Reading Notes: Fairie Queen - Britomart, Part A

In "How Britomart Walked through Fire," the most interesting character to me is Britomart. To give some background to this character, she was raised to have the same skills as a warrior. She is strong and powerful, yet she still has a soft side. She saw the image of the warrior she was meant to one day marry, and the thought of never seeing him made her depressed. To try to remedy her depression, she and her caretaker decided to go out into the world to find this warrior; talk about taking control of your own destiny! And not only did they decide to go look for him, but they disguised themselves as knights to keep their identities safe. Britomart was able to keep up this ruse as she is willing to fight where she sees a need for it, and she is not half bad at participating in a fight.

At the beginning of this part of Britomart's tale, she was a bit hot-headed and raced out to battle a giant to save a man being chased by the giant. This mere choice to rush the giant made the giant flee from Britomart. While Britomart was searching for the giant, she came across a knight strewn across the ground in a heavy bout of sadness. Compassion came over Britomart, and she bravely offered to help this knight get his lady back from an evil enchanter. Britomart was bold and courageous when she entered the castle of the wizard, even going so far as walking through a wall of fire.

I like Britomart so much as a character because of the way she already is. She is independent and willing to do what is right to help those in need. She goes out of her way to make sure justice is had, and she takes charge of her own fate. She does not sit idly by when bad things are happening. Instead, she is one of the first people to take on a fight even if it appears to be a losing battle.

Bibliography

How Britomart Walked through Fire, Stories from the Faerie Queene by Mary Macleod, with drawings by A. G. Walker (1916)

Image Information: Britomart, Wikimedia

Week 12 Lab: Telling a Story

For this week's story lab, I opted to read the second chapter in EmpoWord about telling a story. The chapter began with a nice quote from Doctor Who that got me engaged in the reading. I am a fan of Doctor Who, but unfortunately, I am not up to date with the latest doctor. Either way, this began the chapter off on a good note. The writer really wanted the reader to consider how one quote can mean several things depending on the mindset of the reader. This is reflective for all reading in life. Each person that consumes ideas will put together their own thoughts about the matter.

Next, the chapter went into more specifics about storytelling that I had already learned in previous classes in high school. These basic concepts covered items like narration, point of view, and mood. The explanation brought together that depending on how you approach each item, the writer can greatly alter how the reader engages with the material. Scope of a story was also brought up. The writer mentioned that some writers try to put too many events or details into a story when really they should be focusing on what is the most important. I find that I struggle with this a lot myself. I like to include a lot of details and make sure the reader understands what I am trying to convey, but I think that sometimes I just cloud up everything even more than I should have. This past week, I have tried to focus on doing short and straight to the point writing.

The technique spoke about next in the textbook was pacing. In result of including too much detail, I think I slow down the pace of my stories a lot. I like to elaborate on creating the setting when, really, the setting is usually not the most important part. If I could get down a basic description that can set the scene, then I need to work on just getting to the events of the story that I am writing.

From this chapter, I think that I have learned that I need to work on scope and pacing the most in my writing. I understand the basic fundamentals of creating a story, but working on these points of writing could easily help me become better.

Bibliography

Telling a Story, EmpoWord

Image Information: Writing, PxHere

Reading Notes: Beowulf, Part B

The second tale that I found worth mentioning from the Beowulf unit was the story named "Seeking Grendel's Mother." This story had Beowulf and his group of warriors in hot pursuit of the terrifying mother of Grendel. Grendel was a monster from the first half of the unit that was a giant and had the ability to put all people within a certain range into a sleep from which they could not easily wake. Beowulf was the only one able to fight off this sleeping spell and was able to fight Grendel. Unfortunately, when Grendel returned back to his cave, his mother wanted revenge for the damage Beowulf had inflicted upon Grendel. So she went on a rampage in the hall and stole back Grendel's arm. Beowulf followed her trail all the way to an evil looking lake. Here, he departed from the rest of his comrades and decided to embark into the pool of liquid on his own. On his way down, he found a multitude of weird deep sea monsters that eerily watched him. Throughout his descent, Beowulf had to fight off many of these creatures before he finally made it to the cave where Grendel's mother lived.

