Jamaican Stories Week 8: African Traditions - Assignments - Reading - Resources - Images

Reflections Essay

Choose one of the essay topics for this week. You will find the topics listed down at the bottom of this page; scroll down to find them. If you want to write on a different topic, contact the instructor first (make sure you do that at least one day before the deadline so that you can receive an answer back in time).

Links to stories. You need to provide a link back to each of the specific stories that you discuss in your essay.

Image. You are required to include at least one image with the story, along with a link to the webpage where you found the image, plus information about the image. You are free to re-use the images you find at the course website, or you can choose some other image to use that you find on the internet. Remember: even if you are re-using an image from the course website, you need to provide image information about it.

Title. You need to include the words "Essay for Week ___" in the title you give to the post, along with a title for your actual story (for example, "Essay for Week 2: Dangerous Magic in Egyptian Legends")

Length. Your Storytelling post needs to be a minimum of 300 words long (maximum 1000 words). Make sure you do a spellcheck and a word count, and that you proofread your post by reading it out loud.

When you are done, complete the Gradebook Declaration.

Comedy and Humor. What were some of the comic elements in this week's stories? Did you appreciate the humor in the stories? What are the characters and/or situations that were supposed to be humorous? Was the humor based on surprise? exaggeration? making fun of someone or something? Did any of the stories make you laugh out loud? Which story did you think was the most humorous? How does the kind of humor you found in these stories compare to the kind of humor found in television and movies today? Make sure you make specific references to at least three different stories in your essay.

Recurring Motifs. Folktales and myths are built up of "motifs" - common elements of plot and character that can be used and re-used over and over again, combined and recombined in different ways in order to create variants on existing stories. Did you see some motifs that recurred more than once in this week's stories? Some character types that repeated over and over again? Events in the plots that were similar between one story and another? Other things that repeated from story to story? Discuss these recurring motifs, and explain how these motifs are useful in creating a story. Make sure you make specific references to at least three different stories in your essay.

Parents and Children / Brothers and Sisters. Many myths and folktales are about the relations between parents and their children, or between brothers, or brothers and sisters. What impression did you have of the parents (mothers, fathers) and siblings (brothers, sisters) from this week's readings? Do you think that these parent-child or sibling relationships were an important theme for the stories? Were there some specific family behaviors that were being promoted by the stories? Some specific family behaviors that were being discouraged? Make sure you make specific references to at least three different stories in your essay.

Tricksters and Fools. One of the most popular figures in folklore and mythology around the world is the "trickster" character. The "fool" is a related character. Who are some of the tricksters and fools you saw in this week's readings? Are there characters who combine "trickster" and "fool" into a single character? What kinds of adventures do the tricksters and fools have? How do the other characters in the story interact with the tricksters and fools? Make sure you make specific references to at least three different stories in your essay.

Poetic Speech and Style. Some forms of folklore and mythology rely heavily on poetic speech or other distinctive, stylized speech: puns and other word-play; rhyme and other forms of repetition; hyperbole (exaggeration); riddles and other metaphorical language; magic spells and other ritual speech; etc. Was there a distinctive style of language used in this week's readings? What kinds of poetic speech were used? Was the style of speech an important element of the stories? Did the use of stylized language sometimes make the reading hard to understand? What were the clues you used to understand the meaning of difficult passages? Make sure you make specific references to at least three different stories in your essay.

Setting and Landscape. What impression did you have of the setting and the natural landscape for these stories? What details do you remember? Did the setting(s) play an important role in the stories? How were the events of the story related to the natural landscape(s)? Were the seasons or time of year important in any of the stories? The weather? Was the natural setting realistic, or was it a kind of fantasy setting? Make sure you make specific references to at least three different stories in your essay.

Heroes. The word "hero" has a wide range of meanings in English. In the most neutral terms, a hero is someone who is able to successfully accomplish a difficult task. But many people expect more from a hero: they often assume a hero should be a positive role model, or that a hero should make great sacrifices for the benefit of other people. For other people, the test of a hero is the incredible obstacles that he has to overcome (that's what superheroes do!). What is your definition of a hero? Did you find any examples of a hero in this week's readings? Make sure you make specific references to at least three different stories in your essay.

Assess. Think back to your Starting Assumptions this week and your Starting Assumptions for the course in general. Did anything you read or studied this week make a big change in your starting assumptions? What surprised you the most? What story made the most vivid impression on you? Was there a story that didn't grab you at all or that you didn't understand? Did this unit fit into your expectations for a course in Mythology and Folklore? If you were going to continue with this topic, what kind of research and reading would you want to do? What questions would you want to find answers to? Make sure you make specific references to at least three different stories in your essay.