Entry # 3 I am a Writer (Revised Version)

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I am a writer, but it is better if I do not think about it.

I sometimes wonder if I really enjoy writing without feeling vulnerable. I have been faced to writing tasks for a long period and I still fight with both, my left hand and mind, every time I am gently requested to surpass a writing assignment. Is it self-esteem? Is it lack of confidence? What is the deep reason for my feeling this way? Do I really want to become a competitive writer?

As far as I remember, I started writing when I was four. At that time, I was able to produce only colorful labeled drawings, and I enjoyed this limited writing a lot. Once I started primary school, I was able to dive into words and to make such isolated words sound both authoritative and symphonic. On the other hand, I only remember boredom and stagnation from my secondary school. My learning process was compulsory focused on repetition, the Bible, and repetition again… pure frustrating stagnation.

As years proceeded, I commenced recovering the pleasure for words, both written and spoken, as I could admire them in a piece form the Bosco, or enjoy their magnificent sound in a meaningful song.

As a matter of fact, the key is not thinking in writing as a task. I strongly believe that writing outcomes are better if they are the result of creativity and pleasure. The true thing is that we can all be writers, we are all writers, but it is much better is we are not conscious of it. If we feel delighted by the art of writing, we will surely increase our self-confidence and we will be able to express exactly what we desire. Mind and hand should encounter somewhere inside us, and eventually, our writings will become enjoyable ones.

Reflection:

After reading the bunch of copies on Academic Writing, it turned to be much easier for me to make some changes.

Initially, I revised the use of the first person singular and realized that I had to leave it that way. I tried to make it sound less personal but I could not (the assignment was based on my particular experience).

After that, I focused on adverbs and linking words. I did not change many of them, but the use of the items provided in the set of copies made my writing read better.

Finally I removed phrasal verbs and those words of Anglo Saxon origin, writing those of Latin or French origin in their place.

I really enjoyed the challenge!

Please, feel free to click the following link to enter our Google Doc on Academic Writing 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O_78nEP9TiGIHHFJ0VNJgdjb40WWx4ZN0AQLz_g8SpU/edit

Entry # 2 - I am a Writer

I am a writer, but it is better if I do not think about it.

I sometimes wonder if I really enjoy writing without feeling vulnerable. I have been faced to writing tasks for a long time and I still fight with both, my left hand and mind, every time I am gently requested to overcome a writing assignment. Is it self-esteem? Is it lack of confidence? What is the deep reason for my feeling this way? Do I really want to become a competitive writer?

As far as I remember, I started writing when I was four. At that time, I was able to produce only colorful labeled drawings, and I enjoyed this limited writing a lot. Once I started primary school, I was able to dive into words and to make such isolated words sound both authoritative and symphonic. On the other hand, I only remember boredom and stagnation from my secondary school. My learning process was compulsory focused on repetition, the Bible, and repetition again… pure frustrating stagnation.

As years went by, I started recovering the pleasure for words, both written and spoken, as I could see them in a piece form the Bosco, or enjoy their magnificent sound in a meaningful song.

As a matter of fact, the key is not thinking in writing as a task. I strongly believe that writing outcomes are better if they are the result of creativity and pleasure. The true thing is that we can all be writers, we are all writers, but it is much better is we are not aware of it. If we feel delighted by the art of writing, we will surely increase our self-confidence and we will be able to express exactly what we are willing to. Mind and hand should encounter somewhere inside us, and then, our writings will turn to be enjoyable ones.

Quick guide to the upcoming entries

What follows are the upcoming entries:

• ENTRY #2: Original version "I am a writer"

• ENTRY #3: Improved version of "I am a writer", link to Google-doc "Writing Strategies" and metacognitive reflection

• ENTRY #3 BIS: (ONLY FOR ISFD 18 SS) Copy the contexts to the sentences discussed in class.

• ENTRY #4: summary of Citation Rules (choose ONE system). Personally I prefer APA rules, but you can choose any, as long as you are consistant.

LEE4 - 4th year... and I am still a writer... (4th year)

Here we are again... blogging...
I invite you all to share this amazing writing experience throughout year 2013... our last adventure...together...

LET'S BLOG!!!!!!!!!

KEY NAMES IN LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN: Charles Perrault, the Grimm Brothers, and Hans Christian Andersen.

