[Week 15] Writing for this Class

At the beginning of this class, I was very insecure about my creative writing abilities. I wouldn't say I'm great at it now, but I definitely think I've improved. Even if I can't write things beautifully, I learned enlightening things about the technical aspects of creative writing. I can pick out stylistic errors I didn't recognize before, and I can throw them in when I want to add more interest. The little lessons along the way have taught me a lot and I'm really happy with how much I've managed to take away from this class!

As far as comments go (especially for storybooks/writing portfolios), I'm used to giving constructive criticism but I wasn't sure how far I should go. I usually gave people a few tips on things they could change and then lightened up, but a lot of the comments that I got were just praise. I really love constructive criticism myself, but I know some people find it difficult so I wasn't really sure what would be appropriate. I think a little guidance in that area would be nice. In my graphic design class, we had to give "sandwich" advice. We'd say one thing we like, one thing they could change, and another thing we like. It may sound a bit "grade school," but I think that kind of format would help. 

Looking back on the semester, I suggest that students who struggle with writing do a little reading for fun in their spare time. I would take note of sentences that I thought were well-formed or unique in some way and try to use that to inspire myself to do something interesting with my writing. Staying on top of the assignments in order to minimize stress also helps. 

I would love to see myself doing more writing in the future. I have so many ideas in my head that I'd like to get down on paper (or "paper" since it would be on a computer), but I'm not sure if I'll have the time or even the confidence to approach it. But I'm going to try!

[Week 13] Essay - Philosophy of Learning and Teaching

(image from Paul Joseph on flickr)

While I don't know much about teaching and learning in general, there is one area in which I've done extensive research: the mandatory learning of the Irish language in Irish schools. Having been taken over by English, the Irish language has been in decline for many years now. In attempt to revitalize the language, a law was put into place requiring students to take Irish classes in school and to have a certain amount of proficiency in the language by the time they get out. According to research I've done and articles I've read, few students actually benefit from mandatory classes.

In general, I believe it's unnecessary and harmful to force students to "learn" something. I say "learn" with quotation marks because in many cases they don't even learn anything, they just cram in order to pass tests and get a decent grade. Requiring students to learn a language adds extra stress to their already stressful school lives which zaps them of interest they would have had for it. And when it comes to learning a language, motivation is key. 

For my senior essay, I surveyed 40 Irish people who are or had been students in Irish schools. Some of them went to all-Irish language schools, so the language wasn't really a subject to them, it was just a fact of life. Those people tended to have a much more positive outlook on the language and were far more fluent. Students who went to public schools where English was the language of instruction were more mixed. Many of them were very passionately against Irish purely because of the way the revitalization efforts have caused more stress in their lives.

Overall, everyone seems to agree that the best way to get students to learn is to make it something they actively want to learn. As more popular television shows and books become translated into Irish, young people's interest in learning the language is increasing. But if government officials and teachers continue to force it on them, I'm afraid the youth's contempt for the language will grow stronger. 

[Week 13] Reading Diary - Andersen Fairy Tales

The Princess and the Pea

-In order to find out if a girl is really a princess, a queen puts a pea under her bed. When the girl wakes up in the morning aching and complaining about how badly she slept, they know that she is a real princess.

The Emperor’s New Suit

-A superficial emperor who is obsessed with clothing is swindled by people who tell him that they will make him clothing that is only visible to people who are smart enough. Although he can't see the cloth himself, he pretends he can so that people don't think he's stupid. He ends up "wearing" the clothes in public but just walks around naked.When a child speaks up and points out his nudity, the whole crowd realizes he really didn't have anything on.

The Brave Tin Soldier

-A tin solider spends his days vying after a paper doll lady. One day he falls out of a window and ends up being put on a boat by two boys. He ends up going on an adventure (that includes getting swallowed by a fish) before finding his way back home where he is thrown into a stove. The paper doll ends up flying into the stove also and burns.

The Wicked Prince

-A greedy and cruel prince lives comfortably and prosperously. God tries to stop him but the prince declares that he will beat him. He builds huge airships to attack Heaven but is attacked by a gnat and defeated.

The Little Match-Seller

-A poor little girl desperately tries to sell matches. She gets cold and uses a match. Each time she uses one, she sees different comfortable things that go away when the match goes out. She sees her grandmother and goes up to heaven with her. The next day, the girl is found dead. 

