Potfolio Guide

Tommy's Hope
Tommy and his three brothers weren't the most privileged kids in the neighbor hood.  Tommy was the oldest brother so he took on many responsibilities to take care of his little brothers, he had to step up because their home life wash't that great.  There were many things that Tommy could't help, like smelling bad, that he got made fun of.  Tommy's story teaches us that we should be careful with our actions because we don't know the type of impact we are making on ones life.


Everything Happens for a Reason
Susan has struggled with school her whole life.  She didn't get into her dream school and was pretty much forced to live with her mom and stay at home after high school.  This is not what Susan wanted for herself, but she soon realizes why her fate was to stay where she was.


Rio and Solo's Adventures
Rio and Solo are two different type of animals that live in the same neighborhood.  This neighborhood is filled with tons of different animals.  Including owls, squirrels, cats, dogs, and frogs. Most of these animals only interact within each other.  For example dogs hang with the dogs, and cats hang with the cats.  The squirrels were the most sociable in the neighborhood. Read my story and find out, because of the squirrels sociableness, how Rio and Solo became friends.

Tech Tip: Weather Widget

This week is my first week to do a tech tip.  Personally I hate technology so these tech tips could be pretty fun to learn how to do more things over technology.  This week I added the weather widget.  At first it was complicated to figure out how to get the weather of Norman, Ok on there, but eventually I got it all worked out.

Growth Mindset: 50 Ways to Cultivate Creative Habit

This week I decided I needed to get my head in the game and start keeping up with my online classes. To get that started I am doing some extra credit to get me caught up.  I thought since this is a class that I have to be pretty creative in it would be beneficial for me to learn some creative habits.  This is why I chose to read "50 Ways to Cultivate Creative Habit" for my growth mindset.

I like to think as my self pretty creative, and this article hit some interesting points that I agree with.  First off it mentioned that creative people tend to see things that others miss, and I know this is true.  When being creative you are looking at something from all aspects and not putting any judgement towards something.

Something that I picked up from reading this blog post that will be helpful for this class would be that creativity is about connecting the dots.  I sometimes find it hard to complete stories, but If I just remember to keep the dots connected it will be easier to complete a lesson.

 

(Photo Source) 

Week 10 Reading Diary; Tejas Legends

Tejas Legends Reading B

Why Hummingbirds Drink Only Dew
-Hummingbirds do not drink water like others birds, they actually drink flower nectar.  Intersting that they drink their body weight or more in nectar each day.
 
The Maiden Who Loved a Star
-"Life is too great a gift tone flung aside" I love this quote! I also like how at the end of the story the maiden and the sky youth ended up together.

Old Quanah's Gift
-I love how the blanket maker used herbs, roots, and flowers to make the dye for the color of the blankets.  I also liked how he didn't make any blankets alike.  I would love to see how beautiful this blanket was with the sun shinning bright in the middle. Also it was really cool that they decided the blanket maker was the one who should have the blanket.

(Quanah's Blanket) 

How Sickness Entered the World
How were the boys suppose to know that the snake was the messenger. I feel that they should have been told that before hand and then maybe they wouldn't have killed him out of fear, and the spirit wouldn't be angry, and there would still be no sickness.

Why the Irises Hold Hands
-Story about a flood that was sent by an angry God to destroy a proud people.  It reminded me of the flood our God sent, but of course his was for another reason than to destroy someone proud. Intrerting turn around.

The Pecan Tree's Best Friend
-A good story about learning how important is to take time out of your own day to do something for someone else. It reminds you and is good practice to not be selfish and more selfless.

When The Rainbow Was Torn
-I liked how the described a rainbow with all the different types of flowers on the cactus.

Paisano, Hater of the Rattlesnake
-A nasty story about two characters who do awful things back and forth to each other just out of spite.

Maidens Who Broke a Drought
-The plant in this story is a plant that grows there is a lot of moisture. For example a runoff in a river canyon or gulch.

The Cottonwood Remembers
-Interesting story about why cottonwood trees produce cottony fluff that allows its seeds to travel for a long way on the wind before falling to the ground.

