Thursday, February 19, 2015

Essay - Nigerian Folktales

This week, I read from two separate units. On Monday, I read from the Japanese Mythology unit, but I decided to switch things up on Tuesday and read from Nigerian Folktales. I thought I was going to really joy the unit over Japanese Mythology, but I got really bored with it and when I began reading the second half of the unit I found it very hard to understand. The stories were written in modern English, but they used words and names from their ancient myths that I was unfamiliar with. I decided to take a shot at Nigerian Folktales and see what it was all about.

I’m glad I did! The unit offered a lot of bizarre stories about animals and creatures. It was pretty easy to follow and understand, too. I wrote about a specific story from the unit in Reading Diary B about a leopardand a walking fish. I thought the story was already interesting enough when it talked about a walking fish, but I was really taken back when the plot twists and the fish has an affair with the leopard’s beautiful wife. How weird is that? A walking fish has an affair with his leopard, best friend’s wife. It was a good story and was a great folktale to explain why fish can no longer walk and must remain in the water. The story explains that the fish’s punishment for his affair was no longer being able to walk or breathe on land.


I only read the first half of this unit, but I would like to go back and rad the second half at some point because I really enjoyed it. I feel like most kids would enjoy some of these stories in this unit as well because they use animals to tell the stories!


The walking fish.
Photo Cred: Louis Dietvorst

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