Week 10 Storytelling: Anatole

Anatole awoke from his afternoon nap in the hammock in such a peaceful way he thought this is a moment in life he surely won't forget. That is saying a lot considering he is as old as time. The amount of naps he has taken in his lifetime might take years to count if one could remember them all. However, this nap felt special. His hammock was positioned perfectly under a tree on the beach so that the branches kept him in the shade but also let enough sun through to keep him the perfect temperature. It was after lunch so he felt perfectly content and relaxed. When he was asleep it was almost as if he was just conscious enough to still enjoy the warmth of the sun and the slight breeze hitting his face. When he woke up he just laid there completely still. Not wanting to move a muscle for fear this unmatched comfortability might disappear. He noticed the sun was starting to get lower in the sky and approach the bay. He lived in a shack practically on the beach and he could hear the chimes singing in the breeze. He could also hear the waves crashing against the side of his canoe he had built so long ago. Finally after he had spent some time soaking it all in he knew he had to get up and start getting ready. 

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Anatole had truly unique profession. When the earth began God trusted him with the job of painting the sunset each night. Anatole became a masterful artist as he practiced on his immense canvas each day. Each evening as the sun is about to set he paddles out in his canoe and paints the magnificent tapestry of colors that can be seen from all over the earth. No sunset is the same as the last and that is because Anatole paints what his heart feels each day. There are days when he is sad and doesn't paint at all. Sometimes if it is cloudy or rainy there is not canvas to paint on. However, most days he makes a masterpiece in hopes that everyone might get to enjoy it.

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When the sun finally goes down God and Anatole get to sit down with each other and talk. God shows him the people the were touched by his sunset. He gets to see the moments people enjoyed during the sunset almost like a clip in people's lives. Anatole is humbled by people's reactions and smiles from ear to ear. Some moments are too beautiful to describe with words and he will cry tears of joy. He believes he must be the luckiest man in the entire history of the world.

Author's Note.
In the original story Pearl-Feather is a sort of evil magician that killed Nokomis' father. The old woman, Nokomis, begs of Hiawatha to avenge her father and try to go murder Pearl-Feather. Pearl-Feather apparently lives on an island surrounded by massive snakes and the water around is black. It is a dangerous place to try and go to say the least. However, Hiawatha accepts the challenge and sets out in his canoe to try and take down the mighty Pearl-Feather. Hiawatha encounters the snakes first, which are enormous. He ends up killing them and eventually killing Pearl-Feather. The story ends with the hero sailing home.
The part that my story is reason based off of is in the beginning when the old woman Nokomis is describing the sunset. I wanted to create a story that showed the origin of sunsets. In this case it is an old artist that is responsible for painting them. I have grown up drawing and painting as a hobby and learning a lot of what I know from my Dad. I am not any good but I love looking at my Dad's water color paintings of the sunset and mountains so that is a little bit where the inspiration came from.

Bibliography.
Hiawatha and the Pearl-Feather, The Song of Hiawatha, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1855.

Week 10 Reading Diary Continued: The Song of Hiawatha

These are notes for the second section of week 10 reading that I chose to do over The Song of Hiawatha.

A native american woman describing the sunset makes me think I could create a story that explains the origin of sunsets. Or maybe a could talk about a character who is a mythical artist that is responsible for creating the sunset each night.

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I think it would be fun to do a story where a white man falls in love with a Native American girl as he explores the west. Or maybe I could do it where a Native American man falls in love with a white woman. I could tell the story of them meeting for the first time or realizing that they liked each other. 

I want to do a story that incorporates birch trees because they are my favorite kind of tree. I could come up with some reason they are significant.

Week 10 Reading Diary: The Song of Hiawatha

This week I chose to do reading over the Native American unit called The Song of Hiawatha.
The notes below are from reading the first section.

I like the idea of doing a story where the main character has a battle with a bear and kills it. The story could be about courage. I think it would be cool to have a plot twist at the end where the reader finds out that the warrior who defeats the beast is a woman.

