Online Education Review

My experience with online education at OU has been solely through this class and one other last semester. They work particularly well for me because I'm pretty involved outside of class, so not having a specific class time allows me to get work done without having to plan around anything. It's clearly been a positive experience for me because I'm actually taking another online class next semester (Online Programming). While it can sometimes be frustrating to have something due every single day, I think having items due at the least on a weekly basis helps keep students accountable and prevents us from falling too far behind. I know that I would have done better had all assignments lasted through the end of the week, because I get a lot of my homework done on the weekends. I wouldn't say this is a weakness because it kept me even more on top of my game, but maybe something to consider. It definitely depends when the subject is for me when considering an online class. I could never take a math-intensive course online because I have to work through the problems with someone, but for history or literature courses I think they work quite well.

Glad this wasn't me this semester

Gen. Ed. Review

I have had a generally good experience with Gen Eds at OU. I came into college with quite a bit of AP credit, so I was able to avoid the very lowest level of Gen Eds. However, the math classes I was forced to take actually led to me taking an additional 12 hours that weren't required in mathematics that will ultimately improve my chances of getting into graduate school. With the Gen Ed. Humanities specifically, last semester I took an online Native Authors of Oklahoma course as well that I think really helped to augment that very math and economics intensive course load I've been dealing with. That expanded my understanding of Oklahoma as a state, while this course has allowed me work with my creativity in a way that I'm not often able to. I really like the structure of the class, especially the way in which students don't have to do every single assignment and can instead pick and choose what works best for them. The reading opportunities are very diverse while still forcing students to get a sampling of literature from a variety of areas. I honestly don't have any suggestions. The only struggles I had this semester were tied to my own laziness, not any problems with class structure or content.

My feelings about the biological science with a lab class I'll have to take next semester

College Writing Review

I'm an economics major, and as such haven't had a ton of experience with writing in college. I came in with all of my English requirements covered by high school classes, so the real only classes I've had that have involved much writing have been through the Honors College. I took Politics of U.S. Economic Policy with Dean Ray and believe it helped me tremendously. We really focused on the purpose of our writing, making sure that the details we included were necessary to expand on the point we were making. This has lent itself well to the occasional research papers I have to write for economics. I've also worked with both the Oklahoma Group and Center for the Creation of Economic Wealth, and have that each of those has helped with my writing. The research we do and presentations we create really emphasize intentional use of language, which has translated directly to my writing. I would say the best part of my writing for this class has been the opportunity to be as creative or non-creative as a chose to be. On a personal level, I didn't particularly enjoy the weekly storytelling because I prefer to really dedicate a lot of time to my writing, and it was difficult to do that every single week on top of the Storybooks. That's definitely a personal preference though, and the extra credit made it so that I didn't have to write those blogs to still be successful.

Finals week feelings

Extra Reading Diary: Lang's European Fairytales II

This week I read from the Lang's European Fairy Tales II unit. In it, my favorite story was the two parts of the Seven Headed Serpent. These tell the story of a king and his people who arrive on an island, only to discover that it is ruled by a king of its own, a Seven Headed Serpent. This serpent promises to leave them alone so long as they pay homage to him every year. This required ten youths and ten maidens every single year. When they've finally had enough, the people learn how to kill the snake, and the King's son ultimately sneaks into his lair and kills him, freeing the land.

The Seven Headed Serpent

Lang's European Fairy Tales II

Reading Diary A: Lang's European Fairy Tales I

This week I read from the Lang's European Fairy Tales unit. I was initially drawn to it because I saw it included Puss In Boots, which is a personal favorite of mine, but ultimately found How the Dragon was Tricked to be my favorite. This is partially because I've always found myself interested in dragons, but also because the story was fun to read. It's about a young man who is forced to steal from, and ultimately capture, a dragon. The ways he tricks the dragon are very entertaining though I did find myself feeling bad for the dragon who didn't really seem to have done anything wrong. Overall, a very good story!

The dragon

Extra Reading Diary: The Brothers Grimm

For my extra reading this week, I finished the Brothers Grimm unit that I started with Reading Diary A. Of the second half of stories I read, my favorite was Eve's Unequal Children. The thing that initially interested me about it was that it didn't seem like it followed the typical plot of a Brothers Grimm story, which, at least in my experience, don't touch on religion much. In the story Adam and Eve are giving birth to children, with some of them being good looking and some being somewhat ugly. Eve learns that God will come to visit, and so she decides to hide her ugly children and only show God her good looking children. When God comes he proclaims that the children will become hugely successful, with some being princes, knights, and counts. After hearing this, Eve decides to show God her ugly children as well. Eve is surprised and dismayed when God declares that they will be a fisherman, a tanner, and a potter, amongst others. Eve is upset about this and questions God, but he explains that it is necessary for people to play all roles on Earth, else there will be no one to sow the food that the prince ultimately eats. All have different roles, but all are equally important. I really enjoyed this story because I thought the theme of equal value is an important one for people to learn. No matter how successful a person is, they still rely on other people in their day-to-day lives.

