Week 10 Storytelling: Exposé - Nephew Tells All

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Nephew tells all
Imagine if your uncle, a man supposed to care for you and love you, instead only wanted to kill you and you had no clue why. That was the life of a young boy we will call "Nephew," as he wants to keep his true identity hidden for privacy purposes. He has come forward to tell us all about his struggles and divulge the once strictly-kept secrets of his childhood.

Before Nephew was even born, his family was plagued with a curse of an Uncle who let his jealously get the best of him when it came to his nephews. The two boys born to Nephew's mother only made it to a few years old before their Uncle took their life to make himself feel better about his own. The man became known as the "Unnatural Uncle" to his village when people started to notice his unnatural ways and the fate of his nephews; the people of his village felt uncomfortable around him and knew that something was wrong, but never dug any deeper into their gut feelings.

Even Unnatural Uncle's wife knew of his ways, but was too scared to confront him or tell anyone of what had happened. Instead she went to Nephew's mother when she learned of her third pregnancy and told her to pretend that Nephew was a baby girl; this worked for a couple of years until the gender was finally revealed to Unnatural Uncle.

This is where Nephew starts to remember the events of his life and tells us of the first time his Unnatural Uncle attempted to take his life. "He wanted to go and get some wood from the forest and I thought, what could be weird about that?" Nephew begins. "But he kept insisting that there was better wood father into the forest and we just kept walking. He asked me to retrieve something that fell into this really big log for him and all of the sudden I was inside the log and unable to get out. Somehow, I knew that he had left me there and I knew that I needed to get out." Nephew struggles to get out. But he takes a deep breath and there is a resolve in his eyes as he continues, "I had some cranberries with me and I remembered how my grandmother had told me that plants hated their sour juice. So I took a chance and spread the juice all over the inside of the log and all of the sudden it opened up for me to get out."

Nephew manages to escape and head back to his Uncle, who is shocked by his very presence. But the Unnatural Uncle does not stop there. He is angry and his pride has been wounded when he learns that his young Nephew was able to thwart him. He attempts on his Nephews life three more times, but each time Nephew is able to outsmart the trap and escape. Unnatural Uncle grows angrier and angrier each time Nephew escapes and even angrier so when Nephew becomes chief of their tribe. Nephew, unable to forgive Unnatural Uncle for how treats Nephew's parents over the years, tells Unnatural Uncle that he will spare his life only if he can swim across the lake. Because Nephew is chief, Unnatural Uncle is unable to deny nephew and attempts to swim across the lake but, lacking the knowledge and skill on how to swim, never makes it across.

If you ask Nephew, Unnatural Uncle deserved everything that came to him. And if you ask the majority of the village, they would probably agree with him. There is an element of karma that people are just unable to escape, no matter how hard they try.


Author's Note: I wrote this story based off of "The Jealous Uncle" from the Native American Hero Tales Unit. I kept to the plot of the original story, shortening it in order to keep the entire plot in one story. In the original story, all four attempts on the nephew's life are described, as is the way that the nephew kills his uncle. I decided to just describe the first attempt in order to keep the length down and because I thought it was the most important.
This week, I tried a new storytelling style by creating a newspaper story about the events that transpired the story and allowing the nephew to come forward and tell the story from his point of view. I really enjoyed writing this way and it made reading the unit easier, knowing what I was looking for and being able to decide if each story would be able to be applied to the storytelling style. I kept all of the dialogue within the paragraphs because that it how it would look in a newspaper, however it leads to pretty big paragraphs to read.

Image Information: Newspaper clipping image I created with "The Newspaper Clipping Generator" on Fodey.com (10-28-15)

Week 10 Reading Diary B: Native American Hero Tales

This is my second reading diary for the second half of Native American Hero Tales.

Lodge-Boy and Thrown-Away
The two boys grow up despite being thrown behind the curtain and in the stream. The mother wakes up and follows the boys back home. I didn't really understand the story as the concepts of death is much more fluid in Native American tales than in traditional English.