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I think it would be fun to create a story that involves a character building their own canoe or ship and having to set sail on it for some kind of adventure. Maybe he could die on his journey and his spirit becomes a mythical creature of the deep. The creature could be wreaking havoc on sailors because he never made it to his beloved woman.

I would like to try and do a story in a poem format or maybe at least have a poem in the beginning. I have never really written poetry and I think it would be fun to challenge myself to do that.

Week 9 Storytelling: Evelyn

Dear Evelyn,

I hope the winter is going well in Canada. It has been weird not getting to see you everyday and go on adventures. Florida has been nice but it is definitely a lot different than home. All the other Ravens don't really get why I would marry a penguin but I just tell them you haven't met my wife then. Don't worry, not all the ravens are judgmental. I have been able to make some really good friends on the fly down and while I have been here.

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The fly down was probably the craziest trip I have been on though. As you know we started early that morning just after dawn. I can't express to you how long the line was at the border. You know when you see those pictures on TV of the worlds craziest traffic jams? They look like it would take you the rest of the day just to count the cars. It was like that but worse. We did not pick the right day to travel that is for sure. Then once we got to the booth to have our passports checked one of my cousins had to get taken back and questioned. Apparently they thought he was a different bird that had the same name who was wanted for pooping on sacred land. Took them about 2 hours to figure out that it wasn't him. Everyone was really excited to get past the border and right after we all played that racing game we like to play. My group one so that was a lot of fun! The fun soon ended after when we were flying across the midwest. I swear hunting is the only thing humans do in that part of the United States. Also, they all have such ridiculously nice guns that it is actually terrifying. No one in our group ended up getting picked off but the group ahead of us had two guys go down. Definitely a sobering moment of how precious life can be. I will never fly over Nebraska again that is for sure. After that it wasn't too bad until we were about to enter Florida. No one new this but there was a hurricane that was hitting land on the western coast of Florida right as we were about to cross the state line. This made for an interesting decent to say the least. There were probably a half dozen times that I thought I was going to get brain damage from how hard it was raining. A couple guys forgot their goggles and had to find shelter on the ground. I was worried for them since there are so many alligators in Florida. I had to concentrate so hard on my flight path I completely forgot to keep an eye on my friends and so I got very lost at one point. I finally found them after what seemed like forever and we got back on the right path. We eventually made it to Miami and all was well. I think I slept for like 14 hours after that trip haha. Here is a picture I took along the way!

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I have been missing you these past couple days really bad. I wish we could just hang out at the end of the day and have dinner together. In a way you are lucky you can't fly and can live through the winter up there. Florida is definitely not home and I miss our friends. I hope you have been getting to swim since I know it is your favorite. How is Agatha doing? Has she and Bernie gotten back together yet? You'll have to let everyone I say hi.

Can't wait to hear back from you and hear how you are doing! I hope you guys are having fun up there.

Love,

    Pete


Author's Note.
The inspiration for this story came from Raven's Marriage, which is a story in the Alaskan Legends compilation. In the original story Raven has decided it is time to find a wife. All the birds are about to head to the summer land because winter is coming quickly. Raven wants to find a wife to fly to summer grounds with. At first he is rejected again and again by all sorts of birds. He eventually finds a magic stone that helps him become appealing to a goose that ends up marrying him. On their way to the summer land he seems to be strong and graceful until near the end of the journey. He begins to become very tired as they are crossing the sea and eventually he can no longer keep up with the other geese. The leaders decide they cannot wait for him any longer to catch up. He loses his wife and the magical stone. He makes it to shore but he is all alone.

I wanted to make the story a little bit more personable so I decided to make my story a letter from a husband bird to his wife back home. I thought it would be funny to have two different types of bird be married because I feel like you never see that. I had the husband tell the story about his flight down because I always wonder how far it is birds have to travel for migration and how hard it is to make that that trip. I am from Michigan and I have had my fair share of long and crazy road trips in the past so I think that was part of what inspired me. The original story was kind of sad and gloomy so I wanted to make mine a little bit more happy and loving. I wanted to show a husband that was missing his wife.

Bibliography.
Raven's Marriage, Myths and Legends of Alaska, Katharine Berry Judson, 1911.

