Week 8 Reflections

(Lightbulb: Web Source)

The reading notes were helpful. It required me to take notes and think of possible stories. And I like the choices I’m making in readings because I get to understand and know about different stories. However, I guess I am not reading like a writer. I don’t think of the project and weekly reading at the same time. I usually keep them separate from each other. I start the weekly readings in the beginning of the week and the project during the weekend.

I would like to add, this cycle of finding what you like from a story to make my own story is affecting activities aside from this class. When I was watching TV, I thought “This is how the story should go,” “What if this happened,” or something like that. I like it, but I did not know how much this would impact my life.

Some of the reading options I would take for the next weeks are:

• 9-10: Native American Marriage Tales and American Indian Tales
• 11-12: English Tales and Canterbury Tales
• 13-14: Brothers Grimm’s Librivox and La Fontaine

These caught my eyes among the others. Also, the crystal ball on the bottom of the posts helped greatly.

As I look at my stories, I am happy with what I have written. I believe that I progressed. My first story was not as great as it could have been. Then, as I started to read the others' stories, I realized that I was not limited to writing. Therefore, I added in more imagery and descriptions for my later stories. However, now, I feel like I need to write more and write differently. I need to progress further.

For my storybook, I am happy with my choice. With the appropriate research, I was able to be confident of what I will write. I had to consider what I could do to write a balanced amount of content. I was able to find three to four stories that dealt with golden apples. However, I decided to write about three of them only. I will leave the last story for the young apple’s anecdote, which will include an idea from the instructor, King Midas.

There are some storytelling experiments I want to try. It’ll be refreshing and a new experience to try them. I want to add a little poetry, a script, or time travel. There are endless options to choose. A writing skill I want to master is using more vocabulary. There are different ways to say “said.” I don’t want to continue writing “he said” or “she said.” So, I’ll use a thesaurus to figure out a list of options to say “said” and other words.

When I look at other people’s stories I admire their creativity and the flow of their stories. It is amazing to read and become infused in their stories. There are really no habits or tendencies that I have seen in other stories that I would avoid. People are doing their best in writing, and I appreciate their creations. I think I do a good job in giving feedback. It’s not the best though. I don’t really want to criticize their stories too harshly. To provide better feedback in the second half of the semester, I may research more about giving feedback and continue using the three Ws (Wow, I wonder, and What if).