may not be directly related to fantasy, the techniques that the authors use to describe the characters and pace the action will be useful to me. The very first book on this list, Jane, the Fox and Me, is actually a book that I had to read for a different class, and while it is a contemporary graphic novel about bullying and self-esteem, I decided to hit two birds with one stone and take notes on it for this project while I was reading it anyways. I am reading the first books from a bunch of series because most children's fantasy novels are part of a series and because I wanted to get a wider range of writing styles rather than just reading from just one author throughout their entire series.

I am absolutely loving this experience. Although I love writing, I am notoriously bad at setting deadlines and motivating myself to work. This project is the perfect booster to get me to do what it is that I want to do. I love the fact that Genius Hour is so open and free, and that I don't have to do any "academic" readings for my research. When I have my own classroom, I will definitely implement Genius Hour as a Friday afternoon activity for my students.