Week 13 (Essay): Grimm (Crane) Unit

This week I read the Grimm (Crane) unit. I actually really enjoyed this unit. It was quite interesting especially because of some of the unexpected endings. My favorite stories are King Thrushbeard and the Three Spinsters. I liked King Thrushbeard because I thought it was sweet how the King loved the princess so much, but he could see how arrogant and obnoxious she was. So, he disguised himself and went through all this work just to show her modesty. It was a bit heartwarming. As for the Three Spinsters, this story was very short, but I thought it was pretty funny! I originally thought it was going to be like Rumpelstiltskin, but it was not. In my opinion, it was better! My least favorite story was Snow White. This story was long and it felt like it dragged on a bit. All the stories were very straightforward so no background information or additional notes were needed. The overview gave a good description of the unit. It felt like the overall theme of this unit was about princesses except for the Fisherman and his Wife and the Robber Bridegroom. My overall goal for this class was to expose me to works of writing. This week, I did not choose something as obscure as I usually do. I choose something that I was a bit familiar with, but I had never really read. I found it as a fitting choice. I did not really learn anything from this unit nor did I have any expectations. However, something that surprised me was how gruesome the Robber Bridegroom story was! I remember have a few shivers and goose bumps while reading that story. Overall, I liked this unit! I recommend it to anyone that wants something easy to read. It has a good number of twists and turns that make it an interesting read!

Week 12 (Essay): King Arthur Review

(King Arthur on BBC Wales)

This week I read the King Arthur unit. This unit is about the life and quests of King Arthur and his companions including Merlin the magician and his Queen Guinevere. Before reading this, I had a general idea of what the unit was about, but I had never actually read it. Nonetheless, I did enjoy reading this unit. My favorite stories are The Drawing of the Sword and The Passing of Merlin. The Drawing of the Sword is a very appropriate first story because it is the beginning of the unit and the beginning of Arthur’s life as king. As for The Passing of Merlin, even though this is a very sad story, I found it interesting how the great and powerful Merlin met his demise because of a maiden. It is strange how people can be blinded by beauty so easily. My least favorite stories were the Questing Beast and the Coming of the Holy Graal. I understand that this is where Merlin and Arthur meet, but I felt like this section could have been mentioned in a note. As for The Coming of the Holy Graal, I also do not think this story was necessary to add. I could not figure out how it added to the overall effect of the story. This could also had just been a note rather than a story. It was just so-so.

I found that each story had an appropriate amount of notes. I enjoyed how there were additional Wikipedia links where students could read more on certain stories. I certainly took advantage of that and it was very convenient!

I also found that the overview gave a good description of the unit. I did not have any certain expectations coming into this story because I originally was going to read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I do not think anything really surprised me while I was reading the unit either.

Essay (Week 11): The Faerie Queen Unit Review

(girl in armor)

I really did enjoy the Faerie Queen unit about Britomart’s quest to find her love. I liked the play on gender and the Britomart’s character. She had both feminine and masculine attributes to her. My favorite story was in the first half of the reading where Britomart saves a Knight from being attacked by six other knights in honor of their queen. The queen, more commonly known as the Lady of Delight, is a narcissistic character and actually falls for Britomart’s looks and strength. Then she discovers that Britomart is actually a female. I found it all very funny and entertaining. As for least favorite stories, I cannot really think of one. I felt that the stories of this unit were pretty good all around. As for background information, I felt that the plots and writing was very straightforward. I liked how you offered the prose version over the poetry version. This made reading it much easier to understand and I could read through it faster without worrying whether or not I misunderstood the reading. However, I do wish there were some vocabulary links or notes with certain terms like squire. Although, it is very easy to look up a word on Google, I always think it is a nice touch when you link a word in the reading or offer more links if we are interested in a certain topic. The overview was a good description of the reading and got me interested in the reading. I knew that I wanted to read this unit from the beginning of the semester and it met my personal expectations. I thought it was a great story! I am somewhat familiar with Shakespearian plays, but I am not as familiar with Arthurian writing so I liked how this unit was a mixture of the two. It gave me great insight on the writing and culture from those days. I think it's a great unit and people should give it a try!