Charles Perrault

French poet and writer Charles Perrault was born on January 12, 1628, in Paris, France. Though he began his career as a lawyer in charge of royal buildings, by around 1660, Perrault had earned a positive reputation for his poetry. In 1671, he worked in the Académie Française, and played a prominent role in a literary controversy known as the dispute between the Ancients and Moderns. Perrault is perhaps best known for his Mother Goose fairy stories, including Little Red Riding Hood and Puss in Boots, which he wrote for his children. Perrault died on May 16, 1703, in Paris, France.

Charles Perrault was a member of the French court. In the 1690s, there was a fashion of creating literary renderings of folk tales for the entertainment of that court, and Perrault participated in this fashion. One aspect of literary adaptation in this manner was to convert the oral tales which truly belonged to the "folk" into forms that served the interests of the more educated ruling classes. While Perrault was writing within a tradition of adapting oral tales into literary retellings, however, his work remained much closer to the folk level than other literary retellings of the time. The Opies claim that Perrault "accepted the fairy tales at their own level." In addition, his works were relatively short, so they were appropriate for a child audience in ways that longer fairy tales produced in the French court (as earlier in the Italian court of Basile's time) were not. It is this aspect of his work that most justifies identifying him as the first 'children's writer.'

As the above quote mentions, Charles Perrault was a member of the French court, under the reign of Louis XIV. His tales were intended to amuse and educate the young ladies of the court. His stories often have morals, which deal with issues of achieving grace and beauty. It is important to make mental note of this when interpreting the morals of his stories.

His tales were intended to train young girls in how to become ladies. This is very different from the intention of the Brother's Grimm who reinterpreted fairy tales to emphasize German nationalism. Perrault's tales also include more magical beings than the Brother's Grimm, who often emphasized God as the purveyor of happiness. The intentions of Perrault are illustrated in his stories and emphasized in his "Morals," which idealize beauty and grace as some of the most important characteristics a young woman should possess.

 Grimm Brothers

The  Grimm Brothers, Jacob(1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were Germanic academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who together collected folklore. They are among the most well-known storytellers of European folk tales, and their work popularized such stories as "Cindirella", "The Frog Prince", "Hansel and Gretel" (Hänsel und Gretel), "Rapunzel", "Rumpelstiltskin" (Rumpelstilzchen), and "Snow White" (Schneewittchen). Their first collection of folk tales, Children's and Household Tales (Kinder- und Hausmärchen), was published in 1812.

The brothers spent their formative years first in the German town of Hanau and then in Steinau. Their father's death in 1796, about a decade into their lives, caused great poverty for the family and affected the brothers for many years. They attended the University of Marburg where historian and jurist Friedrich von Savigny spurred their interest in philology and Germanic studies—a field in which they are now considered pioneers—and at the same time developed a curiosity for folklore, which grew into a lifelong dedication to collecting German folk tales.

The rise of romanticism in the 19th century revived interest in traditional folk stories, which to the Grimm brothers represented a pure form of national literature and culture. With the goal of researching a scholarly treatise on folk tales, the brothers established a methodology for collecting and recording folk stories that became the basis for folklore studies. Between 1812 and 1857 their first collection was revised and published many times, and grew from 86 stories to more than 200. In addition to writing and modifying folk tales, the brothers wrote collections of well-respected German and Scandinavian mythologies and in 1808 wrote a definitive German dictionary (Deutsches Wörterbuch) that remained incomplete in their lifetime.

The popularity of the Grimms' collected folk tales endured well beyond their lifetimes. The tales are available in more than 100 translations and have been adapted to popular Disney films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty, andCinderella. In the mid-20th century the tales were used as propaganda by the Third Reich; later in the 20th century psychologists such as Bruno Bettelheim reaffirmed the value of the work, in spite of the cruelty and violence in the original versions of some of the tales that were sanitized.

Hans Christian Andersen.

Hans Christian Andersen often referred to by his initials H. C. Andersen (April 2, 1805 – August 4, 1875) was a Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet noted for his children's stories. These include "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Snow Queen," "The Little Mermaid," "Thumbelina," "The Little Match Girl," and "The Ugly Duckling."

During his lifetime he was acclaimed for having delighted children worldwide, and was feted by royalty. His poetry and  stories have been translated into more than 150 languages. They have inspired motion pictures, plays, ballets, and animated films.

