Week 10 Storytelling: Different Approaches to War

When the United States was still in its infancy, there were two generals who had different philosophies when it came to war. The first general was in the army and his name was George. The second general was in the Marine Corps and his name was Samuel. George believed that the best way to defeat an enemy was through attrition. Samuel, on the other hand, believed the best way to defeat an enemy was through maneuver.

The two disagreed with each other often and this sometimes caused them to lose battles. One day, after suffering a terrible defeat, the two generals decided that they had to come together and figure out a solution to their problem. "Join your forces with me and we will defeat our enemies with overwhelming numbers!" George exclaimed.

"No! That would lead to a unacceptable loss of life! I will not agree to that misuse of my Marines," Samuel asserted. "Instead, we should strike the enemy at key points and locations in order to disable their war machine," Samuel offered. But neither side could agree with the other. Needless to say, the two were at an impasse. After a long stare down, Samuel finally broke the silence. He said, "We can settle this in our next enemy encounters."

George agreed. The two generals set up their base camps in an area with plenty of space for George's troops to assemble and get into battle formations on an open field. Samuel and his troops preferred to fight in the forest where they could outmaneuver their enemy. However, Samuel thought that his Marines could outperform George's troops when it came down to it.

The enemy attacked the following morning, but thanks to their tireless training, both George's and Samuel's troops were alerted and reacted quickly. George's soldiers rushed into their pre-assigned spots on the battlefield and formed up. Samuel's Marines took just a little longer, but this was enough for the enemy to spot a potential weakness. The enemy charged Samuel's ranks head-on causing some casualties. Without even having to think about what to do, George's soldiers swung their flank around and formed an L-shaped formation. The enemy was forced to fight Samuel on their front and George on their flank. George was able to pressure the enemy and cause disarray among their ranks. After this, George cut of the enemy's escape route and forced them to surrender.

"I told you that my way was better!" George shouted over to Samuel.

"Ridiculous! My Marines would outperform yours in a heartbeat if we were to fight in the forest!" Samuel shouted back.

"You're just jealous, BUT I have intel that an enemy force is moving toward us from the forest," George stated. "How about we put your Marines to the test," George said.

"So be it!" Samuel exclaimed. Samuel returned to his men and briefed them on the situation. The Marines broke up into small units so that they could easily move through the forest. Then, without any hesitation, the Marines squared away their gear and prepared to move into the forest. George also returned to his men and briefed them on the situation. In the same manner as the Marines, the soldiers gathered their gear and began to form up in their standard formations.

Samuel's Marines moved quickly to the designated ambush position, laid down, and began to wait for the enemy to approach. George's soldiers, however, were still trying to figure out how to efficiently move through the forest without breaking up their formation. Seeing George's soldiers in the distance, the enemy began their charge in order to seize the initiative. Unknown to them, though, Samuel's Marines were lying in wait.

Samuel gathered his breath and then shouted the command, "Attack!" Before the enemy even knew what happened, the Marines had them surrounded. Dropping their weapons and raising their arms above their heads, all the enemies surrendered. "Easy day," Samuel said as he walked up to George.

"You got lucky," George said, "But from now on I think I'll leave this type of fighting to you."

"Wise decision," Samuel said, "And I'll leave you to your own style of fighting as well." So, the two generals realized that both approaches to war had their advantages and disadvantages.













Author's Note: My story was based on the Blackfoot story "Two Fast Runners." In this original story, there was an antelope and a deer who challenged each other to see who was the fastest. In the end, it depended on the terrain that the two ran on/in. For my story, I thought it would be fun to substitute the antelope and the deer for the Army and the Marine Corps. Both branches have their own approach to war, and I wanted to show this through a story. Hope you liked it!

Bibliography: Two Fast Runners, by George Bird Grinnell

Image: Pickett's charge, Battle of Gettysburg

Reading Notes: Blackfoot Stories, Part A

For Monday's reading notes during week 10, I decided to go with the Blackfoot tribe's stories as translated by George Bird Grinnell in 1915. I chose this group of stories because I have never been told any Blackfoot stories, to my knowledge. From reading part A of these stories, I liked the character of the Old Man. The Old Man helps people as Napi and gets himself into a lot of trouble as the Old Man. Because of this, I plan on using the character of the Old Man for my storytelling on Wednesday.

