Topic Research

I plan on continuing with the astrology/astronomy topic using Greek Constellations. I mainly used William Tyler Olcott's book Star Lore of All Ages: A Collection of Myths, Legends, and Facts Concerning the Constellations of the Northern Hemisphere. 

1. Zodiac High
I'm a little iffy of this idea because it feels a little cliché, however, it is sort of an easy jump. I was thinking about using the constellations and zodiacs and placing them in a high school. I think based on the research I've done I could modernize their stories, and make them like a high school drama rather than a sitcom. I could possibly make it like Pretty Little Liars or along the lines of darker t.v. series.

2. War of the Stars (not to be confused with Star Wars)
My second idea comes from something I gathered during my research...the Greek Constellations have a lot of conflict in their backstories. I was thinking about writing a story about a mythological place where all the constellations meet and discuss what has happened while they've become legends and myths. Then, a disagreement arises and escalates quickly resulting in a deeply divided battle between the constellations. It could cause catastrophic events to happen on Earth or just throughout our solar system in general. 


3. The Missing Constellation
My final idea would be for a constellation to go missing, and possibly be humanized. He/she/it would be placed on Earth in a modern time period, and they stumble into a group of college students, who now have to help return this constellation to the sky. I would probably throw in a love interest, too. 

Caption: Constellation Map obtained from tumblr.com

Feedback strategies

Caption: Salem the Sassiest Cat always gives the best feedback obtained from icanhas.cheezburger.com

   As someone who thrives on feedback (my code for saying I am a total people pleaser to a fault), I enjoyed reading the articles over productive feedback. The first article I read was What Kinds of Messages Help Kids Grow? which discussed how using growth-mindset strategies for feedback/praise can benefit a child during the developmental stages of their lives. It touched on the words they use when providing feedback can alter how a kid responds to good feedback and how using the word "yet" will motivate them to keep working hard. This is something I am trying to implement in my life. For example, I was studying for French and I just wasn't getting it, but I kept telling myself "I'm not understanding it yet?" It keeps me a little more motivated to continue studying. 

   The other article I read was The Trouble with “Amazing”: Giving Praise that Matters. I really enjoyed this post. The reasons were sound and made sense, especially the second one. Amazing is unspecific. I really relate to her college friend asking "why am I pretty?" because that is something I totally do when people give me a vague compliment. I like specific compliments, so if I do receive one that feels sort of generic it usually makes me wonder:

 "Do they really think I'm amazing or are they just being polite?"

Receiving specific feedback like

 "Oh your shoes are amazing!" or "I really enjoyed your poster. The colors you chose were amazing." 

are more helpful and rewarding. 

Week 3 Story

Portfolio link: https://sites.google.com/view/sammiesmythportfolio/home
There once was a young boy named Dru. He was a quiet boy who always liked to watch the sky. His mother, who raised him alone, always believed the Gods blessed him with special abilities. There was a glimmer in his eye the night he was born that told her he holds powers no one else has. She watched him very carefully as he grew up. She noticed he always knew when to step out of the way, when something was about to fall or when someone was coming. Everyone believed he just had amazing reflexes, but when she asked him about how he quick he was he would simply say "the sky warned me." He claimed the wind would whisper to him to gaze up at the sky and it would show him a picture. He would just see something others did not. Sometimes it was a clear constellation, and sometimes he would just see long lines connecting the stars. Some connected to the same star and some ran along the sky from east to west not touching anything. Dru saw the sky speaking a foreign language and felt he could easily translate the sky. 
As he got older, he found the sky had started to talk to him less and he feared he might be losing his abilities. However, the sky actually began giving him more challenging puzzles, which would lead him to bigger realizations about the future. They took more of his energy and more time to solve. Dru would spend many sleepless nights charting the stars and constellations and attempting to decode the messages. He spent many years charting the stars and constellations. 
The other villagers called him crazy. He called himself an Astrologer.

Caption: A web of stars obtained from unawe.org

Author's note: This story is the origin tale to Aesop's Fables (Winter): The Astrologer. I wanted to give the Astrologer more of a backstory, and allow him a moment to explain why he believed he could see the future in the stars. I really wanted to try to go in a completely different direction than my story from last week, so I decided to keep in the same era and genre as the original story. I used the name Dru because it meant "vision" in ancient Greece, so I thought it was fitting. 

Bibliography" Author unknown, The Aesop for Children, with illustrations by Milo Winter (1919). 

Reading Notes B

I am reading part B of The Fables of Aesop.  It followed the same pattern as The Fables of Aesop part A. A short story was told, followed by the moral of the story. Usually a wholesome message to children. Some of them were really good ones...
Then some of them were funny and didn't really follow suit. For example, The Mule story's message was 
   "Be sure of your pedigree before you boast of it."
Which to me seemed like an odd moral to the story, but maybe the author(s) was short on time and needed to fill the page, or maybe your lineage was a bigger issue in the early 1900s. 
A lot of the stories dealt with trust, and from what I gather you shouldn't trust anyone. The Wolf and the Shepard taught me 
   "Once a wolf always a wolf." 
The Cat the Cock and the Young Mouse dealt with a young mouse seeing a chicken for the first time and being terrified by it, while a cat looked beautiful and trusting. However, as the cat approached the rooster let out a shrill scaring the mouse off. He scurries home to his mother who tells him the cat was the evil in that situation. The young mouse learns to not base trust on appearances. 

Caption: Taylor Swift Look What You Made Me Do gif obtained from tumblr.com

I really enjoyed The Astrologer. As someone who tends to forget to worry about the small things (and pays the price for it), I really liked the overall message. 
   "Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves."
Bibliography: author unknown with illustrations by Milo Winter (1919)

Week 3 Reading Notes A

Aesop (Winter): 
   I chose to read Aesop for Children (Winter) just because I've never heard of them, and after the day I've had I need some calming stories with some good morals intertwined with it. 
  Aesop for Children (Winter) contains several short stories, which carry some heavy lessons. These short stories are easy to read, and I enjoy the imagination throughout them. I enjoyed several of the stories. I thought The Ass and His Driver was a peculiar one just because the moral of the story was along the lines of "head the warnings of others and choose the path more followed." Usually, it is encouraged to be head-strong and take the path less traveled even if people tell you it's stupid. Another one I liked a lot was super short, The Lion and the Ass. A lion walks with his head high through the forest, and when an Ass jeered at him he did not spur it on by lashing out. Instead, he simply kept on his way. Essentially blocking out the haters. 
The last story I found intriguing was The Boys and the Frogs. One day, a group of boys was playing in a pond and skipping rocks. They didn't realize their rock skipping was hurting a family of frogs. The moral of the story is to make sure your fun doesn't come at the expense of others' happiness. I was always raised to kill with kindness, so this one struck a chord with me. In addition, as so many people have unfortunately experienced, including me, it is not funny to be the punch line of a joke. 
   I like the simplicity of all of these stories. They are all wholesome and offer some valuable advice. 

Caption: The Lion and the Ass. Obtained from storyplanets.com
Bibliography: The Aesop for Children, Unknown author with illustrations by Milo Winter (1919).