Why the Dog's Ears Flop
-This was not what I expected to read when I read the title. It was actually really sad to why the dogs have floppy ears.
 

Week 9, Reading Diary- Tejas Legends

Week 9, Reading Diary

Tejas Legends Unit

(Photo Source) 

When the Storm God Rids

-The only thing living on the islands are birds, and basically this whole story is focused around an evil bird.  I feel bad for the birds that are getting their colorful feathers plucked out. 

How the North Wind Lost His Hair

-Its fun that the north and south wind communicate with each other.  I liked how the north winds as old with long thick gray hair.  And how the south wind dances when he beats the north in a fight. 

The Plant That Grows in Trees

-Enjoyed that the mistletoe comes to life, it was sweet that the thunder bird wanted to help the mistletoe not die.  Interesting way to explain why mistletoe keeps growing in the trees.

Why the Woodpecker Pecks

-It was cute how they described the woodpecker as a little man in a black coat and a red hat.  It just seems funny that once they started eating these buttons they got super lazy and just rolled around on the ground having strange visions.. sounds like drugs to me. 

The Woodpecker’s Stumpy Tail

-Frog warns the villagers that a flood is coming, but they just laughed at him.  They should have listen to the frogs, because the flood came and they panicked.

Old Woolly Bird’s Sacrifice

-What a touching story symbolizing the magnolia flower, I feel that everything in the story was described with beauty.

A Tribe That Left Its Shoes

-Cute idea to say that orchids use to look like moccasin because Indians used them as shoes a long time ago.  I liked that they realized that they were happy and wise so they did not spend my time fighting.

The Cloud That Was Lost

-This was reading about the different varieties of the phlox flower that grows in Texas. 

The Swift Blue One

-Story about a blue horse and Indians that are first seeing horses for the first time.  They feared these horses.  It was funny they thought they had to speak in horse language. 

Grandmother River’s Truck

-Story about a variety of garfish, and the largest is the alligator gar.  I’m glad that Grandmother River finally came around for the little fish so that they could play around as pleased and be safe from the mouths of the garfish.

Week 2, Storytelling: 'Tommy's Hope'

“Tommy’s Hope”

(Photo Illustrations) 

Tommy was one of the nicest boys you could ever meet at Thompson Middle School.  You probably wouldn't know this very well, because he didn't talk or socialize much.  Tommy was a bright kid with a bright future; all of his teachers thoroughly enjoyed his schoolwork, especially his language arts teacher.  The only thing that held Tommy back from school was his home life. 

You see Tommy wasn’t as privileged as all the other students at his school.  Most of the kids came from wealthy backgrounds, and all lived in fancy neighborhoods, in huge two-story houses.  Thompson Middle School was a rather small school due to being a private school.  In fact to be able to attend school there you either had to have the money to pay or pass an extremely hard placement test.  Tommy’s family obviously didn't have the money to pay for the tuition, or hardly enough for dinner every night for his family.  This is why he was required to take the placement test; since he passed with flying colors Tommy received a full scholarship and free tuition to attend the middle school. 

To the other kids Tommy seemed like a normal type of student that went to Thompson since he wore the same uniform and attended the same classes.  On the school bus route Tommy was the last stop and this is exactly how he liked it.  Tommy lived in the nearest trailer park that just happened to be past the rich neighborhoods.  The school bus ride was the worst part of Tommy’s day.  Not only did he sit there by himself, but he had to ride through all the neighborhoods and watch the other kids run into their houses which seemed liked mansions to Tommy.  Tommy dreamed of one day having a family and living in one of those neighborhoods, and he knew education was the key to his success; this is why tried Tommy stayed low and only worried about himself. 

The other students didn't talk to Tommy much unless they were informing him that he couldn’t sit because that seat was already taken.   Some of his classmates would call him weird or nerdy, but Tommy always just shrugged it off because he knew that it was because they didn't live in the same type of neighborhood. 