God with Adam, Eve and their children

Brothers Grimm (Ashliman)

Reading Diary A: Brothers Grimm

This week I read a story from the Brothers Grimm. I've always been a big fan of these stories because they're so interesting to read when paired with the more popular fairy tales that we all read as kids. I didn't realize that there were many others stories from the Brothers Grimm that weren't adapted into children's stories. My favorite that I read today was Old Sultan. It's the story of a dog - Old Sultan - who is getting old, so the father of the family decides to put him down. The wife talks him out of it, and so the dog hatches a plan with a wolf to interrupt a kidnapping of the family's child. After doing this, the mother and father love the dog again. When the dog refuses to let the wolf steal sheep in repayment, the wolf challenges Old Sultan to a fight. I won't ruin what came next. I really enjoyed this story because it was from the point of view of a dog, and it offered an interesting take on the negative outcomes that can come from laying with a wolf.

Old Sultan about to battle the wolf

Brothers Grimm unit

Extra Reading Diary: Aesop's Fables (English)

I read the second part of the Aesop's Fables unit for my Extra Reading Diary. My favorite story was Cats and Weasels because it was a very interesting contrast between a lot of the stories I'm familiar with. They offered an example of how back in this time the typical fable of the cat and mouse is actually the weasel and mouse. I thought that was a cool alternative to the Tom and Jerry story we're familiar with. They also discussed cats too, but that specific comparison made it stick out to me.

A man and his Weasel, who hunted the mice

Aesop's Fables (English)

Reading Diary A: Aesop's Fables (English)

This week I decided to read Aesop's Fables in the English version. I had previously read the Classical/Biblical versions, so it was interesting to see the contrast. The biggest thing I noticed was the form itself, with the earlier ones I read being structured as a story while the English versions were poems. I personally enjoyed the stories more just because I have trouble following poetry all that well. My favorite stories from the book came from Lions and focused on the experiences of Lions with man and other animals. It talked about the Lion and Man and their disagreements, as well as how the Lion cunningly separated the Bulls so that he could hunt them one by one, but my favorite individual poem was about the Lion and a Mouse. The Mouse wakes up the Lion while he's sleeping, but the Lion decides to let the Mouse live. Later, when the Lion is caught in a trap, the Mouse comes and rescues him to pay back the kindness. I enjoyed this because I'm a big fan of circular kindness like this.

The Mouse rescuing the Lion from a trap

Aesop's Fables (English)

Extra Reading Diary: Beowulf

For my extra reading, I completed the Beowulf unit. I really enjoyed the unit as a whole, and of the second half my favorite story was Battle With the Dragon. In this story, Beowulf goes to challenge the dragon. He is abandoned by all but one of his warriors, but fights nonetheless. He is able to use his shield to block the fire of the dragon, but his sword doesn't do any damage. They battle on like this, neither managing to damage the other, but both tiring. I really liked the description given in this story, both of the battle itself and each of the warriors.

Beowulf blocks the flame of the dragon

Beowulf

Reading Diary A: Beowulf

This week I decided to read the stories of Beowulf for my reading diary. I was especially interested in the stories Beowulf Lands in Daneland and Beowulf Comes to Heorot because the focused on the land of the Danes, Denmark. I'm actually 50% Danish with both of my grandparents on my dad's side being there, so it was especially interesting to read a story that involved Denmark. The story is about how Beowulf and his warriors arrive in Denmark on a mission to assist the king there. The king and his followers are harassed constantly by a demon named Grendel, and Beowulf is there to help. Upon arriving, they are greeted at the beach by a warrior of the king, who conveys them to Heorot. There they are welcomed and begin to learn about the terrible danger of Grendel.

King Hrothgar of Heorot

Beowulf

Reading Diary A: Blackfoot Stories

This week I read the Blackfoot unit, which focused on stories from the Blackfoot people. All involved animals in some way, but my favorite was The Wolf Man. In the story, a man has two wives who do very little to serve him. They don't cook or clean because they're too busy having a good time, and so the man decides to move them out away from other people so then women won't be distracted. They move and he continues to provide, but the women grow bored quickly. They decide to build a trap for the man and trick him into falling in a hole. When he does, they run back to the village and pretend he disappeared while hunting. What they don't realize, though, is that the man is still alive. He's dug out of the hole by a pack of wolves, and they use magic to make his head and hands like a wolf's. The man shows the wolves how to steal food from the humans, until he's finally captured and it's revealed that his wives had tried to kill him. I enjoyed the story because of the mix of supernatural and folktale. I liked that in many of the other stories as well, but I thought this story was particularly interesting because of the betrayal by the wives, and then the semi-betrayal by the Wolf Man in stealing food from people that used to be his neighbors.

What Wolf Man looked like, probably

Blackfoot Stories

Extra Reading Diary: Eskimo Folk Tales

My favorite story from the second half of the Eskimo Folk Tales was The Eagle and the Whale. It's the story of an Eskimo family with two daughters and a bunch of sons. The daughters are married off to a whale and an eagle, and live with them for a long time. They sons begin to miss the daughters, so they work on a plan to break them out. The first daughter escapes from the eagle using a rope, and then the brother shoot it with an arrow and kill it. The second daughter escapes from the whale using a boat, and the brother row away fast enough to escape. Ultimately the whale dies after beaching itself. I enjoyed these stories because they involved animals as well as creativity for the daughters to escape. Humans marrying animals is still a tad odd to me but I think I'm slowly adapting.

