week 15 Reading B

Once again, The detail of these stories were intense. I could see every image that the author was trying to portray. I really enjoyed reading through the short version of Dante's Inferno. It was a nice touch to end the semester and I think that I will have to re read Dante's Inferno at some point over break because I really want to read that book again. The way that the story in the part B of the readings explained how Satan looked was horrifying. I saw exactly what he looked like and wanted to stop reading after that because I was like nope. But I do think a good thing to work on for future writing will be the amount of detail that I construct my sentences with in order to make the reader understand what I am trying to portray and it will interest whomever is reading my pieces! This was a good way to finish up the semester and I am glad I was able to read the week 15 readings.

Satan from Dante's

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Bibliography: "Dante's Inferno Unit" From The Divine Comedy Translated by Tony Kline Websource

week 15 Reading A

For the final week of reading I chose to read Dante's Inferno Unit and I really enjoyed it! The way that the stories were told really showed the fear of what hell would be like. I loved reading Dante's Inferno the book back in high school and these stories really brought memories back to mind about what the book was about. I really liked how the first story introduced the characters to the reader. It was cool how Dante and Virgil were explained. The detail of the stories were really intriguing as well. It painted a vivid image in my mind with everything that was explained. The first story started off with vivid imagery about the woods where the story took place. I was instantly hooked on the story itself. I think if I were to write another story this would be something that I focused on. A story full of detail would be really great to focus on. Especially if  I wrote a story about Dante's Inferno.

The Gates of Hell

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Bibliography: "Dante's Inferno Unit" From The Divine Comedy Translated by Tony Kline Websource

Week 14 Reading A

Well the Russian stories were not what I expected at all! I figured they would be darker than they were but I guess that just comes from the historical facts that I know about Russia. I did like how throughout the first of the stories that the same characters were used and it made it feel like I started to know the characters. I think that this would be a great thing to focus on this week especially because I have thought about making one final story to add to my portfolio. If I were to add another story to my portfolio I think that I would have to do another Alex story. I have really enjoyed the stories that I have made with Alex the Reaper and I think it would be cool to have one more story. So for that aspect, it would be good to focus on making the readers focus on feeling more comfortable with who Alex is and knowing more about how he came to be.

Story idea of Alex fighting another creature

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Bibliography: "Russian Fairy Tales" by W.R.S. Ralston Webtext

week 13 Reading notes Part B

The second part of the reading was interesting. The battles were so intense and it made the stories super interesting to read. I thought the best part of the second reading was how they ended the story of King Arthur. He had passed and then weeks later so did his faithful knight Sir Lancelot. The story ending was sad but it left the reader with a good feeling. It showed that just because people die does not mean that people have to stay grieving and be sad about it. I thought that the messages that the second part of the reading were great and I will make sure to consider that when writing my story. Having a hidden message within my story could bring out a better more interesting look on the portfolio. I want to write a story that finishes off my portfolio project on a really strong note.

Battles of King Arthur

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Bibliography: "King Arthur: Tales of the Round Table" By Andrew Lang Webtext 

week 13 Reading notes Part A

This week I chose to read the King Arthur Stories. I chose well this week for sure. The way the stories were structured was great. I really liked how one of the stories that I had heard during my childhood had changed so much. At first the style of writing was a little difficult to read but I was able to adapt quickly to the style and it made the reading more interesting. I think that this week I will write a story on how the sword was pulled, or maybe how Arthur found his wife. There are so many options to chose from in this story set that it makes it hard to chose which story I want to base my story off of this week. That being said, my imagination has ran wild while I was reading. I wanted to make more than one story by the time I had finished reading all of the stories. The detail of each one had my brain analyzing so much information that I did not know which direction to go. But by Thursday I will have a better idea of which story I want to create. 

King Arthur's Battle gear

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Bibliography: "King Arthur's Tales of the Round Table" By Andrew Lang Webtext

Reading notes Week 12 Part B

Reading B was interesting to look at today. I especially got really into The Battle with Grendel. The Imagery was really vivid in that story. I liked how it explained that a spell kept the soldiers of the kingdom asleep. I do not know how that would have been possible that Beowulf was exempt from the spell but it was and the battle was intense. I especially liked the fact that it described Grendel in detail and I saw the image of Grendel grow as I continued to read. The fact that he became an uglier beast with every small detail that was added was enough for me to keep reading. I think for my story this week I have decided to recreate this story in my own way and make it another Alex the Reaper story. Possibly a new hero will come into the portfolio. There would be a lot of opening left for the last story if I decided to make another hero because then for the final story I would be able to make a heroes meeting story.

