Week 2 Review

For this weeks review, my favorite item from the announcements today was from "Mythology Words in English." The word was Narcissist and was taken from the character Narcissus in Ovid Metamorphoses. The reason I chose this particular section from the announcement today was because I actually did my Reading Diaries from the Ovid I unit. I had always known of the story of Narcissus, but I had never read about it until now. I also had known that the word Narcissist was derived from Narcissus but I didn't know why. It was interesting to finally read about the story and how he fell in love with himself by looking at his reflection in the water. It was cool to be able to relate my readings to the announcements post and I hope you guys get a chance to read the story, too!

Narcissus
Source: OU Class Announcements

Reading Diary B: Ovid's Metamorphoses

Link to the unit can be found here

Echo

• Narcissus - was desired by many young girls but he had too much pride so none of them affected him. Narcissism*?
•  Juno made Echo's voice to repeat the last words many times
• Echo loves Narcissus, only repeated what he said last
• Narcissus runs from her and Echo retreats, hurt, and sad
• Hides in woods, only heard not seen

Narcissus

• Sees his reflection in water and automatically falls in love with himself
• Obsessed with himself
• Dies, becomes a flower ("white petals surrounding a yellow heart").

Pyramus and Thisbe

• Pyramus and Thisbe live right by each other
• Babylon
• A sort of forbidden love between the two
• A wall separated them
• *Romeo and Juliet*
• Pyramus thought Thisbe was eaten by a lion and killed himself with his sword 
• Thisbe sees him and then kills herself with the same sword

Mars and Venus

• Vulcan and Venus
• Venus and Mars caught in the "husbands craft"

Perseus and Andromeda

• Medusa - the blood drops from her head dropped and the earth turned them into deadly serpents
• Strength of Atlas
• Atlas turned into stone by Perseus and Medusa's head
• winged sandals

Perseus and Medusa

• Beast
• Perseus defeats the beast and takes Andromeda as his wife.
• Ethiopian princes
• feast and celebration
• The story of Medusa* "once was most beautiful..of all her beauties none was more admired than her hair..."
• Her hair was chained into foul snakes  - Neptune violated Medusa
• "to terrify her enemies"

"The snake head of Medusa on Athena's aegis"
Source: Mythfolklore Blog

Reading Diary A: Ovid's Metamorphoses

Link to Ovid's Metamorphoses Unit here

Deucalion and Pyrrha

• Last survivors of the flood, married to each other.
• Phocis separates Aonia from Oeta.
• Deucalion and his wife landed in Mount Parnassus in a small boat
• Triton blows the conch to signal the rivers and streams to return and clear the earth.
• Deucalion and Pyrrha were told by the goddess to throw stones behind them. These stones turned into humans as to restore the human race.

Lo

• Jupiter (bad) turned Lo into a heifer and lied to his wife (vengeance seeking) about her. 
• Argus - had a hundred eyes around his head, kept watch on Lo
• After seeing herself in water, she was terrified and fled
• Mercury, Jupiter's son, is ordered to kill Argus. He uses his wand to close all of Argus' remaining eyes and kills him.
• Lo** turns back into a human. Lo - shy, innocent, afraid

Phaethon and the Sun

• The Palace of the Sun*
• The seasons all represented as people with details relating to their respective seasons.
• *icy Winter
• Phaethon seeks his father, wanting to be of some sort of royalty. Asks a lot of his father early on
• wants to ride the chariot (dangerous)

Phaethon's Ride

• Phaethon-naive, childish, danger-seeking 
• Regretful of his decision; fearful
• The Earth is engulfed in flames and many cities and people destroyed.

The Death of Phaethon

• The daughters of Clymene are turned into trees
• Cycnus turns into a bird

Callisto

• A second victim of Jupiter, gives birth to a boy
• Juno turns her into a bear out of anger and humility
• She and Arcas were turned into constellations

Semele

• Gives birth to Jupiter's child
• Was consumed by the fire of her gift
• The child was ripped from the mother and sewn on to Jupiter

"Jupiter and Semele, by Gustave Moreau"
Source: Mythology and Folklore Blog / Wikipedia

Growth Mindset

Before joining this course I had not heard about Carol Dweck or the growth mindset before. Therefore, it was a very new topic to me. I liked what Dweck had to say and I agree with her. I think students are getting more praise for getting the correct answer than the process leading up to the correct answer. Sometimes, students can easily find the answer online or get it from a friend. The challenge and road to getting to the answer is far more important because it helps to truly know how to do something and can lead to more creative thinking. When we start praising students for working through a tough problem instead of just seeing that they got the correct answer, that's when we're really leading them to achieve more. In high school, I felt like this issue was the case, too. Certain assignments seemed too easy to do. It felt like students were given just the very basics of how to do specific problems and then before you know it, it was on to the next subject.

Coming to college was a wake-up call for me. Here, I believe I have more of a growth mindset than I ever did before. With mostly all of my classes, in order to succeed, I know I have to honestly try at the subject. I have to sit down and do a lot of practice problems that weren't assigned to me. This method has helped me tremendously. Doing the practice problems switches on a light bulb for me in such a way that I really understand how to do something, why I'm doing it, and how it relates to a number of other things. I reward myself for working through a challenge more than I do for the final product.

