Story Lab: What makes a hero?

For today, I chose the story lab option because I have five stories. Today, I focused on the Ted-Ed video What makes a hero? by Matthew Winkler. I really enjoyed this video! Mr. Winkler discusses and analyzes the similarities between heroes in different stories. He calls it "The Hero Journey Myth." This idea is that all hero stories follow a similar path, which is a circle. He compares The Hunger Games and Harry Potter. Mr. Winkler states that the stories begin by 1. A call to adventure, 2. Assistance, 3. Departure, 4. Trials, 5. An approach, 6. Crisis, 7. Treasure, 8. The result, 9. Return, 10. New life, 11. A resolution, and 12. The new Status quo. Mr. Winkler states that a lot of great hero stories follow this circular path. Stories that contain this element are very relatable. We can use these stories as examples for real-life situations. For example, we all must one day be called to action, go on a journey and leave our comfort zone to ultimately reach our goals. As Joseph Campbell once said, "The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek." 

A Cave: flickr 

Reading Notes: Part B, The Turtle Who Couldn't Stop Talking

For today's reading note, I focused on the Jataka Tales. In particular, I read the story The Turtle Who Couldn't Stop Talking by Ellen C. Babbitt. The story begins with two wild geese who are looking for food. As they are flying around talking with each other, they spot a turtle that was sitting next to a pond. They stop and talk to the turtle and become acquainted. They do this for a few days and eventually become good friends with the turtle. They become such good friends with the turtle, they want to take him to their home that is very beautiful, but far away (this seemed suspicious to me). The turtle responds by saying I would love to go, but I cannot fly. Therefore, the geese come up with a solution to the problem. They say, turtle if you can keep your mouth shut, we will be able to fly you to this new home. The turtle agrees, and the geese grab a stick and both hold an end with their mouth and instruct the turtle to hold onto the middle portion of the stick with his mouth. All is going well at this point, the two geese and turtle are flying to their new home. However, as they are flying, a group of children sees the geese and turtle flying together. They all converse, saying wow have you ever seen such a thing? This is crazy. The turtle somewhat offended, says, so what if my friends want to carry me? At this very moment, the turtle falls to his death. The turtle was not able to keep his mouth shut. I believe this story demonstrates to us, that there is a moment to speak, and a moment to keep silent. For potential future stories, I will be changing around the characters! I would like to keep an animal theme. Therefore, I will need to think about what animals I would like to use for this story. 

The Turtle: GoodFreePhotos 

Reading Notes: Jataka Tales, The Foolish Timid Rabbit

For this week, I will be reading the Jataka children tales! They are so fun to read. For today, in particular, I focused on the story The Foolish Timid Rabbit by Ellen C. Babbitt. The story begins with a rabbit sleeping underneath a palm tree. As he awakens, an idea comes into his head. He thinks, what would happen to me if the world began to break up? Already on edge about this idea, a monkey drops a coconut right next to the rabbit. This sends the rabbit into a fit of panic and he begins to run. As he is running, a nearby rabbit wonders what on earth is going on? Therefore, the second rabbit chases the first and asks why he is running. The timid rabbit begins to tell him that the earth is breaking up. So, the second rabbit continues to run. Many more rabbits begin to join and are told that the earth is breaking up. A deer, fox, and elephant are soon also recruited and are told that the earth is breaking up. Finally, the king of beast, the lion sees all the animals running and makes his way in front of them. He roars three times and commands them to a halt. He then begins to ask each of them why they are running. The animals eventually say the timid rabbit told them the earth was breaking up. The lion then asks the rabbit to take him to where the earth was breaking and carries the timid rabbit back to where he was originally sleeping. As they arrive, they see that the earth was not breaking up and that a coconut had just fallen. Good thing the lion resolved the situation, or else all the animals would have just kept running. This is the end of the story.

The Timid Rabbit: Public Domain Pictures