Extra Reading Extra Credit Week 14

Big surprise that I wanted to read more Jataka stories! I love the Jataka stories. They are still my favorite out of all the stories I have read in this class.

Forest Fire Story

The Forest Fire

I love this story because I drew the moral of the story to be that if you are strong and confident in what you do and believe in yourself, you can do almost anything. The little bird was born weaker than his brothers and sisters in the nest. So one day when the big forest fire came, he was left in the nest because he was unable to fly away. Instead of being scared, he just faced the fire and told it that it had no business here. The fire then turned away and the little bird was safe and lived happily ever after.

The Noble Horse

I liked this story because I think it teaches an important messaged about perseverance and also mercy. The horse sacrificed himself for the good of the kingdom even though he knew it would result in his ultimate death. That was inspiring to me. Also, when he is dying he tells the king that they should not kill all of the enemy but instead show mercy and allow them to return home promising that they will never return again.

The Noble Horse
Source: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.39000000078449;view=2up;seq=152

Ted Videos - Style, Story Lab

Videos

The power of creative constraint:

I liked this video because I had never thought about constraints as being something positive before. This took something that I used to view as being very negative and put a positive spin on it. Constraints can actually be so beneficial because they force us to expand our knowledge and think of alternative solutions to an issue. If we never faced constraints that we were forced to find ways to overcome, we would never have come up with a lot of our more beneficial ideas that we have today.

What makes a hero:

I liked this video because this is a topic that I have visited in the past. I think it is a very interesting concept that I am always amazed goes so unnoticed. I think that it is interesting because it tells us a lot about human beings. It tells us that we like this cycle that is being told in these stories regardless of who the main character is. We enjoy this plot so much that we can watch it over and over again without getting tired of it. It also says a lot about how creative writers are. The fact that they can take these very similar storylines but somehow keep us on the edge of our seats the whole time proves that they were creative enough with their input to the story that it almost tricked us into believing that we had never heard this story before.

Examples of modern day fictional heroes
Source: Video

The pleasure of poetic pattern:

I liked this video a lot because it started with a physiological reference that really drew me into what it was discussing. It talked about how we are innately intrigued by patterns because we are made up of patterns and reputations. Our heart beat and our breath has pattern. We also see repetition in everything we do from letters in the words we use to the words that we use in our language! So cool to draw from anatomical knowledge and relate it to writing somehow.

Week 14 Reading Notes - Part B Inayat. Twenty Jataka Tales.

The Patient Buffalo

I really liked this story because it presented a new moral that I hadn't seen in the other stories. There once was a buffalo and he is standing peacefully in the shade and day after day a monkey comes and  tries to provoke him. It seems like nothing ever works to get a rise out of the buffalo. The monkey tries day in and day out and the buffalo ignores him and remains calm. One day a fairy comes to tell the buffalo about how strong he is and if he wanted to he could teach the monkey a lesson. The buffalo instead replies that why should he? The monkey is weaker than he is and does not have much brains so it wouldn't be fair. I think this tells a very important message about how just because we can do something doesn't mean that we should do something.

Story

The buffalo and the monkey
Source: Inayat. Twenty Jataka Tales.

Week 14 Reading Notes - Part A Inayat. Twenty Jataka Tales.

The Monkey Bridge

 I really liked this story. In this story there is a large group of monkeys who are all living very happily by a large mango tree. This mango tree supplies enough fruit to feed all the monkeys. The king is sure to warn everyone that they shouldn't let any of the fruit fall into the river because if they do, the men down stream will find it and search for the tree that it came from. They do a great job of keeping the fruit out of the river for a long time. Until one day, one gets away from them unnoticed and then men downstream find it. They go searching for the tree and they find it. They decide they should kill all the monkeys so that they can have all the fruit and the tree to themselves. The monkeys are trapped at the top of the tree because if they come down they will die. The king monkey uses himself as a bridge to help the other monkeys escape and they are all safe. The man king sees this and is so amazed by the monkey kings good deed that he decides not to harm any of those monkeys.

Story

Monkeys in the Mango Tree
Source: Inayat. Twenty Jataka Tales.

Week 13 - Story, the Turtle and the Two Geese

One day long ago there was a little turtle. He wasn't even alive for very long when he became anxious to leave the nest. He was always a very curious little turtle. His exploring led him to another nest, this nest was quite different from his nest however. This nest had a lot of long feathers in it and it made a lot more noise than his did. As he ventured in further he discovered that there were two little beaks bobbing up and down in the nest.

