Week 2 Story Anthology and "Reading like a Writer"

Each week, you will be reading stories and then choosing one of those stories to retell in your own words. Unlike a class where you are reading material for a future exam, the reading in this class will provide the raw ingredients you need to write your own stories. Stories from stories.

So, for this week, you will start out by reading an anthology of stories, and then for the next assignment you will write your own version of a story in the anthology.

Like every reading assignment in this class, you should plan on spending approximately one hour to complete the reading and then to write up your notes. Consider it something like going to class, except you get to decide just when and where you do that. Here is how to complete the assignment, step by step:

STEP ONE: Learn about the Reading Notes posts. Before you start reading the stories in the anthology, you need to read this information about taking notes and reading like a writer: Your Reading Notes. Each time you do reading for this class, you will write up a blog post with notes in it, and the idea is that you can then use those notes to help you when you write your own story. 

STEP TWO: Read the stories. So, now that you know something about the reading notes approach and reading like a writer, you are ready to read the story anthology. Choose the anthology for the class that you are in and read all the stories that you will find there:

MYTH-FOLKLORE Anthology     |     INDIAN EPICS Anthology

STEP THREE: Write a Reading Notes post. Was there one story that really grabbed your attention? If so, that is the story to write about in your Reading Notes post. Maybe there were even two or three stories that you really liked; if so, go ahead and write up notes on more than one story. But remember: you should NOT try to write notes on all the stories. You need to READ all the stories, and with each story ask yourself, "Was this my favorite so far?" When you get to the end of the reading, you should have one story you know you want to take notes on, or maybe two or three if you cannot pick just one favorite.

Here are the guidelines for the Reading Notes post:

POST TITLE: Include the phrase Reading Notes plus a reference to the specific reading. For this post, the the title would be: Reading Notes: Week 2 Anthology.

POST LABELS: Each Reading Notes post will have TWO post labels: "Reading" plus a label for the week (Week 2, Week 3, etc.). For this post, that will be: Reading, Week 2 (with a comma between the two labels).

BIBLIOGRAPHY: You need to include AUTHOR, TITLE, and a LINK to the specific story (or stories) that you are writing about. You will find the bibliography information you need on each page of the Anthology. 

IMAGE: In addition to your notes about the reading, find at least one image that you want to include. That might be an image from the reading itself, or it might be some other image that you find online that connects with what you wrote about in your notes. Make sure you include image information. That means a CAPTION for the image and a LINK to the webpage where you found the image. You might even find the image you want to use for your storytelling later in the week!

When you are done with each Reading Notes post, don't forget to do the Declaration in Canvas: