Feedback Focus

Or, Teachers hate her! Girl's one weird trick to reading comprehension.

One of these three feedback strategies is, in my opinion, vastly superior to the other two.

First, the two that fall flat:

Copy and delete, aka reading by paragraph. This method discourages reading and critiquing the work as a whole when used on its own, in my opinion. When combined with one of the two other methods, it could work as part of a system. On its own, though, it only leads to a lot of half-baked thoughts, and fragmented comments and critiques. Worst of all, it stunts the commenting process unnecessarily. It could be useful for drawing more attention to the technical and/or stylistic choices of a story, especially a longer one; however, the other two techniques do the same with more efficiency.

Use a timer, aka timed re-reading. Obviously, most people will do this automatically when formulating a critique--it's hard to write a fully-formed comment without at least skimming some parts of the story again. I do it to revisit particularly good or particularly problematic sections in a story. When reading Zoology 1114, I had time to read the full story, sans author's note, about three times. I didn't find much that I hadn't seen before. Again, this could be useful in conjunction with one of the other two techniques, but the addition of a ten minute timer won't do much for those who already re-read in their commenting process.

Lastly, the one that works:

Reading out loud. But, this one has a stipulation: read it to someone. Preferably someone human. I read the story "Why Dog and Cat Are Enemies" to my roommates. Reading out loud is completely different than reading to yourself--if you're putting any effort into changing up your inflection or creating emotion for the story, you have to infer what parts of it to emphasize in order to make it entertaining for your audience. And, as a huge added bonus, you can discuss the story after you read it, which is a built-in guarantee that you'll have something to comment on.

Note: the above is just my opinion, of course, and if someone reads this and violently disagrees, that's great--hopefully other people have the capacity to use the two techniques I disliked. I wish I could make better use of them, too.

Image: Reading Upside Down by Garry Knight

Reading Notes: Egyptian Myth and Legend, Part B

This post contains a little more context and background about the two major stories in part B of the Egyptian Mythology readings, the story of the two brothers, and the story of the book of Thoth.

The Egyptians, like many cultures, happily intertwined their history and mythology together in stories. For example, the god Osiris was supposedly the one who civilized the hunter-gatherer tribes of the desert and taught them how to cultivate food. This enabled them to settle down, and Egypt was born. It's also worth noting that a lot of Egyptian lore is see
n through a Roman lens, because Egyptians passed their stories down orally. For the most part, the Romans wrote them down. This means there are some differences for things like names--for example, Anpu's more well-known name, Anubis.

The Two Brothers is a story that seems strange and irrelevant at first, at least to me, but according to its Wikipedia page, it contains several themes considered very important in ancient Egyptian culture. First, the story implies that Egypt is separated into to distinct territories. Ancient Egypt was divided into two areas, a Lower and Upper Egypt. These territories existed even when Egypt was politically stable.

Another major theme is kingship. Bata goes through an ordeal to ascend to the throne by the end of the story, but what I didn't notice is that the story implies ascending to the throne is his birthright. Bata is repeatedly linked to divine forces. His wife herself was a divine construct; therefore she herself is divine. Because she gives birth to him when he is reincarnated, he also can claim to be divine. Bata also meets the Ennead at one point in the story, representing the gods' favor on him. So, this story strongly links divinity and kingship.

The Book of Thoth, an item both fictional and probably real at some point, is the name of the second major story. The story follows an Egyptian prince who tries to gain wisdom from its secrets. Thoth, writer of the tome, was the god of wisdom, time, writing, magic, and the moon. Though he was the gods' scribe, this story sees him with a brutal mean streak and penchant for revenge.

The most major theme of this story is the ancient Egyptian belief that divine knowledge is not meant to be possessed by humans. The Book of Thoth supposedly contains two spells: one which allows the reader to understand animals, and the other which gives the reader the ability to perceive the gods. When the Egyptian prince does get his hands on the book, Thoth goes a little crazy and kills his wife and son. The prince then commits suicide and the book, according to legend, is buried with him.

