Introduction: Jackals of Telekeshi I really like the direction your story is going in. Your writing is very descriptive and it helps the reader to picture exactly what is going on at the Telekeshi watering hole. One of my favorite descriptive lines that you wrote was, “Vultures soar over the savanna catching each change of wind waiting for an animal to fall weak… a family of meerkats stands tall above their underground home to watch the savanna horizon. Noble lions yawn under the sun within the pride lands.” When I read this, I instantly pictured your setting and it gave me a very Lion King-esq feel. Your dialog was good as well. I felt as if each animal had its own voice and its own way of speaking. For example, the way that you used the word “mornin’” instead of “morning” when the baboon was speaking. I liked the way framed the story. It was a great idea to great a “gossip” group around the watering hole as a way to segue into the first story of your storybook. I only noticed a couple of revision mistakes that will not take long to correct. Good job!
Hi Matt! I really enjoyed reading this reading your story. You were able to paint a vivid picture for the story with your descriptive word usage. The way all of the animals gathered about immediately made me reminisce on scenes from the Lion King where all of the animals were together. All of the descriptions of the atmosphere around the watering hole really brought the story to life. I also think that you had a very smooth flow throughout the story; chunking it into small paragraphs made it flow like a conversation. I really like the concept of having the animals gather around to share their stories of the dastardly jackal. I also found it amusing that all of the animals had disdain for the jackal. It really made me wonder if you were going to have them band together once the festival is over to play their own prank on the jackal.
Hey Matt! I really enjoyed reading the introduction for your storybook. I also immediately thought of The Lion King when you started your story. It makes me think of when all the animals gathered for the birth of Simba at Pride Rock. So if that's what you were going for, great job! I loved the descriptions and active voice that you used to set up the story at the beginning. It really brought the story to life and make me interested to keep reading. I like the choice of animals you have, as well, and I'm sure they have some great stories to tell of the jackal.
One thing I noticed is that maybe just take another look through your introduction for grammar mistakes. Close to the end of the introduction: “They can’t help it, it is in their blood to make us all miserable,” says the elephant says softly. In the sentence in quotations, it is actually a run-on sentence/fragment. You could probably just stick a semicolon between the two "it"s and it would fix that. You also repeated says twice, so just take one of those out. Just look for other things like this and it could make your story flow better.
But overall, great job! I am looking forward to reading the stories you come up with!
Hey, Matt! First off, I really like the image you use on the title page of your storybook. I, personally, love wild dogs of all kinds, and this is a particularly arresting picture of a jackal. However, though I find the image and title of your storybook interesting, the actual layout/design of the site seriously detracts from this interest. While the white and grayish colors are very simple and clean, they don’t really inspire a lot of creativity or engagement for the reader. I would advise playing around with some of the backgrounds and fonts and design options to liven up the blog a little.
Though, I must say, the images you conjure up with your words in the introduction do make up for a lot of the blank white space on your site! I love your description of the animals on the savanna, of the unity and competition among them. However, in the paragraph starting “’Excuse me,’” you need a comma before “scorning” and “unapologetic” should be “unapologetically.” Also, when the “lion laughs boastfully,” there should be a comma after “why.”
Overall, though, I loved your storybook and the characterizations of the animals and the easy exchange of dialogue. Great work, and I cannot wait to read more!
Hey Matt! I really enjoyed your story. I thought you did an excellent job setting the scene at the beginning of the story and creating a picture in the reader's mind of what exactly was happening. I also the image you used was really good to set the tone for exactly what the main character of the story should be pictured as. I think jackal's are naturally mischievous looking animals, so it worked well. I would just echo what the other commenters have said about some minor grammar problems, but other than that it looks okay! The one other thing I had was that when the lion comes over and says that everyone should get along and then follows it with "off the record", it just felt strange to me. I thought the voices you had for the animals up to that point fit them well, but you might consider tweaking that a little bit.
I really enjoyed reading your introduction. I also liked the image you used in your introduction. It clearly illustrates the setting of the story. The image of the jackal was also a good picture. It clarifies what your storybook is going to be about. I have to say reading your introduction had me wanting to know more of the story of the jackals. I have never really heard anything about jackals and to be honest I did not know what there were. I actually had to google it.
The only suggestion I really have for you is that maybe you could go into more detail on the appearance of the animals. You included great detail on what the animals were doing but not their appearance. This will allow the reader to better and easily picture the setting the inhabitant in it. I look forward to reading more of your writing!
