Epics of India MLLL 4993

Purple flowers on  Flickr Praise, Not Presence: Hot to Cultivate a Healthy Relationship with Achievement by Maria Popova is an article describing the dangers of too much praise. She cites Stephen Grosz, professor at the University College London, who takes inspiration from Carol Dweck. We watched her videos earlier in the course. Popova summarizes their research by explaining that praising a child can actually lower one’s self confidence and suffocate their will to try. If a child has gotten praise such as “you’re so clever”, they may not feel the need to think any further, because they have already done well. If they are told that their artwork is “the best”, why feel the need to create a new piece of art if their work is already so good? Or, they may feel like they could never hope to create something as good as their “best” work, and so they don’t try. Minimizing the amount of praise that we give children will make the times that they do receive praise more meaningfu...

Brahma Riding his Goose  Wikimedia Vishnu on  Wikipedia For my Storybook, I think I might do Hindu creation stories. I loved the idea that creation is a continual process and that there are an infinite number of possible universes. There are three important gods in the creation process that I have looked into for possible Storybook plots. Brahma is the creator of everything in the universe(s), Vishnu preserves these creations and looks over the good things in the worlds, and Shiva is the Destroyer who creates mandatory change. If I were to do a Storybook on Brahma, I would focus mainly on his intentions for the earth. These would include why he created certain creatures, different sexes, certain emotions, and his intentions for his four main types of beings. These beings are gods, demons, ancestors, and men. I could write a chapter of my Storybook devoted to Brahma’s “birth” from the cosmic egg, as well as a chapter for each of the four beings. In each chap...

Dasharatha on  Wikimedia Now I lay dying, my chest replete with sorrow and grief, And I remember an incident from long ago, Before it was the last that I knew of peace, My heart must repent before to the celestial heavens I go. In my youth, I was known for my hunting skill, I could track an animal by the sound of it drinking water, To the stream I would go and my excitement would instill, In my body the energy for which the animal I would slaughter. I did this routine one fine, bright day, The sun gleaming through patches in the swaying leaves, The heavenly object bestowed graciously upon me its ray, Or so I thought, until a sound I did misconceive. An animal! I could hear it drinking in the stream, A Deer, I supposed, as was most common around there, I fired my good crossbow to hear an unexpected scream, Which was no Deer, but a boy of a most youthful year. What have I done? Sun, have you lead me astray? Sprinting to the source of t...

Rama on  Quora          For the second half of my Ramayana Notes, I laid them out just like the first. They are in lists with the appropriate chapter number, making it easy to refer back to the text. I am including my notes for the first seven chapters of part B, and I have noted important events, characters, relationships, or themes that seem important. For the second half, I also tried listening to the audio recordings. I have never listened to a book on tape and thought a longer reading like the Ramayana might be a good way to experience it. It actually is a lot more interesting to have the story spoken to you. You hear the rhyme and emphasis the author intended, and sometimes those things are missed when simply reading in silence. I also found that it was easier for me to picture the text's setting when I wasn't looking at the words. I went back after listening to read and create my notes.         Something that I mentioned in...

Rama on Wikipedia        I chose to read the Public Domain Edition of the Ramayana. Since we will be reading the Ramayana in four parts, each section we read will contain twenty small chapters. I thought it would be easiest to take my notes on each chapter in list form with chapter numbers instead of titles. I have done that on paper, and these will be useful for remembering names and relationships later on in the course. Putting all of my notes into this blog post would be too much. I assume that no one wants to read all of that, so I included just the first seven chapters of part A. I have noted some key events, terms, and themes, along with their respective chapter numbers. There are a number of techniques that I may draw inspiration from for future assignments in this course. One characteristic that I like about the Ramayana is that it gives substantial contextual information, as well as information about various characters, such as gods. This is similar to...