Mythical Class

This week I switched over to LibroVox's version of some Grimm stories to see how the different adaptations would read. THis section had a different collection of stories alltogether from last week, but the underlying familiar tone from the Grimm brothers was still there. Thse stories were also more familiar that last week's. My favorite story for this section was one that I had no familiarity with. That would be The Straw, The Coal, and The Bean. The past few units I have been so interested to see how non-human characters are used and this story takes this much further. Here even a piece of burning coal can exit a fire and participate in both narrative and dialogue. Story: Link Image: Link  

Dreamcatcher Task  Continuing this week's chapter of Native American stories, I read the second part of the Heroes option. I had found the use of animals and non-specific creatures as characters so unique in the past section, though also characteristically folk, that I was pleased to see it continued with part B. These stories have characters that are so simplified that it allows the reader to focus entirely on the story itself. From Son-In-Law to Thrown-behind-the-curtain, the names of the characters provide just enough information to read the narrative, while not distracting form the story. As the latter navigated a series of stories that seemed to follow a single timeline, we don't garner TOO much information about Thrown himself. Instead we see his interactions with other players that are shed in a similar light. I think tomorrow I will take an attempt at writing in this style, specifically in the narrative of the Son-In-Law tasks. Wemicus' challenges seem very full...

Paul I read Paul's Letter to the Romans today, exploring what sort of message he was trying to convey to the city's people. This is one of those times when understanding the context was crucial to get the most out of reading. Paul was in the midst of experiencing a faction in the early days of the church. This all surrounded the "Gentile question," which asked how closely a gentile Christian needed to follow Jewish law. Letter to the Romans is set up in a brilliant argument where Paul makes the case that you can be a Christian without being Jewish. What impressed me most was his appeal to Abraham. The ancestor of the Jewish people, Abraham is definitely considered a righteous man. However, everything that he did was outside of the law. That is, his righteousness was granted to him by God for reasons other than whether or not he kept Kosher or was circumcised. The way he writes this direct letter and approaches just astounded me because I think it would be pretty d...