To me, it seems as if the Old Man should be wise and all-knowing, but he still gets himself into trouble by doing juvenile things. Some of the characteristics that lead me to believe this are: 1. He can talk to animals, 2. He seems to have some power over the plants and animals and, 3. He is sometimes generous with his possessions. It is also the way that he talks that makes me believe this too. When he talks to the animals, plants, or inanimate objects, he talks to them as if he has the power to change them.

Other characters who interested me were Thunder and Sun. In the story, "How the Thunder Pipe Came," Thunder seemed similar to that of a god. Thunder took what he wanted and was only afraid of the Ravens. Sun could see everything and as far as I could tell was not afraid of anything. I'm definitely thinking of using these two characters, but I'm not sure as to how I will use them yet. Of the two, Sun seems the wiser and I suppose I could make him Thunder's father? Or I could possibly make them brothers, with Thunder being the younger brother who is still immature. Either way, I'm sure Tuesday's reading will help me in my dilemma.

Bibliography: Blackfoot Stories by George Bird Grinnell

Image: The Thunder Man

Week 9 Storytelling: Man's Best Friend

As a young dog, I spent a lot of time around the First People, who came from the skies. They were curious of their surroundings and explored everywhere that they could. In those early days I did not go with the elder First People to explore, but instead I stayed back with the little ones because I was still a young dog, or "pup," as they call it. We spent all day together, running around the village and playing a game they call "fetch." It's actually a great game! And it never got old, even when I did.

As I grew older, the First People started to take me along with them on their exploration trips. We saw many different lands, but we never saw any other people. I didn't care to meet any other people anyway, because the First People treated me good and kept me fed. Of course I did my part for them and helped them haul heavy loads, along with some of the other dogs in my pack. As a matter of fact, we dogs loved to haul around heavy loads, because it made us bigger and stronger.

After more time had passed I was a fully grown dog who had earned my own eagle feather. This was a great honor among the First People because it symbolized one's experience and wisdom. However, my true test came when the Water People came into contact with us. The Water People suddenly appeared one day and for the most part they seemed like honorable people with good intentions.

We established hunting grounds for the First People and hunting grounds for the Water People, but anyone was allowed to hunt as long as there was plenty of game. For a while we both lived in peace, but one night I noticed something off. As I was laying down enjoying the night breeze, I smelt one of the Water People off in the distance. Naturally, I picked up and followed the scent until I was close enough to see the person I was tracking.

When I got close enough, I was shocked from what I saw, the Water Person was putting a boy inside of a log and closing it up. I had no idea what his intentions were, I just knew that I didn't like it. The Water Person was fully covered from head to toe in a thick hide and carried both a bow and knife made from the shoulder blade of a deer. Needless to say, I knew that I couldn't take him by myself, so I circled the Water Person in hopes of finding a weakness, but there was none.

I waited in the bushes, silently, until the Water Person left, then I went over to the log and barked softly to the boy inside. There was no response. In a panic, I began to scratch and claw at the bark of the log until I made a hole big enough to get the boy out of. I managed to pull the boy out of the log by my teeth, but he still did not wake up. Thinking that the Water Person was far away by now, I began to bark to let the pack know I needed help.

To my surprise, a spear flew right past my ear, barely missing me. Without looking back, I hurriedly dug myself under the boy and stood up, having the boy on top of my back. I ran faster than I thought my four paws could take me. However, it wasn't fast enough. The Water Person tackled me from the side and knocked the boy off my back, but he woke he boy up in the process. Startled, the boy took off running back toward the village. I stayed back to give the boy any time that I could.

I took a wide stance on my four paws and gave a low growl to the Water Person, hoping that I could intimidate him to leave. He didn't take the hint, but rather he drew his deer knife and stood ready for an attack. Growing impatient, he made the first move, lunging toward me for a kill strike, but I managed to side step and bite down hard on his wrist. He dropped the knife and I made my move. Jumping at his face, I began to claw and bite any skin that was exposed from the thick hide that he wore.

I wasn't very successful and the Water Person managed to throw me off of himself. I landed on my side, but I quickly got back on all fours, only to realize that I couldn't breathe properly. Looking to my side, the Water Person's spear was sticking out of me and I collapsed. The Water Person approached me with his deer knife and was just about to stab me when my pack appeared and overwhelmed him. After that, I lost consciousness.