Grendel and Beowulf

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Bibliography: "The Battle with Grendel" from The Story of Beowulf by Strafford Riggs. Webtext

Reading notes Week 12 Part A

This weeks reading was interesting because I chose to read the Beowulf stories. For the Part A reading, I thought it was great. I read Beowulf in high school and it was a very difficult text to read because of the style of writing. In the reading this week it was re-written to a more modernistic language which made it easier to understand contextually. While it was not exactly the same, I did enjoy how the stories were told. The warrior himself is seen as a mighty an powerful being as usual and is arrogant as ever. I think for this weeks storytelling assignment that I will try to write in this style. Giving the background information first while being very detailed in who the characters are and what their purpose to the story is. Even though I think the story will be longer this week it will be worth it because I think that it will be really interesting to read. I am looking forward to reading the Part B of the stories because I saw that Grendel comes into the stories.

Beowulf in Battle

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Bibliography: "Beowulf" from The Story of Beowulf by Strafford Riggs Webtext

Reading Notes Week 11 Part B

Part B reading was a little different. The repetition was not as bad as the Part A reading and it made it a little less frustrating to read. What was different about these stories is that a lot of them could have been a bunch of interesting details leading up to a ending that made sense, but when it came time to end the story it would take a turn in a completely different direction. The Children of Cloud is a good example because the boys are just coming and going between their parents places and somehow get turned into agave plants. It was looking like they were just going to go home but instead got turned into plants. I thought this was an interesting style of writing and was intrigued at first by it but learned to enjoy it throughout the reading. There was also really cool ways that things were explained in how they were created. I think there could be some details changed and possibly have a really good story. I might just do an extra story this week just for fun!

Represents the Lightning cast down by Cloud

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Bibliography: "Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest" By Katherine Berry Judson Webtext

Reading notes Week 11 Part A

This week the Reading was interesting to read mostly because I grew up in the Southwest and so the readings that came from the Pima tribe in Arizona were interesting to read simply because I have heard similar stories but from different tribes. The story that stood out to me most this week was The Creation of the World. This stood out the most to me because the way it started off really got me. It was different than the other stories because the other stories are super blunt and to the point as where this one was a little more detailed. There was more of a plot to it. It wasn't choppy like the other ones. there wasn't as much repetition either. The rest of the stories would use the same word a couple times over and over again. It was more annoying than anything but I get why it was used like that. The message still got across just in a faster way.

Creation from nothing 

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Bibliography: "Creation of the World" from the Southwestern and California Legends By Katherine Berry Judson Webtext

Reading notes Week 10 Part A

This weeks reading for part A was a little frustrating by the fact that the stories seemed choppy and didn't flow as smoothly as they could have. I understand that the way it was told is in part because of the culture and how they told stories but it seems repetitive when every paragraph or sentence starts with the word now. Other than that I think that the stories proved to get the messages across to the listener. I especially liked the one with the Eagle and how the hunter shot him and then the Eagles' brother came and avenged his death by killing three members of the tribe. This story would be a good one to recreate. I think there would be a good chunk of detail that I could add to beef up the story and make it a story that is even more so interesting to the reader. I'm not sure if I would put a modern day twist on this one or if I would maybe do another Alex the Reaper story. I could say that Alex was a normal person working as a Blacksmith maybe and then his brother was killed by a witch (how the blade in the first story got the power) and Alex went and hunted the witch. Once the witch was slain he meets up with a random traveler that tells him what he must do with his new found powers. I think this might be a good origin story.

Eagles that was shot in the story. 

