Long, long ago there lived a man
named Joshua. He was the younger brother of Noah-you know the man who build the
ark! Joshua was an insecure man who was constantly teased for his size. He
stood only about five feet tall and weighed no more than 130 lbs. He was small
and envious of everyone else.
Noah loved his brother Joshua, but
as the two grew older, life got in the way of their relationship. Noah had to
move on when he married his wife and left his hometown to find work so he could
support his new family. Joshua was left alone with his parents who cared little
for him.
When Joshua grew of age to leave
his home, he tried to find a job with some local shepherds, but they told him
he was too inexperienced. He then tried to find a job with some carpenters, but
he was too small to carry the heavy packs of wood and tools. Joshua could not
find a job and ended up homeless. He ran away to the forest to find refuge and lived in a
cave, deep in the forest for nearly a hundred years.
Joshua lived off the land in the
forest. He became friends with the animals and never saw any humans, ever.
Joshua was happy this way, or at least as happy as he could be living with
animals. He wasn’t picked on and a lot of the animals looked to him as their
leader.
On one particular day, Joshua saw
all the animals in his forest migrating north. Bewildered, he asked two
mountain goats where all the animals were headed. “We are going to find safety
from the flood! Come with us,” said the goats.
“What flood?!” said Joshua.
“THE flood!” said the goats, “The
flood that will cover the whole earth! Please come with us so you can be safe.”
Joshua didn't believe this could be
happening. The forest had seen very little rain in the past few years, but he
realized if he didn't follow the animals, he would again be all alone in the
forest. Not leaving the forest in so many years, he was terrified to follow the
animals. After a few minutes of contemplating he decided he must follow the
herd of animals if he wanted to find safety.
Joshua and the animals of the
forest traveled for miles and miles until they finally made it to the giant
ark. They sat in a giant line of animals from across the world while a man in
the distance counted each animal entering the ark.
“Where are all the humans?” asked Joshua
the other animals.
“No humans allowed!!!” said the
deer. “Just a crazy man and his family with two of every animal.”
"What? No!" sighed
Joshua.
Discouraged, Joshua stepped out of
the line and started walking back toward the forest.
"We're sorry, Joshua! We
didn't know," said the mountain goats who pleaded with Joshua to follow
them.
With all hope lost, he felt someone
grab his shoulder. When he turned around he was surprised to find his big
brother ready to give him a giant hug.
"My brother! It has been WAY
too long. Please follow me onto the ark for safety. Come eat and drink, we have
so much to talk about!" Noah gleamed.
Joshua was humbled by his older
brother's kinds and generosity. Noah welcomed his brother on the ark as if he
was the guest of honor. For forty days on the ark, the brothers caught up on
each other’s lives. When they found land, Noah welcomed Joshua to live with his
family and work with him.
Joshua was forever thankful for his
brother and they lived in peace for the rest of their lives, together.
Noah greets the animals entering his ark.
Photo Cred: LDS
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is based on Noah and the Ark. This was one of my favorite Bible stories while growing up. This is one of those stories that just leaves you thinking, "Wow! I can't believe that really happened!"Although Joshua is a fictional character, I thought it was a fun way to add background to Noah and show his love and faithfulness to his family. Joshua is somewhat of a nerd and gets picked on while his older brother Noah is strong and independent. I wanted to show Joshua's insecurities and give him some personality apart from Noah. By giving Noah a younger brother, I wanted to show the tender heart behind Noah. Imagine building a giant ark and bring criticized by all of your peers. It took extreme faith for Noah to do what he did. The original story of Noah and the Ark is found in Genesis, the first book of the Bible. I have read this story many times, but it was fun getting to go back and read over this story again. There is so much hope given in this story and God's heart is revealed through his jealousy and love for his people.
Bible stories are always fun to read, so I am glad I had the opportunity to reread this story. Noah is such an incredible person of the Old Testament. This story is well-known and I hope my version of his "made-up" brother will only add to the glory of this story!
Bible stories are always fun to read, so I am glad I had the opportunity to reread this story. Noah is such an incredible person of the Old Testament. This story is well-known and I hope my version of his "made-up" brother will only add to the glory of this story!
Landon, I realized how much thought you put into your story. I really was impressed with the fictional character Noah. I can see that you are really good at storytelling and using your imagination. I enjoyed the twist of the original story of Noah’s ark. You really showed that Noah was faithful to his family not only in one way but multiple. The story was very practical. I enjoyed it because I did not know what Joshua was going to do. Great job!
ReplyDeleteLandon, I loved how you added background to Noah! Every time we have commenting assignments, I look forward to reading yours because they are usually about the Bible, but with a touch of creativity. I found that separating comments into paragraphs is more helpful, so that is how I will format yours!
ReplyDeleteFormat: The amount of spaces in-between the paragraphs is great, and I noticed you added in some dialogue so even in-between the small sentences, the spaces are great. I can read it all clearly.
