Essay: Nursery Rhymes

This week I read the unit about Nursery Rhymes. This week’s reading really had a lot of surprises. Not bad ones, good ones of course. I thought that I would know most of them and know most of the lines. However, I was way wrong. There were many new nursery rhymes that I have never even heard of. This was a great way to learn new ones. Also, I learned new and different versions of previous nursery rhymes that I thought I knew. I was also reminded of many that I did not know the entire nursery rhyme.

This reading was very fun and entertaining. It is easy to read and of course easy to understand. I would suggest this reading to anyone who wants a reminder of their childhood or even just an easy kid related read. There are many nursery rhymes in each section. Laura did a great job of separating them by songs, riddles, games, and etc. This made it fun to be able to read all the riddles in one section and the same goes for all of the other sections. In the section itself, the stories were very well organized and it was easy to tell when one story begin and ended.

I really enjoyed this unit overall. The format of this unit was wonderful and very easy to follow. Everything stated about the unit is helpful. I like how you did mention that there would be ones that we have not read before. I knew this before reading the unit. However, I was still surprised on how many I have never heard of.

This unit was one of my favorites so far. I learned so much more than I thought I could from nursery rhymes and I even learned some to pass on to others.

Great unit!

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Essay: Tejas Legends

This week I read the unit Tejas Legends. I was very impressed with this unit. Each story was unique and interesting to read. The titles of the stories caught my attention and I believe that this helped me keep reading. I read the entire unit in one day, instead of breaking it up. This unit I was really able to see the connection between the stories and the Native American culture with an emphasis on Texas. All of the stories did a good job of incorporating some part of Native America. This could have been the animals involved, where the setting was located, and even things that are unique to their culture. Most of the stories had a positive overall theme. This was the part that I really enjoyed. The stories focused on the nature. Therefore, the main characters of each story were normally an animal and a plant. I enjoyed how they drew relationships between the animals and plants. 

Texas Picture

This unit is a good unit for most people. The language that the stories are told in is easy to understand and follow. There is imagination in each story. Plants and animals are able to talk and have personalities. None of the stories were confusing to me. Each story has some notes from Laura. These notes help explain what the story is going to be about and even provide a little more background information. The notes are extremely helpful and add wonderful information. I would suggest this reading to anyone.

All of the information given about this story provided on untextbook is accurate. I do not believe that anything needs to be added to this unit. It is a great unit full of wonderful stories and a lot of background information about Native America. This unit is in my top 3 or 4 of the semester.  

Essay: South African Folktales

South African Folktales

This week I read, South African Folktales. These stories are a lot different than the fables and tales that I have been reading in the past. However, the one connection that I can draw from all of the readings that I have done this year, except week 1, all have animals as their main characters. I think that this really makes the stories interesting and brings the animals to life. In this unit, I liked how many animals were brought into single stories. In all of the stories combined, I bet that there were 15 animals mentioned. This makes the readings more fun because you are not just reading about the same two animals.

In this unit, I was able to connect the stories to the background of Africa. In the past, I was relying on the notes provided to do this for me, but this week some of the connections were made a lot clearer. For example, The dance for water, was very easy to connect back to African culture. I believe that there is no extra background information needed for this unit. Most of the stories were very straight forward and were easy to understand. There was however, one story that I had to read more than once to understand. This does not mean that it needs notes, because it could just be how I read it the first time.

Overall, the readings for this unit are very easy and not boring. This unit is suitable for most people. The information given about this unit is very accurate and helpful in choosing a unit. I do believe that you can decide if you are going to like this unit or not by the information provided on the first page.

Another thing that I noticed in this unit that I enjoyed was the pictures. All of the pictures provided

for each story really did a good job of representing the story overall. They helped in picturing what

was going on. 

(African Animals)

Essay: Western African Folktales

This unit was a little different than the past couple of units that I have read. I enjoyed this unit however. I believe that the notes provided were really helpful. The notes left a good background for the stories. In the story, How the Tortoise got its shell, the notes were extremely helpful. I would have never know that chief Mauri was God, Fida was Friday, Mr. Klo was the tortoise, or Koklovi was the chicken. Therefore, the notes played a big role in being able to understand the story.

I believe that everything that we needed to know about this unit was provided. The story length was accurate, as well as the language was easy to read. (The notes helped on certain characters).  If you enjoy titles that make you want to keep reading to find out what the story is really about, then this is the unit for you. All of the stories do use a big imagination, which I believe is what makes them interesting.