Every semester I try to go in with a more determined mindset than the semester before, so I'm ecstatic to learn more about the growth mindset and how it can help me in some of my other difficult classes. I feel like it's sort of a recipe for success in more ways than one. I hope this tool will also help me stay more on top of things and not get behind! :-)

"I drive my own learning"
Source: Growth Mindset Memes

Week 1 Curation

Bookmarking is one of the most useful organization tools online. I use this curation tool pretty often to save ideas, put together shopping lists, and mark websites that I want to come back to. I have a number of folders for everything which makes it ten times easier to find when I'm read to return to the websites. Another way I organize ideas is creating many folders in my pictures, documents, etc. area. It confuses me to just have random documents and pictures listed/displayed in my computer so I like to organize everything into a specific folder.

Aside from that, I am familiar with Twitter, Pinterest, and more recently, Known. I use all three of these now and I think they are also great curation tools. I think Pinterst is an especially good one for curation because you can "pin" pictures and ideas in a folder and have everything organized to your liking.

Every one of these tools listed above really helps me to stay organized online and I hope to find even more curation tools in the future!

A Few of My Most Used Bookmarks!

Storybook Favorites

The first storybook that I looked at was Holiday Spirit. Right off the bat, I had an idea that the main topic would be about holidays. At first, I thought it would be just about Christmas but after reading the introduction I came to find out that it is about Christmas as well as Thanksgiving and Valentines day. I like how the introduction is formatted in such a way that in each of the three paragraphs, the writer gave background information on the particular holiday, and then explained how their story relates to the holiday. It also shows how they took the holiday stories and put a twist to it which interested me into wanting to read the writer's stories. The design of the storybook webpage is nice. It is easy to navigate and isn't confusing which I think is important. Above each story is a picture relating to each holiday. I think that gives the page an extra creative touch because it's always nice to have a visual image that automatically grabs your attention.

The second one I looked through was Gossips of the Glass House. I wasn't sure what to expect from the title, but I was intrigued to find out more about it. The introduction, to me, is really good. It is kind of both an introduction and a sort of prologue. Either way, it had me very interested to read the other stories. Not only that, but the layout of the website stands out to me. The color scheme is nice; it has soft colors and they all compliment one another. I also like the arrow pointer when you highlight a section in the sidebar. I can see myself doing something like that on my portfolio/storybook!

Lastly, I came across one called Happily Ever After? A Prince's Perspective. From the title, I figured the story would have a negative ending. I also thought that the story could be built off of a Disney princess movie. From the introduction, it is revealed that it's about Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty, and Rapunzel. However, it's not all like the original stories. The twist is that all of these couples turn out to be unhappy in their relationships. I'm curious to see how that turns out, especially since all of these stories are centered around there being a happy ending for the protagonists. I think one of my favorite aspects of the design is how on the very front page, there is a picture of an unhappy Snow White trying to take care of her and Prince Charming's children while he relaxes on a couch. It really gives more of a hint to what the stories will be about.

Snow White and Prince Charming
Source: ImNotObsessed

Week 1 Storytelling: The Downfall of the Conceited Jackdaw

Somewhere far away there was a wide open space of land, with two large trees that were set close to each other. In one tree an Eagle was calmly resting with her children in his nest. In the other tree, a Jackdaw was also in his nest. The Eagle and the Jackdaw never got a long as the Jackdaw always attempted to cause trouble with the Eagle. He would challenge him, pester him, and cause all sorts of mischief. Even though the Jackdaw was smaller than the Eagle, he had a huge attitude.

On one cloudy day, the Jackdaw flew the short distance to the Eagles' tree where he and his children were minding their own business.

"Hey! Are you up for a little fun today?" the Jackdaw eagerly asked the Eagle.

The Eagle took a deep sigh and said, "Not today, Jack, not today. I'm really not up for it."

"Oh, come on. It's just a fun little challenge. Hear me out. I'm betting you can't go over there and pick that lamb up. I bet you're too weak just like everyone thinks you are!" said the Jackdaw. "I, on the other hand know I could easily pick it up!"

"Jack, I don't care. I don't want to do your little challenge."

"Ha! If it's so little then why not do it? Is it because you're too weak? Are you afraid of some competition? Are you afraid I will show you up?"


Usually the Eagle wouldn't give in to the Jackdaws numerous antics and challenges, but today he was fed up and decided to go about things differently in order to hopefully make living where he did calmer for both him and his children.

"Fine," the Eagle exclaimed.

The Eagle flew over to the lamb and easily picked it up. Seeing this, the Jackdaw scoffed and said:

"Pfft, that's nothing. That's too easy! Let me show you how it's really done. Let me show what real strength looks like"

The Jackdaw spotted a ram nearby and believed he could pick it up. He flew over to the ram and attempted to lift it. He pulled and pulled, but ultimately failed. Not only that, but he was stuck!

The Eagle, laughing, swooped up the Jackdaw and flew back to his nest where his children sat waiting for their father's return. The children saw their father with the Jackdaw and grew curious.

"Did you teach him a lesson, father?" one of them inquired.

"I sure did, son, and I hope you all will learn something from this as well."

"Western Jackdaw"
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Authors Note:

"The Eagle and the Jackdaw" is a fable telling the story of a Jackdaw who believed he was much stronger than the Eagle. He saw how the Eagle was able to pick up a lamb and thought he could do better. Therefore, he tried to pick up a ram but couldn't. Instead, the Jackdaw got caught up in the wool of the ram and the Eagle clipped the Jackdaw's wing, took him back to the Eagle's nest, and made a mockery of him to his children. I decided to put more of a background to the story and give the characters more of a voice. The way I remade it, readers can see more of the Jackdaw's vanity and how he got himself into that mess and how the outcome came to be what it was.

Bibliography:

"The Eagle and the Jackdaw" by Asop, from The Asop for Children (2006). Web Source: The Project Gutenberg Ebook