You do wonderfully of your portrayal of all the animals' personalities, and that makes it incredibly enjoyable to read: you know that at some point one character will get involved in the action of the story and that will set off a very interesting chain reaction amongst the other characters. The definite strength of your stories is character chemistry!
As some others have mentioned, I would add more detail about the characters' physical appearances in your writing, OR include more pictures on your story pages. I have had to deal with word limits myself on my own storybook, and sometimes I have gotten to the point where I'm up against the 1000 word limit. I personally have made up for this by sacrificing worded-descriptions of my story and yielded to the use of pictorial media to do it for me. Just my thoughts on it. But overall, fantastic start on your storybook!
Your description in the beginning was interesting. I do wonder how the animals know about the solar eclipse. While it is understood that it is something all of the different animals know about, it is unknown how they know about it. Is it passed down through story telling? Is there some other way it is known? Also, why do the animals celebrate the solar eclipse? Does it mean something special to them? Does it provide something for them that causes them to celebrate?
In your story “Lion’s Tale”, there is a paragraph about halfway down that starts off “The brilliant jackal . . “. I am confused as to why you have that there. It does not seem to make any sense in section when the lion is talking and when the jackal is talking. You may want to clear up who is speaking when and create separate paragraphs for when a new person is talking.
Hi Matt, I really liked reading Lion’s Tale! You did a great job with the descriptiveness at the beginning of the story to paint a picture for the scene. I was able to easily envision what the lion would have been seeing then. You also did a great job of capturing the laziness of lions around the watering hole. Making the story flow like a conversation made it very easy to read through it and digest everything that was happening. I think that is a great strategy for keeping the reader’s attention throughout the entire story. I also liked how you can sense that boisterous essence about the lion when he communicates with animals that he thinks are below him. You did a great job of foreshadowing that his ego would be his demise in some way. I really liked how you used the humility angle for the jackal to pull his trick on the mighty lion. I can’t wait to read the rest of your stories!
I really like the colors for your storybook page. The brightness of the yellow really engages you and it also goes with your topic! The first thing I notice about your introduction is how descriptive you are! The scenery is clearly being set and your adjectives are spot on to paint a picture for your readers. I think the personalities that you gave to the different animals are pretty spot on for what society would personify those particular animals with! I think you’ll do a good job of writing a project where people come to root for the jackal. It sounds like your approach is almost as if the jackal is an underdog. If you continue to get people to empathize and understand the jackal you’ll have a great storybook on your hands! You’re doing a great job though! Keep up the great work and keep writing for the little guy!
Great introduction! You did a really good job of setting the scene. I could picture everything as if I were actually there. Also, I like the color layout for your storybook, it reminds me a lot of The Lion King, which fits pretty well with your storybook. In the third paragraph, you start out with “”under the tree… under the shade.” Maybe you could say in the shade instead of under the shade. The reuse of under just seems a little repetitive. Then, in the next paragraph, you say the jackal “trots unapologetic”, but I think there should be a comma there. Or you could say the jackal trotted unapologetically. But all of this is just me nitpicking a really good storybook. It’s a great introduction, and I was kind of bummed out that you only had one story to read. I’ll have to come back next week and see if there’s another story.
I love the colors of your storybook! Yellow is one of my favorite colors! I would probably play around with some of the options for the layout though. You could make your page look so much more exciting and colorful. Your introduction is great! You're so descriptive! You did so well writing out the setting! I can easily imagine the story in my head as I read your story! Your introduction definitely has me wanting to know more about the jackal stories! It's cool that you had each of the animals say a small bit about the jackal tricking another animal. It kind of gives us glimpse into your future stories, which is awesome! You were very creative with this story book idea! I love the idea of the different animals telling stories about Jackal. I really look forward to reading more of your stories!
Hi Matt, thank you for leaving feedback for me about my storybook. All of your comments have been very helpful and I like how you include specific parts of my story to back up what you are saying. I am glad that you have enjoyed my stories so far. I appreciate your comments and thank you for all of your help and feedback.
First off, I think you did a good job laying out your blog. Some people in the class have background pictures that are too busy and they distract from the text and pictures. I like the colors you chose because they fit well with your story as well.
Great introduction. I honestly was interested from the beginning because of the title of your project, Tales from the Watering Hole. I think this is a clever idea. I thought that your paragraphs were organized well and your sentences flowed smoothly.
My only suggestion would be to place the picture in the middle of the story. This is break up the text so it is easier for the reader to navigate and easier on the eyes. That's just a suggestion though. Take it or leave it because the stories are good.