Week 9 Reading Diary Continued: Alaskan Legends

This is the second part of my reading notes for week 9 that are over Alaskan Legends.

I like the story about the first woman. I think it could be interesting to have a story that incorporates men meeting woman for the first time. I could imagine it being so odd to see someone so similar to you yet so different. The differences could become even more pronounced once they get to know how each other think.

I think it could be fun to write a story about what someone experiences after they are dead. Maybe there could even be two perspectives. One could be sort of a native americans heaven and the other a native americans hell.

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I have always been captivated by killer whales. Probably because of the movie "Free Willie" from when I was a kid. I think it would be cool to do a sort of native american version of free willie but with a twist. In the story I liked how he rode the killer whales out into the ocean and I think that could be fun to incorporate into my story.

Week 9 Reading Diary: Alaskan Legends

For this week's reading I decided to look at Alaskan Legends for the Native American section.

I like how it talks about man first coming to earth. It would be fun to do a story that involved man coming to earth for the first time. Or maybe someone who has been lost in time comes to an era that he has never experienced before.

I also like how the raven is a repeating character. It could be fun to incorporate a character that I previously used in another story.

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In the raven's marriage story he just all of a sudden decides to get married. I think it could be fun to do a story that dives into that a little deeper. Maybe raven talks more about why he wants to be married. Then once e is I could talk about the things he didn't expect and the good and challenging things that go along with marriage.

Blog Ideas

For blog inspiration I looked at the blogs of these three classmates.

Fred K

Matty Williams

Adrienne Crawford

They were all unique and different and I can tell they were creative people.

I think when it comes to my blog one thing I would like to do is try to incorporate some more memes because I think they are funny and it could give readers a good laugh. I also think I want to change my background from just plain white to something different. The white with black font just seems kind of boring now. I also really liked how Matty Williams label bar on the right side was see through so you could see the background more. I think hat would be cool to do on my blog as well.

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Time Schedule for the Blog

My time schedule thus far has been doing reading on Monday and Wednesday of the week and then writing my story on Thursday. Then I will do the weekend assignments at random during the weekend. Usually I will get to those on Friday or Sunday.

So far I feel like my schedule has been working out well. I don't feel like I procrastinate and have a bunch of stuff due all at once and that is a great feeling. I have a another online class where that can happen but the setup is also a bit different.

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One thing I have noticed is that some weeks I spend too much time doing this class but it is enjoyable and easy to lose track of time. I need to make sure I am not writing too much because I know the people who read my stories and writing don't have all the time in the world.

Overall I feel good about the class and the work I have been doing and it  has been a fun class tot make part in.

Week 8 Reading: Native American Unit

I am doing a storybook about Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest so I am excited for this unit of reading.

The first option that caught my eye was the unit on Myths and Legends of Alaska. Some of the stories are from tribes that I am interested in for my project. Haida and Tlingit stories are great so I would love to hear some that came from Alaska. I feel like Alaska is a whole different kind of wild that is for the most part untamed so it has a certain mystique about it.

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I would also like to read Myths and Legends of the Pacific Northwest because of me currently doing a project on Native Americans from that region. I have gotten to visit Oregon and Washington over the past two summers and loved that area of the country so it has a personal pull as well.

I would also enjoy reading about the inuit people. For a long time I have loved their style of art and even have a tattoo inspired by some of their art. I think there stories would be interesting to read. 

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Week 7 Storytelling: Curstoff the Great

If you are of a certain age you have most likely experienced being taught to write in cursive. However, today it is being phased out of education and most schools do not teach a class on cursive handwriting. Why then did we ever have to learn cursive in the first place?

The reason behind writing in cursive might shock you. There is more to the story than most people know. So I will tell you...

A long time ago there was a wise philosopher named Curstoff. He was known by many as a man with a knowledge of the world that was so deep there wasn't anything he didn't know. People from all over the world came to him seeking answers for all sorts of questions. He was a humble guy who enjoyed helping others and so he worked with all sorts of people.

When he was about 35 years old he lived in what is now modern day Rome. A terrible king had taken over his country and he ruled over the people in ways much more unjust and harsh than some of the worst dictators in history.

