Reading Diary A: Faerie Queen- Britomart

Britomart by Walter Crane (1900)

Wow I love love this unit so far! I am reading from the unit Faerie Queen- Britomart. It is very reminiscent of a Shakespearean comedy, particularly like Two Gentleman in Verona or Twelfth Night. I love reading about knights and the code of chivalry that they lived by. To me this would be such an interesting period to live in. There were several aspects of the story that really caught my interest, and that I would love to write about and reimagine.

I really love the part about the magic mirror from Merlin. It is described early on in the unit in the story appropriately named The Magic Mirror (ha!). The idea of a mirror which you look into and can see things about yourself or those around you is very cool, and I love that this is where Britomart discovered the knight whom she would marry.

I really love the suspense that was created because when she saw the man and she did not know who he was. It was very romantic and a reflection of those days where it seemed that love and courtship ruled over so many things.

I also really loved the character of Merlin. I think there are just so many ways to imagine him as a person/character. I would love to be able to write a story based on the section How Britomart went to the Cave of the Magician Merlin. I love reading stories about the times of King Arthur and the magic and sorcery of Merlin and Morgan La Fey. It is so fascinating, and I would love to explore that further.

Extra Reading Diary: Apache Tales

So I'm reading Apache Tales for my extra reading diary this week, and wow! This unit is really interesting! I love that the stories are all single stories because I liked being able to read so many different stories about so many different Apache characters. I thought that it was really cool to read such a wide variety of stories in one unit. The stories in this unit were all pretty short, which is something that I always have a hard time doing in my writing. I tend to write with a lot of detail, and I really like longer stories. However there was something really neat about the efficiency of these stories. They were very too the point, and read a little bit like a non-fiction story, just like a quick retelling of events.

Coyote

I particularly liked the stories Coyote Secures Fire and The Man Who Helped the Eagles. In some of the stories I felt a little confused when they referred to characters. Sometimes because I wasn't sure who a character was, and sometimes because there was so much pronoun usage. In these two stories though, I found the message to be really clear. The story about Coyote was especially great. It was a really surprising story, I did not expect any of the actions, so I was really entertained throughout it. I really just loved how all of the stories in this unit are like little snapshots. They don't have too much detail nor are they too wordy. They are complex stories sometimes but are presented very simply. I really liked that, and I felt like it gave my imagination a lot of room to make up my own details about the story.

Reading Diary A: Native American Hero Tales

I am reading Native American Hero Tales this week! Wow, they are so awesome. I really love the Native American stories because they are always so detailed and clever. I love how many of the stories connect back to nature and the earth around us. It is such a reflection of the respect that the Native people felt for the earth and the living things on it.

Hupa woman and child. Photograph taken by
Edward Curtis

I really liked the story Bluejay and His Companions. It had so much action! I typically find that Native American stories are really focused on the detail and the beautiful imagery inside of the story, and less focused on this action, but this story was not like that! Bluejay and his companions really did go on an adventure of sorts (not of their own volition of course). I loved that the story was predictable in the way that each after each escape I knew they would come across a new village with a new challenge to find their way out of, but had no idea what that challenge would be. It made the story so easy to follow because their was that sense of repetitiveness in the plot. However it was still so interesting because the challenges were new and exciting each time!

I also really liked the story about Dug-From-Ground. This was another story that focused a lot on action and less on the descriptive imagery. It was still very full of detail and I was able to make a clear picture in my head of the story as it happened, however the action was awesome and so interesting! I felt so engaged. I think that sometimes stories that lack any sort of action can be boring and hard to read, so I loved that these stories really brought a lot of action into them.

Extra Reading Diary: Tejas Legends

Wow I love the Tejas legends. They are so magical feeling. I also really love how filled with action many of them are. Sometimes I find that stories do not seem to have exciting actions and storylines, but many of these definitely do. They are so full of suspense, which I think is such an important thing to exist in a story. It keeps readers interested and wanting to finish the story. It also creates this sense of nervousness and excitement for what is going to happen next.

One of my favorite stories in this unit is When the Storm God Rides, I mean wow, what a story. It is, like so many Native American stories, centered around nature and animals, and very full of beautiful descriptions. However, it also has incredible suspense and action. I love that the story describes hurricanes and why they exist. The last hurricane that is described in the story is so full of excitement and danger. I was so enthralled while I was reading it.

Native American tapestry featuring moccasins

I also really enjoyed the story A Tribe that Left its Shoes. It was an origin story like so many Native American stories are and it was just such an interesting story. It described the origin of orchid flowers. Like the story When the Storm God Rides, this story also had quite a bit of excitement and suspense. A volcano erupted on the island where the Indians lived and they had to evacuate their homes. Many of them died. This part of the story was so action packed that it just made me want to keep reading. I was quite pleasantly surprised because I find that origin legends and myths are often not very action packed or suspenseful. The Tejas stories manage to teach as well as the be fun and exciting stories.

Creating suspense and excitement in stories is something that is really important to me in my writing, and I hope that I will be able to use what I read this week to help me write a better action filled story for my storybook story about Medea.

Reading Diary B: American Indian Fairy Tales

Wow I really love how descriptive the stories in this unit (American Indian Fairy Tales) are. There is so much detail in all of them, and I love all how so much of it is tied into nature. The people are described with similes comparing them to animals, or to landmarks. Its such an interesting way to utilize detail I think, and I love that it just really is reflective of Native American culture. In all of the detail there seems to be such a reverence for the natural world and its creatures.

I really loved this description of the daughters of the hunter from the story The Child of the Evening Star.

