Week 2: Another Side of Fairy Tales

We took a grammar quiz on Connect and I missed two questions. I was not too surprised at the results, as I was very confident taking the quiz. On the other hand, I also knew that there were a few qustions that I was unsure of as well, so I expected to miss at least one. I thought that the LearnSmart assignment was interesting because the website would make a training program that was specifically adjusted according to what I did and did not know.

We had to do a lot of reading for the class this past week. There were many Wikipedia articles related to fairy tales that we had to read. It was interesting to see the history of how the fairy tale genre came to be as well as who had a significant role in the development of the genre. In addition to reading articles, we also read three popular fairy tales. They were Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Hansel and Gretel. We read two versions of each tale and it was interesting to see how there were some major differences in the two versions. For Rapunzel and Hansel and Gretel, we were given the 1812 edition and 1857 edition by the Brothers' Grimm. For Little Red Riding Hood, we were given a version by Perrault and a version by the Brothers Grimm. I now know that fairy tales were originally meant for an adult audience and that it was not until the 19-20th centuries that they became associated with children. For example, in the early edition of Rapunzel, Rapunzel asks why her clothes do not fit her anymore, which implies that she is pregnant and participated in sexual activity with the prince. I never expected a fairytale to include such adult content that is not suitable for children.

My group in class now has an extra member and we are now a group of four. We were effective in our discussions about the readings that we had to do. In addition, we were efficient in getting some of our group presentation work done. We divided the work and gave each person a different section to research and present for our topic, the Brothers Grimm. I have always liked group work because it makes the workload seem less and makes doing work more exciting. I hope that I will continue to have good experiences when working in groups.

I think the idea of reflecting every week on what we did is a smart idea. It allows for me to think back about what we did over the week, which in turn makes the topics stick in my head.