Tech Tip: Canvas Dashboard

First of all, I use the Dashboard Sidebar all the time! I think it is so helpful and easy to navigate with. Also, I have configured the Dashboard to make it more helpful and handy after reading this post. I have changed all my class names to actual names and changed the color of each one to match the color of the binder I use for each specific class. I am very OCD, so this color coordinating and labeling was so fun for me! I love the Canvas Dashboard; I have it open on my computer all the time. I am a big fan of working ahead and crossing stuff off of my planner; the Canvas equivalent of this is seeing things on the right hand checklist disappear after I complete them. It is such a feeling of satisfaction!! I have no recommendations about what to add, it works great!!

Tech Tip: Canvas Grade book

After reviewing the new Canvas Grade book, I have to admit there are some new aspects that have made reviewing my grades even more handy. There are two things in specific I want to mention. First, there is the part where you can enter in "what if" grades to your grade book and see how if you got those grades, how it would change your overall grade. This really comes in handy around finals and midterms to see wha the lowest possible grade is you can get for the class! Next, I like how you can look at the weekly totals. This allows me to see what weeks I am ahead on and what weeks I was slacking in instead of having to add up all the totals for each week on my own!

Reading Notes: Canterbury Tales, Part A

This story is part of the Canterbury Tales unit. Story source: The Chaucer Story Book by Eva March Tappan (1908).

Note's on The Pardoner's Tale: The Revelers who Went out to Meet Death

(Dice; Image from Pixabay)

• Takes place in Flanders
• They rioted all the time, drank all the time, and gambled 
• Story is about three of these revelers in specific 
• It was 9 at night, and the en were already a few drinks in and didn't know it was already still so early. They heard a bell in the street.
• The jingling supposedly happened before a corpse
• The men told the waiter to go ask the corpse's name and not to forget it on the way back
• The waiter said he didn't need to go ask because he heard of the name earlier and it was one of the men's friends
• The waiter said that he was drunk on a bench and Death finally got him
• Another man then said that Death had taken a lot of people in a near by town, so that is probably where he had been living, and will continue to live
• The waiter said you have to be mighty strong to face Death and win
• The friends then promised to all go and meet Death and defeat him
• As the friends drunkenly headed to the other town, they passed an old man in tattered clothing who told them "God keep you gentlemen"
• One of the friends asked why the man was wrapped up all over except for on his face and why he was still alive if he was already so old

Reading Notes: Tejas Legends, Part B

This story is part of the Tejas Legends unit. Story source: When the Storm God Rides: Tejas and Other Indian Legends retold by Florence Stratton and illustrated by Berniece Burrough (1936).

Notes on When The Rainbow Was Torn

(Rainbow; Image from Pixabay)

• A group of flowers all used to be white
• They were white until the rainbow gave some of them colors, which they now have kept up until this time, while others remain white
• The white cactus flowers watched every time a rainbow came as it landed in two areas and gave color to everything it touched
• The rainbows never seemed to touch the white cactus flowers and no one knew why
• They thought it was maybe because of the thorns on the cactus flower, but that was just a guess
• One time after a big storm, the rainbow was getting ready to go down and touch the earth because it was filled with raindrops. The rainbow saw a group of cactus flowers hiding in the area where it usually lands, and tried to quickly pick itself up before landing on the thorny flowers
• The rainbow did not get back up in time, so it brushed across the cactus plants
• The flowers thorns could only get hold of the red, orange, and yellow colors, so from then on the cactus flowers have remained those shades of colors!

Reading Notes: Tejas Legends, Part A

This story is part of the Tejas Legends unit. Story source: When the Storm God Rides: Tejas and Other Indian Legends retold by Florence Stratton and illustrated by Berniece Burrough (1936).

Notes from The Woodpecker's Stumpy Tail

(Woodpecker; Image from Pixabay)

• The woodpecker has a stumpy tail
• It used to be long like other birds, but a fish bit it off
• Here's how:
• The town often got several floods
• One time a huge flood was coming and only the frogs knew about it
• One of the frogs had hung around the people for awhile and learned to speak their language so he warned them about this huge flood that was about to come overtake everything
• The Indians began to laugh at the frog and the woodpecker joined in; the woodpecker stayed on his low branch and laughed with the Indians while all the other bride went to higher branches to avoid the flood
• That night the huge storm ended up coming that the frog tried to warn everyone about
• In the middle of the night the people got up and started climbing trees to get out of the flood as fast as they could
• The woodpecker could not fly in the rain or in the dark so he was stuck blindly flying from one tree to another trying to make his way above the water; unfortunately, this did not work because he had such a long tail that kept getting stuck in the water
• He then got his tail bit off by a fish passing through, and that is why woodpeckers have short tails that look like they have been bitten off!

Week 10 Lab

(Creativity; Image from Pixabay)

Notes on Ted Talk Videos (Style)

After watching this series of videos, my two favorite videos were How to Build a Fictional World, and How to Write Descriptively. First, in the Fictional World video, I got to see how different universes can be made in fiction stories from using different languages, different settings, and interesting character developments.  I learned that the way people make these stories that intrigue us and make us laugh, cry, and think about how the real world is portrayed; these fictional worlds are created everyday. The video said all you need is your imagination and a willingness to figuratively live in your own world, will help you in the creation of your own fictional world building. Next, for the How to Write Descriptively video, it gave me some tips on how to expand my own writing style. I learned how the more description we use, more often than not, the better our message is portrayed to our readers. The descriptive writing style engages all of our senses by using words that help us imagine we are there in the story. Descriptive writing makes the writing come to life!!! Happy writing!

Reading Notes: Marriage Tales, Part B

This story is part of the Native American Marriage Tales unit. Story source: Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson (1929).

Notes on The True Bride (cont.)

(Bride; Image from Pixabay)

• The chief's son saw a girl washing clothes and admired her looks and dress; after telling his father, his father told him to go get a second look at the girl to make sure he didn't change his mind when he saw her again. 
• When the son went back to talk to the girl, she spat out gold nuggets while she was talking
• He went to tell his father this, and his father couldn't believe it so he went to see for himself
• Then, after the father saw the same thing, he told the boy to go marry that girl because of how valuable she was 
• They had a wedding and the bride spat gold for all the guests so that they could take home welcome presents.  Everyone loved the bride
• The bride soon got pregnant, and when the baby was coming, her husband was away for a meeting, so her stepmom and half-sister were in charge of helping deliver the baby
• When the bride gave birth, her step mom cut a hole in the floor and had the baby fall in it, then covered the hole, then put a cat there and convinced the bride she had given birth to a cat
• The bride found this very odd, which the step-mom then assured her that "odd people have odd children"
• So the bride raised this cat
• The husband didn't say anything about the cat baby, he just thought it was odd
• The wife then got pregnant again, and this time the step-mom did the same thing except instead of a cat it was a snake
• Then, the husband returned and the step-mom told him he should kill his wife because she was giving birth to such off things
• The town held a meeting and they all agreed
• The husband then killed his wife
• I think this story would come to life more with more dialogue
• Also, I would like to do a plot twist on the ending, such as the husband killing the daughter and the step-mom for making his wife go through this and finding their actual children