Reading Review Week

Out of all the readings I've done so far for this class, my absolute favorite reading unit was the Arabian fairy tales.  I really enjoyed reading the original Aladdin story as well as Arabian Nights.  I also really enjoyed the Chinese Fairy Tales unit and the Saints and Animals unit.  They were easy to read as well as unique and I usually did not foresee the ending to the stories which kept it interesting throughout the readings.  When I took Indian Epics, I found myself writing paragraphs of information for the my reading diary and because it was a cohesive novel, that worked well.  For this class, however, I found myself writing a paragraph per story (a few stories didn't get written about if I didn't have much to comment about), and I liked this because it kept my reading diary organized and gave me a good place to provide the link to the story.  Also, I could put my image right below the story it was supposed to go along with right by my comments and the story's link.  I used to read a lot for pleasure but since I started college, I have been unable to read for pleasure since I'm so busy.  I look forward to reading a lot this summer, however, and I typically enjoy novels by Jodi Piccoult since they are always thought-provoking and put me in someone else's shoes so easily and thoroughly.  I always feel emotionally invested in her novels and cannot put the book down until I am finished.  Even re-reading her books is exciting.  Because I am in mostly science classes, I don't see much connection between this class and my other clasess, but this class definitely ties into life since there are lots of moral lessons and anecdotes from different stories that I have read.  I honestly don't have any improvements for the readings for this class.  Although I don't enjoy all the readings, it is good to have the experience and opportunity to read all sorts of literature from different parts of the world, and I didn't foresee enjoying Chinese Fairy Tales as much as I did.  If I hadn't been required to read from any particular units, I probably would have stuck with what I knew and not experienced the joy of reading literature from other cultures.  I'm excited to hear that you are coming up with an Un-Textbook for Indian Epics - I have absolutely loved the Un-Textbook for this class and am excited at the idea of having one for the other class.

Aladdin from the Arabian Unit.  I chose to include this image because reading the original story of Aladdin was one of my favorite readings I did for this class if not my favorite.  

Source:  Wikipedia