The Son-in-Law Tests
Wemicus is trying to trick the son-in-law but it keeps backfiring on him. This story wouldn't really work for a newspaper story

Dirty Boy
This reminds me of medical Europe and what you see often in princess movies, like Merida; a prince fighting for the marriage of a daughter through his marksmanship skills. The chief goes back on his word because Dirty-Boy is bed ridden. I like that the younger sister is rewarded for sticking by her sick husband, while the older sister must stay with her ugly husband.

Illustration of Native American fishers 

Image Source: Wikipedia

Week 10 Reading Diary A: Native American Hero Tales

I am trying something new this past week and I think from now on; I am going to try and decide on a storytelling strategy before I start my reading diaries and take notes over how I can apply that to how I am going to write my story that week.

This week my Reading Diary is for Native American Hero Tales and I think I am going to write it in a "newspaper front page article" format. I am really excited about trying to write this way!

Newspaper Image from Pixababy

The Jealous Uncle
The way that this story is starting out makes me think of an expose on the "Unnatural uncle." I could make it like he has been caught by authorities and this is his family speaking out about what happened. The third boy manages to thwart his uncle after he is left for dead, and is determined as ever to kill him.
I want to make the expose about the boy who managed to thwart the Unnatural Uncle

• He first is left for dead in a log, but uses his brain to think of a way out: he put the sour juice of a cranberry on the log and make it let him go
• The uncle pushes him down a cliff after asking him to gather some eggs, but the down of the feathers allows him to land softly and he ascends back up the cliff, eggs in hand.
• While trying to hunt for some clams, the uncle tells a calm to engulf the boy and it does. The boys cuts the inside of the clam to persuade it to open its mouth. 

Dug-From-Ground
I liked how this story started out, but I am not sure if I can apply it to a newspaper type story.

The Attack on the Giant Elk and the Great Eagle
Hero: Jonayaiyin - sent by the gods to relieve the humans of the attacks from the giant Elk, the Eagle and other giants

• He uses the coat of a lizard to disguise himself
• The gopher digs a whole for him to get to the heart of the elk
• The Eagle carries him to its nest and thinks that he is dead
• He kills the eagle and the eagles husband

Tech Tip: Blogger Design Template

Hey guys! This week I decided to change up the Design of my blog on Blogger and I explored the Design Templates! I love how many options that Blogger has to offer and that you can customize each one to fit your style and needs!

I really wanted to do the "dynamic" templates on Blogger, but they do not allow me to keep the labels to the right side of my blog, which is definitely something I need for this class!

I started with a "watermark" template design because I really liked that it had sort of transparent boxes and let the background image show through! The hardest part for me was choosing a background image for my blog that I thought fit the blog content, my personality, and allowed the text to be easily read by visitors! I ended up going with a simple purple/grey background with an orange and yellow flower to the right side!

Screenshot of the Watermark template choice and my background image choice

(October 26, 2015)

I also chose to customize the fonts and fonts colors under the "Advanced" option and really liked this because it gave me the option to make sure that everything could be read easily and add some personality and style to my blog! I chose a purple and lavender color font scheme so that it matched the background but still had enough definition that you could read it!

Ive changed my blog design several times, I think this is my 3rd or 4th time, but I am really happy with how this one turned out and the simplicity of it! I also really like the light colors of the blog versus the darker colors that I had before!

If you want to check out my new design, you can at annmarieandmyths.blogspot.com

Week 9 Essay: Setting and Landscape

This week I read from the Blackfoot stories, specifically mostly from the Kut-O-Yis hero legend, and noticed that the setting and the landscape were very important to the story. To set the scene in most of the stories, the location was identified by the rivers that are near that place; for example, in the beginning of the Kut-O-Yis story, the author begins with "It was long, long, ago down where Two Medicine and Badger Rivers come together, that an old man lived with his wife and three daughters." To a Native American hearing this story, probably orally from an elder, this description would probably conjure up an image of a specific place, even if they had not specifically seen those specific rivers.

