Commenting Review Week

I feel like I am making decent connections with the other students in the blog. For this being an online course, I definitely think we all interact more than we would in most other online classes. Of course, beyond the kind and encouraging thoughts we leave each other, we don't actually really go anywhere past that.

I think the comments that have given me things to think about and improve in my stories are the most helpful. Of course, it's also nice to just receive positive feedback.

The project comments have definitely been useful, however, I've noticed that sometimes it's hard to meet the 150 word count requirement. I feel like I can say what I need to in less words and sometimes end up sounding redundant.

In both long and short comments, I usually focus on whether or not the student commenting has feedback for me. I love the encouragement, but I'm a perfectionist, so I automatically check to see if someone has seen something I might have missed.

The easiest part about writing the comments is providing encouraging feedback. The hardest part is making my comments long enough.

One of my majors is art history, and in all of my studio classes we generally have peer reviews. In this way, I am used to getting feedback from my peers, which I always appreciate.

I take into consideration all comments made in reference to my stories when making adjustments. If it's grammar-related, I do my best to fix the problems. If it is a comment about changing details or whatnot, I usually re-read my stories and see if the extra material is really needed.

I think the only thing I would suggest for the comments is maybe lowering the length requirements for the projects. I could say everything in 60 words or slightly more and get my point across for the projects as well as the storytelling posts.

(What could be more inspirational than a writing utensil?)

I tried to find something funny and inspirational and didn't have much luck. So I thought I would go back to writing basics and insert the most basic writing tool. Lots of people have created something great with only a pencil and some paper.

Writing Review Week

I think my greatest writing successes have been the stories I've written the past two weeks. Before that, I was trying to figure out my writing style, but I think I've gotten it down now! I've realized that what I really enjoy doing with stories is changing their perspective, and since that allows for so much freedom, I feel like I have lots of options for each story.

My goals for the second half of the semester involve just getting more comfortable with my writing style and not being afraid to change up stories. I sometimes worry about changing the story too much because I think it's important to the reader to be able to see the original within my version.

I think a good strategy for coming up with a good story is just keeping in mind that I have to retell one of the stories from the unit that I'm working on. As I read the stories, I think about how I could change them and make them my own, and the one that I think will be the easiest for me to retell after I read all of the stories in the unit is the one I go with!

I have definitely gotten inspired by the writing of the other students. I think that every person in the class has such a vivid imagination that it's almost impossible to not be inspired when reading their material.

I think I get more out of feedback from you as opposed to the students because the feedback from the instructor is always more detailed and precise. I like the dissection of my stories because I can easily correct the mistakes that have been pinpointed, and it shows me that my material is thoroughly examined, which I really appreciate.

I haven't learned anything new about myself as a writer, I feel like instead I have confirmed that I do my best writing at night. If I try to work on a story in the afternoon, I feel a creative slump. Confirming this to myself has led me to take measures in freeing up time in the evenings to do my work.

I think the stories in the units themselves are most inspiring in relation to my writing. Seeing what someone else has written and the amount of effort they put into it motivates me to put forth effort as well.

(Giants from Sindbad's Third Voyage)

I chose this image because it goes along with what I consider my best storytelling post, which is one I based off of Sindbad's Third Voyage. 

Reading Review Week

I have enjoyed all of the readings, but I think my favorite would have the be the unit on Sindbad's voyages. I liked that it was written in such a way that made it easy to understand, and I also thought the length of the stories was perfect. I think the hardest unit for me to read was the unit on Women Saints, and that was because of the language. It took a little while to feel comfortable reading through the material at my usual pace, but it wasn't too bad.

(Image of Sindbad from my favorite unit)

I realized that if I do my reading at the same time as writing my Reading Diary, I have a better grasp on what I want to say about the unit and how I feel about it. I usually do my readings and have the diary blog ready to go so I can jot down my ideas and then fine tune them before I publish the post.

I don't really use the Reading Diary to help me with the Storytelling, but that's because I usually point out how I feel and what I like about the unit, whereas for the Storytelling I just pick one specific story and zero in on it. I think using the Reading Diary might put too much information on the table at once.

I definitely think that the older Reading Diary entries help me recall useful information about previous units. I always like to point out what worked in the units, and reading that helps me recall everything that I enjoyed about the various stories.

I try to read a lot for pleasure, and I chose this class because I love reading mythology. This is a great way for me to learn about a lot of different material, and I think I've saved a bit of money by reading myths here instead of buying separate books. I don't deeply research anything for mythology, so having the UN-Textbook to read from is the perfect amount of information for me.

I think this class helps me see interesting things in my film class as well as my land art class. My film class is pretty much all old movies, so I like to notice what they have incorporated from mythology in each one. My land art class stresses knowing the background of the land, and that closely ties in with Native American mythology, so I will definitely see more overlap there in the future.

I think it would help students a lot to read a whole unit in one sitting, that way they are less stressed about reading and writing. I did that in the beginning and really enjoyed it. I like my strategy now, but I think I may go back to the first one.