Shea's Myth-Folk Blog

This semester, I have interned at a place called Loveworks. It is an after school leadership program for middle schoolers, and I help lead some of the lessons. One of our big units has been teaching students how to be the GOAT (Greatest of All Time). One part of being the GOAT is having a GOAT mindset. In our after school programming, the director led a lesson about having a growth mindset and then we broke up into small groups to discuss. I spoke with a few students about what it looks like for them to have a growth mindset. Some ideas they came up with are not giving up on difficult school subjects, but believing they are able to become better by working hard and not giving up. They also talked about how growth mindset can apply to hobbies. Some students did not care much about learning about growth mindset, but a few students really seemed to grasp the idea and how they can apply it in their lives. Goat from Max Pixel

I used the website Simitator to create a fake Facebook post. This could be a fun tool to use when writing stories set in modern times to give an added visual element to the storytelling. Image created by Simitator

I chose to look around the Writers Write website. It offers advise to writers, writing courses, and writing motivation. One of the articles I most enjoyed was " 45 Ways to Avoid Using the Word 'Very.' " I thought the quote it started with was very funny: "Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to use the word 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be." -Mark Twain The article then gives a chart with adjectives commonly used after the word "very" and then gives a word that means "very (insert adjective)." Sometimes when I am writing, one of the harder parts is picking strong adjectives; this chart gives me a go-to list. I also liked the article " 20 Myths to Use as Writing Prompts ." The articles does not give specific stories to base your writing off, like I usually do for this class, but rather gives general myths to use as a starting point. A few of the id

In the story of " Peter Bull ," a man and his wife have a farm but no children. They want to have an heir to leave their wealth to. They have a beautiful and wise bull-calf named Peter whom they are very find of, and they wonder if the parish clerk can Peter to speak so Peter can become their heir. They ask the clerk, and he says he can do it, but they cannot tell anyone. He says it is forbidden, and it will be very expensive. The man gives the clerk a hundred dollars to pay for books. After a week, the clerk says he needs another hundred dollars for more books. In another week, the clerk says Peter has learned to say "moo," but he needs more money for more books if they want Peter to learn more. The man gives the clerk three hundred dollars for books and ale for Peter. The clerk drinks the ale and gives Peter milk. After several weeks, the man starts to become uncomfortable about how much money he is spending. The clerk decides Peter is as fat as he will be and k

" Blue Beard " tells the story of a rich man who has several houses, fine furniture, and silver and gold. However, he has a blue beard that makes his ugly. One of his neighbor's has two beautiful daughters and he wishes to marry one of them, but they are both disgusted by the thought. They also do not want to marry him because he has been married several times before and nobody knows what has happened to his past wives. He bring his neighbor, her daughters, and a few other girls to one of his country homes for the week. They party, hunt, fish, dance, eat, and stay up all night. The younger daughter begins to think that the man may be a gentleman. They return home and get married; a month later, Blue Beard tells his wife that he has to go on a country journey for at least six weeks. He gives her keys to his apartments, wardrobes, and caskets that hold his valuable possessions. He also gives her a key to a closet, but tells her that she cannot enter it. Her friends come

In the videos from TedEd about style, the speakers explore  creative writing and style  found in famous authors' writings and in mythology. One of the videos I found most interesting is the videos about what makes something " Kafkaeqsque ." I have heard of Kafka, and think I have even read some of his work, but did not know about his unique style. Kafka focuses on the convoluted absurdity of modern bureaucracy. He calls attention to the unnecessary complexness of administration, but also calls attention to how this can potentially be changed in the future. His style became so unique and recognizable that it was named after him. I also really enjoyed the video " How to Write Descriptively ." This video talks about how to make each word count and how to add layers to make writing more description. Through this video, I learned to focus on each of the different senses I want to invoke in my writing. I should choose certain words depending on if I want to focus