"Well hi there!" he said to his newly discovered friends. He was instantly met with two big smiles of two baby geese not much bigger than he was.

The two geese and the curious turtle grew up together and made the fondest memories. One day, the turtle overheard other people around the pond talking about a much bigger pond that was miles away. It had better weather, less dangerous predators, and more berries and grass to munch on. The turtle was instantly very curious and intrigued by this. He went to his geese friends immediately and told them all about it. They were quite hesitant at first but they had also heard a lot of good things about this place. The turtle finally convinced them and they got ready to set out the next day. However, when the turtle went to climb up on one of the geese backs, he realized that he didn't fit like he used to.

"Oh no! How am I going to go with you guys now?" The turtle sadly asked.

"Wait right there!" One of the geese said.

The geese quickly returned with a very strong stick and explained that the turtle need only hold onto the stick the whole way and they would carry him. The turtle thought this was a great idea and grabbed on.

When they were not far into their journey, a group of children down below started to jeer at the turtle. They said turtles shouldn't be in the sky, they should only be on the ground.

This made the turtle feel said inside but he was smart and knew not to open his mouth. Instead, he let the children jeer at him and continued on his journey.

After another days journey they made it to the beautiful new pond and they lived happily ever after.

Story
Jataka Tales
by  Ellen C. Babbitt

Reading notes - Part B Jakata

The Quarrel of the Quails 

This is another Jakata story with animal characters and a moral. In this story, there is a group of quails. The hunter has learned that if he makes the sound of their leader, they will all gather together and it will be easy to catch them. He continues to do this until the quail leader realizes what is happening. He tells the quails, next time the net is thrown over them, work together to fly to the nearest thorn bush and leave the net there and escape. This works for a while. Until one day, the quails get in a fight and stop working together. When they stop working together they stop communicating and the plan doesn't work anymore. Then they are sold by the man.

Story

Reading Notes Part A - Jataka

As soon as I saw free reading the first thing I wanted to jump to was more of Babbitt's Jakata stories. I think that these have continued to be my favorite stories because they have a lot of animal characters and always have a fun moral attached to the ending. 

The Turtle Who Couldn't Stop Talking

This story is about a turtle who once had two friends that were wild geese. One day the geese were telling the turtle about their beautiful home that was quite a ways away. They told the turtle that they could take him to it if he wanted to come with them. The geese said that he could come with them but only if he keeps his mouth shut the entire way. The geese gave him a stick to hold on to and told him that it is very important for him to not say anything the whole trip. Then some kids from down below tease him for looking ridiculous and he responds back to them. When he responds, he opens his mouth and drops down to the ground below because he wasn't holding onto the stick anymore. 

Story lab blog post - EmpoWord

I really enjoyed reading this manual because I think it was really relevant to this class as well as any future story writing I might engage in the future. I appreciated the definitions throughout the manual because even though I thought I knew about what all of those words meant already, I realized I didn't know as much as I thought I did. There were whole other aspects to these topics and terms that I had never realized were there. Most of these terms I learned about in context instead of looking at definitions first. I also really appreciated where it said that even though descriptions are really important to writing an impactful story, narration can be just as important. I think I forget about that when I am writing my stories. One term that stood out to me that I had never heard of before was scope. This is the boundary created by your story, where it starts and ends. I think setting up a scope prior to writing can be very beneficial to your planning.

Week 11 Story - Three Friends

One day three friends were enjoying each others company by a pond in the forest. They were the deer, the turtle and the woodpecker. They had met long ago when they were each very little. There had been a very large fire in the forest that separated all three from their families, so they became their own little family and grew up together.

"It is such a nice day today." The turtle acknowledged.

"It really is!" The deer replied, "And look, I brought some berries that I picked earlier today."

The friends happily shared the treat and then went back to their homes for the night. But as the deer was walking back to his home, someone was watching him. A hunter who had wondered over to their area of the forest noticed the deer and wanted to catch him. The hunter decided to leave a trap on the path between the deer's home and the pond. The hunter set his trap and then went home for the night.

The next morning the deer rose to another beautiful day and decided he was going down to the pond to see how his friends were doing that morning. Just as he was about to get to the pond though the trap caught him and he was stuck. His friends were close by and heard his cries for help and were there instantly. Woodpecker quickly thought of a plan.