Two Rivers Meeting 

Image Source: Wikipedia

One thing that I have learned in this class from reading many different myths and stories from different cultures, is that they way the setting and landscape is described often depends on that culture. Rivers are very important in the Native American culture, as are their natural surroundings and nature in general, and, therefore, stories often use rivers to describe the setting and landscape in their legends and stories. Rivers and nature are often featured in their spiritual belief and stories, showing just how important those features are. In an English story or fairytale, where rivers and nature are not as culturally or spiritually important, a river would most likely not be a main feature used to tell the reader where the story is taking place.

The variance is the description of setting and landscape by culture can make it difficult for a reader of another culture to get a bearing when starting a story. When I began to read the Kut-O-Yis story I couldn't really conjure up an image of the story because I have never seen a place where two rivers come together in my life. Not only that, but in the stories that I read growing up there often weren't descriptions of rivers to give me an idea of what the author of Kut-O-Yis is talking about. It is important for us to understand that our culture shapes us and our thoughts, even something as simple as understanding a setting of a story from another culture.

Week 9 Storytelling: The Blackfoot Psych Ward

Notes of Dr. Nina Hunt

October 12, 2015

Patient 3529

It seems that Patient 9's most recent delusions have revealed themselves over the course of this week's group therapy sessions. After reading the various Native American stories in the library during his free time over the past couple of weeks, patient 9 has convinced himself that he is the hero, Kut-O-Yis, calling himself Kut for short. For simplicity purposes, I will refer to patient 9 as "Kut" for the remainder of my notes. 

October 12, 2015 10 am Group Therapy Session

This week's session started off pretty normally: patient 6 began by explaining that 

"since I haven't heard the voices in FOREVER, I should obviously be released so that I can get back to my freaking life!" 

After I explained, once again, that she can't be released until she has completed her treatment and she subsequently rolled her eyes at me, I asked the usual Monday morning question: 

"How has everyone felt this weekend? Any changes you want to talk about?"

Kut immediately raised his hand and told everyone that he has discovered his "true self" and his "true identity" after a presence visited him. The presence apparently told him of a past life that he had been made to forget and the presence had placed him in this hospital for his safety. I decided that this might not be the best thing to allow him to ramble on about, so I told him he could continue his story tomorrow so that others could have a chance to share. He reluctantly quieted down and let others begin to talk.

October 12, 2015 7 pm Individual Therapy Session

I thought that now would be a good time for Kut to explore his delusions, without the others encouraging him, so that I can try and figure out what causes Kut's delusions and what I can do to help him face reality. It didn't take much prodding to get him started on his life story. 

"I was born of the blood, Dr. Hunt. I obviously dont remember the exact start of my life, but all I know is that my old father boiled a blood clot and there I was. My old mother pulled me out of the boiling water and no one knows how it was possible." 

He pauses and looks at me. I give him an encouraging nod that he can continue and he goes on.

"Soon, much sooner than it should have taken, I was a grown man. And boy was I strong. I learned that my brother-in-law abused my old parents and did not allow them to have any of the meat that my father helps kill! How can a man do that?! My father helped him kill it each time and my brother-in-law just keeps it all for himself! Well, obviously, I had to help my father; there are bad people in this world that do bad things and they need to be taken care of, Dr. Hunt."

He pauses again looks at me. I can see a true anger and betrayal in his eyes, but also a sense of power and self-assurance that I had never seen him possess before. I can tell that he truly believes that he did these things and that he made the world a better place. He continues with his story.

"I knew that my father needed to be the one to defeat him though; he needed to stand up to him like he had always wanted to. I took him hunting and once he had killed the buffalo, my brother-in-law made his way to the meat with a murderous look in his eye. I stayed hidden and coached my father through standing up to that evil man. Soon though my father became to scared that my brother-in-law would kill him so I stood up and I took care of him myself."

I decide to give into his delusions for a little bit to see where his feelings are at. I ask him, "How did it feel to avenge your father? To kill another man?"

He looks at me and with tears in his eyes says, "Dr. Hunt, I never knew that I was capable of something like that, but it felt good to balance the scales a little bit, you know? I knew the evil he had done and I knew that it was justified. But, I also knew that I had to keep going and make even more wrongs right for people who couldn't themselves."