It was during 1835 that Andersen published the first installment of his immortal Fairy Tales.  More stories, completing the first volume, were published in 1836 and 1837. The quality of these stories was not immediately recognized, and they sold poorly. At the same time, Andersen enjoyed more success with two novels O.T. (1836) and Only a Fiddler.

"Contribution to the analysis of literature for children"

There were many significant characters who specialised in the analysis of literature for children. Each of them studied a specific area or psychological aspects of kids' mind to know in details their reactions, thoughts as well as feelings while reading fairy tales. Those incredible genious were: Vladimir Propp, Bruno Bettelheim, Maria Tatar and Kieran Egan.

Vladimir Propp belonged to a German family who was born on April 17th in St. Petersburg in 1895. He attended St Petersburg University, where he had Philosophy in German and Russian languages. After his graduation, he began to teach both at secondary school to become a German teacher later on.

After 1938, he focused on Folklore to be chaired the Department of it until he became part of the Department of Russian literature.

Vladimir Propp developed a Russian Formalist Approach to study and analyse fairy tales, where narratives structures were reduced to a series of actions performed by the dramatic characters in each story. Propp also argued that all fairy tales were constructed of certain plot elements, which he called "functions" that ocurred in an uniform sequence. These functions were absentation, interdiction, violation of interdiction, reconnaissance, delivery, trickery, complicity, villiany and lack, mediation, counter-action and the different roles of heros and villains could play in a story. Each function explained how they worked jointly, however, fairy tales also needed several other elements such as their respective plot, settings, tone, and characters in order to gain a cohesive and well-written tale for children.
Vladimir Propp died in 1970.

Read more about V. Propp by clicking here.

Bruno Bettelheim was born on August 28th in Viena in 1903. He was a controversial Austrian Psychoanalyst and Educational Psychologist who pioneered in the aplication of Psychoanalysis to the treatment of emotionally-disturbed children.

During his studies in Viena, Bruno was influenced by World War I, the Bolshevik Revolution, and Sigmund Freud who was the most important one for him since Bettelheim reflected interest in Psychoanalysis.

Bruno moved to United States, where he worked as a Psychologist and Psychiatric Professor at the University of Chicago in 1963. He viewed children's behaviour as resulting from overwhelmingly negative parents interacting with them during critical early stages in their Psychological development.

Afterwards, he published one of his book called "The Uses of Enchantment, which had a popular Psychoanalytical look at fairy tales. Bruno contributed that classic fairy tales had an unique importance and impact on children's development, which could be explored by studying their styles, characters and themes.

To begin with, styles were related to happy endings in which good was rewarded and evil was punished. Bruno explained that children felt more confident to believe in themselves and have hope as well. He also mentioned that happy endings satisfied children's spiritual desires.

Another characteristic of fairy tale style was the classic opening words "Once upon a time", Bruno made a comparison between real world and fantasy world where the youngest readers could release their spirit from the materialistic real world to the happy, vivid and innocent world of the fairy tale in order to become more optimistic in life.

Bettelheim mentioned the last issue about fairy tale style, the common use of "Three main characters" in many classic ones. The number gave children a sense of security because of their perfect and complete feature.

On the other hand, characters seemed to be a significant element in every fairy tale. They could be heros or heroines who must overcome many difficulties, challenges and obstacles in order to get triumph. According to Bruno Bettelheim, children tried to imitate their manners as well as their qualities to be successful in life.

Another indispensable type of character was the evils who played a violent role in fairy tales, affecting children's psyche. However, Bruno denied those negative effects produced by them because kids learnt that they must not do bad things to appeal punishmemts and they also learnt how to cope with their fears.

Last but not at least, the theme also played a primordial role in fairy tales. From Bruno's point of view, the theme depended on what the story was about and it transmited a meaningful message for kids to train and develop maturity and independence for the future.
Bruno Bettelheim died in 1990.



If you want to read more about Bruno Bettelheim, just click here.

Maria Tatar was a Professor of Gernamic Languages and Literatures. She chaired the programme in Folklore and Mythology at Havard University, where she taught courses in German Studies, Folklore, and Children's literature.

Tatar was interested in how the fairy tales were first written down, what the cultural variants were, the ways in which the texts reflected the historical realities of another time and place and the Psychological effects. By providing children with powerful models for navigating reality, Maria showed, these tales helped children to survive in the world ruled by adults.