Tommy had two little brothers and they lived with his mom and dad, in the second trailer home in the park.  Most nights he shared a twin size bed with his little brothers while his mom and dad shared the bigger bed in the trailer.  Tommy depended on school for breakfast and lunch, but ate at home the nights his mom could get food.  Tommy’s mom worked at a gas station, and his dad was a deadbeat with no job spending money they didn't have getting drunk all day.  Most nights Tommy and his brothers only had bread to eat for dinner, and sometimes they split some Ramen noodles.  Tommy’s favorite dinners were when his mom got to bring home left over gas station food that didn't sell all day. It might have tasted a little burnt, but it was better than just some bread. 

Every morning Tommy assured his little brothers made it to school before he worked his way towards Thompson by hopping on a city bus instead of the school bus.  He usually arrived on time and could sneak off the bus without the other students seeing him.  One morning the city bus got overheated and broke down causing Tommy to be an hour late to class. When his classmates saw that he got off the city bus they questioned him on why he was riding that filthy public bus, and why his mom or dad didn't drop him off. All he could think to tell them was because his parents' car was in the shop, when in reality they didn’t even own a car.  It wasn’t until Tommy's family had no water to shower with that the other students started to realize that he was different from them.  Tommy started to smell awful; it got so bad that you could smell Tommy from the end of the hall.  Tommy knew he had a problem, but there was nothing he could do about it.  The other students started calling him names and keeping their distance even more than before with him.  Tommy felt more and more lonely and disgusted with himself as the days went on.  Not to mention he was receiving harsher hatred from the other students.

Tommy contemplated running away but he couldn't leave his brothers, and he knew that there was no way that he could take them with him and survive.  So instead of running away, Tommy had to just deal with it like he dealt with the rest of the awful situations in his life. He knew that he had to take the teasing that his classmates gave him because he understood that they were different from each other.    

One day his language arts teacher asked Tommy to stay after class to talk.  Once all the other students left, she asked him how long it had been since he had a shower and washed his clothes.  He explained to her that it been a little over two weeks.  His teacher without any hesitation offered him a safe place to shower and wash his clothes, but Tommy only took the offer if his brothers could join him.  Of course his teacher didn't hesitate and she and Tommy went to pick up his brothers so they could finally shower.  After they had showered they waited on their clothes to dry. While waiting his teacher cooked them some dinner.  This was the first homemade dinner Tommy had ever received in a very long time, so it took him a total of a minute to scarf down the food.  Because his teacher had been so nice to him and his brothers, he knew there was hope for him and his brothers, as long as he stayed on track and didn't let the other students bring him down.    

Author's Note: For my readings this week I read different stories from the Aesop for Children (Illustrated by Winter).  In all of these stories I noticed that they each had their own way of explaining some sort of important life lesson.  I modeled my story of Tommy of “The Boys and the Frogs,"  which explains that we should always think of others before our actions affect them in a worse way.  In the story “The Boys and the Frogs,” the boys were hurting the frogs without noticing, and in Tommy’s world he was having a much harder time than most of the kids around him, and because he was different he got teased and joked about.  The differences between my story and "The Boys and the Frog" is that no one is there to help the frogs. The frogs had to stand up for themselves by confronting the boys, where Tommy only received help from his teacher. We never know what is going on in someone’s life, and it’s important to remember that everyone has his or her own battles.  Hopefully in my story Tommy motivates you, and his hope for a brighter future helps teach you to keep trying and moving on no matter what life throws at you.  Usually someone points out that we are being hurtful, or something serious happens before we really notice that our actions can easily make a difference in someone’s life.  There are two main purposes of this story. The first is to help teach people to watch their own actions before someone points out or we notice that we have hurt another person.  The second is that we should learn to keep going even when we are treated badly.  

      

Bibliography: Tommy’s hope is based of “The Boys and the Frog’ from the Aesop for Children (winter), illustrated by Milo Walker.   The Aesop for Children was published in 1919.  

Week 8: Future Blog

For my next readings I decided to take a look at the Tejas Legends.  This story tells the story of Eastern Texas, Cadoan which means friend and is where Texas got its name.  I am interested in this well because I am from Texas!

When The Storm God Rides- Tejas Legends 

I also looked into the English Fairy Tales.  I really enjoyed reading many fairy tails over the first half of the semester. Because I enjoy fairy tales I'm sure I will enjoy these stories.