Function: I noticed the link in the image caption went to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints website, but I had to click on a different section to find the image. It is so easy to not get the exact page copied over into the link, but next time maybe just check through your links to confirm. Also, the picture is a tad large so try the smaller size next time!
Holistically: Your overall writing style is easy to follow, and you give a great representation of the stories in the Bible. Keep it up!
I really enjoyed reading this story with the addition of Joshua. To me, it created an imagery of Noah you wanted too; loving, kind and loyal. You painted a good image of Joshua at the beginning by having a "napoleon syndrome" because it made the scene make sense when he just gave up at the end when a deer told him he wasn't welcomed. I am glad he wasn't too stubborn though to dismiss his brother’s kind actions. It really ties in a loving family aspect, which is very nice. Just one comment I would add to this story is when you are having the dialogue between the characters in the middle. I would change "said Joshua" or "said the goats" to "questioned Joshua" or "explained the goats". This just allows you to have more infuses on the dialogue between the characters so the reader can really feel what is happening. Other than that, it was very good read!
ReplyDeleteI decided to choose your story for my project commenting for this week.
ReplyDeleteFormat:
I really love the books as your background and the color style of your blog. This makes the reader want to read your blog.
Your picture is a little too large for the margins of you blog. Typically the “large” size is a good size, but not always. I good way to check and make sure everything is formatted correctly BEFORE you “publish” your blog is to click the “preview” button and it will show you what your blog will look like without sharing it yet.
The caption on the picture is disproportional to the picture size.
Links:
I clicked on the “LDS” link and it didn’t take me to the image’s origin.
Where is the link to the Table of Contents for the Noah unit?
Content/Style:
I really love that you created a new character!!! I like the details you gave about Joshua. Why the name Joshua? This name is already a name of a major character in the bible, so I was just wondering what inspired you to use this name.
I think this story would be really cool if it was told from the perspective of Joshua. Possibly a first person perspective.
Great twist on a classic tale! I feel like you only added to a story that most already know by heart, which is really great. Sometimes adding to a story takes away from it, but that was absolutely not the case here. The way you wrote made it sound like it could be in a modern translation of the Bible, which I thought was very interesting.
ReplyDeleteEven though I liked the emphasis that you put on telling Joshua's side of things, I didn't see a lot of depth get added to the story. The reason for this is that his importance in how the story concludes compared to the original tale didn't really change, and your retelling ended with focusing on Noah (again, like the original).
ReplyDeleteAlso, even though you portray Noah as a triumphant individual, the story doesn't really seem strengthened by how flawless he is. It would have made for a better read if Noah had some sort of personal or practical flaw that Joshua compensated for, and hence contributed more to the story than the original telling lets-on.
And I would probably opt to come up with a more inviting and mysterious title than the current one. Even though this is a class where we are required to read each other's posts, it's still a good idea to get your reader with that first "hook" factor: you want the title to summarize what the story is about, but not give too much away so that there's no sense of wonder or mystery.
It's always an experience for me to read any Bible stories, re-tellings or not, because I didn't grow up on very many of them. When I tried reading some of the stories available in the Biblical unit in week 3, I had a hard time digesting any of them because most were written in that old English prose (yea and verily...).
ReplyDeleteThis is why your re-telling was a treat to read. You re-told this timeless classic in a way that not only made it easy to read, but also heart-warming and entirely plausible. I can totally see Noah having a hermit brother living in the woods. And Noah, with his giant heart, would of course welcome Noah back into his life and help him in any way possible.
Your breaks in paragraphs and dialogue are good, but I notice there are a couple inconsistencies with tenses, such as past and present. This is a pretty common mistake and easily remedied.
I hope you enjoyed writing this re-telling! It was very pleasant to read.
Hello, Landon! I really enjoyed your story on Noah and the Ark, especially since it was told from a very unique perspective. People don't often think of Noah's background, of his family life and the possible familial relationships he held, so it was quite interesting to hear about Joshua--fictional though he may be! The story had quite a few interesting twists and turns (and I have always been fascinated by how long the people in the Old Testament lived!).
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I might comment on is that you might think of adding a little more transition into your story--at times things seem to just jump somewhat abruptly from plot point to plot point. In any case, it was an extremely enjoyable story and I cannot wait to read more of your portfolio!
Landon, you gave great descitption of the charcters at the very beginning of the story, which helped me picture them in my head. Using the weight was a good touch!
ReplyDeleteWhile Joshua is trying to find a job, I would recommend adding in some dialogue with the different trade owners (shepherds) so you can feel his struggle more seriously.
Throughout the story though, I always following and never had to reread a sentence to better understand the context or plot. I used this revision tip for my last storybook writing and you might see it as helpful as I did. It taught you how to minimize your sentences so they become cleaner. Fore example, your sentence might be 9 words, but it teaches you how to minimize it to only 6 words, but elicit the same meaning. I think it was called “How To Make your Sentences Less Wordy” or something like that haha.
