Portfolio Introduction

With my portfolio this semester, I hope to revise some of my favorite stories to be the best that they can be!

Camp Gopher Wood: Find out what was going on aboard Noah's ark during the flood! An elephant, a cat, and a flamingo team up to make a difference that you won't hear about anywhere else.

Dan and Gladys Forever: What could go wrong when a guy just wants to help out his brother? Apparently a lot if it involves the latter's favorite feline companion.

Allie, Cali, and Sally: Three friends get the opportunity to spend time together as well as cook for and with each other!

The Hope of a Warrior's Mother: A mother tries asking a magician for a way to make her small son into a powerful warrior.

BFF: Best Brother Forever: A brother writes a letter praising his twin for being a supportive friend and co-worker.

An Unfortunate Circumstance: A retelling of Beauty and the Beast with a few twists about power walking and whether you can really end up with your captor.

Week 13 Storytelling: An Unfortunate Circumstance

Once upon a time there was an average-looking guy who lived in a normally sized house. This average-looking guy was named Chuck and he had a cool mom, Donna, who was his total BFF. Donna and Chuck did a lot of cool stuff together pretty much everyday, and on this particular day they decided to power walk through the forest. Once they were about halfway through the forest, they saw something strange.

"Hey, Mom, check out that rose garden over there! Let's have a rose picking contest!" Chuck called out to his mom.

Donna replied, "Good thing this isn't a nose picking contest, or you would definitely win. HA!"

Rose Garden

The pair entered the garden and were instantly freaked out. The ground started to rumble and the sky became filled with dark storm clouds. An incredibly tall and stately lady walked into the garden. "How dare you enter my garden!" she screamed. "You, cool mom, you better fast walk away from here, and you, average-looking guy, you better not follow her."

If there was one thing Chuck and Donna were good at, it was following instructions.  Donna left as quickly as she could while following the guidelines for power walking (exaggerated but controlled swinging of the arms and never allowing both feet to be off the ground at once). Chuck was left alone with the huge lady. "What do you want from me?" he asked while craning his neck to look her in the eye.

The huge lady didn't answer. She just walked away and left Chuck to wander through the rose garden and into the castle on his own. He found that everything inside of the castle was enchanted. He just had to think something, and it would appear. Also, all the dishes, clocks, lamps, and everything else could talk! He quickly became friends with them, and he slowly became friends with the huge lady who would drop in to talk to him almost every day.

After almost a month living in the strange castle, Chuck went out to the rose garden for a casual fast walk. He missed his mom, of course, and it was weird being trapped in a house with a giantess and talking teacups, but he was really enjoying his time here for the most part. As he was swinging his arms and enjoying the beautiful roses, he came upon the huge lady prostrate before him. 

Seeing her lying there on the ground, he suddenly realized how much he had come to care for her! He cried out, "Are you hurt? Please don't be dead! If you're dead then I'll never get to tell you how much I love you!" With those words, the huge lady grew even taller. Chuck was astounded. He couldn't understand what was happening.

The extra huge lady stood up and said, "You may now leave my garden and my castle. Long ago, I put a spell on myself in order to grow into the huge and tall lady that I always wanted to be. Every time a man professes his love for me, I continue to grow. Because it became increasingly difficult to live in the every day world with my huge size, I've now resorted to trapping people until they fall in love with me. You've served your purpose. I do not love you back, and now I would like you to leave."

Chuck was devastated. He had truly loved the huge lady, but he also realized that starting a relationship while being held prisoner was probably not a recipe for success. He began to power walk in the direction of home, and more importantly, his cool mom, Donna. 

Author's note: I wanted to take the well-known beauty and the beast story and do something a little different with it. This version of Beauty and the Beast was very similar to the Disney movie. It was just a little simpler and with less singing. Beauty is traded as a prisoner for her father's freedom, and she eventually falls in love with the Beast. This breaks the spell and turns him back into a handsome man. They live happily ever after.

