Essay Week 10: Nursery Rhymes

(Jack and Jill: Wikipedia)

For this reading unit I chose to read the nurseryrhymes.  I love all types of writing that is for children.  I think that this type of writing is creative and really fun to read.  A lot of the nursery rhymes I had heard before and I was excited to turn a favorite nursery rhyme like, Jack and Jill, or Rock-a-bye-Baby into a story.  However, I ended up choosing one I hadn’t heard before so it would be new to the readers also.  In this unit, I really liked that there were so many different groups of nursery rhymes.  My favorite group to read was the Love and Matrimony group.  These rhymes were not only cute and sweet but funny as well!  A lot of people may think that writing a story over a nursery rhyme would be hard because they are only a few sentences long.  I liked this aspect because it gave me a base to go off of and then I got to fill in all the details of the story with my own ideas!  The nursery rhymes are so versatile and one could come up with so many different ways to tell a story with them.  The one thing that I did not like about choosing this section was that the majority of the rhymes did not have a title or a link.  I wanted to include several into my reading diary but decided not to because I did not have an exact title for the rhyme.  There were also a lot of rhymes included in each section.  They were all very short though, and this made it easy to pick and choose which ones I could write about.  Overall, I would definitely recommend the nursery rhymes for this unit.

Essay Week 10: First Memories of Reading

I have always loved to read.  I can remember being a first grader and reading my brothers AR books to him because he hated to read.  He was in the fourth grade at the time and had to read chapter books.  I always enjoyed creating my own images of the characters in my mind as I read.  I was a very fast reader and this also helped me to like to read.  I have always been very competitive and being able to read faster than other kids was rewarding for me.  My mom, dad, and (obviously) my brother, did not like reading.  My parents never read me stories before I went to sleep; I was always reading them on my own.  It is funny to look back as a child and reading all of the time because my family did not like to!  However, both of my grandmothers love to read.  My mom’s mother was always reading a book when we went to visit.  Every year for Christmas she would buy me a new Christmas themed novel to read.  She also would have different books out for my brother and I to look at when we came over.  My other grandma was more interested in history and genetics themed books.  She taught me how to use books such as dictionaries, thesauruses, and bibliographies.  Both of my grandma’s have read through the Bible several times!  I always thought they were so educated and wise.  When I was little they inspired me to read and research using all parts of my brain.  I know continue to read all different types of books because it reminds me of my grandmas and the lesson they taught me of the importance of literature.  Reading holds good memories that I will carry with me forever and there is something magical about that.

(Christmas Stories: Wikipedia)

Storytelling for Week 10: The Giant Mysterious Beast

There was a giant mysterious beast that lived behind a fence at the end of long dirt road.  A group of neighborhood children often wandered down this road to play but would never get close to the fence that contained the giant beast.  The legend was that the man and the beast would capture and eat anyone who trespassed onto their property.  No child was brave enough to creep up to the fence to peek through the cracks to see what this beast was.  The children could only hear the heart stopping roars that came from behind the fence. 

(Dirt Road: Pixabay)

            One day a group of the neighborhood children headed down the dirt road to play a game of hide and seek.  A little boy climbed way up high to the top of a tree to hide from his friends.  While he sat there waiting for a chance to climb down and run to base, he noticed dirt stirring from behind the fence.  His curiosity overwhelmed him and he decided to move along the trees until he could see over the fence.  As he made it to the tree closest to the fence, his friend who was the seeker spotted him.  Startled by his hiding spot being revealed, the boy in the tree fell over onto the other side of the fence.  With a loud thud, his friends gasped and ran to the fence to peek through the holes. 

            They heard the infamous roar of the mysterious beast along with heavy footsteps.  They climbed the tree from which their friend had fallen in hopes of reaching down to rescue their friend in danger.  How were they going to get the boy out of the fenced yard before the giant beast ate him?  Was it true that this beast was a man-eating beast?  They began to tie their shirts and socks together to make a rope for their friend to grab on to.  As they hurriedly knotted the clothing together, they watched in despair for the giant beast to appear.

 The boy who had fallen heard the beast coming toward him and coward in the nearest corner behind a pile of trash. He tried to stay as quiet as possible but his panicked breathing could not be silenced.  He could see his friends rope getting longer and longer.  Only a few more knots and the rope would be long enough for him to grab and climb up to safety. As he sat waiting in fear, he noticed that he was surrounded not by trash but by shoes the size of children’s feet, stained with blood…

(Pile of Shoes: Wikipedia)

Author's Note: The original story, The Giant Dog, came from the Eskimo Folk Tales Unit.  The original story is about a man and his wife who have giant pet dog that eats people.  The dog would sneak away eating the inland dwellers and bring back their legs to his owners.  It is a pretty graphic story so I decided to not write a very detailed story.  The giant dog also made me think of the Sandlot movie.  In this movie a giant dog lives behind a fence and the children have to retrieve a baseball from it.  It turned out to be a nice dog but I wanted to stick with the original story and have the giant animal really be a child eating beast.  I left the end of the story untold for the imagination of the reader.

Bibliography:

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

Reading Diary Week 10: Eskimo Folk Tales

Eskimo Folk Tales

(Inuit Family: Wikipedia)

The Coming of the Men

This story is the tale of how men, dogs, and women came to the earth.  It gave a simple explanation of how the people came to earth and also how the earth was created.  This tale also said that when men die they go to the sky to shine bright.  It talked about how the earth is light and dark.

The Giant Dog

The tale of the giant dog is about a man and his wife who never had a son but had giant dog instead.  This dog began to eat people and the man and his wife had to move islands.  The man who owned the dog realized that the dog was sneaking a way for a couple of days and would bring back the legs of the inland dwellers.  This is why inland dwellers are afraid of dogs.

The Wife Who Lied

Navaránâpaluk was from a tribe of man eaters.  She wed to a man who was from a tribe that were not man eaters.  One day she left and lied about her husband's tribe to make her kinfolk feel sorry for her.  Her family went out to kill the wives of her husbands tribe.  She got caught in her lie and was eventually killed.

Tungujuluk and Saunikoq

Two men who were wizards. One turned into a bear and the other a walrus.  Saunikog was jealous of Tungujuluk because he had a son and Saunikog did not have any children.  Using their animal forms, they both changed shape and tricked each other.  Saunikog was called out for his evil planning and with great shame he left and was never seen again.