Great job though! I really enjoy reading the Bible stories.
Whoops! I meant to spell my words right: description and characters haha.
DeleteLandon,
ReplyDeleteI am a little sad that you did not stick with your storybook. I was looking forward to seeing where you would take it; however, these stories in your portfolio are awesome. I absolutely love the story about Noah and Joshua. That was pretty creative of you to add that Noah had a younger brother. I liked how you added him in with the animals coming to Noah. It is a very interesting spin, and a very enjoyable read! It would have been pretty cool if you had had more dialogue with Joshua and the animals though. I feel you could make your story more captivating if you do. Maybe add a section about an adventure Joshua had with the animals, or you could go into detail about why and how the animals accepted him. The possibilities are endless (their aren’t actually endless, don’t get carried away).
Your author’s note is really good. I like that you expressed your thoughts about how and why you added Joshua! Like I said early, this is a great spinoff from the original story. I went back and read the story when I finished yours, and it gave me a new a interesting viewpoint for the original one!
Landon, I really liked the details you added to the story of Noah. It really does give him more humanity and personality, which makes him a more approachable and relatable character. The character you created with Joshua is incredibly relatable and everyone can understand how he feels, as we all feel inadequate at some point or another. I think your ending highlighting the value of family ties is really wonderful. Noah welcomes his brother with open arms, which I think is in part because Joshua isn’t part of the problem that caused God to send the flood. Joshua was living with the animals, who looked up to him, which I think makes him worthy of saving, like the animals. Overall, I thought your story flowed really well and was well written. Noah is such an influential biblical figure, and I think that his added humanity in this story adds to that in such a great way. Good job!
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ReplyDeleteHey Landon! I really liked the change you added with Joshua being Noah's brother and having a unique background. A definite constant across many of the stories I've read is a somewhat lack of detail provided on how characters came to become the people they are. I think providing Joshua gives a better idea of that, and helps us begin to understand Noah as a character as well. It also seems to make a little more sense, because Joshua's love of animals connects some to Noah's decision to bring them all onto the Ark. It's also nice because I think there are some small questions about Noah only including animals and no humans, so it's cool that Noah actually includes Joshua so that there are humans and animals! The story was really constructed and interesting, but there were some small grammar issues. I'd suggest just going back through the story and making sure you don't have any mistakes. Overall though, I think it's a great story!
ReplyDeleteHey Landon I checked out your portfolio. I read the Flood story. The prose you use for this story allows for a nice simple read. I never felt bored throughout the story. Each paragraph and sentence is broken up nicely. I think the length of this story was also a good choice. The subject matter in the story is hard because these are stories most people are familiar with, so that when you go to put your own spin on it, sometimes you are limited in your options. This is something I am finding out first hand myself, however you seem to have found a nice balance in this story. The dialogue added another dimension to this story that seemed to give the characters depth. I didn’t notice any real issues as far as errors in grammar with this story, so good job there. Over all I think you have done a nice job so far.
ReplyDeleteLandon, I really liked your version of Noah and the Ark. This is also one of my favorite Biblical stories and so I was really glad to be able to read your adaptation of it. I love that you gave Noah a brother, and the character that you created for him was so perfect. His personality and stature is such a great juxtaposition to the strength and confidence of Noah. Great job with your story line, I loved it!
ReplyDeleteThere were several grammatical errors that you could fix which would make the story just a little easier to read. At the beginning the word build should be in its past tense, built. In the sentence where Joshua runs away to the forest, a comma is not needed between the words cave and deep. When you say that Noah wasn't picked on and that a lot of the animals looked up to him, there should be a comma before the word and. The last thing that I noticed was that there should be a comma between the phrase "After a few minutes of contemplating" and "he decided he must follow the herd..." because it is a prepositional phrase which is longer than four words.
Other than the few grammatical errors that I noticed, your story looks great! I really enjoyed reading it! Great job!
Landon, great job on this story! I truly love your addition to the original story of Noah and the Ark. First of all, your Author's Note does a great job of explaining your thoughts behind the "why" to the additions in your story. I think that you adding Joshua to the story is a create way to add depth to the character of Noah. Sometime you can develop a character by showing off their abilities and what not, but what you did is add a character (Joshua) that is the complete opposite of the main character (Noah) to truly highlight the qualities of Noah himself. I also love the element of redemption for Joshua because he was finally accepted back in with humans at the end. One way that could make this story even stronger is developing a little bit more about how each brother responded to ridicule. For instance, Joshua was made fun of and outcasted so he runs away and hides. Whereas, Noah is made fun of for building the ark and he stays strong and diligent. Developing this a bit more would add to the qualities of Noah. This is one of my favorite stories as well, so seeing this rendition was extremely fun. The only other comment I have is about some of the spelling and grammatical errors. Nothing too bad, just a few mistakes that are easily fixable, like "build" to "built". Great job, Landon!
ReplyDelete