He stops there and I knew that I needed to give him some time to tell me the rest; after all, these delusions are real things that happened to him and the feelings that he is experiencing are very real to him. 

October 12, 2015 General Notes

Kut has been a very different person today than in the past. He is much more caring (he is pulling chairs out for girls, helping the older ladies and gentlemen get things off the floor/high shelves, etc).

Maybe these delusions can be helpful until he comes to a point where he is ready to face reality.

Author's Note:

I wrote this story based of off Kut-O-Yis, The Blood Boy from the Blackfoot Unit. The original story tells of the old man who marries his daughters off to a strong young man who then asks him to hunt with him because the old man and woman have nothing after their daughters are gone. Soon though the son-in-law stops sharing his meat with the old couple and they begin to starve. The old man brings home a clot of blood from a buffalo after one kill and when he dumps it into the boiling water, a baby boy emerges; they call him Kut-O-Yis, or Clot of Blood. The next part of the story tells how when Kut-O-Yis grows to be a man he helps his old father kill his son-in-law. They kill a buffalo and when the son-in-law comes, Kut-O-Yis tells his father what to say to the son-in-law and they shoot arrows at each other until the father is too scared. Kut-O-Yis kills the son-in-law and punishes his sisters for turning away from their parents. 

I chose to write this story as if it is the delusion of a psych patient. I saw this on another story and fell in love with the idea and I loved how this story turned out! I wrote it from the perspective of the doctor taking notes on him because I wanted to add in her commentary on what he was saying to make him a more human character. I was going to write more of the story, he continues on a journey to kill 6 more bad characters, but I found myself writing more detail about just his birth and his first kill. I tried to write dialogue, but how you would see it in someone's notes, not necessarily being spoken out loud. 

Image Information:

Photo of Psychiatric Hospital in Michigan Image Source: Wikipedia 

Week 9 Reading Diary A: Blackfoot Stories

I think I want to do a psych hospital angle for my story this week, make the protagonist of the story actually be a psych patient that believes he is doing what the stories are saying he did. I am gonna write notes about how these stories can be integrated into that idea.

Two Fast Runners
I could make two patients be the deer and the antelope racing through the cafeteria and when the bet their dewclaws, it could be their hospital bracelets through the playground.

The Wolf Man
This story was sort of confusing. I dont think I would be able to apply it to the psych ward

Kut-O-Yis, The Blood Boy
This would be cool to start my story-- the patient telling of how he was born and where he delusions began. Maybe in a group therapy session, those would be cool notes

Next he will tell the group of how he helped his old father defeat his brother-in-law and saved him from starving to death.

He had decided to go on a journey after he knew that his parents were safe. There is a big bear near by that takes all the good food from the village for himself and his wife and children. When the bears came to take the meat, he slays all of them and saves the old woman.

The journey continues. Now a snake takes all of the good food. He reacts the same way and the old woman goes to live in the snake lodge.

Next he goes to find the woman who wrestles and kills men. He hurriedly defeats her with her own sharp stones and moves on. He sees a woman who tricks men to trip and fall over a cliff to their death. But he was much too clever for her and cuts the rope before she can trick him and she falls into the lake to be eaten up by fish.

Soon he finds a man-eater parading as a chief and goes to his lodge. He allows the man-eater to kill him and cook his bones. When a child sees the bones after he has eaten all of the meat, she asks for them and the man-eater obliges not realizing that Kut-O-Yis had made an arrangement earlier. Soon Kut-O-Yis arises from his own bones and destroys the man-eater.

Reading Plan

Here is my tentative Reading Plan for the next 6 weeks!

Week 9:
Blackfoot Stories
I think this could be really cool to do the psych hospital angle!!
Week 10:
Native American Hero Tales
Week 11: 
King Arthur
Could maybe really cool to do this in a Diary form story coming from either Arthur or one of his companions!
Week 12:
Alice in Wonderland
Week 13:
Brothers Grimm (Crane)
Week 14:
Grimm (LibriVox)
I am super excited to read the Brothers Grimm fairytales and see the differences! Everyone knows that the Brothers Grimm versions are much more graphic and sad, but I am excited to see just by how much!