I decided to make the originally male characters female and the originally female characters male in order to give the story a different feel. I didn't think it made much sense for Beauty and the Beast to end up happily together since he had originally kept her against her will, so I changed up the ending quite a bit. I really liked how important roses are in the original, so I chose to keep that aspect with a rose garden playing a large role in the story.

I also wanted to make the story more lighthearted. This was the first time I've done a storytelling post on a story that I originally knew as a Disney movie, so I wanted to include the more magical aspects such as talking plates, clocks, and lamps that weren't in the original story that I read for class.

Bibliography: This story is based on Beauty and the Beast from Europa's Fairy Book by Joseph Jacobs and illustrated by John Batten (1916).

Week 13 Reading Diary: Beauty and the Beast

This week, I chose to read Europa's Fairy Book by Joseph Jacobs and illustrated by John Batten (1916) from the Europa unit. I was really happy with my choice, and my favorite story by far was Beauty and the Beast. Although by this point most people in class have read or even written about an original version of a Disney princess story, I still hadn't! So I decided that this was going to be my week for it!

I liked that this version of Beauty and the Beast was still incredibly recognizable to me even though I was only familiar with the movie. I also liked that the Beast was much less evil and that Belle was much less unhappy in this version. I still thought that Belle's cowardly dad was completely absurd and wrong, but it was nice that he was able to visit his daughter and see that she wasn't completely unhappy. 

If I were going to retell this story in a storytelling post, I would definitely want to include some of the classic elements such as the beautiful girl being trapped by the crazy guy. I don't know if I would want to have a happy ending. It seems like no matter how handsome and tortured he is, a guy shouldn't trap a woman in his home in order to date her. It is a really nice story though. Maybe I would have the girl trap the guy, that's kind of cool I think.

Week 11 Storytelling: BBF: Best Brother Forever

To whom it may concern:

Hi, I'm Jordan, and I'm writing this to tell you about my awesome and talented brother Jackson. We're twins, so I've literally known this guy for longer than I'll ever know anyone else, which is a real treat because I don't know of a single person who I think is better than Jackson. He and I were both dancers, but a few years ago I gave that up to start choreographing other dancers in small productions around New York City. I started to gain some fame fairly quickly, but after I had three shows that were reviewed really well, I had one that kind of tanked. Jackson was always the better choreographer, but he really wanted to make it as a dancer, so I just asked him for a few pointers on how to return to the glowing reviews I had gotten in the past. Jackson totally went above and beyond for me and he choreographed almost an entire show for me!

As much as I appreciated my brother helping me out so much, I told him there was no way I could just take his work like that. I could tell this was much better than any work I had ever done, and I didn't want to take away attention from Jackson when I knew he deserved to be praised for his tremendous work. We argued back and forth for a while, and ultimately I agreed to put my name on the choreography on one condition, that Jackson danced the main part. Since I was just starting out, we were on a smaller stage than Jackson was used to, so he was a little hesitant. But I knew that if he danced in this show that he had created, we wouldn't be on a small stage for long.

Finally, the big premiere night came and it was a roaring success! Everyone loved the choreography just as much as I suspected, and Jackson had never danced better in his life. After the premiere, the show quickly moved to a larger stage. On the first night in the new theater, I went on stage and announced that the choreography was actually entirely done by Jackson. This really made the critics wild, and Jackson finally got all the fame and recognition he had deserved. And since we tend to do our best work when we're together, I was back on the up and up again as well.


All this to say that I think my brother is a great dancer and man who truly deserves to be on a Wheaties box. I've included in this letter a mock-up of what I think a really great box would look like.