I woke up back in the village with my wounds bound up by the First People and with the boy sitting beside me. I looked around some more and I noticed my pack was there too. As a matter of fact, the entire village was there. I guess they thought I wasn't going to make it through my injuries and came to pay their last respects. Then, the village chief walked up to me and said, "that was my boy you saved, you really are man's best friend."







Author's Note: I based my story on the Jealous Uncle story from the Native American Hero Tales unit. In the original story, the uncle attempts to kill his nephew, but each time the nephew escapes using toys from the previous nephews that the uncle had killed. In my story, I wanted to take the perspective of an animal who would end up saving the nephew and thus demonstrate that dogs are loyal to the end.

Bibliography: Native American Hero Tales by Stith Thompson

Image: Hunting dog

Reading Notes: Great Plains, Part A

For Tuesday's reading during week nine I went with the Great Plains unit. I chose this unit because I live in Oklahoma and I thought it'd be interesting to read about some of the creation stories that the Great Plains Indians had. I enjoyed this unit's reading because it did have such an emphasis on various creation stories and how thing came to be about. I also found some similarities to that of the Japanese creation stories, such as the Elk calling the winds and uncovering land. Obviously they weren't exactly the same, but it was an interesting point to take note of.

The points of interest that I'll take away for my own story are the ways in which the various tribal people interacted with their surroundings. For instance, the Indians mostly knew where they came from (i.e., Moon (mother), Sun (father)) and tended to work alongside the animals in order to find a habitable place to live. Also, they had a relationship with their creators, and consulted them throughout their adventures. I found this interesting because their communication between their creators and their surroundings seems to be much more fluid than that of other cultures' creation stories.

Going on, I saw hints of all the Great Plains people finding this bluish stone, which I imagine was obsidian or some stone similar to that, which they used as a tool/weapon. In addition to using this bluish stone, they also used the bones of different animals for different uses and modified those uses as they came into contact with other tribal people. Although the interactions weren't always friendly between the different tribes, they usually came to some sort of peace agreement throughout the story. Finally, I like the inclusion of the different pipes and how each one symbolized something different, from peace to settling disputes. I would like to incorporate this into my own story in some way, shape, or form.

Bibliography: Great Plains by Katharine Berry Judson
Image: A Native American peace pipe

Reading Notes: Native American Hero Tales, Part A

For week nine, I decided to read about Native American Hero Tales by Stith Thompson. First off, I noticed that throughout all the stories, there was usually a single main character who was followed throughout the entire story. The one exception to this was the story of Bluejay and his Companions. It is because of the notification of this detail that I plan on writing Wednesday’s story with one protagonist.

Another interesting detail that I noticed was that humans are not always the dominant species on the planet and some of these stories tell how things came to be as they are now. With this in mind, I might tell my story in the form of a child’s tale in which the parent is the narrator and the children are the ones who are to learn from what is being told to them. In this way, the story could serve as a learning point about why to respect the world around them, since it may not have always been as it is now. Also, if the story is told in this format, it could serve as a warning/reasoning as to why the grown-ups do the particular things that they do.

Additionally, I plan on taking some elements from the Bluejay story because I liked how the Grouse silently took the treatment from the Bluejay and his companions and then acted accordingly in his own clever way. In doing this, the Bluejay and his companions had to go on a journey in which they faced multiple trials in order to get back home. Once they finally made it back home, they respected the Grouse and gave him his fair share of the seal spoils. The main element that I plan on taking from this story is the adventure that Bluejay and his companions went on.









Bibliography: Native American Hero Tales by Stith Thompson

Image: a blue jay

Week 8 Growth Mindset

To start off, I love the growth mindset! When I watched the video with Carol Dweck and how she went over the studies involving the children, I was impressed to say the least. I found this especially interesting because I am a Communication major and this reminded me of linguistic determinism. Linguistic determinism is basically the idea that our ways of talking/speaking shape our reality or how we perceive reality. So, the way that the growth mindset works makes perfect sense to me and I have no problem getting on board with this idea!

Now, as it relates to myself personally, I am not perfect and after careful self-reflection I have realized that there are a lot of areas that I need to work on in my life. In my different classes, I work harder in my Communication classes and I'm more willing to go the extra mile in order to produce better work. I'm sure that this stems from the fact that it's my major, but when I consciously thought about this, it kind of bothered me, because I like to perform my best in everything that I do. So, that's definitely an area that I'm going to work on now that it's salient to me.