My favorite story has to be either how wisdom became property of the human race or How the Tortoise got its shell. Both of the stories, I wanted to read right away after reading the title. The title kind of left a big door open. I was impressed with both stories and how they turned out.

My least favorite story in this unit was the leopard and the ram. I feel like the first paragraph makes you think the story is going to be completely different than it was. I think that this story could have had a more exciting story line that made readers want to keep reading.

Overall, I enjoyed this unit, but it was not my favorite unit of the semester. The untextbook for this unit was easy to follow and everything was very well organized. The notes were not too much throughout the unit, they were very helpful. 

Western African Folktales

Western Africa

Essay: Bidpai

Bidpai
The geese and the tortoise
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The unit that I read this week was GREAT! All of the stories were very entertaining and easy to read and follow. This unit had similar stories to the unit that I read last week. I am starting to notice some overlap in stories, especially the one about the tortoise and the geese. I believe I have read that story three different times. Each time they have been somewhat different, but the same storyline. The wording and how the story was told varied unit to unit.

This unit would be a great read for pretty much anyone. The stories are not too long, and they all involve an animal as the main character. Therefore, if you love animals then this would be a wonderful unit for you to read. If you have noticed, most of the units that I have read have involved animals. Also, all of the stories have great story lines and themes. This makes storytelling easy and fun. You really get to use your imagination and let the animals tell the story. The themes are also fun to use. They let you really take your storytelling in any direction that you would like to.

The untextbook for this unit was very organized, just like all of the other units. The information provided for the unit is very helpful and accurate. The notes that were provided on a few of the stories were helpful. These notes provided background information for the story and even some extra information about other stories that were similar. The notes provided are always great and I really enjoy them. They help me understand the stories and their relation to the overall unit. I do not think that there are additional notes needed for this unit. It was very well written and easy to understand.  

I would suggest this unit to others and it does not need anything added to it.

Essay: Jataka Tales (Babbitt)

Jataka Tales (Babbitt)

I was very impressed with this unit. I really did enjoy the readings. I hope that I am able to read more units like this one throughout the semester. I liked how each story was easy to follow, the main character were animals, and that most of the stories had an overall theme.

My favorite story from this section was The Turtle who could not stop talking. I have actually read this story before, so it was very familiar to me. However, I am still trying to figure out where I read it. Another story that stood out to me was Beauty and Brownie. First off, the title was very catching because unlike the other stories you could not tell who was going to be the main character. This story was also very practical since it had to do with deer and hunters.

I believe that this unit and the unit I read in week 3, Aesop (Winter), were similar in the fact that they both had animals as the main characters. There can be many connections made between these two units. I also feel that some of the stories could even overlap some. The themes of the stories in both units are both very practical. However, in this unit you had to figure out the theme, while in week 3, there was a sentence stating the overall theme of the story. 

This unit is very well organized and written. I do not believe that they are additional notes needed because each story is easy to follow. I would suggest to add some color pictures in the stories, since they are all black. This would add some excitement to the reading. All of the background information provided for this unit was very helpful. Even though, there are not storytelling ideas for this unit, I believe that these stories are easy to add your own thoughts to.

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Essay of Cupid and Psyche

This week I read Cupid and Psyche. I actually really enjoyed this unit. It was fascinating and very unpredictable. For example, I did not see Psyche’s sisters asking her to kill her husband, Cupid. Yes, there were parts that were hard to understand. However, I believe that was just the language it was in. The notes provided for each section were really helpful. I especially enjoyed the links to learn more about what was in the section. For example, the section of The Sleep of the Dead, had a link to Wikipedia about the famous Greek mythological character Pandora. I have never heard of Pandora until this section. Therefore, I enjoyed learning something new and learning about Pandora. 

If you are unsure if you want to read this unit, I would read the notes provided for a couple of the sections to see if you enjoy what is going on. There are a lot of Greek God’s mentioned throughout. This could be connected to other units that have the same Greek God’s. However, since this is the first unit of the semester, I am not sure what exact sections can relate or connect to this unit. 

Overall, I thought that this unit was very interesting. I was surprised with how the story went. The best part of the unit was that, I could not predict it. Of course, I had a favorite story. In all of my blog posts this week, I feel like I mentioned the section of Psyche's Husband Revealed. I really enjoyed this section; it kept me wanting to keep reading and reading to find out what was going to happen next. I was ready to know what her husband really looked like. It also was very descriptive and I could imagine them both in my mind perfectly. I also, loved The Wedding Feast. I love reading about happy endings, and of course they lived happily ever after. 

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