Online Education Review

I've taken quite a few online classes in my four years here and, honestly, I prefer them to in person classes. I like being able to work (for the most part) at my own pace. I don't have to be in a classroom at a certain time for a certain amount of time every single week. I can get to online classwork when I get to it. I personally think self-paced classes are the best, but I don't think it's necessary for students to have "full" control where everything is due by the last day of class. Lengthy and flexible deadlines makes for less stressed-out students.

One of the things I don't like about online classes are discussion posts. These assignments are meant to get you to engage with other students and the instructor (since you never actually meet up) as well as further your knowledge about whatever you learned that week. However, I mostly just find these assignments to be tedious wastes of my time. I hardly ever learn anything new from my classmates and I don't feel like I contribute much to others either. We're all just filling up the post with enough words to meet the occasional word requirement and seeming like we're saying something significant when we're really not.

Another sort of bad thing about most online classes is that I usually don't retain much of the information like I do in regular courses. I feel like this is due to a lack of reinforcement of the knowledge from the textbook that you get by attending a lecture. Instructors try to make up for this deficit with discussion posts, but I've already stated how pointless I think they are. However, this isn't entirely a bad thing because if you're taking a class about something that you're never going to use in your real life then it doesn't matter if you remember the material. As long as you can make a decent grade in the class and get that credit you need then you're good. This doesn't really apply to our Mythology and Folklore class, though, because you aren't learning new information so much as you are actually engaging with the material (the units we read) and doing things with it (rewriting stories, commenting on people's projects, etc.).

If I could design my own online course I would set it up in 4 big, self-paced units. All work in each unit would be due at the end of each quarter of the semester. There would be no pointless discussion posts. Students could engage with the material at their own pace and not have to worry about getting everything done by a midnight deadline on Friday or Sunday like is usually the case. Depending on the subject of the course, I would probably have quizzes and one test in each unit. All tests would only be over the content in a single unit, though the 2nd and 4th tests would be called the midterm and the (non-comprehensive) final. I'm still a student so right now I care more about how much less stressful non-comprehensive finals are than how much a student remembers about all the material in the course. As I get older, this feeling might change.

I am pro online class! (Pixabay)

Gen. Ed. Review

Since I'm a senior, my education here is nearly complete so I can speak from a lot of experience. If I had to pick one word to describe my Gen. Ed. experience here at OU it would be "thorough". Not only have I taken many Gen. Ed. courses but these courses have come from many different subjects. I've taken English classes like Fiction and Expository Writing. I've taken Spanish classes (3 semesters). I've a taken journalism class, an Information Science class, Chemistry (2 semesters), Zoology, Physics, Business Calculus, Intro to Native American studies, History of the American Musical Theatre and this class, Mythology and Folklore (and probably even more that I can't think of off the top of my head). Basically, I've done a little bit of everything. My education has been very well-rounded and I like that. It's cool to be very proficient in one subject. In fact, I know a lot about psychology, which is my major. However, I think it's even cooler to also know a little bit of everything. I can talk to you about Broadway musicals or tell you how to say something in Spanish (most of the time) or discuss how hormones work or explain to you what Title IX really means or tell you about fascinating psychology experiments or psychological phenomena.

I think my Humanities classes have probably been my favorite classes to take outside of my major. Mythology and Folklore has definitely been one of my very favorites. I also really enjoyed History of the American Musical Theatre. I got to watch several shows throughout the semester and lots of clips of shows. I loved my Fiction class during my very first semester at OU. My professor was British, I loved it any time she said "Harry Potter," and I really liked all the stories we read. I wouldn't change anything about the Gen. Ed. program if I could. I think it allows students to get a broad base of knowledge in a wide range of subjects. Overall, I've been very happy with my college education as a whole.

I can't believe I'm going to graduate soon! (Wikimedia Commons)

Week 12 Storytelling: Riddle Me This

On my way back from town, I met my neighbor Tom as he was tending his field of wheat.

"How as your journey?" he asked with sweat running down his forehead. I myself was perspiring quite a bit as I had traveled far on this unusually hot day.

"It was long and tiring," I confessed, "and rather peculiar as well."

"Peculiar how?" Tom asked intrigued.

"As I was going to St. Ives I met a man with seven wives," I explained.

Harbor in St. Ives, Cornwall
(Geof Sheppard)

"Seven wives? Why, that's an ungodly amount. Not just in the holy sense, but what man would want to have seven wives to provide for and listen to?" Tom joked.

"It gets even stranger," I told him. "Each wife had seven sacks. Each sack had seven cats. Each cat had seven kits."

