Reading Notes: English Fairy Tales, Part B

Mr. Miacca

One of the aspects that I feel I can take from this story and apply to my own story telling is foreshadowing. What I liked about the way this story sets the events is by having the first paragraph describe Tommy. This paragraph is crucial to the story by letting it be known that Tommy couldn't resist getting into trouble and disobeying. When analyzing this as a writer it is perfect in the sense that not only do we get an idea of the character but we also can start to predict the future of the story. I think that in my own writing that it would be important for me to learn how to set up an early part of the story that can foreshadow the later events. This is a great example of how to do so and as a writer I think I could match this especially in terms of trickster stories.

Another aspect of the story in which I feel I could take away to make my writing better is the use of slang in dialogue. When Mrs. Miacca says 'What d'ye want, my dear?' I think it gives a better illustration of what kind of person she is. I think that I should try to imagine how I think my characters would talk and try to match it. This allows the reader to feel more connected to the character in my opinion.

When thinking about how I could try and base a story off of this one, I was thinking about maybe trying to mask it off of the movie IT. I think that it could be a fun version of the story plus a more modern approach since the movie just came out. This is just an idea but I think it could be fun to make this a trickster story mixed with a horror story. 

This is a picture of Pennywise from the movie IT. I found this image on Wikimedia Commons.

Bibliography:

 English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1890).

The link to the specific story can be seen at the top. 

Reading Notes: English Fairy Tales, Part A

The Story of the Three Little Pigs

I feel like you didn't have a childhood if you didn't hear some version of the the three little pigs. This is why I couldn't resist but liking the style of this story and feeling the need to take my reading notes on them. The most important thing that I think I could take away from this story for my own writing would be the rhythm or cadence as I would call it. 

I find that in this story one of the great ways that build the anticipation is the rhythm of the story. By keeping a pattern of the words before an event it lets the reader know exactly what is going to happen. For example the "huff and puff" is used before each house is broken down but as the materials used become stronger he adds more of the "huffing and puffing" action. Same goes with the wolf inviting the third pig and saying a time with each event. This allows the reader to feel more included in the story by allowing them to kind of guess what would take place which I think brings excitement into a story. As a writer I think the way I could match this style is trying to come up with a fun little saying before events. 

Another aspect of writing that I feel I could try to include is the simple rhyming. This wasn't a poem or nursery rhyme but the rhyming creates a more fun aspect for the reader which keeps them involved. I think that in my own writing I should try to have the rhyming go along with the repetition of the cadence in order to create a path for the story. 

In terms of creating a story based on this one, I was thinking of having three neighborhood kids building a fort in which they brag about having it be the strongest while there is a bully who wants to break it down. This is just an idea but I think that I could possibly create a more modern version of this story that still is relevant towards children as this one does. 

This is an image of 3 little pigs that I found on Flickr.

Bibliography: 

 English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1890).

The specific story can be seen using the link in the header. 

Reading Notes: Cherokee Myths, Part A

The Rabbit Goes Duck Hunting

This week I didn't have time to do the Part A section of the reading before the due date so I decided to go back and read it for the extra credit reading. 

As I have mentioned in the past in my blogs, I truly enjoy a good trickster story so this one grabbed my attention for taking notes. What I really enjoyed about this was the confidence of the Rabbit. I think that in writing a good trickster story you must have the trickster be the most confident character until possibly the end if he is shown up. I know this has to do with the story but I think that strong defined characters is a something that I could focus on in my writing. I believe that the tone of a story can be set through the actions and words of characters. A good example of this is  when the rabbit says "Just watch me". I find that this simple but definite word choice sets the story. 

Another aspect that I enjoyed in this story was the emphasis on certain words through spacing and italics. I think that the song the rabbit sings is made crucial in the aspect that it is separated from the rest of the text and put into italics. This is a small thing to notice but as a writer the way you format the text can truly manipulate the reader into focusing on what you write. 

When thinking about how I can take this story and possibly write my own version  and add these aspects which I felt truly made the writing better, I think that I should write it with humans. I was thinking about having two children try to catch a duck but some how one of the kids tricks the other. I would like to include something along the lines of the song though as well which I'm not sure how I would incorporate. 

I included this picture because in the Trix commercials the rabbit is trying to trick humans into giving him the cereal. I got this image from Flickr. 

Bibliography:

 Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney (1900).

The specific story I wrote about can be seen in the link above. 

