Writing Review Week

Writing Review Week

I have never been a strong writer, so initially I was dreading how much writing I would have to do in this class. I took it on with the mindset of "I can't get better unless I write more," which helped me keep trying. Initially I felt like the content of my stories was pretty good, but my writing style wasn't. I also knew that I had trouble with grammar, and big issues with punctuation and quotes. The biggest eye opener for me was the proofreading assignment as well as my introduction for my storybook! I sent in the email with my intro and got a response that showed me a mistake in almost every other sentence! My biggest accomplishment thus far would be the huge improvement between my introduction and my first story in my storybook. I had far fewer mistakes, and the content was still very rich. I have really grown to enjoy writing and storytelling from this course.

I have always had a fairly active imagination so coming up with ideas isn't usually a great struggle. For story telling posts I would just choose a topic that interests me and then place myself in the characters shoes. If I was in their mind how would I think, what actions would I take, etc. That helped me write several interesting stories from the view of a certain character through their mind, or a diary entry. If I chose to write a story in third person it was a bit different, and perhaps took a little more creativity. I would simply take the story and mold it into my own by changing details I thought would benefit by being altered from the original story! This was simply my opinion though, and may not have reflected what others would have written. 

Picture from my storytelling about Maricha (Written in diary form)

The feedback I have received has been incredibly helpful to my writing. I have learned a lot about integrating quotes into my text, and writing in a style that flows much better. All of the experience I've gotten from writing for this course has really helped my creativity as well because I have to continue coming up with new stories each week! I am very exciting for the storytelling posts based off of the Mahabharata, as well as the next 3 stories for my story book.

Reading Review Week

Reading Review Week

Overall I have really enjoyed the readings each week! The Ramayana has been an extremely interesting book to read from both Narayan's point of view as well as Bucks. I preferred Buck's version of the Ramayana overall. I felt like he did a great job making the story more interesting and bringing in a great amount of details. I also enjoyed the background stories he gave to many characters, which helped me relate to them better. In both versions I really admired two characters in particular: Rama and Hanuman. Rama was extremely honorable, possessed great strength and character and overall just seemed like an amazing person. His devotion to his wife and family made me respect him even more! Hanuman on the other hand seemed like an extremely humble creature and the the perfect friend. He devoted himself to Rama and would do anything for him. He stuck by his side through every circumstance and fought valiantly to keep him safe. My favorite passage in the readings was the one about Hanuman's origin in Buck's Ramayana. I found it funny imagining a monkey trying to eat the sun! I also had a good time reading about the battle between the Rakshasa and Rama's army. It was such an intense section of the book, and it was certainly hard to put down!

Baby Hanuman attempting to eat the sun! (From Reading Diary B Week 6)

Doing the reading diaries really helped me to get more engaged in the reading. I focused on what characters I enjoyed, as well as which stories really stuck out to me. They were a huge help to make sure I actually read the assigned pages, as well as something that made it more enjoyable than simply reading quickly to get the assignment done! Looking at my reading diaries helps me recall the readings from earlier in the semester and helps bring back my sentiments about certain characters and events! I ended up using my reading diaries to help with most of my storytelling assignments because I would end up choosing to write my storytelling over something I enjoyed in that weeks reading. My reading diaries helped me recall my favorite events and made it far easier to write my storytelling posts.

While I did enjoy the readings I did find them to be fairly long many times! Perhaps having 3 reading diaries to split the reading up further would be helpful although that would make more work for students so I'm not sure how good of a tradeoff that is! Overall I think the reading assignments are well organized, and the reviews that are posted on the course website for the readings are extremely helpful. I'm enjoying the readings so far, and can't wait to start the Mahabharata! I haven't read for fun in my spare time in many years, but this course is certainly making me begin reading other books for pleasure which is awesome!