L Christina M

I loved reading about the Dogs in today's fables. I love that each set of stories is characterized, often by the principal character. One of my favorite animals are dogs so I'm think that I might use that to write my story tomorrow rather than just doing a collection. I can have separate stories but use the same principal character or set of characters. That way I am still staying true to the original idea of Aesop's Fables while still adding my own twists to the story. Here are some of my nights from today: 1. Once again, it seems to be following the same three stanza form. 2. This Time, each section is about a similar character just with a shift in focus. "The Hungry Dogs", "The Dogs In The River", etc... 3. Towards the end of this section some of the stories start to get longer. They still are quite short compared to other stories we've read throughout the semester but they now stretch to about 5 stanzas rather than just three or four. (a...

I have alot of experience with Aesop's Fables. In elementary school, I attended a private school that participated in a speech competition every year with other private schools in our state. I participated about four or five years in a row and almost every year someone in our group performed one of Aesop's Fables. The group as a whole often watched others rehearse and studied everyone else's speeches so I was able to research and learn about these fables whether I was performing them or not. When I saw that I had the opportunity to reread and brush up on some things I had forgotten, I definitely jumped right in. Here are some things I noted: 1. The Boy Who Cried Wolf is a popular story but this is written in a very simplified and abbreviated fashion. 2. Maybe I should attempt to rewrite a series of stories in this same poetic form. 3. Each story is told in prose form. Many of them don't go beyond three or four stanzas. To make my own story long enough this week I mi...

The scurry of frightened fish often overpowered the otherwise serene waters of the river. It was a common scene. Just as the sun began to set and the first glimpses of nightfall arrived, you would hear the first painful cry of a mother fish mourning her new little babies. The predators often struck at night. It was easier for them to sneak around, without fear of being eaten themselves. Every living species in the river understood that being prey was a risk, but the recent uprise in baby fish death was due to the predators gluttony and greed. The mother and father fish were terrified. Every night when they went to bed, they would tuck in their baby fish and pray that they would awaken with them the next morning. Recently, more often than not, frightened parents wold awake in the middle of the night to the loud chomps and chews of the predator munching on their children. Each day the parents would grow angrier and angrier, but due to their size and position in the natural food chain, ...

The second half of these stories has what I have nicknamed "explanation tales". Basically meaning a tale of how something mundane has come to take place. For instance, the first story in this second collection is called "Why Hummingbirds Drink Only Dew". Stories like these really interest me as well. Between this collection and last, I have really grown to enjoy the stories included in this Tejas collection.  Here are a few things I noted: 1. There are lot go animals in this collection just like the others, however, they tend to start away from the larger more popular animals like bears and tigers and instead take a look at the smaller, more commonly overlook animals such as fish, dogs, and hummingbirds. 2. Maybe I'll look into retelling "Why The Dogs Ears Flop". 3. These stories are relatively short as well. They don't reach beyond 600 words. 4. Try to keep my own retelling short as well to match up with the style of the original stories. ...

I love that this story originates in Texas and love even more that it is told from the viewpoint of children. I plan to retell the one fo the stories from the viewpoint of a child. I think it gives the story a unique perspective and shows everything form a simpler, less sophisticated point of view. This can be quite refreshing after reading stories told from an overly-academic view which is what we as college student are used to. Here are a few things I noticed in these stories: 1. The vocabulary is much simpler than the stories we've read thus far. 2. Maybe I could tell the same stories and just change the animals or keep it the same and just retell it in my own words? 3. I really like Grandmother River's Trick. 4. I'm noticing that a lot of myths are often about cunning, trickster-type characters. This is how big I imagined the river to grow to: (BBC) Bibliography: Grandmother River's Trick Noah NG 18 April 2013

As I've mentioned before, I absolutely love Ted Talks and always take advantage of having the opportunity to watch them. This week I watched two redrawing the creative life. I really enjoyed them and recorded a few of my notes below. 1. A New Theory Of Human Intelligence - He argues that those telling us of our own intelligence are not necessarily any more intelligent than we are ourselves. - It is important to factor in background and opportunity as a means of determining one's own intelligence in relation to the opportunities they have had to learn. - You can't judge someone on their intellect levels without everyone being given the same opportunities to gain intellect. - It is a somewhat manmade idea that we must know certain things in order to be deemed "smart". 2. Copyright is Brain Damage - Creativity and Originality is vital to human advancements. - We can't keep replaying the pass. - Maybe we should measure our intelligence in terms of creat...

The second half of the readings focused more on the Coyote then any of the other animals. Even the majority of the titles have the Coyote in the title. I was able to find another really interesting "creation" story that I really hope to be able to tell in one of the weeks to come. This one was called "How The Bluebird Got It's Color". Here are a few notes about it. 1. The story includes instances of poems as well. 2. The main character is named Bluebird. 3. I like the idea of breaking up the paragraphs with poems or sonnets rather than just having one continuous story. It might give the reader a longer attention span and even hold that attention a little longer. 4. There is also dialogue included. (thefool.com) Bibliography: How The Bluebird Got Its Color A Pima Legend