Learning Challenge: Don't Judge People

10 Reasons to Stop Judging People

One of my main beliefs that I have had since high school is that you can always relate to a person on some sort of level despite if you like them or not. This is what inspired me to be more social and meet people and try to be their friend in some sense or another. I find it very true that you can always find something you have in common so to judge another person isn't right of me. This article kind of confirmed that if I judge someone else then it says more about me than it does about them. What is sad though is I feel that since high school I have become more judgmental and I need to go back to being more personable with everyone especially strangers. It doesn't make someone better if you can only criticize a person for what you think is negative about them. This makes me want to try and meet more strangers no matter what and initially trust that they could possibly be my new friend. I wouldn't say I really learned anything new but instead I learned that I need to revert to my older ways. This article was very positive for me to read and I encourage others to ponder as they read this article.

This image that I have included is a quote that I found on this website.  I think that this is pretty good rationale and I should try to think this way all of the time. 

Growth Mindset: Appreciating Failure

I found this infographic on Diigo but the actual place to find it is here

Although at the time of failure nothing seems too positive, I do know that most of the things that I have learned in my life do come from a trial and error process that includes plenty of my own failures. I know it seems kind of weird for me to say that I learned this from this infographic but I think the 10th note "Failure helps you appreciate success" is something that made me reflect in the sense that I learned it. I never really think about how I do appreciate my successes because of the troubled failures that I have endured. This has inspired my curiosity to reflect more when I do have success and think about which failures I should be thankful for that lead me to the right way of handling things. After reading this I might even try to take some notes on my phone about the failures I have had so that way I can better reflect on the successes that I have and see what lead me to them. Overall, I just liked this image because I have failed sometimes in my school work or even just my character so it made me reflect on how I should learn to appreciate these. I also really liked Thomas Edison's quote from this.

Wikipedia Trail: From Recess to Grand Theft Auto IV

Recess (break)

This last week I chose to right a story about kids racing for a girl during their recess break at school so I decided to start my trail off here. I learned that the term "recess" is an American term and that in the UK and Ireland it is usually just called "break" or "break time". The main reason it became so popular for schools to do especially in the elementary level was because it helped developed kids socially. I also read that some schools are trying to eliminate this time period because they want to raise test scores but there is research that recess and/or P.E. actually raise test scores. One of the things that I loved to play during recess in elementary school was Four Square which is where my next place landed me. 

Four Square

I'm a big believer that you didn't have a true American childhood (especially if you were born in the 90s) if you didn't play four square. The page said that this game is dated back to the 50s. I even learned that there is a Men and Women's world championship each year for the game. Although there is technically a set of rules what I liked was how there were modifications to the game every where. For example I remember playing and yelling Cherry bomb where you basically slammed the ball as hard as you could and the other person had 10 seconds to get the ball and return it to the square. I also learned that the Guinness World record for playing is 34 hours.

Guinness World Records

Another great thing I remember from elementary school was reading the Guinness World Record books. I remember that they would always have crazy facts and bizarre pictures which were very entertaining. I also learned that the organization has a code of ethics where they won't allow certain things to be performed for the record and they have even removed past records due to ethical issues. I even learned that there is a record for the longest time spent playing Grand Theft Auto IV. 

Grand Theft Auto IV

As a child I always loved playing the Grand Theft Auto games. I wasn't allowed to play them for a long time due to all of the mature content in the game but once my parents let me have it, it became one of my favorite video games. I didn't play that many video games other than sports ones, but this is one that I did play that was a role game. I learned that this game at the time broke records for the fastest -selling entertainment product at the time. The game made $310 million the first day and $500 million in the first week in the US. This game is based in a made up city called Liberty City which has four Burroughs that resemble the four Burroughs of NYC. This game was one of my favorites growing up and I still think I would have a blast playing it even today. 

This is an image of the lettering used for the game which I found on Wikimedia Commons

Typing Game Tech Tip

So this week I decided to work on my typing again by playing Ninja Cat and Zombie Dinosaurs. I have to say for being a productive game it was pretty fun as well. I was actually getting competitive with myself and realizing that I do struggle in terms of accuracy a lot. I also tried out the Typing Alien game which I didn't find as much fun. I guess what I like most about Ninja Cat was the fact that in a weird way it was like Fruit ninja a game I use to play on my iPhone but instead of swiping you typed. I think this game would be great for young kids trying to learn how to type and who knows maybe I will even play it when I'm bored.