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Bibliography: "Myths and Legends of the Great Plains" by Katharine Barry Judson. Webtext

Week 9 Reading: Tibetan Folktales Part A

The story that stood out most to me during this weeks reading was The Tiger and the Frog because it was a trickster story. I liked the way the story portrayed the frog as terrified when he had first saw the tiger coming. Instead of cowering the frog decided to stay and trick the tiger. The style of story telling is simple and straight to the point with details that instill imagery in the mind. I want to try and write a story similar to this because I think it would be interesting to do. I want to focus on changing the characters but keeping the main idea. I think I might do an Alex the Reapers origin story by incorporating this idea and change the ending to fit a beginning story line. I like the idea of the small guy standing up to the bully because bullying was a part of my life growing up. I do not want anyone to feel that misery that I felt growing up.

Small size of frog shown traveling. 

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Bibliography: "The Tiger and the Frog" by Albert Shelton from The Tibetan Folktales 

Week 7 Reading Notes: Brer Rabbit Part A

Well this weeks reading was difficult at first to follow along with. The style of writing was written in a different english. After a while it did get easier to read and understand. Things I liked about this weeks reading in part A were the amount of images that were used. They all correlated to the story in some way and made it a little more interesting. This is something that I would like to try and do in the future. Another thing that really stood out to me was how direct the story details were. There really wasn't a lot of vivid imagery to pictures in your head. I think that this would be an interesting technique to play with because it could be challenging to tell a story without a lot of vivid detail and still have the story be interesting. I would like to write in the same language style but I do not believe that I have enough knowledge on that in order to do so. I think for my next story though, I will be taking from this section.

This Is the rabbit and the fox in the stories.

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Bibliography: "Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings" from Brer Rabbit Unit by Joel Chandler Harris Webtext

Reading Notes: The Life of Buddha Part B

In Part B I really enjoyed how the majority of the stories are about Siddartha, one because I really enjoyed reading the Siddartha book, and two because they have some great messages in the stories that he is in. I feel like the stories are peaceful and really just show that if there is a struggle going on in your life or if you see a struggle going on in someone else's life that it is a good thing to help yourself or the person you see. I really like this message and I feel that using the peaceful way of living that Siddartha shows in the stories in different characters in my stories will make the character more liked by the reader. I think that another thing to work on in my stories would be to change up the dialect a little and maybe inter mix some of the different types of dialect. Not in a confusing way but just in a way that could potentially make the story a bit more interesting.

This represents Siddartha as Buddha

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Bibliography: "The Life of Buddha" by Andre Ferdinand Herold from The Life of Buddha

Reading Notes: The Life of Buddha Part A

While reading The Life of Buddha the main thing that stuck out to me was how the plot would never seem really too terrible. It was a calm setting almost always, even when there was a problem. So I think something to focus on while writing my next story would be to maybe switch it up a little and write a story that is more calm than dark and intense like I have been writing. Another thing that I think would be fun to throw in to the mix would be to write with the style that they were writing with. The "O" when addressing a person was interesting to read. I do remember reading Siddartha and reading the strange text like that but I think it adds a different touch to the story. I would like to point out that there was a lot of detail and it was never looking at the negative sides of detail. I think this week I would like to focus on adding more detail to my stories because while I have written a lot with dialect I think more detail will help.

The Peace that is felt through less negative detail

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Bibliography: "The Life of Buddha" By Andre Ferdinad Herold Webtext

Reading Notes: Voyages of Sinbad Part B

Some things to consider after reading the part B for the Sinbad reading, one being to continue the story through my next stories. So as one is ending leave a little bit of detail to make the reader want to read more into the next story. I am also wanting to maybe do one story as the first person narrative and I have an idea of how I would like to do that. I've seen a couple ways that I could do that. Another way that I want to incorporate ideas from the Sinbad stories would be to make sure that there are multiple places that the characters visit to keep the interesting plot. I enjoyed reading how Sinbad would sail his ship to one place and then sail it to another or the ship would get destroyed and he would have yet again another near death experience. Lastly, exaggerating characters in shape and size or in abilities made the story pop. The giant birds in the fifth adventure was a good touch to the fear that they felt.

Sinbad Surviving in his unplanned Ways

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Bibliography: "Voyages of Sinbad" by Andrew Lang from The Arabian Nights' Entertainment. Websource

Reading Notes: Voyages of Sinbad part A

With the stories for this weeks reading I chose Sinbad because I have always heard different versions of Sinbad and they are always interesting. One thing I enjoyed about part A of the reading was that it was in a first person perspective. It made the detail stand out more. When explaining the islands there was background bits added into the story about the things they did before settling down to relax. Another thing I liked was that the way it was portrayed was as if the events were happening to a real person. It seemed like they were all valid things that were happening to Sinbad but his reactions to the situation were what any normal human being would do. Something to keep in mind would be to make sure to add a human factor to my stories.

