This video explains how to upload a video through YouTube to enable it to play on the site. It uses a different version of a course website, but the principle is the same.

Cuny Academic Commons: To get started as a student user for this class you will need to claim your Cuny Academic Commons account. Complete information for doing that is here and in Module One

Zoom: Our class meets on Zoom. Zoom is free for you to use to join a meeting.

YouTube – instructions for video uploading are above.

Blackboard – Will be used for tracking your completed assignments

Course Password: Found on Blackboard

If you are interested in learning more about why I have chosen to use alternative assessment methods, you might want to check out some of the links listed below. I was lucky enough to attend an undergraduate program at Hampshire College where all assessment was done through narrative evaluation. As outlined in the syllabus, I want to empower you to create a narrative that justifies the grade you earn in this class.

A good place to start to learn more about how this movement has grown and is expanding is the work of Dr. Jesse Stommel:

https://www.jessestommel.com/ungrading-an-introduction/

Every instructor who takes an alternative assessment/ungrading approach does it slightly differently.

The following playlist includes professors, teachers, and students all discussing how grades and learning are often in opposition.

Preparing the text:

• What is the overall tone of the piece? How might this affect your presentation? How will you deliver that tone?
• What kind of language is the author using? Is there a certain kind of phrasing? Allusions? Rhythm? Verse?
• Are there words that you aren’t sure about meaning or pronunciation? Take time to look them up.  If you do mispronounce something, don’t worry about it! English is weird and we often read a word much more than we hear it.
• Is the passage particularly descriptive? Can you really imagine it in front of you? The more you do, the more your listeners will as well.
• Mark up a text ahead of time.  Identify those breaks, phrases, and even physical movements you might use.
• What isn’t in the text? What’s “between the lines” that you can use your body to convey more clearly. (Example: It doesn’t SAY the character is nervous, but you can tell they are/would be.)

Introductory Context

• Make sure to state the title and author of your piece and when it was written.  If there is an illustrator, make sure to include them too.
• Tell us what the author is trying to do with the piece: Is there a theme that underlies the story? What is the author saying about that theme? (For example, the theme ‘Revenge,’ but the author is more specifically saying that “the need for revenge can make a person lose themselves”) 
• Give us some plot summary, but think about the plot in terms of setting up the excerpt you are reading, what do we need to know to understand the moment?
• How does your book work with the presentation topic? (Note: This will usually be part of the assignment instructions. For example, why is the book a favorite? How is the author making use of a fairy tale? Why might a book have been considered a classic?)
• Address the style and tone of the piece. What marks the text as special?
• How do you make the beginning and the ending of your excerpt clear on their own, rather than adding an unnecessary “Here’s the excerpt,” “I’ll start,” or “And that’s it,” or somehow trailing off?  Think about taking a breath before you start.  Think about tone as you end a last sentence to feel final.  Take a breath to let that excerpt sit with us before you rush away/turn the camera off.

Telling a story physically and vocally

• Try not to rush,it takes a listener longer to process than it takes you to read at what might feel a natural speed. 
• Silence is useful, and pauses help create phrasing. These are moments to look more directly at the camera, to use your facial expressions and physical body.
• Use a marked-up text to rehearse and even present from.
• Characters are not just different vocally; they are different in body language. What can you bring in to indicate that?  On camera, think about your shoulders in addition to your face.
• Your face and body are a tool for conveying emotion.
• Your eyes convey emotion, but they are also a way that you connect directly to the listening audience and they to you.
• Experiment with exaggeration.  It may feel strange to be alone at home recording, but viewers generally enjoy a ‘bigger’ presentation.
• Make deliberate choices about physical movements and vocal choices.  Commit to those choices rather than being afraid of them.
• Breath!

Selecting an excerpt:

• Why choose this piece? What about it captures the sense of the book?
• Does your choice stand alone in some way? Even with an excerpt we expect a beginning, middle, and ending point – although that may be a cliffhanger.
• Does your excerpt fit in the time allowed?
• Do you feel comfortable presenting this piece? In terms of language? Character? Action?
• Do you need to make any cuts to the piece? For example, removing a paragraph, combining two scenes?  You want to make sure the piece feels whole and like you are telling a story.  You shouldn’t add text, but you can always remove some.  (For example, do you need all the ‘she said’s, or are you doing it vocally?)
• Use a marked up text to rehearse and even present from.
• Work on a concise summary to give us enough plot and context to understand your excerpt.

Constructive critique includes both positive and negative comments and with suggestions of how to change the weaker aspects into more positive and effective ways for the future. Ask “What worked?” and “What can be strengthened?” in terms of the presentation. Try to be specific with your comments. You may find that you identify something negative in someone else’s presentation that you also do. Take it as an opportunity to start a conversation about how to work through the issue.

Was the presenter was able…

• motivate the audience to listen?
• convey action vividly?
• create a mental image of the characters, setting and time; assume character’s point of view?
• establish mood? capture the tone of the text?
• use the language of the text to an advantage?
• speak clearly and distinctly
• utilize varied intonation
• make clear transitions
• use silences and pauses to help the story telling
• utilize appropriate gestures and movement; did the physicality aid the storytelling?
• utilize eye contact effectively?
• begin and end the presentation gracefully?