I can't remember exactly when I learned to type because I feel that computers have been around for me since early grade school. I'm sure that I learned somewhere in that time period but the only difficult typing class I remember was in 7th grade where we had accuracy and speed tests. I wish these games would have been a part of that class. I know that there is definitely room for improvement with my typing but I'm not worried about it being that I have never ran into any difficulties with my work due to it.

The links to the games can be found below:

Ninja Cat

Alien Shooter

Reading Notes: Cherokee Myths, Part B

The Bullfrog Lover

What I like about this story is the spacing out of the dramatic parts. To make a point of emphasis it would set it by itself which I found to be interesting. I have tried to do this a little bit in my stories but this seems to be a very good way to do it being that. I also liked how this story had such an emphasis on the ending. I thought that this made the point of climax a lot stronger which I could use because sometimes I rush my endings but this had the perfect amount of detail which made the ending crucial.   I think that one thing that I would like to do is have a story like this where I have children be scared of some type of ghost instead of a witch. At the beginning of this class I considered doing horror stories so this could be a good one to model off of. I also don't know how I could have some type of metamorphosis but I really like the idea of this. I was thinking maybe have the ghost turn out to be some type of animal they know kind of like the tadpole guy. Overall I wasn't too impressed with the cherokee stories I read so this is the only one I felt I could write about and will maybe not even use this story as my basing. 

A picture of a bullfrog from Wikimedia Commons.

Bibliography:

 Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney (1900).

The link to the specific story is above. 

Week 10 Story: Recess Love

Recess Love

“So, I think I’m going to ask Ainsley out at recess today” Carter whispered to Keaton.

 “Dude, I was going to ask her out today and you know that I’ve liked her for 2 weeks now!” Keaton fired back a little above a whisper.

 “Then you’re going to have to beat me in a race to her” Carter said back.

So, the two went to lunch just waiting for the moment when the loud bell came on to signal that it was recess.

“We have to at least make this fair, we should both wait for her to get outside with her friends and then we will line up and race towards her. The first one to get to her gets to ask her to be their boyfriend” Keaton said to Carter.

The time came and the two walked slowly out their both staring at Hailey making sure the time was right. But Carter knew he wasn’t as fast as Keaton so he decided that he was going to have to make a new attempt to get her.

“I think the coast is clear, she is in line to play tetherball, so now is the perfect chance” Carter said.

The boys lined up evenly on the playground and looked each other down as if they were about to run in the Olympics. They both counted to 3 and on “Go” they both took off sprinting as fast as they could.

Keaton and Carter were dead even for about the first 10 yards, and then Carter started to slow down. Keaton thinking, he had it in the bag kept running as fast as he could until he reached Ainsley.

With a slight sweat and a heavy pant of breath Keaton ran up to Ainsley and asked, “Do you want to go out with me?”

Ainsley looking at Keaton strangely said “Uhhh.. look Carter seems to be hurt over there we need to go check on him”

This is an image of a child hurt which I found on Brian Bajakian's chiropractor website.

The two walked over to Carter who was laying on the ground pretending to be in agonizing pain.

“What happened Carter?” Ainsley said in a very concerned voice. “I was going to come ask you to be my girlfriend but Keaton shoved me down and kept running towards you.” Carter barely working the words out.

“I would never date someone who would do such a terrible thing. How would you like to be my boyfriend Carter?”

Carter just smiled and said “Yes!” as he gleamed over at Keaton in complete disgust.

Authors Note:

This story is loosely based off of “Why the Possum Plays Dead” which is a short story about a rabbit and a possum. Both of the animals in the story desperately wanted wives so they would travel to a nearby village in which they would search. The rabbit was much faster than the possum so he reached the village first in which he delivered a message to the Chief that everyone must get married. By the time the possum reached the village, everyone was married including his friend the rabbit. So, the rabbit said that he would go to the next village and do the same making sure there would be a wife for the possum, but instead he decided to bring the message that there must be war at once. So as fighting started to break out, the possum reached the village in which they tried to attack him and instead of fighting, the possum played dead instead. In my story, I felt that there was no need for war but I also wanted some deception. I symbolized Keaton as the rabbit since he was much faster and could beat Carter, and I symbolized Carter as the possum since he knew he was slower. I had him pretend to be injured like the possum playing dead, except instead of the rabbit tricking the possum, I had Carter tricking Keaton. Overall, this story is more of a tortoise versus the hare but instead of just being slow, there was trickery involved in winning.

Bibliography:

Myths and Legends of the Great Plains by Katharine Berry Judson (1913).

The specific story of "Why the Possum Plays Dead" can be found in this link.