Week 9 (Essay): My First Memories of Reading

(Little Boy Reading Book)

My first memories of reading are from my elementary school days. I do not remember any times my parents read a story to me in my early years, but I remember reading a lot of books. My classmates and I were always trying to rack up as many AR points as we could so that we could trade them for candy or yo-yos or a $25 check! I think I almost had 300 points in my last year. I thank the Harry Potter series for that! I remember how proud I was of that because I was never really the best reader. I liked to take my time and enjoy each of the pictures while I was reading. Even now, I still do. I used to work at a library as a library aide for the last three years until I finally quit. When I shelved books in the Children’s section, I would always read through some of them and look through all the pictures. I love how the illustrators put so much work and detail into their pictures and how they gave a precise image of what was happening in each part. Just the imagination they put into their work really amazes me. 

Back in the day, I preferred fiction books. I still do now as well. I do not have a particular favorite genre. However, I found a new appreciation for nonfiction books. Who knew the real world could as interesting as an imaginary one? When I used to shelve in the nonfiction section, I would find myself browsing through all kinds of different books. I would look through cooking recipes, religion texts, and even sports books. I found a lot of new and interesting things to read. 

Unfortunately, I do not get to read as much as I did when I was younger because I can never find the time. I tried to read some books last semester, but I would only get through the first few chapters and then stop. Now, I am mostly reading textbooks, which is not always as interesting. Hopefully, when I am done with schooling, I can find more time to read at my leisure!

Week 7 (Essay): Writitng and Proofreading Strategies

 (Someone Writing BY anyaberkut; source:Thinkstock)

Through out my college career, I have not had to write as much until this class. However, in high school, I had to write a lot. I learned a few tips and tricks along the way.


For choosing a topic, a good tip is to choose a semi-general topic. Then research the topic a bit to find something to focus on more. I have found this tip particularly helpful. For me, I am very indecisive and sometimes I want to write about everything so it is difficult for me to focus on just one topic. Another thing is to not be afraid to edit or revise the topic. I have learned that my initial topic will most likely be different from the topic of my final draft.


For brainstorming, I do a few different tricks. Sometimes I will do a web bubble with the topic in the center small details or notes branching out from the topic. Other times, I will do an outline with topics I want to discuss and the order I want to discuss them. This method really helps organize a proper formatting and organization with my essays. The final method that I like to use and use the most out of the prior three is to just start writing about the topic and do not worry too much about the punctuation or the grammar. Once I am done with that, I will go through each paragraph looking for grammatical errors, awkward wording, unimportant context, etc.  I find this tip most helpful because I can see what topics I need to expand on and which ones I can leave out. I like to use this method the most because I have less chance of writer’s block when I just write and not worry too much about the small details.  

Week 6 (Essay): First Memories of Writing

I remembered when I started out to write, my parents had bought me a book to practice writing my letters. This was before I was in school so they taught me my first word, Paula. Yep, my first word that I could write was my name, which I think is pretty standard. I was so good at writing it that I wrote it on my closet door with a sharpie. My parents were not too happy about that. When I came into elementary school, I practiced my print writing a bit more. Then I moved onto cursive writing. I was never really great at cursive writing.

Last year, I was looking through a lot my old assignments and found some of the elementary projects. One of them was a storybook. I remember in 4^th grade, my teacher made us write a storybook about animals and it had to include a moral. I think we were learning about Aesop’s Fables at that time. We had to come up with a rough draft, edit it, and do all the illustrations. It was a lot of fun. My story was about two horses in love. They were galloping through the woods and come across a wild and scary bear. They bear was three times the size of the male horse. However, he stood his ground and protected his love. The moral of the story was “It’s not the size of the person that matter, but the size of their heart.” I’m not sure why that was never published. It was a great read and the illustrations were top notch!

Anyway, I never had any computer writing assignments in elementary school so I’m not exactly sure how or when I learned to use the keyboard. Nowadays, everyone is using a keyboard. Even my little cousin who is a toddler understands the basics of a computer. It’s a bit weird how things are changing so much in such a small span of time. What if schools remove paper and pens completely? I am a little bit afraid about that future. Sure, computers and technology is cool, but there is something special about writing with a paper and pen that you just don't get with screens.