The setting of this part of the tale is through the woods to the lake and down into the lake. The writer of this story did a beautiful job of creating an eerie atmosphere that Beowulf had to face when he decided to go into the lake. Each sea creature is new and different from the rest. I appreciated the phrase, "evil glance from its glowing eyes of red or green or sapphire blue," as this showed me what Beowulf was seeing. I imagined dark nothingness fully surrounding Beowulf, but in the midst of everything, I could see glowing orbs of various colors watching Beowulf in the deep water. Being able to visualize something like this shows that I was able to get fully into the words of this tale which is why I think it was successful.

Bibliography

Seeking Grendel's Mother, The Story of Beowulf by Strafford Riggs with illustrations by Henry

Pitz (1933)

Image Information: Deep sea fish, Pixabay

Reading Notes: Beowulf, Part A

From the first part of the Beowulf unit, I chose the story called "Beowulf Lands in Daneland." This title caught my attention as I have recently been watching a show on Netflix where the characters in that show go to Daneland. In the story from the unit, Beowulf and his companions are crossing the sea to get to their destination of Daneland. There are many terrors in the sea that they must pass through on the way there. When they finally got to the beach of Daneland, they were approached by someone guarding the beach. The guardian of the beach asked them who they are and where they came from before allowing them passage in the land. When being investigated by the guardian of the beach, the group told him that they were there to help the king of Daneland. In this same exchange, the guardian told them of Grendel who came to raid the land. With this, they were able to proceed.

The tale of this part of Beowulf’s story was very descriptive in a lot of ways. The main way that stood out to me was all of the detailed visual descriptions. These descriptions created a useful setting for me, so I could understand what the group was going through during their travels. The details about the monsters in the sea stood out to me initially when I was reading through the story. Mentions of “slimy coils,” “shaggy manes,” and “horny claws” definitely painted a picture of the horrors this group was experiencing during their long nights on the sea. Luckily, this group was able to make it safely across the sea without any harm done to them. I would like to be able to write stories where the words create feelings in the readers. I do not want to just tell them how the characters reacted to something I am describing; I want them to feel what the character does.

Bibliography

Beowulf Lands in Daneland, The Story of Beowulf by Strafford Riggs with illustrations by Henry
Pitz (1933)

Image Information: Beowulf sailing to Daneland, Wikimedia

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 

Week 10 Lab: Creative Life

The first video that I watched was A New Theory of Human Intelligence by Scott Barry Kaufman. This video brought up the importance of prioritizing the different aspects of human intelligence. A key point to this talk was that people have various skills and not everyone should be held to the same standards. This becomes a problem with standardized tests and having different parameters for how some people get into certain schools. A problem with having so many enforced unspoken rules for how intelligence should be assessed is that people that do not possess those chosen valued skills lose their value. This means that everyone does not get to reach their full potential as they force themselves to be valuable in this society. I have found that even in my own life, I have made myself become something that is more desirable in this society's culture. Top companies want people that produce quickly and effectively that serve a customer's need, and that is how I have learned to shape myself which I found to be something I had never planned.

The second video was Copyright is Brain Damage by Nina Paley. This person that gave the tech talk was an artist, and she shared the story of her struggle with creation with the restraints of copyright. She explained that with every piece of art she made, she realized there was a subconscious amount of limitations in her work. The cause of this hesitation she had was caused by the copyright and permission culture that we have existed in since birth. She brings up that copyright and permissions for use of artwork are something that we never chose to opt into. In this way, we have a set of rules that I think we have even experienced in this class. Every time we want to use an image for each blog post we make for this class, we have to make sure that we go through the steps to make sure we are abiding by the rules of copyright. This greatly diminishes the options we are allowed to use to express ourselves when creating our blog posts. I cannot image having to be an artist in a creative field where my options to help my creative process are so greatly restricted.

Bibliography

A New Theory of Human Intelligence by Scott Barry Kaufman

Copyright is Brain Damage by Nina Paley

Story Lab: Creative Life

Image Information: Human Intelligence, Pixabay