Overall, nice job. I look forward to reading more of your stories in the upcoming weeks.
So, last week commented about your storybook for extra credit. This week, I was assigned to read your stories. I have read new stories and will comment on new aspects of your project.
I read the story "Baboon's Tale". I really enjoyed it because you chose to use a lot of dialogue. I thought this was a good way to give you characters a voice and help the readers further understand them in the story. I also liked that you chose words like "jumpin' and screamin'" because it gave your writing more authenticity. I felt that African feel that you mentioned you were trying to incorporate with all our your stories. I thought that you did a good job with your authors note. It gave me needed background for the story and I enjoyed reading about your intentions with the story.
Again, great job overall. I will surely be reading more from you in the future.
Hi! I don’t think I’ve been to your portfolio before so it was nice to see new stories with new ideas! I read your introduction and that intrigued me and made me want to continue to read your other stories. I particularly like that the overall theme of your portfolio has to do with animals because I am a huge animal lover and I especially love some of the animals that you’ve chosen, like elephants and giraffes. Your stories are really different from some of the other portfolios I’ve read because we didn’t read that many animal stories throughout the semester. If we did, they were usually related to the supernatural world or something a little more out there but yours were really different and you spun your stories in a unique way. I look forward to reading some more of your stories and think that you have done a good job overall on the stories you have now!
I really enjoyed your overall theme. Just the name “Tales of the Watering Hole” has got me excited to read the story. I like to think of all the different animals in the world that all use a watering hole. They all probably have great stories, if only we could communicate with them. Your storybook gives us an opportunity to hear some of those stories. I really also like the yellow theme to your storybook. It gives it a nice “spring” or “outdoor” feel. You did a great job in your introduction by getting me hooked. After reading your intro, I couldn’t wait to read one of your stories. I also got an opportunity to read the Baboon’s Tale. I thought you did an excellent job writing that story. It had a very nice flow throughout the entire thing and also it had a great story line. I hope to read more of your storybook whenever you complete more of it.
Matt, first of all, I never realized how utterly adorable jackals are. When I think of them I see snarling, bony creatures in my mind but in reality your first photo showed me that they appear to be just big cats with large ears. Of course, they are still as vicious as ever. I read your story of the “Baboon’s Tale.” First off, it was well written and flowed together. I had no trouble following the tale. I did not catch any mistakes in the story but it does not hurt to do one more quick read through out loud to check for errors. I find that this helps me immensely; it always surprises me to find minor errors that I may have missed the first two or three times. I had never hear or seen of an African Sausage tree before so I was happy to see that you provided a reference. Great job, you are an excellent writer!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIntroduction: Jackals of Telekeshi
ReplyDeleteI really like the direction your story is going in. Your writing is very descriptive and it helps the reader to picture exactly what is going on at the Telekeshi watering hole. One of my favorite descriptive lines that you wrote was, “Vultures soar over the savanna catching each change of wind waiting for an animal to fall weak… a family of meerkats stands tall above their underground home to watch the savanna horizon. Noble lions yawn under the sun within the pride lands.” When I read this, I instantly pictured your setting and it gave me a very Lion King-esq feel. Your dialog was good as well. I felt as if each animal had its own voice and its own way of speaking. For example, the way that you used the word “mornin’” instead of “morning” when the baboon was speaking.
I liked the way framed the story. It was a great idea to great a “gossip” group around the watering hole as a way to segue into the first story of your storybook. I only noticed a couple of revision mistakes that will not take long to correct. Good job!
Hi Matt! I really enjoyed reading this reading your story. You were able to paint a vivid picture for the story with your descriptive word usage. The way all of the animals gathered about immediately made me reminisce on scenes from the Lion King where all of the animals were together. All of the descriptions of the atmosphere around the watering hole really brought the story to life. I also think that you had a very smooth flow throughout the story; chunking it into small paragraphs made it flow like a conversation. I really like the concept of having the animals gather around to share their stories of the dastardly jackal. I also found it amusing that all of the animals had disdain for the jackal. It really made me wonder if you were going to have them band together once the festival is over to play their own prank on the jackal.
