Extra Reading Diary: Tejas Legends

This week, I finished the Tejas Stories unit. I really enjoyed the story of How Sickness Entered the World. I thought it was a great explanation for why there are so many illnesses that afflict the world. When the boys beat the snake upon their arrival to the tree, my heart sank because I knew that they’d really stepped in it. I can only imagine how the medicine man was feeling when he found out what they had done.

Another story that I really enjoyed was Why the Dog’s Ears Flop, which I thought was a cute but tragic story of how dogs’ ears became floppy. Dogs are such a fun part of our lives that it’s hard to imagine them doing us any wrong. The turn of events in this story shows that when we first brought dogs into our lives, they were not just to play fetch with and cuddle with on cold nights. They were expected to earn their keep by protecting the humans that provided for them. The dog in this story learns a valuable lesson about trusting others, and we must all be wary of those who might try to trick us into allowing the ones we care about to get hurt.

(A labrador puppy with floppy ears)

Reading Diary A: Tejas Legends

For this week, I read the Tejas Legends unit, one of the cultures that I'm using in my Storybook Project. I really enjoyed these stories, as they are fun to read since they are targeted to children.

The first story that I really enjoyed was How the North Wind Lost His Hair, which explains how the North Wind lost his hair in a fight with the South Wind. When the North Wind loses the fight, he flees, and the South Wind comes away with his hands full of hair. When he drops it, it covers the trees and is known today as Spanish moss. When the North Wind comes back to the south, he quickly leaves because he sees his hair and is reminded that he lost. I thought this story was a very interesting lesson about why a certain plant grows the way it does and why it is always so warm near the gulf.

The other story that I really liked was Why the Woodpecker Pecks, which is one of the stories that I’m basing my Storybook on. This story tells how a tribe of Indians is transformed into woodpeckers because they become addicted to the mescal plant’s hallucinogenic properties and neglect their children. All of the children leave to find food on their own, and eventually one of the mothers notices they are gone, but the tribe cannot find their children. They are turned into birds and must try to find their children in trees, which is why they peck at them with their beaks. I really liked this story because it shows that drugs can be a powerful thing when used incorrectly, and that neglectful parents should be punished for abandoning their children.

(A woodpecker in a tree)

Famous Last Words: Week 9

Well, this week has definitely been a crazy one. I had 5 exams this week, and 3 of those were in a row on Wednesday. Needless to say, I’m very glad it’s finally spring break.

Now that I’ve gotten into at least one MPH program (University of Arizona so far!), I’m struggling with senioritis even more than I already was. Staying motivated in some of these crazy difficult classes is well… crazy difficult. I’m way more interested in figuring out where I’m going to be in the fall and what my adorably tiny apartment might look like than studying physical chemistry. I’m still waiting to hear back from a few schools, but knowing I have somewhere to go is reassuring. The schools I have left to hear from are Emory in Atlanta, Tulane in New Orleans, and USF in Tampa. The common theme here is places that are warm because let’s face it, this winter has proven that I definitely hate being cold.

It was definitely fitting that I read the Southwestern and California Legends unit for this week since I just got into U of A. I had fun imagining the stories from Arizona in the places I’ve been hiking around Tucson.

As I’m finishing this up, I actually just got back from visiting my parents in Tucson with my boyfriend for Spring Break. It was his first time in Tucson, so we went hiking two days in a row and drove around in my parent’s new (to them) 1980s Mercedes SL convertible. It’s absolutely beautiful. I think we ended up hiking 11 miles one day and 5 the next, so needless to say, we were both pretty sore by the time we left on Saturday. My parents made us lots of great food, and we celebrated their 23rd wedding anniversary Friday night at this amazing Italian restaurant, so all in all, it was a pretty great spring break. Back to slaving away for just a few short weeks before graduation, though! I hope I can make it until then...

11.3 miles of hiking definitely deserved our reward of chicken and waffles.

A photo posted by Lillian Flannigan (@vulpesdormiens) on Mar 19, 2015 at 4:00pm PDT

Extra Reading Diary: Southwestern and California Legends

For this week, I finished the Southwestern and California Legends unit. The stories from the Pima people in Arizona were again my favorites, as I could imagine the places that they were taking place really easily.

The first story that I really liked was The Children of Cloud, which tells the story of how mescal started growing on the sides of mountains. I thought the story was incredibly fun and interesting. I really wasn’t sure when I started reading where it was headed, but I thought that the outcome was definitely unexpected. The tests that Cloud put his children through to prove they were his were kind of crazy, but I can understand that he probably would want to make sure those claiming to be his children were telling the truth.