Their hair was dark and glossy as the wings of the blackbird, and when they walked or ran, it was with the grace and freedom of the deer in the forest.

The sentence is so elegant and I think that the description is really beautiful. I can picture the scenes in this story so well because of these descriptions. They also give the story kind of an ethereal feel, I think, which to me is really fitting in this particular story because the girl is protrayed as being so beautiful, so kind, and very wise. She chooses her husband based off of his heart and how beautiful he is inside, and not at all based on his outward appearance.

This story not only has beautiful language, but I really loved the youngest daughter. I love that this story is about looking past outward appearances and delving into the character beneath the face. It is always so important to remember that there is so much more, that is so much more important, beneath the skin, and I love that the youngest daughter in this story is the one who realizes that best.

Commenting Review Week

I've really liked the commenting portion of this class. It's always a little weird being in an online class because you never really feel in touch with anyone in the class, sometimes even the professors. The commenting and feed-back in this class really combats that though I think. I feel like I've gotten to know classmates a little bit, and I just generally feel more connected in this class than I have in other online classes that I've taken.

Me when someone likes my story (really though,
 SheldonCooper gif)

I definitely think that the commenting portion is really helpful, especially because this is a class that is really writing based. Comments which are more detailed and are constructive are definitely more helpful than short comments. I really like comments that focus on different aspects of writing, like syntax and structure. Comments like that help me in future writing because I can refer to those and see how I need to alter my writing style to meet those critiques.

I also really like the act of commenting on other people's writing. Not only is it fun to be able to read people's stories, but I think in critiquing other people's work it helps me to become a better writer as well because I notice things that I don't necessarily notice in my own writing, but after I have seen it in someone else's I am more aware of it and better able to fix it in my own. Also I think reading other people's stories and commenting on the things that I like about them helps me in my own writing too, because I get to learn different styles and structures that work, are interesting, and easy to read and follow.

Writing Review Week

I've really liked writing the stories for this class so far. I think its so fun to get to re-imagine stories and put them into my own words and give them my own twist. Through writing the different stories every week, I've definitely learned a lot about my writing style and the types of writing that appeal to me most.

Roman Temple of Aphrodite

I really love writing in first person. I've learned in this class that this is the way I feel the most connection to the characters. I love to focus on the depths of just a single character in stories. I always think it is cool to read a story or even just to imagine the story from each of the character's perspectives. I wrote a story during week 3 in the first person that I really loved. It was a scene from the Cupid and Psyche unit, and I wrote it from Psyche's perspective. I loved getting inside of Psyche's head and creating a stronger personality for her. The image to the left is the image I included in the story I wrote. I imagined this, but less in ruin (obviously), to be the setting of the story.

I also realize however that some stories are much harder to write in first person. Many stories lend themselves better to third person. I do love how third person writing really lends itself to being very descriptive. My first story I wrote for this class, I actually really really liked. It was a third person recounting of the Assembly of Achilles. It could be because of my love for Greek mythology, but I really felt like I was able to create an accurate and lasting impression of the assembly.

The story book project has been something that has really challenged me. I came up with a theme that I feel very strongly about, and I want to make sure that I do justice to the characters and their stories. I am a really slow writer and it sometimes takes me multiple attempts to get something out on paper that I really like. The feedback I have gotten each week after turning in the next aspect of my project (formulating ideas, writing style, actual writing) has been so helpful. It's both encouraging and directive and has helped me to create something that I am very proud of thus far. I cannot wait for it to be finished!

Reading Review Week

So I've really enjoyed this class so far. I love that each week focuses on a different region/area. For me it is really helpful to have things organized this way because I can prepare myself for the types of culture and ideas that will be shared in each of the stories.

Thus far my favorite stories have been from the Classical and Biblical unit we did in weeks two and three. I kind of expected this because I am incredibly partial to Greek mythology, and basically all things ancient literature and culture. My sister was a Classics major in college and she forced me to read Aeschylus and Euripides, and obviously Homer, so I was really excited about this unit. I also just really love all of the drama in Greek culture, so those stories captured me right off the bat. I also really liked the Georgian folktales. They were so magical and I loved that many of them seemed to have a message of some sort. In one of the stories I also found a lot of connections to one of my favorite Greek characters, Oedipus. The picture to the left is of a Georgian prince. It was the image that I used in my reading diary. The story was about a prince who I thought was very much like Oedipus in many ways.

I definitely enjoy doing the reading diaries because it does help me to get my thoughts in order for the storytelling assignment. I am a really slow writer, and it takes me a while to get the words and feelings I want to convey out on paper. I like the reading diary because it kind of helps me to do that. I can use it to think about and write down the stories that I liked most, and what it was about them that drew me to it. I like focusing my reading diary on the feelings and connotations that I am drawn to in different stories. I kind of like to be able to marinate in a feeling of a story for a while before I actually begin to retell it, and so the diary is super helpful for that.

I'm doing a lot of extra reading for my storybook, which is a big part of why it takes me so long to write my introductions and stories. I kind of wish that I had to do a reading diary for those stories as well, and maybe I will start doing one in my own time so that I can better get my thoughts and ideas in order before writing. I have loved the reading for my storybook. I am so in love with the characters that I have chosen and each of their stories, so it is really fun to get to read them over and over and see the differences in each story's portrayal from varying sources.

Basically I love to read, and think about what I read, and spend all day wishing I was living in the world I was reading about, so this class is just a complete blast.

Image information: A Georgian Prince by Grigory Gagarin, 1850s