Projects: Week 2 Brainstorming Topics for Myth-Folklore

For this week's project assignment, you will be brainstorming some possible Storybook topics. Given the vast range of world mythology and folklore, there are literally thousands and thousands of possible topics that could work. I hope you will use this assignment to think about what kinds of stories and myths you most want to study in this class. If you can figure that out, I promise to do my best to help make that happen!

So, for this assignment you will write about FOUR possible Storybook topics in a blog post. I'll read your post and send you some comments via email about those topics, ideas for online resources, etc. Then, for Week 3, you will pick one of those four topics and do some in-depth research about that topic to learn more. To see how that all fits together, you might want to take a look again at the Project Overview.

Time. You should budget approximately one hour for this assignment, which is about how long the project assignment will take each week. For EACH topic you are considering, you need to do 10-15 minutes of reading and research, writing up your thoughts and notes in a paragraph, including links to the specific resource(s) you looked at for each topic you are interested in. Make sure to bookmark as you are browsing and researching so that you will be able to find those resources again later. When you are done, your blog post will have four paragraphs, one for each topic.

Topic Ideas. There are several different ways you can get ideas and inspiration about possible topics:

• You can look at the Project Topic listings; each topic there has a page with research suggestions and ideas, plus links to any past Storybook projects that are still online. You can also browse past Myth-Folklore Storybook projects to see what inspiration you find there. (Some of the links to old projects may not work; luckily, though, most students do leave their projects online for which I am very grateful!)

• You can browse through the UnTextbook reading units (like you did last week), this time thinking about possible Storybook topics. Any of the UnTextbook units would make a great basis for a Storybook of your own; these Diigo listings are easy to browse (click any unit link in Diigo to go to the actual unit): Classical - Biblical - Mideast - India - Asia - Africa - Native American - British/Celtic - European. You might also look back at your Week 2 Reading Overview post where you listed reading units for the whole semester: any one of those reading units could be the basis for a Storybook!

• You can browse through the Freebookapalooza. There are about about 1500 online books there, and any one of those books could be the source for a Storybook in this class. (You can also use the books at the Freebookapalooza for extra credit reading if you want; there's an extra credit reading option available every week).

• Look back through your blog posts. Some of your earlier blog posts and/or comments on those posts might give you some ideas about topics to consider for this class! For example, you might look back at the Favorite Storybooks post you wrote in Week 1 to see what ideas you can find there.

• You can also write me with questions or ideas, and I'll be glad to brainstorm with you by email before you write your blog post. 

Finishing the assignment. When you are done, you will have FOUR possible topics, and you need to write a paragraph for each one in your blog post. Explain why you are interested in this topic, what previous knowledge you have, what you would like to learn, what kinds of stories you would like to tell and how you might want to retell them. For each topic, include a link to at least one online source that you think looks promising (that could be a link to a reading unit in the UnTextbook, to a book you find online, or to some other web source). The more specific you can be about each of your ideas, the easier it will be for me to give you useful feedback!

Image. Please include at least one image (with image information) that relates to one of the topics.

Additional details. For the post title, include the phrase "Topic Brainstorm" somewhere in the title, and use "Project, Week 2" for the labels (or "Project, Week 3" if you are doing this in Week 3). Don't forget to put a comma between the labels.

FILL IN THE FORM and DO THE DECLARATION. To let me know the assignment is done, fill out the form below. Then, after you have submitted the form, you can do the Gradebook Declaration for the Project assignment in Canvas. I will send you back comments on your assignment by email.