Thank you in advance for your consideration,

Jordan

 

Author's note: In the original King Arthur story, Arthur gets a sword out of a rock because he promised his brother he would not return without a sword. However, Arthur's father realizes that this sword actually signifies that Arthur is the rightful king because he is the only one in the whole kingdom who can release the sword from the rock. Even though Arthur immediately gave the sword to his brother and his brother initially (wrongly) thought that he was the king, his brother gladly gave the sword back to Arthur when his father told him Arthur was the one who was the king. I thought it was really cool that Arthur's brother wasn't jealous that Arthur was the king. He was genuinely happy for him. Most stories with brothers holding some sort of power involve a jealous brother who ends up killing the other (Claudius and Hamlet, Romulus and Remus, Cain and Abel, etc). I liked the supportive attitude that Arthur and his brother had, so I decided to make that the theme of my story. I have a brother, and although the sibling rivalry can be very real, we try to focus on building each other up and supporting each other whenever we can.

Bibliography: King Arthur: Tales of the Round Table by Andrew Lang, illustrated by H. J. Ford (1902).

Image Information: first picture: Les Twins; second picture I created using two images: Wheaties Box, Les Twins in Air

Week 12 Extra Reading Diary: The Canterbury Tales Continued

For an extra reading from the British unit, I chose to read the Canterbury Tales unit from the The Chaucer Story Book by Eva March Tappan (1908). I really enjoyed the first half of the reading, so I was extremely excited to finish the unit and read some more. The Priest who Learned to be a Philosopher was probably my favorite story from the second half of the unit. I wasn't sure where it was going at first, but I really liked the set-up of a priest that only worked for the dead and who was so super nice and fun that he didn't even have to pay rent! I feel like that would be quite the motivation for college students to be extra nice because rent is by far our biggest expense in most cases! I was so sad when the priest ended up getting tricked so badly! I feel like it's kind of his own fault since he's a priest and he was trying to learn how to do magic. The trickster did go to great lengths to fool him though, so maybe the blame was shared. I always think it's fun to read about tricks and stuff, so this story was right up my alley!

Week 11 Extra Reading Diary: Canterbury Tales

For an extra reading from the British unit, I chose to read the Canterbury Tales unit from the The Chaucer Story Book by Eva March Tappan (1908). Since I had already read the King Arthur stories, I loved that the first story in this unit cited a knight of the round table. It's not surprising since King Arthur is very pervasive and both stories are part of the British unit, but it was still a lot of fun. It was like a crossover episode on tv, which is always a ton of fun. Of the three units I read from the British unit (King Arthur, Robin Hood, and this one) I definitely like the Canterbury Tales the best so far. It could be just because these are told in the most understandable language and are somewhat more modern, but these stories really held my interest and made me want to continue reading even when I had other stuff I could have been doing. I definitely liked the Unknown Bride the best from the first half of the unit because it reminded me of an episode of the BBC show Sherlock for some reason. Maybe it was the title or the way the story was told, but I was just entranced from the first sentence to read the whole story and find out what happens to the knight. I loved that the old wife told the grumpy knight that just because she was poor and old didn't mean she wasn't kind. Although I don't know how nice it is to force a man to marry you in return for saving his life. I feel like she should have just automatically saved his life and wanted nothing in return if she was actually a good person.

King Midas and his ears

Week 12 Reading Diary: Robin Hood Continued

This week I decided to read the Robin Hood unit from The English and Scottish Popular Ballads by Francis James Child (1882-1898). I love that in the story with the Bishop Robin Hood actually fools him with his women's clothing! It seems so far-fetched that that would actually work. I also love that the story even included this because it's such a funny thing now to see movie stars or anyone dressed as another gender, so it's nice to know that it was a popular theme even way back when these ballads were sung! I loved the Maid Marian story because it was just so fun to hear about how awesome Marian was. She and Robin Hood were definitely the real deal, and it's obvious because even Little John was in on the Maid Marian worship. I would definitely want to include some sort of super beautiful awesome Maid Marian type in a storytelling post because she really seems to put everyone in Robin Hood's crew to shame with how much she likes Robin Hood. Robin Hood is such a master of disguise that I kind of can't believe people don't start catching him on it. It seems like he should be smarter by the time the King comes dressed in a disguise, but I guess in this time period how was a person supposed to know what a king or a Robin Hood actually looked like?

Bishop, by L. Rhead