Mescal (Desert Agave)

Storytelling: The Coyote's Big Mistake

It had rained for days and days on end, and when the rain finally let up, the whole town was at least 2 feet underwater. It was impossible to get around except by boat, so the animals had taken shelter from the water in trees, on rocks, and on buildings until the water receded.

A coyote was stuck in a cottonwood tree, and he had quickly eaten any animals who were unfortunate enough to climb into the tree with him. Days passed, and the water did not receed. The coyote soon grew very hungry, and climbed down the tree to see if the water was shallow enough for him to swim in.

When he reached the lowest branches of the tree, he saw that the current was still too swift and the water too deep, so he could not leave the tree because he was not a strong swimmer. He had skipped swimming lessons to chase rabbits in the fields next to the lake. Now, he found that his hunting skills couldn’t save him because he was stuck in this tree.

A woman came by boat looking for her dog, and when she spotted the coyote in the cottonwood tree from far away, she thought he might be her dog. When she got close to the tree, she was able to anchor her boat to a stump that was sticking out of the ground not too far away. She called to the coyote, “Come down and show yourself! I have tortillas, and I know you must be hungry!”

The coyote climbed down the tree again, and when the woman saw that it was not her dog, she began to unanchor her boat from the tree stump. The coyote begged for her to toss him a tortilla. She laughed and asked why she should give a coyote who probably ate her livestock some food. He continued to beg, saying that he was starving and promised not to hunt her livestock again.

The coyote knew this promise was an empty one, and the woman stopped to think about this proposition for a minute. She wanted to catch the coyote in his lie and punish him for it, so she said, “I will toss you this tortilla, but if you do not catch it, I will not give you another.”

The coyote swiftly agreed, and the woman pulled a tortilla from her pack. The coyote climbed as close to the boat as he could and waited, jaws open and his tounge hanging from his mouth. When she threw the tortilla to him, she made sure it went just short of where he was waiting. He jumped forward, snapping violently, and soon realized the mistake he had just made. He splashed loudly into the water and was carried away by the swift current. The woman returned to her search, knowing that the coyote wouldn’t bother her family again.

A coyote on the move

Author's note: This story is based on Coyote and the Tortillas in the Southwestern and California Legends unit. A coyote is stuck in a cottonwood tree during a flood, and a woman comes by with a basket of tortillas on her head. When he asks for one, the woman refuses because they are for someone else. Because she refuses, the coyote threatens to shoot her, so she convinces him to come down the tree by saying she can't climb it. When he does, she tricks him into thinking the water is not deep, so he jumps from the tree and drowns. I wanted to keep the story very similar, but I elaborated on the original story quite a bit, since it is so short. I also changed up the interaction between the woman and the coyote. The coyote only thinks about himself, so I wanted him to get some payback for the tricks he pulls on other people.

Reading Diary A: Southwestern and California Legends

(Coyote in Yosemite National Park in California)

For this week, I read the Southwestern and California Legends unit. I really liked these stories because they provide a different approach to creation legends and myths, but they share a lot of similar elements like coyotes and bears.

I most enjoyed the stories that were from Arizona, but that’s probably because Tucson is located in Pima county, named after the group of Native Americans who lived in the area. One of these stories that I liked the most was Coyote and the Tortillas, which tells the story of how the coyote drowns after trying to get tortillas from a woman that were meant for someone else. To me, this story tells the perils of wanting something that is not yours. The woman tricks the coyote into thinking the water is shallow by standing on a stump, so when he climbs down the tree to get them from her, he falls into the water and downs. In the same way, when we want things that are not ours, and we coerce other people in giving them to us, we put ourselves in danger of getting “in over our heads” as the coyote did, causing him to lose everything.

Reading Review Week

Looking back, I most enjoyed reading Cupid and Psyche and the Ancient Egypt units. Both were full of intrigue and deities. Cupid and Psyche was pretty easy to read, which made the storyline easy to follow and that much more interesting. The Ancient Egypt unit was considerably harder to read, as that style of English is no longer widely used, but once I got used to it, I didn’t have too terrible of a time.

"Psyche entering Cupid's Garden" by John William Waterhouse. Source: wikiart.org

The thing that slowed me down the most was going to look up the gods and goddesses and even some of the places they mention. I just really wanted to have the full context of the story, but sometimes that took a lot more work than I thought it would. I think maybe a reference page with a short summary of each god/goddess/location (perhaps with a map!) would help students make sense of the stories over the course of time.

Looking back over the reading diaries definitely helps me recall the readings that I focused on, but it definitely washes out the others that I didn’t write about. Often, I used the ones I mentioned in my Storytelling assignment, so that helped reinforce that as well.