This week I had the pleasure of reading the West African Folktales unit. The unit was comprised of several stories and did a great job
of flowing from one story into another, and having common characteristics
within each story. One of the main characters that were seen in several of
these stories was Anansi and also his son, Kweku Tsin.
Historically throughout each of the stories, Anansi was
always doing something very foolish, and his son was usually able to outsmart
his father and put him in his place. Throughout the entire time I read a story,
I never finished reading and didn’t think that Anansi was a selfish bastard. I
truly hated him as a character because I don’t feel like he ever got punished
to the extent to which he deserved.
Picture of Anansi
Picture retrieved from Global Diversity
Although Anansi was a horrible character, I did like the
stories he was in. I thought for the most part that every single story in this
unit was interesting and I liked them. There weren’t any extremely difficult
names or a ton of characters, and for that reason the stories were easy to stay
on top of.
I also liked this unit because to a certain extent it was
explaining why things were the way they were. Such as how wisdom became
something for everyone, how the turtle got it’s shell, why tigers don’t attack
humans unless they’re provoked, etc. Each one of the stories used a great amount
of detail, and explained things very clearly to the reader. For this reason, I
liked this unit much more than ones in the past.
The only problem I ran into with this unit is that once
again, it felt very long. I am truly starting to not enjoy this class because
of the amount of work that is expected. I think this class has great material
to be learned, however, I am starting to dislike it strictly based on the
workload. I think this class has a lot of unnecessary work, and there is
nothing more frustrating than that.
Other than that, I liked this unit and would recommend it to
other students.
Hi Katelynn, I am sorry to hear that you think the class is set up with unnecessary work. Here's how the different assignments fit together and add up to 6-8 hours of work each week:
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2 hours: you take notes on the reading and then write up your reactions in a short story and a short essay
1-2 hours: you do some work on your own semester project (in your case, the Portfolio)
1-2 hours: you interact with the other students about their writing (comments)
Those things, total, take 6-8 hours per work every week. Online classes don't have regular class meetings, but the idea is that in a regular class you have 3 hours of class each week, plus 1-2 hours outside of class for each hour in class. That's how class credit hours are calculated. A 3-credit class would require 6-9 hours of time per week, exactly like this class.
You also don't have to do all the assignments. If your goal is just to pass the class, you don't need all the points. But if your goal is to get an A, then, yes, it requires 6-8 hours of work each week. If you would be okay with a B or a C in the class, you can do fewer assignments, based on the assignments you like and the ones you don't like. Here's a chart that can help with that: Chart of Points
Have you made a schedule? If you figure out when you have the time available, you can organize the class work based on what matches your available time. Here are some sample schedules: Designing Your Own Class Schedule
I really like your description of Anansi haha. I read about the Monkey King, Sun Wu Kung, earlier this semester, and I would describe him in the exact same way that you describe Anansi. Though I really didn't like him at all, he made the reading really interesting. Sometimes it is just as entertaining to hate a character as it is to love one.
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