Adapted from Penenniah Schramm’s adaptation of categories from Norma Livo and Sandra Rietz, Storytelling Activities, pp. 121-122 (Littleton, CO. Libraries Unlimited, 1987).

• Consider the lighting in the room that you are recording. Do a quick test to make sure we can see your face!
• If you are recording with a phone, turn it horizontally rather than vertically.
• Check where your camera lens is – try to make eye contact there rather than with the video of yourself. In fact, you may find it useful to block being able to see yourself being recorded. I sometimes stick a small post-it note next to the camera lens to help me focus.
• Try to use a stand for your camera, or ask a friend to record you.
• If you have kids, family, or friends, feel free to use them as an audience.
• Take a breath and pause before you start and after you stop to leave space if you are going to edit out turning on and off the camera (you don’t have to though!)

You will need to have access to your Brooklyn College library account. We will be using both e-books in the collection as well as accessing articles and materials through several databases.

If materials aren’t available at the BC Library there are some other resources to try before purchasing.

Brooklyn Public Library (or another local library): Libraries today have extensive ebook collections that will likely have many books that you might want to use available.

Public Domain books: Books (and other materials) published before 1924 are out of any copyright. Many assigned books presentations use materials in the public domain. Project Gutenberg (gutenberg.org) is a great source for these materials.

More from archive.org: Throughout this site, I’ve linked to public domain (out of copyright) books from archive.org, but if you sign up for a free account you can also ‘check out’ many more books.

For older textual versions, the best places to turn are:

Ashliman, D.L., ed. Folklore and Mythology: Electronic Texts. The University of Pittsburg. Last modified Sept. 5, 2021. https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/folktexts.html

This database is divided by story type so you may have to do a bit of searching to find your story. If the category isn’t immediately obvious or under the letter you expect, you may want to try Googling your story title and the title of the website.

“Books in Children’s Myths, Fairy Tales, etc.” Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/bookshelf/216

There are a lot of different public domain books here (pre-1925) many of which include illustrations that you could potentially use as a visual version as well. You may have to do some creative searching but there’s a wealth of material here.

For visual variations

Museum websites

Picryl.com

WikiMedia Commons

For Performed variations

For post 1970-YA/Adult or Middle Grade Variations

One of the best places to turn is going to be the Brooklyn or New York Public Library. They have an enormous amount of ebooks that fit this part of the assignment.

The Brooklyn College Library has most of Ellen Datlow’s edited collections of modern fairy tale short stories available as ebooks which are a great resource.

If you want to purchase something you can of course!

To help you find something, below is a large list of adaptations that I maintain, some of which I may have available for lending. You are by no means required to stick to this list.

Academic Article or Chapter

You are looking for something that is peer-reviewed so you will be best served using the Brooklyn College Library where you can sort by peer-reviewed material for articles. If you are looking at a book chapter, you want to pay attention to the publisher – Is it an academic press? Sometimes you won’t necessarily find an article or chapter clearly based on the title of your story. Remember: Story titles change over time. Especially for less well-known and studied stories, you may end up finding a chapter or article that deals with the type of story that it is a part of. For example, The Gingerbread man is a type of “Runaway food” story that exists in a number of places.

Some of the most prolific scholars of folk and fairy tales, both old and new, and who have published extensively and/or recently published books: Jack Zipes, Maria Tatar, Marina Warner, Ruth Bottigheimer, Anne Duggan, Donald Haase, Don Ben-Amos, Cristina Bacchilega, Sue Short, Mayako Murai, Nancy Canepa, Ann Schmiesing, Rebecca-Ann C. Do Rozario, and many more.

One thing to be wary of as you search is that sometimes the name of a fairy tale may have been attached to a medical, psychological, or business concept which isn’t really going to help you in your understanding of the tale.

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY PEER REVIEW ASSIGNMENT

1. Explain to your partner what story you are working on and 3 things that you found interesting about comparing variations.

2. Choose any three annotations that you would like your partner to look at. 

3. Read through each other’s annotations.

4. As you read, ask does the annotation do the following:

1. Give a description of what the version is including who created it and when?

2. Identify what is unique about this version?

3. Acknowledge the changes for the form of storytelling – i.e. – if it is a picture book, does it describe the illustration choices? If it is a musical, does it talk about the songs?  And does it then connect this to the analysis?

4. Connect to another version in the bibliography or reflect on how this version speaks to the story type as a whole? 

5. Offer an analysis of the variation beyond a plot summary for example does it do any of the following:
   1. Comment on the implications of this variation for the intended reader
   2. Offers a deeper discussion of elements or themes of the story
   3. Connects the story or its themes/elements to the time and place in which it is being told 
   4. Offer thoughts that the researcher (i.e. the writer) has about the story
   5. Consider elements of the variation that change the perception of the story or story type
   6. Identify elements that may be troubling in how the story was told in the past or now
   7. Take a critical lens – for example, looks at gender roles, symbolism, storytelling structure, economic or class analysis, values of the society in which the tale is being told

5. Discuss with each other where and how this annotations could be expanded.  Consider: If you were to write a research paper about your fairy tale, what question would you want to ask? What question would you be in a position to answer?