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.