Tatar also believed that fairy tales were connected with all kind of adult secrets for they told children about death, romance, marriage and, in some cases, they would speak about sex and violence.

Fairy tales were often brutally violent but they acted as a therapy as well as entertainment for kids. Maria Tatar added that such violence helped little ones to face their fears, for which they did not yet the exact language developed. In fact, children were weak and vulnerable to control their anxieties, too. In that case, adults played an important role to clarify children fears through explanations, experience, among others.

At last, Tatar expressed that stories shared moral aspects, giving life's lessons and transmitting marvellous messages for kids. Nevertheless, she explained that moral was often added to fairy tales when they were rewritten for children.

Maria Tatar´s Offical Page.

Kieran Egan was born in Ireland in 1942, and he was brought up and educated in England. He graduated in 1966. During his career, he worked as a Professor in many Universities and he was also the Founder and Director of the Imaginative Education Research Group, where he found out Education involved some kind of development on children, especially intellectual tools, like Language or Mathematics and thus, their Psychological Process became more mature to acquire knowledge to learn and understand concepts in a better way.Egan developed an Imaginative Approach to Teaching to help kids to become more knowledgeable and more creative in their thinking. In fact, that new approach offered an understanding of how children's imagination worked in learning and showed how children acquired cognitive tools to promote creativity in the classroom. To achieve that, educators could imply a variety of effective teaching tools such as story, rhythym, play, opposition, agency, and meta-narrative understanding to awaken kids' intelligence and imagination.

Futhermore, Kieran proposed the use of intellectual tools, particularly Language or Literacy to generate successive kinds of understanting, like somatic, mythic, romantic, philosophical, and ironic. Egan concluded that if teachers put them into practice, their way of teaching would change completely and children would be more engaged in the classroom.

To put it briefly, each of these well-known professionals contributed through different techniques to the analysis of literature for children.

In you want to read more about K. Egan and the proposed tools click here.

PROPP´s TAXONOMY

Propp´ s taxonomy

SNOW WHITE

• According to Vladimir Propp there must be a princess and her father in fairly tales (Snow White and her father), a villain (Snow White´s step-mother), a hero (the Prince), a helper (they are the seven dwarves). He had also found certain recurrent points that created a constant structure in fairy tales. All these points, which are called functions, are not always present in all the tales. For instance, in Snow White ABSENTATION is depicted by the absence of her mother and careless masculine role that her father had in the story, INFORMATION function is represented by the moment when the step-mother is said that Snow White is the most beautiful woman in the kingdom so she represented a future rival for her, COMPLICITY is mainly depicted in two moments in the tale, the victim is deceived by a woodcutter and then by her step-mother dressed up as a sweet and old woman. Another function is VILLAINY which is carried out at the very beginning in the story when the evil step-mother decided to kill Snow White because of her beauty. The LIQUIDATION is the moment which the villainy is repaired, for example when the loyal woodcutter became disobedient and let Snow White to go away in order to preserve her life. Another one function is the RETURN, at just the end of the tale the hero went back to the Kingdom, and got the RECOGNITION of the dwarves when the prince kissed Snow White and suddenly, she woke up surprisingly. PUNISHMENT takes place at the end of the fairy tale when the merciless step-mother fell down to precipice while she tried to escape from the dwarves´pursuit. Finally, the WEDDING is the most typical characteristic and the last one point to be considered, here our hero marries the princess and they lived happily for ever.

According to Cindirella´s video, Propp´s taxonomy follows the following patters:

• SETTING: the where and when (A farewell kingdom, many years ago:)
• CHARACTERS:        HERO: main good character: PROTAGONIST
• VILLAIN: main bad character: ANTAGONIST
• SEQUENCE: Series of events. PLOT: all the action that takes place in the story.
• EXPOSITION: background information of the characters or the setting (first part of the plot). It may about what happened before the story began).
• CONFLICT: most important thing that happens in the story. Characters are against each other (Hero trying to help someone and Villain trying to stop hero).
• CLIMAX: when the conflic of the plot is resolved. Turning point (Hero saves princess). The most exciting part.
• RESOLUTION: end of the story. It takes place after the climax. You learn what happened to the characters after the conflic is resolved.