Meme Generator Tech Tip

The meme generator I used for this meme was called ImgFlip. This tool was really easy to use, and before I even opened the website I knew what meme I wanted to make. Ironically, the exact meme image I wanted was the first one listed on the site, so that made making this meme even easier. The inspiration for this meme was from Spring Break giving me a ton of extra time to work ahead on this class. In result, my chances to watch Netflix went way down, but I think that was a reasonable trade off. I have now effectively finished enough points to finish this class early, and I am so glad that I can focus on my other classes for the rest of the semester. This was a really fun class overall, and I wish the best to everyone else working through this class!

Week 11 Story: The Eagle's Dance

An eagle and his brother were soaring through the open, blue skies one day. They were hunting for food to feed their family that night. A few days had passed since they had gotten a sizable catch. When they were out flying, they saw some movement in the trees below them. A rapid movement struck down a deer a hundred feet below them. The eagle’s brother, controlled by his hunger, swooped down to feast on the deer. The eagle cried to his brother to be cautious, but he was too far away. The eagle looked down below at the scenes that followed in horror. He saw a hunter moving slowly in the brush and saw him draw back his bow. Before the eagle could even react, the eagle watched as his brother was pierced through the chest. The eagle squawked in fear and rushed back to his family to tell them the news.

He convinced one of his brothers to go with him to retrieve his slain brother’s body, but when they returned to the scene of the slaughter, both the deer and the eagle’s brother was gone. The eagle determined that the hunter must have taken his brother’s body back to his village. The eagle flew to the village alone and changed to his human form. From the village, he recognized sounds of singing and dancing he knew belonged to the people’s Eagle Dance. He slowly walked into their celebration, and the village people looked at him with curiosity as they did not know from where he had come.

The eagle in his human form began telling a story of how he had killed a man. The Eagle Dance was still proceeding in the background, but he had captured the attention of many in the audience. When the eagle finished telling his story, he gave out a yell that resembled his screech when in eagle form. At the exact moment he did so, the lead dancer fell dead. The eagle began another story of another man he killed, and the same proceedings as before happened three more times. Everyone in the village watched with trepidation with each story, and soon everyone was screaming in terror and fled from the eagle.

After four of the dancers had fallen dead, the eagle walked out of the village and disappeared into the shadows. He changed back to his eagle form and vanished into the night sky content with the revenge he had accomplished.

Author’s Note: In the original story of "The Eagle's Revenge," the story was told from the point of view from the hunter. The hunter found the eagle eating from the deer that he had killed. To keep his kill safe, the hunter shot the eagle. The hunter then took his deer home and told his village that he had also killed an eagle. The eagle was retrieved, and the village had an Eagle Dance. A mysterious stranger came from nowhere and started telling stories, and at the end of each story, someone in the dance died. The village people later found out that the stranger was the eagle's brother.

In my retelling of this story, I did not change too many details. I kept the majority of the story the same, but I told the tale from the perspective of the eagle's brother. In this way, we are able to see how the eagle's brother is able to find out that the hunter killed the eagle. In addition, we understand why he wants revenge.

Bibliography

The Eagle's Revenge, Myths and Legends of the Great Plains by Katharine Berry Judson (1913)

Image Information: Eagle by Tony Hisgett, Wikipedia

Reading Notes: Great Plains, Part B

From the second half of the Great Plains unit, the story that stuck out to me was the tale of the "Coyote and Snake." In this story, a coyote was walking along one day, and he was abruptly told to stop. He did not see anyone in his pathway, so he was initially confused by who had spoken to him. The coyote eventually found who was speaking him, and it turned out to be a snake. The snake told the coyote to go around him, but the coyote thought himself too good to be bothered. In result, he told the snake to get out of his way. The snake did not agree this was how things were supposed to go, so he warned the coyote that if he stepped over the snake, then he would kill him. The coyote decided he would take the chance, so he stepped right on over the snake. The snake bit him, and by the end of the story, the coyote was dead.

Why this story was different to me from the rest was because of its length. This week, I was wanting to focus on honing my skills of writing proficient and short stories. This story was another great example of how I can take important events in a story and relay them appropriately to a reader. Another useful part of this story was the exchange between the coyote and snake in dialogue. By creating dialogue between characters to tell the majority of the story, the reader gets to have more of a feeling of what the character's personality is like. We can tell from the characters' words and actions that each individual feels like they have the right to stay where they are, but in result, pride gets in the way. I like that the moral of this story was to check yourself if you are not in a humble mindset because that is ultimately what got the coyote killed.

Bibliography

Coyote and Snake, Myths and Legends of the Great Plains by Katharine Berry Judson (1913)

Image Information: Rattlesnake by Gary Stolz, Wikimedia 

Reading Notes: Great Plains, Part A

The first story I chose from the Great Plains unit was "The Eagle's Revenge." In this story, there was a hunter that had just shot a deer. When he went to go collect the deer, he found that an eagle was already eating from the dead deer. To get to the deer, the hunter shot the eagle. By doing so, he was able to take the deer he shot back to his village where he told his village that he had also shot an eagle. People were sent back to collect the eagle as well, and there was a dance of the eagle held. During this dance, a strange man joined the event and began telling a story of how he had managed to kill a man. Each time he had finished a story, someone in the village died. After the strange man left, the village folk later found out that the strange man was the brother of the eagle.

I appreciated the telling of this story because it was so simple. Even though the story was simple, the idea and events still managed to be related to the reader. I struggle with writing stories that are of such a short length, and I really would like to be able to get a whole story across in only three hundred words while including everything that I think is important to the story. This story shows me that maybe when I am writing stories, I am trying to relate too many events in one go. So to help my writing, I need to focus on what I think are the highlights of the story that I am trying to tell. I usually like to include a lot of details to make the story more realistic, but maybe this approach is overkill for the stories that I am trying to tell. I should try better to just get straight to the point, and then I can work on fleshing out the story more at a later time.

Bibliography

The Eagle's Revenge, Myths and Legends of the Great Plains by Katharine Berry Judson (1913)

Image Information: Eagle, Pixabay