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Curstoff was no longer allowed to read books or do experiments in his workshop. He was taken by the king to be a part of the king's council. This way the king could use him for his knowledge and also so that Curstoff didn't get any smart ideas about leading a revenge or bringing an end to the king's rule over the land.

Curstoff tried to escape a few times but it was just too risky and the king had too good of a watch on him.

Back in this time there were only a few dozen people that could write in the world and they wrote using what would be described now as symbols. It looked similar in a way to Chinese writing today.

One day Curstoff came in contact with another country's master in knowledge and they got a chance to speak in private. The other mans name was Dino. Dino recognized the oppression that the people of the country were facing and he told Curstoff he wanted to help overthrow the king.

Curtsy told Dino he had been hoping for a long time to meet someone like Dino who could potentially help the country. He told Dino he ad developed a new method of writing and with it a new language. Curtsy gave him what is now known as the english language and gave him papers that allowed him to learn how to write in cursive. Curtsy told him that this was his only copy of the language and the associated tutorial sheets and to take care of them at all costs.

Curstoff called his new language cursive and so it was born into the world.

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Curstoff and Dino relayed many messages back in forth to each other in secrecy and were able to organize a way to kill the king. They only had a few messages become intercepted  but when they were no one could read them or understand what they meant.

Through cursive they were able to kill the king and restore the country back to a better way of life. Curtsy was the new king and he ruled the people in a just manner. People praised him for his wisdom and soon cursive was beginning to be taught in schools.

It has continued to be one of the longest living languages and method of writing today. However, people have switched over to the new style of print writing, which seems to be effective.


Author's Note. 
This story was inspired by the Jamaican Anansi story called Tumble Bug. Tumble bug is another name for a dung beetle. In the original story it explains how the Tumble bug is trying to marry a beautiful girl and to do so he has to bring a jar of money to the king. He has a competitor though who is also trying to find money so that he can marry the girl. His competitor can only find poop and so he puts it in his jar. Then he tricks the tumble bug to go have a drink with him where he switches the jars. In front of the king they are both asked to dump out the contents of their jars and so the poop falls out. The king shouts at the beetle to pick it up and carry the poop away. This is why tumble bugs are always carrying poop somewhere.
I liked how the story found an original story and reason behind something that seems so odd to us humans. I wanted to do the same thing in my story but with a different spin. I have always wondered why we learned cursive and why it is now being phased out so that it what I tried to develop my story around.
I chose the image to show what the cursive lettering looks like for the readers to remember or see for the first time.

Bibliography.
Tumble Bug, Jamaica Anansi Stories, Martha Warren Beckwith, 1924.

Week 7 Reading Diary Continued: Jamaica Anansi Stories

I have continued to read the second part of Jamaica Anansi Stories and below are some notes from part B for this week.

Some of the stories are actually had to understand because it is written in the Jamaican dialect. Make sure if I do write showing a dialect or slang that I don't go overboard.

It could be fun to incorporate a new law that everyone has to follow in a story and show how it effects life. It could be interesting considering some cultures have laws that others do not.

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I think it would be funny to tell a story that explains why dogs like to sniff their own poop and even eat it sometimes or why mosquitos love poop. Or maybe I could make a story that explains a different reason behind bees making honey. 

I like how the author came up with a reason why dung-beetles are always around poop. 

It could be a fun story to have two guys chasing after the same girl. Maybe have the guy who is the underdog come away with the girl for some odd reason. Maybe instead of it being because he was nice and caring it could be because she thought he'd make more money or some random thing she liked.

Week 7 Reading Diary: Jamaica Anansi Stories

This week I chose to read Jamaica Anansi Stories written by Martha Warren Beckwith

I like how in the stories you can see the Jamaican dialect and slang come out. It makes the story feel a little more authentic. It would be cool to do a story in which I wrote how the people from that region spoke.

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I think it would be interesting to do a story from a mother's point of view. Maybe her actual thoughts going on in her head could be heard rather than what she says on the outside. Mother's can be so strong even when they are struggling or having a hard day. It could be interesting to hear their inner workings and where their minds truly go in those times.