Week 8: Reading Diary

In reading back through my reading diary posts,  I've noticed I follow a sort of pattern. First, I typically do not take notes over all of the readings. I try my best to pick out which stories contribute (in my opinion) the most to the reading as a whole. There are, however, some weeks in which I take notes for nearly all of the stories. When I leave out stories, it is usually because the theme translated through a certain story has been repeated multiple times (I do take notes on theme repeat stories in order to draw conclusions about central themes within the reading as a whole, but typically for one theme-repeating story) or because the action in a certain story is somewhat transitional in that it contributes to the content of following stories, but can be summed up in a few sentences within the notes for a following story. Sometimes, however, every or most of the stories contain some distinct significant element that I feel I will need to remember for either my weekly essay, or for my storytelling post.

 Another feature of my reading diary posts thus far is that I tend to go back and connect previous reading with the reading I am currently doing. For example, many of the readings I have done thus far involve creation stories, so I have briefly made note of the similarities and differences in a few of the mythologies concerning creation. I also make note of similarities in theme, characterization, and portrayal of human nature. I think it is important to be able to make connection while reading so as to perhaps gain an understanding of how mythology and folklore across different cultures can all be linked to one another. Also, by making connections between my weekly readings, I am able to retain what I have read from week to week. We do a lot of reading in this class, obviously, not to mention the reading I do for my other classes, so thinking back to previous readings and trying to somehow make it applicable to what I am currently doing is a helpful tool in remember all of the cool information I have learned thus far.

When doing my diary posts, I typically try to add commentary to what I have read in addition to a short synopsis of the action within each story. I find this helps when writing other blog posts for the week, particularly my essay. Giving commentary for each story really helps when picking out an essay topic for the week. I try to make note of recurring themes, archetypes, and morals which are all subjects that can be easily expanded into an essay. Some weeks this is more difficult than others because sometimes I'll run across stories in which the theme is unclear or there doesn't appear to be a moral. In these cases, I do my best to try and discern and analyze these elements so as to gain a better understanding of the story and the unit as a whole. It is difficult, but I believe it allows me to walk away from the reading with a greater clarity of the unit, and sometimes, the culture from which the reading derives.

Overall, I would say my reading diary posts are relatively well done and thought out. If they weren't I suppose, I wouldn't be able to use them as a guide for my other class posts.