There is another story not in the reading about the Book of Thoth, wherein the main character, Setne, steals the book again, from the prince's tomb. The prince's ghost haunts him by turning into a beautiful woman, seducing him, and convincing him to kill his children and humiliate himself. Understandably, Setne returns the book, and the prince's tomb is sealed.

Sources:
Egyptian Myth and Legend by Donald Mackenzie
Tale of Two Brothers on Wikipedia
The Book of Thoth on Crystalinks



Image: Thoth from a book by E. A. Wallis Budge. Web source.

Reading Notes: Egyptian Myth and Legend, Part A

I'm not as familiar with Egyptian legend as I used to be, so this post will mostly compile notes on major Egyptian gods and goddesses appearing in the reading.

Ra (or Khepera in the mornings, or Tum in the evenings) | symbols: the sun/solar disk, the asp
A child in the morning, a man in his prime at noon, and an old man in the evening, Ra represents the sun. In the reading, he's mentioned as the big daddy of the gods, probably also due to his connection to Nu. He travels through the underworld at night to be reborn as the morning sun each day.

Shu | symbol: ostrich feather
God of air and dry winds, but not sky--he just held up the sky. Husband and brother of Tefnut. Son of Ra.

Tefnut | symbol: the lion
Goddess of dew and rain. She was represented either as a lion, or with a lion's head. Sister and wife of Shu. Daughter of Ra.

Seb or Geb | symbol: geese
God of earth, physically represented with green or black skin. He was separated from his wife by Shu. Son of Shu and Tefnut.


Nut | symbol: the sky, stars
Sky goddess, physically represented as a woman with blue skin and covered with stars, arched over her husband Seb, or as a cow. Daughter of Shu and Tefnut.

Osiris | symbols: mummy wrappings, crown with a miter and two ostrich feathers
God of nature and vegetation, and important because he civilized the warring tribes of wandering people who would become the Egyptian people. Also chilled out in the underworld and judged souls there. The additional association with the underworld was probably because his brother, Set, murdered him. He got better. He was the first person to die, ever.


Isis | symbols: throne, scorpions, snakes
Powerful but benevolent sorceress who attained a lot of her power by tricking Ra. Wife of Osiris who went on a journey to restore him to life after Set killed him. Daughter of Geb and Nut. Mother of Horus with Osiris. She was the most important Egyptian goddess, assuming almost all other attributes and functions of every other goddess at some point.

Set | symbols: head and tail of a beast
God of wickedness; somewhat related: super evil. Killed his brother Osiris and ripped him to pieces to try to stop Isis from reviving him. He was defeated and castrated by Horus.

Nepthys or Nephthys | symbol: a basket
Sister of Set and Osiris. Consort of Set, but loved Osiris more, and had Anubis with him. She abandoned Set when he killed Osiris and spent time with Isis instead. She was a special protector of the dead.

Horus | symbol: a falcon
Son of Osiris and Isis who wanted to avenge Osiris' murder. He was also killed and revived in the process. After defeating Set, he became the divine prototype of the pharaoh.

Anubis | symbol: a jackal
Son of Nephthys and Osiris. A god of death who prepared the dead and took them to the underworld. Jackals tended to prowl around tombs, which probably explains symbol's association with the dead. He was also worshipped as "Upuaut," the "opener of the ways," which explains something about how Egyptians thought of death.

Thoth | symbol: an ibis
A sacred scribe and god of learning. Benevolent and wise. Self-created, or maybe created by Ra. His consort was a goddess of truth, Ma'at.

Hathor | symbol: a cow, cow horns
Goddess of joy and love, and protector of women. Sometimes equated with Sky goddess Nut, and sometimes with Isis.

Sources:
Egyptian Myth and Legend by Donald Mackenzie
Summary of Egyptian Gods by History World
About Egyptian Mythology by CliffsNotes

Image: Godess Isis, taken by Darla Hueske. Web source.