"Kits, cats, sacks, wives. This must have been the oddest procession. How did each woman carry seven sacks, each with seven cats in it and each of their seven kits? That seems quite impossible," Tom exclaimed.

"Yes, it was the oddest sight, indeed. The cats and kits were all rather small actually, much smaller than your average cat and kitten. I suppose that helped some. There were bags hanging all over these women, though. It was like they were pack mules, all trailing one another as if in some strange parade."

"This will make a good story to tell the other folk in the village," Tom said shaking his head.

"Oh, I intend to," I told him. "In fact, I'm going to make a riddle out of it. Let's see if you can figure it out."

"Let's see if we can all figure it out," Tom replied, climbing over his fence. We headed into the heart of the village and gathered everyone together to hear my ingenious riddle. Once everyone was settled and quite, I began.

"As I was going to St. Ives I met a man with seven wives. Each wife had seven sacks. Each sack had seven cats. Each cat had seven kits. Kits, cats, sacks, wives. How many were there going to St. Ives?"

There was silence while everyone pondered the question on their own, but soon they were working as a group trying to solve it.

"Well seven cats in a bag with seven kits each makes 49 right?" one man asked.

"No, you dolt," his wife scolded him. "There are 49 kits plus the 7 cats which makes 56 in one sack."

"If there are 7 sacks of 56 on a wife... what's 56 times 7?" the baker wondered.

"392," answered his boy, who he'd sent to university through his hard labor.

"If that's how many are on each of the 7 wives... what's 392 time 7?" the butcher chimed in. It took the boy a little while longer to come up with the sum this time.

"2744," he finally answered. "Plus the 7 wives makes 2751!"

"That's wrong," I said, shaking my head.

"You forgot the man!" someone said. "It's 2752!"

"That's still incorrect," I informed them smugly, enjoying my little game. They started through the whole problem again, this one yelling at that one for not counting right. I thought the whole village would get into a row if I didn't stop them and give them the answer.

"Alright, alright!" I called over the roar of the crowd, bringing them back to attention. "I'll tell you the answer."

The silence was so deep you might have been able to hear the feet of the man and his wives somewhere far down the road.

"The answer is one," I said, very satisfied with myself that I had tricked them all. "I was the one going to St. Ives. I met them on the road but they were going to other direction." The whole crowd laughed at how silly they had been and then began to ask questions about the man and all his wives and cats. Every time someone from my village met someone not from the village, they would tell them the St. Ives riddle. It was of the most well-known riddles, but very few get the answer right on the first try.

--------------------------

Author's Note: This story is built around the riddle As I Was Going to St. Ives from the Nursery Rhyme Book edited by Andrew Lang (1897). The riddle the narrator tells in my story is the exact same as the riddle in the book. I just added a story around the riddle and gave the answer to the riddle because one isn't given in the book. There has always been a dispute, though, about what the "real" answer is. Some people count up only all the people, some include the cats, some even include the sacks for some odd reason. Personally, I think "one" is the right answer because many riddles try to distract you with extraneous information when the answer is actually really simple.

College Writing Review

This post has special significance to me because I am a senior. I have four years of college writing under my belt from many different disciplines, even other languages! Here is a list of just a few classes I can think of off the top of my head that were writing intensive or where a written assignment was a big part of the class: Expository Writing, Fiction, Research Methods II, Intermediate Spanish, Women and Sports, and Mythology and Folklore. I'm sure I could think of more if I thought really hard.

But from these classes, I recognize three different "types" of writing: essay writing, scientific writing, and creative writing. Of all the classes I have taken, Expository Writing most helped my essay writing. I took this class my very semester here at OU and I'm SO glad I did. I saw huge improvements in my essays after just one semester. It is amazing how far your writing can come in a few months when you have an excellent instructor with a relatively small number of students to attend to. This was the last composition class I will probably take in my life and I'm so much the better for it.

Research Methods II is a psychology class (and I'm a psych major) that teaches you the basics of how to conduct research in psychology. Since I want to conduct research in graduate school, this class was an important one for me to take. At the end, you got to design and run your own experiment then (where it was most helpful to my scientific writing skills) write a research paper and present a poster to the class. I worked really hard on my research paper (it is probably still the longest one I have written to this day) and I ended up winning first prize in my class for my experiment. This was definitely one of my favorite writing experiences here at OU.