[Week 12] Reading Diary - Celtic Fairy Tales

Celtic Fairy Tales

Connla and the Fairy Maiden

-A fairy comes to Connla and is chased off by his father's druid, but she managed to leave him with an apple. As he ate the apple, he fell more in love with her. Upon the fairy's return, Connla readily left with her against his father's wishes.

The Field of Boliauns

-A man meets a leprechaun and tries to force it into giving him a bit of his beer. When the leprechaun refuses, the man snatches him up and knocks over the pitcher on accident. He demands money instead and the leprechaun gives him instructions but ends up playing a trick on him.

The Horned Women
-A woman is terrorized by witches in the night. She does their bidding for a while but eventually a voice tells her how to get rid of them and then how to ward the house so that they can't get in again. She and her family are safe.

The Shepherd of Myddvai

-A man manages to persuade a beautiful water-dwelling woman into marrying him. The only stipulation is that if he hits her three times for no reason, she'll leave. He taps her a couple of times which she says counts toward the strikes. Then, he shakes her when she laughs at a funeral. She leaves and only comes back once to see her sons.

The Sprightly Tailor

-A tailor is asked to sew trews at night in a haunted church. He is visited by a monster that slowly rises out of the floor while he sews. The tailor refuses to stop sewing and when he finishes he runs away to deliver the trews. The castle door closed just in time for the monster to be kept out.

Munachar and Manachar
-This is one of those cumulative stories that are oh so common. Munachar is collecting things in order to get a gad to hang Manachar since he eats all of his raspberries. Honestly, I find these stories irritating.

Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree

-A queen is jealous that her daughter is more beautiful than she is. She tries to kill her several times but each attempt is thwarted. In the end, the queen's plan backfires and she is killed instead.

[Week 11] Reading DIary - Welsh Tales (Emerson)

The Fairies of Caragonan
-The fairy queen and her helpers cure a man who was cursed by a witch. In return she asks for a plot of land so that she can build a ring. She also asked for him to build three walls around it.
-The man is teased while chasing a hare and is once again cursed by a witch.
-They cure the cows of a man and in return ask for his son to help them.
-The fairies use a pole and a mirror to give the boy visions. From his visions, they decide they need to go hare hunting near the mill.
-The boy goes to the mill and manages to kill the witch.
-The boy once again is used for visions. He follows them and buys and old cupboard that turns out to be full of gold.

Three Short Tales of Fairies

Craig-Y-Don Blacksmith
-Fairies appear to a drunk blacksmith and tell him he needs to turn his life around. He decides to take their advice and sobers up. One day, a  man brings a horse to him to be shod, but it ends up running away and moving the cauldron in the process. While fixing it up, the blacksmith finds money.

Old Gyilym
-A man finds some money which turned out to be a gift from fairies. Instead of using the money to be cheese, he goes out drinking. Later that night he gets taken in as a guest at a fairy house. He is punished and when he goes home his wife is mad and tells him it's no wonder they punished him since he wasted their gift.

The Baby-Farmer
-A baby-farmer finds money but still pretends to be poor. She kept two kids in good clothes and two in bad clothes. A man asks to see the kids and she brings out the badly dressed ones. When she goes to look for the well dressed children, they were gone and had been turned into fairies.

The Old Man and the Fairies

The Old Man and the Fairies
-A man falls asleep and is taken by fairies and shown their world. When he falls asleep again, they put him back where they found him. When he wakes up, his bag is full of gold. His wife is curious as to where he got the gold and he ends up telling her. But when he looks in the box for his money again, it's all cockle shells.

Tommy Pritchard
-A boy keeps finding six pences on his way to school. His dad gets angry that he won't tell him where he finds them and threatens to beat him, so the boy tells him. The next time he goes to look, all he finds is a cockle shell.

Kaddy's Luck
-Fairies used to leave a girl money every night. When she grew into a woman and had a baby with her husband, she told him about the money they used to give her. The baby was made small and never grew as punishment.

The Story of Gelert
-A prince has a dog beloved named Gelert. After the house is attacked by wolves, Gelert goes missing. The prince goes into the house to find Gelert and his baby surrounded by blood. Thinking that Gelert had hurt his baby, he kills him. It turns out Gelert had been attacking a wolf that was in the house and had accidentally knocked over the cradle. The prince is very upset and a funeral is held for Gelert.

Origin of the Welsh
-A wild tribe trains large birds called Rohs that are very fast and strong. They use them in battle to beat the Persians. The Persian king asks a magician to find a way to get rid of the birds, and the magician decides that the best thing he can do is to turn them into fairies. Since the tribal people lost their birds and were being attacked by the Persians, they decided to travel more. Many of them ended up on the British isles and that's how they became the Welsh.