"Turtle, you use your strong teeth to cut through the trap. I will go to the hunters house and distract his for as long as I am able to."

The turtle quickly started to work on the tough leather attached to the tree and the woodpecker set off for the hunters house. Just as soon as the woodpecker had gotten to the hunters house, he noticed him leaving out the front door. He dove down with all of his strength and struck the hunters head. The hunter quickly went back inside and laid down for a while because he hurt so bad. After an hour or so had passed, he decided he would try and go out once more. The woodpecker was ready though and thought to himself, the hunter will probably try to exit out of the backdoor this time to escape me. The woodpecker was right and he caught the hunter just as he was leaving out the backdoor. The hunter went inside once more to lay down. After a couple more hours, the hunter set out. This time the bird flew far ahead to warn his friends that the hunter was on his way. Just as the hunter got close, the turtle chewed through the last piece and the deer pulled away and ran into the woods. The woodpecker flew up into the sky and got away. However, the turtle was so tired from all the hard work that he wasn't able to get away in time. The hunter picked him up and put him into a sack.
The deer was watching from close by and knew that he had to save his friend. The deer ran out in front of the hunter to distract him. The hunter hung the bag up on a tree and ran after the deer with his knife. While the deer was leading the hunter far into the forest, the woodpecker flew to the turtle.

"Are you okay, friend?" The woodpecker asked.

"Yes, I am just scared." The turtle said.

"Don't worry, we'll have you out of there in no time at all."

The woodpecker grabbed the strings of the bag and pulled up away from the tree. The bag was heavy but he didn't stop trying. Eventually he was able to lift it off of the branch and set it in a grassy patch down below. The turtle wiggled out quickly and was so happy to see his friend. Just then, the two of them heard a noise coming closer. The deer burst out of the trees with a smile on his face.

"He is so far away and very lost." The deer said proudly. "Thank you both for taking such good care of me. You are the best family I could have ever asked for."

The three happily went away to enjoy the rest of their long lives together.





Author's Note:

I really loved the original Jataka version of this story because I thought it was very sweet how well all three friends cared for each other. There wasn't much backstory on how the three became friends so I added a little to my story to help explain what brought them together. Also, the woodpecker doesn't do too much to help the turtle when he gets caught, the deer mostly does the saving but this time it was more like a team effort. Everything else in the story was pretty much the same

The Woodpecker, Turtle, and Deer
Source: Story
By: Ellen C. Babbitt

The Deer
Source: Jataka

Week 11 Reading - Jataka, Part B

How the Monkey Saved his Troop
Source: Story
By: Ellen C. Babbitt

In this story there is a group of monkeys who are led by a chief monkey. They loved to enjoy the mangos from the mango tree. One day the king and his fisherman discover the mango fruit and enjoy it. They stay to enjoy the fruit and when they see the monkeys they get ready to shoot them with their arrows. This way they can eat the monkeys and the mangos. The chief vows to save his troop. He finds a branch that is almost close enough to another tree to get across but he knows that some monkeys might not be able to make it all the way across and will instead fall into the river and drown.
He uses his own back to form a bridge between the trees and save his whole troop. The king sees this sacrifice and vows to protect the monkey chief for the rest of his life.

Source: The Chief Monkey, Jataka

Week 11 Reading - Jataka, Part A

The Woodpecker, Turtle, and Deer
Source: Story
By: Ellen C. Babbitt

One day there was a hunter in the woods who noticed a deer he wanted to trap. He left a trap for the deer and went home. The deer got trapped in the net but his friends were there to help. The turtle worked to chew through the trap while the woodpecker went to the hunters house to distract him. The hunter came out once through the front door and the woodpecker flew into his face making him go lay down for a little while. Later, the hunter set out through the backdoor and the woodpecker did the same thing to him. The hunter went to lay down once more. This helped save the turtle and deer some time. The deer pulled out of the trap just as the hunter was getting close and got away. The woodpecker was able to fly away but the turtle was so tired that he couldn't get away in time and the hunter caught him. The deer came out of hiding so that he could distract the hunter and save the turtle. The deer led the hunter far into the forest and then ran back to let the turtle free. He found the turtle and saved him and they all lived for many more happy years together.

The Deer
Source: Jataka