Finally, I come to my favorite class this semester: Mythology and Folklore! Obviously, the style of writing this class has helped me with most is creative writing. I've gotten a lot of positive feedback about my writing and it has honestly blown me away. Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to be an author, but I didn't think I would be any good at it. This class has been a major confidence booster and I've learned a lot about myself as a writer and what my strengths and weaknesses are. I hope to continue to read literature that I love and write stories that other people like once this class is over.

Overall, I've had wonderful writing instruction here at OU and I think my writing has improved significantly in four years (even more so than it did in four years of high school). I owe many thanks to the awesome instructors who guided me and taught me how to be a better writer, including the instructor for this course, Laura Gibbs!

Writing with a pen, the way I like to write when I write for myself
(Wikipedia)

Reading Diary A: Nursery Rhymes

Here are my favorites from the Nursery Rhymes reading unit:

Tales: There were two particularly funny nursery rhymes in this section. One is about Punch and Judy. Basically, Punch punched Judy in the eye over a pie. I don't know why I thought that was so funny, but I did. Maybe because it's early in the morning. The other one is about Taffy, a thief. The narrator goes over to Taffy's house and he's never there, but Taffy keeps coming back to his house to steal stuff. He finally catches Taffy at home in bed and flings a poker at his head. Yes, I probably laughed too much at this one. This also had the rhyme about the fat man from Bombay that I used to write my first retelling this semester! :)

Taffy the thief on the prowl
(L. Leslie Brooke)

Songs, Part 1: This section included some classics and favorites of mine. I'm pretty sure most people have heard the rhyme about Little Bo-Peep who lost her sheep. There was also a longer, different version of London bridge is falling down. My favorite was probably Sing a Song of Sixpence because I sang a song with lyrics from this rhyme when I was in choir in high school. It brought back a bunch of old memories that I hadn't thought about in a long time. Near the end was a nursery rhyme I recognized from the movie Ted, "I love my sixpence, my pretty little sixpence." The rhyme isn't as creepy as Mark Walburg made it sound.

Riddles: I love a good riddle and most of these stumped me. I got one of them, though, about a bunch of legs with the answer being a man threw a stool at a dog for stealing hit leg of mutton. I've heard the St. Ives riddle before and I'm pretty sure the answer is one man is going to St. Ives, the narrator. The point of some riddles is to make you think really hard in the wrong direction and the answer is actually really simple; I think the St. Ives riddle is one of these. I kinda got the last one right, too. I thought they might all be the names of one girl.

Week 11 Storytelling: A Dream Come True

By all appearances, it was just another beautiful spring day in Oklahoma. The sky was a brilliant blue, filled with large, puffy white clouds. A slight breeze blew from the south, welcomed respite from the building heat. I made my way along the familiar sidewalk path toward campus and my job with thoughts of homework and graduation heavy on my mind. It seemed like another ordinary day, but it was about to be the farthest thing from ordinary.

"Hey!" a voice called out, seeming to come from out of nowhere. I immediately looked up and scanned the area for the person trying to get someone's (my?) attention. At first I saw no one, but when I turned right I nearly ran into him.

"Um, me?" I stammered, quite confused. I'd never seen this guy before in my life and he was dressed rather strangely. Although it was a crisp 67 degrees outside, he wore a long black robe. He clearly wasn't from around here. I looked around to see if anyone else thought this guys was weird, but no one even glanced at him.

"You're Shelby Brown, aren't you?" he asked, calling my attention back to him.

"How do you know my name?" I responded, pretty shocked that this complete stranger knew who I was.

"Oh, we've known about you for a while now," he explained with a grin. I began to freak out a little bit internally. We? Who is this 'we?'

"What do you want?" I asked hesitantly. And why is everyone giving me the weird looks instead of you? I thought.

"It's pretty simply really: I want you to come with me," he said.

"Um, me? Where? Why?" I was dumbfounded. Who was this random guy coming up to me out of nowhere and asking me to go somewhere with him?

"Yes, you. To Hogwarts. Because you're a witch," he answered.

I burst out laughing.

"Oh, I get it," I said, relieved. "This is some kind of joke. I didn't realize today was April Fools Day! Who put you up to this? Was it my sister? Or Alex? They should have realized this wouldn't work because I'm way too old for Hogwarts."

"I do realize the date is not ideal for this sort of news but this is not a joke. Hogwarts has actually been expanding recently and has opened up a school for older students, those who wish to continue their magical education after 7th year as well as those who never got the chance to start their magical training at the standard age," he explained.

"Right," I said sarcastically, "that's a nice recovery, but I'm still not fooled. Why don't you show me some magic, then? I'll decide what you do in case this is more elaborate than I imagine and you've set something up already." I scanned the area for some inspiration and my eyes landed on a black car parked nearby.