Illustration from a Brothers Grimm book

Image Source: Wikipedia Commons

Tech Tip: Embedded Youtube

Hey y'all! This week I embedded a youtube video into my Introduction post and it was SO easy! All you have to do is click the video icon, next to the photo icon, when you are creating the post:

And then if you are using a youtube video, you click the "From Youtube" link and search the web address of the video you want to use:

A thumbnail should come up and then you select that and you are done!

Here is my youtube video!

Image Information: screenshots taken by me, October 2015

Week 8: Reflections: Looking Forward

I've already looked back at the last seven weeks of this semester and now I want to look forward at the rest of the semester!

Writing:
In the rest of the semester, I really want to work on writing in different styles than I typically do! I think that I have gotten stuck in the same ideas for the past couple of weeks without really going outside the box to look for ideas! One of my classmates stories was really cool, it was a myth retold as if the main character was in a psych ward and the story was his delusion! It really stuck me as cool and I really want to try something like that! I also tend to retell stories in a different point of view, which I like, but I think I should try some new things! I also want to start adding more dialogue to my stories, something I struggle with sometimes!

Reading:
As the semester moves on, I want to focus my readings on more what interests me and not as much on the first thing that catches my eye! I also am guilty of not doing Reading Diary A on Monday and only doing half units, which I am definitely working to change!

Interactions:
I  really like how my interactions are going and my only thing would be maybe to start trying to reply to the comments on my blog posts!

Time:
I need a lot of work in this category as the semester moves forward! I am not very good at sticking to a schedule, especially on days like Tuesday and Thursday because I do not begin class until 12:30 and I usually try to do my assignments in the morning. However, I tend to sleep in instead of getting up and doing my homework! I am going to try and block out time chunks each week to work on this class, rather than focusing on individual assignments that need to be completed!

Location:
I am pretty happy with varying the locations that I do this classwork, it keeps me interested!

Growth Mindset:
I am going to work on starting to do my growth mindset posts again, as I really enjoyed them! They were easy to get done and they really help me in my classes!

Curation:
I need to work on my curation skill, as I usually just keep everything open in different tabs and different windows of my safari right now! This really stinks when I have to restart my computer and I loose everything that was open.

Points:
Right now I have the amount of points needed to stay on track for an A at the beginning of next week! I need to work on doing all of the extra credit again and getting back ahead in this class, as I would like to finish early!

MOTIVATION:

Staying positive is half the battle in life!!

Image Source: AllPosters

Week 8: Reflections: Looking Back

During this post, I wanted to talk about what I have experienced in this class and what I have learned about myself.

Writing:
This class and the past eight weeks have really shown me how much I enjoy writing stories and how much it helps me relax during the week! My favorite story by far was from Week 3 based on Aesop's fables: http://annmarieandmyths.blogspot.com/2015/09/storytelling-week-3-kindergarten.html! I think my project is going really well, I like the concept and I really enjoy writing the stories for it. Sometimes it's hard to think of stories that can applied to the kindergarten age group with the morals from Aesop's fable!

Readings:
I like the readings, although that's what I find myself having trouble making time for each week, and my favorites have been the reading over Aesop's fables! It makes sense that I chose that for my project!

Interactions:
This is my first fully online class and it took me a couple of weeks to get used to the interactions with classmates online, especially in the commenting on each other's blogs! I do feel like I am getting to know the people in this class each week!

Time:
I think the hardest part about this class for me is time management, as without a physical classroom, sometimes I find myself getting behind! I am working on sticking to a more concrete schedule each week to make sure that I get all of my work done on time!

Location:
 I usually do this class wherever I have time! Whether it be my apartment, my sorority house, the library, or the building I hang out in between my classes, I typically work on this class wherever I can when I have time!