Crows
-A man retells a dream he had about seven black crows seemingly warning him of his impending death. After retelling the story and going home, the man finds seven crows on top of his house. The man later dies.

The Fairy of the Dell
-The Fairy Queen of the Dell cures bewitched people of their curses. She is asked by the witch who cursed them to forgive her so she does a ritual  to get rid of the devils and cleanse the witch. The witch is thankful and asks how she can help the queen. The queen gives the former witch the ability to help others and gives her the name Madame Dorothy. She becomes a famous care giver.

[Week 9] Essay - Reflection on my Writing

(Image of a frustrated tortoise from Oskarl Kettunen. I feel like this tortoise.)

I’d like to use this essay assignment to reflect on how my writing has changed throughout the semester. When I first started I was anxious because I hadn’t written anything (creatively) in so long. I quickly became more comfortable and felt like I had all kinds of fun ideas waiting to come out of my head. But then I suddenly lost that inspiration and I don’t know what to do now. I feel like my writing has become worse than ever and it’s pretty upsetting.

                

There are a couple of things I think I could attribute this lack of inspiration to. I’ve been feeling particularly stressed out lately and I’m not really sure why. Whenever I feel overwhelmed like that I tend to just break down and stop working like I used to. I also haven’t been reading stories that really appealed to me. Usually as I read a story will pop out to me and yell, “Write me!” But lately that hasn’t been happening.

                

I’ve been wondering how I can get myself out of this rut. I think to begin with I need to work up a little more confidence. I tend to put myself down for every sentence I write and it really slows me down. I should also start looking over the reading units more carefully to make sure the stories are something I’ll be interested in. In addition, digging through others’ stories and reading more in general would probably help. My peak in inspiration took place during a time in which I was reading a lot every day so there’s probably a connection.

               

Another factor for me will be figuring out how to manage my time better. At beginning of the semester I thought I’d be getting things done early. But instead I feel like I’m just barely getting by. I need to figure out how to prioritize and juggle my other classwork. Also I have to figure out how to not fall into a senioritis slump!

[Week 9] Storytelling - Atungait's Visit

Author’s Note: The story of Atungait left the biggest impression on me. Not because it was profound or especially beautiful in some way, but because this guy just ran into a village of disabled people and stole their toy for apparently no reason. No explanation was given. He did nothing with the toy in the story. I’m so confused. So I decided to attempt to write from the perspective of one of the villagers. For your reference, here is the explanation provided for ajangat: "a game played with rings and a stick; the 'ring and pin game.'"

(Inuit artwork from Wikimedia Commons)

We were surprised to get a visit from Atungait and his wife. Happy, even! Not many people would choose to spend time with a village of disabled folk. We are seen as the lesser people in society, so it’s rare to have able-bodied visitors. What we thought was a blessing turned out to be a disaster.

Atungait and his wife generally kept to themselves. They would come out of their tent for a bit when we all played ajangat. Atungait would stare at our ajangat with hunger in his eyes. Strange that he would be so obsessed with our toy, but I suppose it was very beautiful. As we’re all disabled, there is nothing we can do all day but play ajangat. Our ajangat means everything to us, and the copper one we have now is the village treasure. We have plenty of food and plenty of fur to keep us warm, yes. But without amusement life is dull, so although it is just a toy our ajangat means a lot to us.

One day while we were playing, Atungait stood to the side watching again with that look in his eyes. It made me uncomfortable. I told one of my friends about the way he looked at it. Instead of being worried, my friend became excited. He was proud that such a fine, able-bodied warrior would admire our treasure. I tried to tell others but they all had the same reaction. And so I gave up on my warnings and the game carried on.

We were all outside playing ajangat (as ususal) when we heard loud cracking sounds. We went off in a hurry to find the source of the noise, leaving the copper ajangat on the ground. Atungait was standing surrounded by the remains of our broken sledges with a hammer in his hand. He had destroyed our sledges! Upon seeing us, he immediately ran in the direction we had just come from. We followed and saw him snatch up our copper ajangat before jumping on to his own sledge and riding off into the distance. Many tried to follow, but to no avail. Our treasure, our only form of entertainment, was taken away from us.

Eskimo Folk-Tales by Knud Rasmussen with illustrations by native Eskimo artists (1921).