"Turn that black car red," I challenged him. He sighed and shook his head, but took out a rather realistic looking wand and pointed it at the car.

"Clovaria." To my utter disbelief, the jet black frame gradually shifted to red as if blushing. I couldn't stop my jaw from dropping.

"Make that flower larger," I demanded, pointing to a small yellow dandelion.

"Engorgio," he said confidently. The flower, indeed, became three times its original size in only a few second. People walked past without even noticing the oversized dandelion or the man waving a wand around.

"Why isn't anyone else freaking out?" I asked him incredulously.

"Because only you can see me," he said a little exasperated with how difficult I was being. I would have protested this explanation before but now it seemed perfectly reasonable. "Now will you come with me? We need to get you all sorted out so you can start your first year in July."

I nodded my head vigorously but could not manage any words, still in disbelief that this was real life and not just some dream I would wake up from soon. He chuckled at my reaction and instructed me to follow him. Sitting on the ground about thirty feet away was a tattered old shoe I was certain at this point was the portkey that would take me to the place I had dreamed of for many years.

Hogwarts
(Wikipedia)

Author's Note: This story was inspired by Connla and the Fairy Maiden from the book Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs (1892). Connla is entreated to come to the paradise of the immortals by a fairy maiden that only he can see. His father enlists the help of a druid to try to vanquish the fairy, but she comes back and asks Connla again to come with her. This time he does not resist and agrees to go with her. They sail away and are never seen again, at least by anyone in the mortal realm.

I wanted to rewrite this story because I have often dreamed about someone coming along and introducing me to a magical world I never knew existed. This is very much like what happened to Harry Potter at the beginning of the series and I have loved these books since I was a child. Like everyone else, I had hoped that I would get a letter from Hogwarts so I could go study transfigurations and charms and magical creatures. This story is basically just wishful thinking or a crazy fantasy that I made into a full story. Another way I could have gone with this was meeting the Doctor and becoming one of his companions, but I thought the Wizarding World was more fitting since it's a magical realm where as Doctor Who takes place in reality just all over in time and space.

Reading Diary B: Celtic Fairy Tales

These are my favorites from the second half of the Celtic Fairy Tales unit:

Beth Gellert: I have not a read a sadder story in all the units I've completed so far. You know that scene in Lady and the Tramp where Aunt Sarah (that terrible woman) has Tramp sent to the pound because he "attacked the baby?" When really he had just saved him from a rat. This story is a lot like that. Gellert is the prince's favorite greyhound and he protected his son from a wolf, but all he saw was the blood on the dog and all around the child's room. So he STABS HIM but then hears his son, finding him unharmed under the crib next to the dead wolf. I'm glad he feels terrible because he MURDERED his most loyal dog. How could you!?

The Tale of Ivan: This is an odd little adventure tale. Instead of being paid wages for 3 years, Ivan accepts advice from his master which helps him a lot more than the 9 pounds would have. I was still skeptical of this decision, though. His wife had to live without money (at least none contribute by Ivan) for 3 years! In the end, the advice saved his life twice, got him a good job as a lord's servant, and the wages he was owed for all the work he did. So it was good advice but I still can't help feeling sorry for the wife who had to live without any money. It is just a fairy tale, though, so it's possible for people to live on little to no money for years somehow.

Andrew Coffey: If the first story was the saddest I've read so far, this one is nearly the weirdest I've read so far. A bunch of strange things happen and without very much logic, reason, or explanation. At one point, Andrew is roasting a dead guy, who was supposedly lost at sea, on a spit (the picture below is the illustration that goes along with the story). I kept waiting for the part where it would make sense or some explanation would come, but it never did. So after thinking about it, I've decided that Andrew Coffey was probably just being haunted the spirit of the dead man. It all seems like a bad dream which could be another explanation, but I think the haunting is more probable.

Andrew roasting the dead man (who still talks and move) on a spit (John D. Batten)

Brewery of Eggshells: I don't know how a story can be silly and creepy at the same time but this one manages to do just that. A couple realizes their children aren't growing and suspect they've been stolen and replaced. A wise man tells the mother to bake eggshells and try to give them to someone as food which causes one of the fake children to talk. She throws them in a lake and the thieves give her the real children back. I'm glad we don't live in a fairy tale world sometimes so that we don't have to worry about things like this happening or creepy witches like from the first half of the unit or the odd happenings of the previous story. Some things are better left imaginary.