This is a ship to Represent the Sailing Done by Sinbad 

Photo Provided by United States Coast Guard

Bibliography: "Voyages of Sinbad" by Andrew Lang from The Arabian Nights' Entertainment Websource

Reading Notes: Homer's Iliad Part B

For the Part B reading in Homer's Iliad I focused on the style of the story. The style was detail given with a lot of belief. I found it strange that the people would put their belief so much in the Gods that they believed the Gods intervened so much that they controlled the outcome of the war. Given the details though, it made sense to have the Gods intervene. The detail of how everything unfolded in the story was a lot, sometimes it seemed like a lot of it was unnecessary but while I perceived it this way I saw the purpose of it. The purpose was to make sure that there was not any questions as to why the decisions were made, it made more sense to add the detail than to leave it out and confuse the reader/listener. How the story ended was a little abrupt and did not leave much detail on who won the battle of Troy but it did include a text link to more reading and history on the battle which was nice. If there is an abrupt ending to one of my stories I would probably be likely to leave a link to more reading about the information given.

 Achilles and Ajax Strategizing War Plans

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Bibliography: "Homer's Iliad" as told by A.J. Church Webtext 

Reading Notes: Homer's Iliad part A

For this reading I found it interesting that the stories reminded me of the movie Troy. I could really see the movie playing out in my head as I read. Besides that side note the reading overall showed some great things to add to the idea of making my project. The dialogue was really intriguing at first because it was a little difficult to understand, but as the stories played out there was more understanding of what was being said. I thought it was pretty cool how the stories all came together to make one big story. One story would end and the other would continue right where the other left off. Although I have read about the Greek mythology before it just seemed like there was more added to these stories, so while I am looking through other stories I will keep in mind that creating more detail is a good way to make a story more interesting. Overall I think there is some good detail to look at in those stories and I especially like the way that Achilles' mother helps him out with talking to Zeus. The way they all come together is the main focus on this reading.

Representing Achilles taking Troy

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Bibliography: Homer's Iliad retold by A.J. Church Weblink

Reading Notes: Jewish Fairy Tales, Part B

Part B of the reading was very interesting, some of the stories that I read were stories that I had heard before, but in a different style and ending. The way that a lot of the stories started were from hardships. They all were similar in the fact that their faith was put to the test and in time they were rewarded if they stuck to their faith. I found this interesting because it made me wonder what would happen if they did not trust in their faith. The detail in the stories was great too because there was a lot of it, and the words used to describe it were not common words. There were a couple new words added to my vocabulary while reading because I had to look some of them up to understand the context of the reading. These stories also were great because they gave me insight into what the history and faith of the Jewish culture is like. I enjoyed learning another style of writing and look forward to reading more next week as well as reading others posts on their choice of reading.

City of Jerusalem, seen in many Jewish Fairy tales

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Bibliography: The stories talked about in this reading section were written by Gertrude Landa from the Jewish Fairy Tales Unit in the blog section. I recommend looking over these stories in order to improve writing skills. 

Reading Notes: Jewish Fairy Tales, Part A

From Shepard-Boy to King was interesting in the fact that an unknown voice had called out his name and told him that he would be ruler of the land. David in this story seems like a very level headed guy, who really appreciates the world itself and every living thing. He was confused on why this voice called his name but realized that there was not anyone around. The fact that he is also clueless at the same time is great though. When he climbs the so called hill and finds out that it is a giant unicorn surprised me. The detail within the story is great. I could see the images in my mind because the detail painted the picture in my head. The ending was a little abrupt but it was part of the story so it worked out just fine. Showing how the unicorn bowed to the lion who was smaller showed respect, but when David became king because the deer saved his life. A big point on this subject would be the fact that it was all out of luck that David was chosen to be king.

The Unicorn that David ended up on

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Bibliography: The original story was, From Shepard-Boy to King  by Gertrude Landa which showed the life of a clueless boy who became a king of the land by pure luck and did not know how he became king of the land.