Avani's Blog

(Stories and Storytelling  Pixabay ) I decided to do the Story Lab this week! From the assignments, I choose to watch two TED Talk videos about stories and storytelling. The videos were The danger of a single story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Imaginary friends and real-world consequences by Jennifer Barnes. The speakers spoke about common thoughts and feelings readers take away from stories, television shows, and movies. Adichie discussed the danger of a single story. In novels, readers are usually exposed to a certain image of a place and group of people. This makes it hard to perceive the place or group of people from a perceptive other than the story. It is almost like a stereotype. If a stereotype is given to a place/group of people and the stereotype is challenged, then it is difficult to accept a place/group of people differently. Therefore, Adichie means to say that something should not be looked from a single story. Instead all stories should be considere...

This week's extra credit assignment is about cats - the growth mindset cats! Here are my three favorite growth mindset cats! ( Ponder your potential ) When I am uncertain about my future, I like to think about my current state. If I look back on my achievements and successes, it motivates me to keep going. It calms me down. I know that I will be able to grow my potential with time. Ultimately, this will bring more achievements and successes in the future. Just because I might not be the person I want to be right now does not mean I won't be in the future.  ( My peers can be my teachers ) Most of the time, I understand the material better from my peers. My professors discuss the designated material for that day, so they usually rush through the notes and slides. As my peers are learning the same material, it is easier to understand their way of thinking. My peers are able to teach me better. Therefore, I strongly agree with this growth mindset cat: my peer...

(The Mice and The Weasels by Milo Winter Flickr ) I am now finished with the Aesop's fables! I loved every story so much! Now that I am older, I do not have the time to just sit down and read fables. I did not think I would love it so much! This time, I will be focusing on the story The Mouse and The Weasel. Like I mentioned in the reading notes for Part A, the story is on the short side. Last week, I read Cupid and Psyche, and the stories there were longer in length and full of detail and dialogue. There is a great difference between the two stories. I guess that is the point. Shorter stories allow the readers to easily understand the moral of the story without getting into the specifics. When I finished reading the story, I wondered why the weasel did not help the mouse. What were the weasel's thoughts and his reasoning for not helping the weasel? Was the weasel being greedy as well? It is interesting to note that the author of the story did not include this part...

(The Travelers and the Purse by Milo Winter UN-Textbook ) Hello everyone! For this week's reading, I choose to read the Aesop for Children that was illustrated by Milo Winter. Most of the readings that I picked for the remaining weeks are also fables and fairy tales. So, these fables were a great start to what is to come! In Reading A, there were many stories that I loved! All of them had great themes, and I took away some valuable life lessons. One of my favorite stories was the Travelers and the Purse. I might retell this one for this week! For this reason, I will be exploring some strategies that might help me retell it. One thing that I wish to change is the start of the story. Instead of a traveler finding the purse on the ground, I want to make their journey longer. For example, the travelers might work together to achieve a goal, but one traveler takes all the credit. Or the whole narrative could be reversed. The traveler who found the purse/achieved the goal sh...