An Eskimo whaling ship

Source:

Eskimo Folk Tales

Reading Diary A: Eskimo Folk Tales

My favorite story in this unit was The Woman Who had a Bear as a Foster Son. I've always enjoyed stories about animals that get integrated into human life, which is essentially what this story is. A woman adopts a small bear, who grows older and stronger until he is a hunter for the woman and her community. It eventually gets to the point where he is too strong, and ultimately ends up killing a human. It's then that the bear is sent off in to the world, but not before the woman marks him with black soot so that he can be recognized. It was a bit of a sad ending in that sense, but at the end they reference that a bear with a black mark can be periodically seen hunting in the area.

Polar Bear

Eskimo Folktales

Commenting Review Week

I think I've definitely had a positive experience with the commenting system so far. It provides a good chance to get to know other students better, and helpful critiques and advice for the various writings we do. I think it will be most helpful with the Storybook writings because it gives a great outside perspective on the writing.

Every day of the week

Reading Review Week

I don't know that I have a far and away favorite set of stories so far, but I think if I had to pick one I'd select Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria. I'm personally a huge lover of animals so I enjoyed getting to read about adventures that involved them quite a bit. I think something that I noticed is that the stories I liked most weren't necessarily better overall, but they consistently had at least one story that I really liked. I think that was what distinguished them for me.

The story of the Elephant and the Tortoise was one of my favorites.

On the flipside, I don't think a single bad story really impacted my view strongly to the negative. The only set of stories I really didn't like were the Tales of Sindbad, and that was because I didn't really enjoy any of them. To me that suggests that I at least would prefer a variety of themes and ideas in a set of stories, because it's unlikely I'll dislike many of them and there's a good chance that I'll find one that makes the whole set stick out to me!

Reading Diary B: South African Folktales

To start, I was slightly confused by The Dance for Water. I believed it was earlier in this unit that I read another story that was almost exactly identical. The Dance for Water is a story about how all the animals but the Hare dance to get water, and it actually works. Then the Hare drinks the water even though he didn't dance for it any everyone's upset. So they decide to have the Tortoise hide at the edge of the pond and make his shell sticky, so that when the Hare came he would be stuck to the Tortoise's shell. In the previous portion of the unit, The Story of a Dam tells a similar story concerning Jackal, one that ends with Lion determining the punishment will be spinning by the tail and dashing Jackal's head against the rocks. In the second story, the punishment is taking Rabbit's tail and dashing his head against the stones. I found this close parallelism in consecutive stories interesting and a little confusing. Outside of that, I again enjoyed the second half of this unit, though there were no stories that really stood out to me like Tink Tinkje did in the first half.

Citation:
South African Folktales

Rabbit tracks in the sand

Reading Diary A: South African Folktales

First, an overall comment. I enjoyed these stories quite a bit but was somewhat frustrated with them. The Lion loses to the Jackal in basically every single story. I know that this is a shout out to being cunning and clever and manipulative, but the Jackal was also pretty clearly a terrible creature. I'm boring and prefer a story with a moral message that I approve of, so that was somewhat discouraging. On an individual level though, I thought the stories were quite good. My favorite was Tink-Tinkje, which is a story about the competition between the birds of South Africa to be named King of the birds. There is a lot of disagreement on what the actual competition should be, but ultimately they decide that it will be whoever can fly the highest. This seems rigged from the start, because it's openly acknowledged that the Vulture can fly the highest. But they compete anyways, and just when the Vulture thinks it has flown the highest, the Tink-Tinkje appears from beneath its (the Vulture's) wing and declares that it has actually flown the highest. I did enjoy this show of cunning to outwit a physically superior animal, which is interesting because it is somewhat a parallel of the situation between the Jackal and the Lion. That further reinforces for me the idea that the message of a story has quite a bit to do with whether or not I enjoy it.

South African Folktales

Tink-Tinkje Bird

Reading Diary A: Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria

Topic: The stories I focused on in this unit were The Fish and the Leopard's Wife and The Elephant and the Tortoise. Each of these stories is intended to explain natural phenomena that occur with animals in Africa. The first tells the story of the Fish, who was banished to live only in the water after taking part in an affair with the Leopard's wife. The Leopard and the Fish are good friends, so the Leopard asks the King to handle the punishment. This punishment is to be allowed to live only in the water, and to be killed if the Fish comes on land. The second story, explains why the Elephant has such small eyes. The Elephant used to eat so much food at feasts that other animals couldn't get their fair share. So, the Tortoise tricks the Elephant into trading each of his eyes in exchange for more food. After realizing he has been tricked, the Elephant talks the Worm into giving him his eyes. For this reason, the Elephant has small eyes and the Worm is blind. This was the general theme of all the stories I read in the unit, creating an explanation for the characteristics of the various animals in Africa.

Table of Contents:
Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria

Elephant eye

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