Week 5 (Essay): The Twenty Two Goblins Unit

 (Twenty Two Goblins translated by Arthur W. Ryder)

The Twenty Two Goblins unit was a really good unit. I really liked all of the stories in it. My favorite thing about this unit was that the stories were so unique. I have never heard most of them with the exception to the Girl and the Thief. That story reminded me of Aladdin from Disney, which I am sure that Disney got inspiration from that story. One of my favorite units is The Girl who Transposed the Heads of her Father and Brother. I thought that story was pretty funny and I liked the riddle in it. However, I did enjoy all of the stories so I do not think I have a least favorite story. I felt that all the stories were very straightforward and easy to understand so they did not need additional notes. I felt that the overview was very accurate and gave a good feel for what the unit is about. I am not sure what additional information could be added to it because I think people are just not aware of this story. I know that I wouldn’t have thought to read through it if I did not respond to Chelsea Zhou’s storytelling post. This reading choice really fitted nicely into my overall reading goals because my goal was to be exposed to more worldly literature. In the beginning of the semester, I chose units that I felt more comfortable with, but now I went outside of that and branched out. From doing so, I ended up really liking the stories that I read. I am not sure I really learned anything from this unit besides do not meet with a monk in the middle of the night at a cemetery. You know something is strange when he tells you to grab a dead body from a tree.

Week 4 (Essay): Orientation Week Proofreading Assessment

 (Website Header for National Proofreading Day)

I thought the assignment was easy when I was doing it. I thought there were not many mistakes in either of my stories. However, when I got the comments back, the results surprised me. I missed a lot of basic verb rules like subject-verb agreement and the correct tense of the verb. Many of my mistakes were ones that I should have caught, but I suppose I was going through the assignment too quickly. Before this assignment, I did not know “shown” and “shone” were different words. They both sound the same and I do not think I have had to spell either word until now. In many of my other college courses, I do not have to write very much because I am mostly solving problems. However, proper grammar is vital to my future career because it demonstrates how competent I am. Therefore, for my writing goals, I want to become better at my grammar and proofread better. I will now be more aware of my subject-verb agreements and take more time into proofreading my material. Usually if I am unsure about spelling, I refer to dictionary.com. For punctuation and many other writing questions, I refer to Microsoft Word. This is not the best method. Now, I should refer to online references and carefully make sure whether or not the sentence makes sense. Maybe I have been reading too many books with descriptive and flamboyant diction that I have forgotten proper English grammar. Some advice that I would give to myself this semester is to take things slow when I am writing and proofreading my work. Writing is a form of communication to others so I do not want to sound incompetent because of poor grammar. Just because I passed the high school AP English Language exam does not mean I am a master at grammar. I still have much room to grow in that aspect.

Week 2 (Essay): Eros and Psyche Review

 (Eros+Psyche by dahlig; soure: deviantART)

            This week I read the story of Cupid and Psyche from The Golden Ass by Apulieus and translated by Tony Kline. I enjoyed the readings of this unit. The overview was very good in describing the story so that I knew the basic idea of the unit without blatantly giving away the plot. I am really glad I chose this story. There was enough drama where people did not think it was over-the-top. It is also not one of the more common Roman myths like Persephone, the Golden Apple, etc. At least, I had never heard of this story before within my four years of taking Latin.

For these types of readings, most people do not usually like the diction because it is different from how contemporary are written. The writing is so descriptive and flamboyant that many people end up getting confused, but I happen to enjoy it very much. Even for those that are not used to this style of writing, the notes and background information helped with understanding the story. One of the notes that could be improved would be in the Oracle of Apollo. It would have been nice to have more notes about the prophecy portion. Because it was a bit difficult to decipher, this was my least favorite story. Other than that, I liked all of the stories because the supplemented notes were sufficient for understanding what was happening.

As for the story itself, I also ended up enjoying it. There were a few slow parts and many repetitions, as with a lot of Greek/Roman mythologies, but the overall experience was good.  Like I said, the notes really helped readers understand the background material of the stories better. I liked how some topics were linked to other websites in case someone wanted to look more into the background material. I wished some notes were at the end of the story because they felt like a spoiler, but it was not a big deal.