Growth Mindset:
I have been doing growth mindset posts, although not for the last two weeks, and I am really enjoying them! I definitely think that my mindset has changed in this class and I have been able to apply that to my other classes as well, which is so freaking cool!!

My favorite Growth Mindset picture I have found so far on Facebook!

Curation:
I don't typically do curation posts, but the few that I have done have taught me how to curate things better. I never thought I would have needed those skills, but they are proving helpful in my classes, especially when I am writing papers!

Week 7 Reading Diary A: Chinese Fairy Tales

This week I am reading from the second half of the Chinese Fairy Tales unit and I am really excited to see how they differ from the English fairy tales that I have read!

The Little Hunting Dog

• I love that the story starts with "Once upon a time"
• The imagery of the little soldiers and hunting dogs is really cool and way not what I was expecting at all! It could be cool to explore the small soldiers and dogs further 
• The ending of this story was really weird and kind of confusing, did he flatten and kill the little dog?

Fox-Fire

•  I think this would be a cool to retell in a super creative story telling style!
• Start with the ending of the story and then say 30 years earlier... like what suspenseful shows often do!

Meme I made with makeameme.org
• Start with him dying as he stares at the ball of fire above him and seeing the fox in his peripheral vision
• 
  
• Maybe add more conflict before he dies and more dialogue (since I tend to lack that in my stories)

The Talking Silver Foxes

• The different names were really confusing in this story! 

Retribution

• The old man killing the water-carrier was an odd twist
• The dialogue also doesn't make much sense in this story

The Night on the Battlefield

• The beginning kind of reminds me of the story of bethlehem because there is no room or food for the old man
• The story is interesting but I wold have to research it more to understand it better!

Storytelling Week 6: Discovering the Enchanted Mountain

The hunter was tired and had been tracking a large animal through the jungle for three days now; as soon as he got close, the animal would disappear without a trace, only to find a trail leading away minutes later. The hunter was frustrated, he was hungry, and he was exhausted.

Soon the hunter found himself at the top of a very lofty mountain and he wondered where he was. He had never seen the vines look quite like they did here and the air had a different quality to it, was it fresher or more clear here?

Then the hunter found himself in a clearing unlike anything that he had seen before; what was this magical place, he wondered? A mystifying smell hit his nose and he smelled the scent of oranges, sweeter than he had ever smelled before, and he wandered in the direction of that smell. He came to a tree with the largest oranges he had ever seen before and, slowly, he took one down and began to peel it. Surely this has to be too good to be true, he thought to himself.

But as the hunter bit into the fruit, he knew that it wasn't too good to be true and that he had found paradise. The magical tasting fruit made him very thirsty and he wandered over to the lake that he saw to his right. The lake sparkled in the light and was as clear as crystal; one could see all the way to the bottom and see all of the fish swimming around and playing with each other. He bent down to take a drink and as soon as the water touched his lips, he felt a new man. He was more awake and his brain felt as sharp as it had in his young adult years. As he stood, he immediately felt that his muscles were stronger and all of the aches and pains he once felt had suddenly disappeared.

Image of Split-Level Clear Lake in OR 

Source: Flickr

The hunter knew that he needed to tell his family and people of this magical place and so he went to the trees and gathered some fruit in his arms to bring back to share with them. He began to walk away, but as soon as he crossed through the vines away from the place the fruit disappeared from his hands. In that moment, the hunter knew that he would never be able to share this place with his people, as it was supposed to be only a refuge to those who need it.

Author's Note: This story was written based on the story The Enchanted Mountain from the Folklore of Loas Unit from Loas-Folklore by Katherine Neville Fleeson, with photographs by W.A. Briggs (1899). The story described a place, much like the Garden of Eden is described, that was a refuge for hunters within the jungle. The place could only be found by weary hunters and no animals could be killed there and no fruit could leave there. When I read the story, I thought of what the first person to discover this felt like and that what I decided to write my story on. I used a third person story teller point of view and tried to tell the story how I imagined the oral folk tale was told out loud. I used the words magical and mystical to describe how unexplainable the place was.