Week 2 Reading Overview

Tentative Reading Plan


Choose from CLASSICAL and/or BIBLICAL units for Weeks 3 and 4.

Week 3: Jewish Fairy Tales

Week 4: Homer's Iliad

Choose from MIDDLE EASTERN and/or INDIAN units for Weeks 5 and 6.

Week 5: Arabian Nights

Week 6: Sindbad

Choose from ASIAN and/or AFRICAN units for Weeks 7 and 9. [Week 8 is review week.]

Week 7: Philippines

Week 9: Congo

Choose from NATIVE AMERICAN units for Weeks 10 and 11.

Week 10: California/Southwest

Week 11: Tejas

Choose from BRITISH and/or CELTIC units for Weeks 12 and 13.

Week 12: Celtic Tales

Week 13: King Arthur

Choose from EUROPEAN units for Weeks 14 and 15.

Week 14: Inferno 

Week 15: Lang I

Reasoning

    I chose a large chunk of these stories and collections because they are classics that I know I should have read by now but I have just never got around to them. By assigning them to myself, I'll finally read them and hopefully have a greater understanding and appreciation for some extremely influential pieces of literature. This list includes Homer's Iliad, Arabian Nights, Sindbad, King Arthur, and Inferno. 
    Another group of my choices were made in an attempt to broaden my horizons a bit and get a taste for other cultures and their traditional stories. I have almost exclusively ever consumed white American or English stories in literature, film, and television. So, I don't have a great deal of experience with stories from other parts of the world. Even just other parts of Europe and other groups in America. To help with that, I selected readings from the Congo, stories from Southwestern Native Americans, Celtic tales and Lang's collection of European tales. 
    Finally, I chose stories that hold some sort of personal interest to me beyond just experiencing new stories. All the stories I chose interested me, but these stories interested ME. I chose to read Jewish fairy tales because I spent my summer working in a kosher restaurant and learned a lot about the Jewish history and culture from my boss. I'd like to learn a bit more about that to be able to have more in depth and interesting conversations with her in the future. I chose to read tales from the Philippines because my girlfriend is an immigrant from the Philippines. I always want to learn more about her culture and history. It helps me understand her better as a person and allows us to engage in better conversation about that part of her life. Finally, I chose to read stories from the Tejas Caddoan people because I am from Texas. However, I know next to nothing about this group of people who are 100% actually FROM Texas. I think it should be pretty important to learn about these people for me and there's no better way to learn about a group of people than to experience their stories. 

Illustration from Johnnie and Grizzle (UNtextbook)

    I chose to include the Image Above because when I loaded the unit page and was greeted by "The Duck" I couldn't help but chuckle. I don't know why. I just found the image very funny. I think it's also a great example of some of the goofy illustrations or situations that folktales include to illustrate their greater moral point.

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