In school vs. work, I don't like things to change at work, but I do like change at school. I also realized that I do the minimum or close to the minimum unless I'm told otherwise. This is in part because it's a part time job that requires minimal cognitive load, but it is an area that I can work on as well. I think that working on this area in my life will be beneficial because I think that if I continue to improve in every of my life, I will be overall better as a person.

In my personal life, I strive to be the best that I possibly can be! With that in mind, I know that this can be a double-edged sword as well because if you're constantly trying to be the best, you risk the chance of enjoying the little things. Sometimes I get so caught up in work and trying to improve my efficiency that I forget to have fun. My fiancé will tell you that I'm always working and we have had a couple of arguments that happened because I spend a lot of time working. She thinks that we need to spend more time together and with our families, especially since we'll be moving this year to go to Virginia for my officer training.

With all this in mind, I think I can build on my strengths by putting forth my best effort during the daylight hours so to speak, and spending time with my fiancé during the rest of the time. In school, I could allot more time to my other classes so that I'm performing my best all around. Finally, at work I can expand myself and learn more about the place I work for so as to give myself more of a motivation to work since I will know their history and will be able to possibly share some values.







Image: Bruce Lee goal quote

Week 8 Reflections

1. My Readings

I have thoroughly enjoyed all the readings that I have chosen up to this point because they have all been about something that I have found intriguing. If given the option to go back and re-choose some of my stories, I might, but not because I regret the stories that I chose to read, but because of the interesting stories that I have read from my peers. My peers have written some pretty bomb stories that were based on stories that I didn't read. For that, I commend them!

As for the notes that I have taken on my readings, I think I've been doing a solid job! I'm not trying to say that I don't have room for improvement, but what I am saying is that the notes that I took helped me to make that nice and smooth transition from my notes to my storytelling. In the assignment instructions, it said to pay attention to important and intriguing details and that's what I have been doing. So far that method has worked out splendid for me and I don't see any great need to change now!

Lastly, for the next half of the semester, I'm looking at Native American Hero Tales, Beowulf, and Russian fairy tales for weeks 9-14. I chose Native American Hero Tales because it has a mix of different Native American cultures and I didn't want to settle for just one region if I'm going to read about some of my own people! For the Beowulf reading, that's a given. Beowulf is a bad mamma jamma who supposedly takes on a dragon in this reading?! And for the Russian fairy tales reading, I have no idea what to expect because, to my knowledge, I have not been exposed to any Russian fairy tales before.

2. Writing

When I looked back over my stories, I had a good laugh. I laughed because of the stories that I came up with and how ridiculous they were. If I were not in this class, I would never had started blogging like this, but I'm glad that I am in this class. Likewise, I am happy with the stories that I have written thus far.

I've learned a lot about writing since the first story that I wrote for this class. For example, I knew that there were multiple different methods of writing stories, but I never really considered which POV would be the best for any given story. This is something that I've struggled with when writing my stories because I want my stories to come out in the best manner possible. With that in mind, however, I love reading about stories with great detail and imagery and this is what I think I need to work on in my own stories. I also continuously try and improve on making connections throughout my story so that it is coherent and makes sense when it is read by others.

3. Connecting

When thinking about other people's stories, a couple things come to mind. First, there are a lot of good writers out there! At least that's what I've noticed when reading other people's stories. Some good habits that they have is their use of detail and imagery, both things that I am trying to improve upon. Second, is their grammatical errors in their stories. For the most part this doesn't really bother me, but if I'm reading along and there's a trip up in the writing, it throws off my groove and that can be a little annoying. I think that people just get excited when writing their stories and they forget to go back and edit their stories afterwards.

I guess that's where feedback comes in. My favorite method to employ when critiquing stories other than my own is the WWW method that we learned of a while back. This method is great because it gives you an easy to use template when offering feedback and it starts on a positive note, which I think is usually appreciated, as opposed to starting off with constructive criticism. Other than that I think I can improve my feedback by giving more detailed feedback so that those who are receiving it know where to go next with their stories.









Image: Bruce Lee quote

Week 7 Storytelling:

In the early 1900's, there were two brothers, one named Leo and the other named Jack.

Leo was the big brother and was the strong and handsome one of the two. Jack, on the other hand, was the younger brother who was lacking in the looks department, but was smart and could think his way out of most situations.

When Leo became of age, his parents allowed him to take over the family construction business. Leo had a hard time learning the ins and outs of the business, but he made up for it in his ability to impress his clients with his charming personality.

A couple years later, Jack became of age and joined in the family business as well.

However, Leo felt that Jack was inferior to him and thought that it was only right that Jack work his way up like everyone else.

But being the smart man that he was, Jack assumed that his brother would act this way. So, Jack set up a meeting between a wealthy Japanese client and Leo.

As soon as the meeting was set up, Jack went to Leo and told him about the potential deal. Surprised and excited, Leo jumped at the chance to go international with the family company.

In his excitement, Leo overlooked the facts that he couldn't speak Japanese and didn't know anything about Japanese buildings either.

In a panic, Leo went to his little brother and asked for help and promised the position of manager if he did help. Anticipating this, Jack set his big brother up with a Japanese interpreter who knew very little about Japanese construction.

Needless to say, the meeting went terrible, but Jack convinced the Japanese client to stay with their company and give Jack another chance to win him over.

Again, Leo went to Jack and plead to him for his help to secure the Japanese client. This time he promised the position of supervisor for his help.

Jack set his brother up with an interpreter who knew Japanese construction well, but lacked the knowledge of Japanese business customs. And just like last time, the meeting went terrible.

Feeling devastated that he was about to lose the Japanese client for good, Leo went to Jack one final time and begged for his help. Only this time Leo promised to give Jack whatever he wanted in exchange for his help, including half the business.

Jack agreed and accompanied Leo to the business meeting.

When they arrived, Jack did all the talking, since he knew the Japanese language and customs. Leo simply sat beside his brother and smiled the whole time, not knowing what was going on.

Every once in a while Jack would inform Leo about what their potential client wanted and Leo would nod in agreement. Knowing full well that Leo had no idea what was going on, Jack convinced their client to give them the deal of a lifetime.

However, when it came to signing the papers, Jack couldn't bring himself to double cross his big brother. In the end, Jack had compassion and let Leo have all the glory.










Author's Note: I got my inspiration from the two stories, African Folk-Tales and Japanese Mythology. In the African Folk-Tales reading, the two main characters are usually Lion and Jackal and they're uncle and nephew, respectively. Jackal always ends up double crossing Lion and getting away with all the spoils and sometimes fatally wounds Lion. As you can probably tell, I used these two characters for the inspiration of my main story and the names of the characters as well. A small bit of my inspiration came from the Japanese Mythology reading. In that reading, the Japanese gods have children who are deities who, as the generations go on, become more and more human-like. I didn't integrate as much as I wanted to into this story from that reading, but as you can see, I had Leo and Jack come into contact with a Japanese client. That's kind of the extent of where I went with that.

Bibliography: South African Folktales by James Honey &a Japanese Mythology by E. W. Champney and F. Champney.

Image 1: Leo

Image 2: Jack

Reading Notes: Japanese Mythology, Part A

For Tuesday's reading, I read about Japanese mythology! Now, these readings were very interesting because I watch Naruto and some of the skills/abilities are the gods/goddesses in these stories. For example, Izanagi and Izanami are Mangekyo Sharingan abilities in Naruto Shippuden. I know this is all very nerdy, but I found it interesting and that made the stories easy to read!

As with most mythology and origin stories, these Japanese mythological stories followed somewhat the same pattern. By this, I mean that there were the high gods (Izanagi and Izanami), so to speak, and the lesser gods or deities (Amaterasu and Susano). The reason that I say lesser is because the gods have children and those children are endowed with powers/abilities, but usually to a lesser extent than their parents before them. Also, in these stories, each generation goes through some event that influences where they are today and what their role is as a god/goddess.

Since I did Tuesday's reading on Japanese Mythology and Monday's reading on African Folk-Tales, I am going to attempt to use elements from both of these readings in my story-telling for Wednesday. The elements I am thinking about using are the generations from this reading and the idea of gods as well. Additionally, since I planned on placing my story-telling in the present day and age, I might transfer these elements over as two brothers (Lion and Jackal) who have inherited a business from their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. (Izanagi and Izanami), who end up coming into conflict because of their dealing business dealings/empire.







Bibliography: Japanese Mythology by E. W. Champney and F. Champney.

Image: Izanagi and Izanami from the Untextbook