ReplyDeleteHey Matt! I really enjoyed reading the introduction for your storybook. I also immediately thought of The Lion King when you started your story. It makes me think of when all the animals gathered for the birth of Simba at Pride Rock. So if that's what you were going for, great job! I loved the descriptions and active voice that you used to set up the story at the beginning. It really brought the story to life and make me interested to keep reading. I like the choice of animals you have, as well, and I'm sure they have some great stories to tell of the jackal.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I noticed is that maybe just take another look through your introduction for grammar mistakes. Close to the end of the introduction: “They can’t help it, it is in their blood to make us all miserable,” says the elephant says softly. In the sentence in quotations, it is actually a run-on sentence/fragment. You could probably just stick a semicolon between the two "it"s and it would fix that. You also repeated says twice, so just take one of those out. Just look for other things like this and it could make your story flow better.
But overall, great job! I am looking forward to reading the stories you come up with!
Hey, Matt! First off, I really like the image you use on the title page of your storybook. I, personally, love wild dogs of all kinds, and this is a particularly arresting picture of a jackal. However, though I find the image and title of your storybook interesting, the actual layout/design of the site seriously detracts from this interest. While the white and grayish colors are very simple and clean, they don’t really inspire a lot of creativity or engagement for the reader. I would advise playing around with some of the backgrounds and fonts and design options to liven up the blog a little.
ReplyDeleteThough, I must say, the images you conjure up with your words in the introduction do make up for a lot of the blank white space on your site! I love your description of the animals on the savanna, of the unity and competition among them. However, in the paragraph starting “’Excuse me,’” you need a comma before “scorning” and “unapologetic” should be “unapologetically.” Also, when the “lion laughs boastfully,” there should be a comma after “why.”
Overall, though, I loved your storybook and the characterizations of the animals and the easy exchange of dialogue. Great work, and I cannot wait to read more!
Hey Matt! I really enjoyed your story. I thought you did an excellent job setting the scene at the beginning of the story and creating a picture in the reader's mind of what exactly was happening. I also the image you used was really good to set the tone for exactly what the main character of the story should be pictured as. I think jackal's are naturally mischievous looking animals, so it worked well. I would just echo what the other commenters have said about some minor grammar problems, but other than that it looks okay! The one other thing I had was that when the lion comes over and says that everyone should get along and then follows it with "off the record", it just felt strange to me. I thought the voices you had for the animals up to that point fit them well, but you might consider tweaking that a little bit.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your introduction. I also liked the image you used in your introduction. It clearly illustrates the setting of the story. The image of the jackal was also a good picture. It clarifies what your storybook is going to be about. I have to say reading your introduction had me wanting to know more of the story of the jackals. I have never really heard anything about jackals and to be honest I did not know what there were. I actually had to google it.
ReplyDeleteThe only suggestion I really have for you is that maybe you could go into more detail on the appearance of the animals. You included great detail on what the animals were doing but not their appearance. This will allow the reader to better and easily picture the setting the inhabitant in it. I look forward to reading more of your writing!
Good job Matt!
You do wonderfully of your portrayal of all the animals' personalities, and that makes it incredibly enjoyable to read: you know that at some point one character will get involved in the action of the story and that will set off a very interesting chain reaction amongst the other characters. The definite strength of your stories is character chemistry!
ReplyDeleteAs some others have mentioned, I would add more detail about the characters' physical appearances in your writing, OR include more pictures on your story pages. I have had to deal with word limits myself on my own storybook, and sometimes I have gotten to the point where I'm up against the 1000 word limit. I personally have made up for this by sacrificing worded-descriptions of my story and yielded to the use of pictorial media to do it for me. Just my thoughts on it. But overall, fantastic start on your storybook!
Matt,
ReplyDeleteYour description in the beginning was interesting. I do wonder how the animals know about the solar eclipse. While it is understood that it is something all of the different animals know about, it is unknown how they know about it. Is it passed down through story telling? Is there some other way it is known? Also, why do the animals celebrate the solar eclipse? Does it mean something special to them? Does it provide something for them that causes them to celebrate?
In your story “Lion’s Tale”, there is a paragraph about halfway down that starts off “The brilliant jackal . . “. I am confused as to why you have that there. It does not seem to make any sense in section when the lion is talking and when the jackal is talking. You may want to clear up who is speaking when and create separate paragraphs for when a new person is talking.
Hi Matt, I really liked reading Lion’s Tale! You did a great job with the descriptiveness at the beginning of the story to paint a picture for the scene. I was able to easily envision what the lion would have been seeing then. You also did a great job of capturing the laziness of lions around the watering hole. Making the story flow like a conversation made it very easy to read through it and digest everything that was happening. I think that is a great strategy for keeping the reader’s attention throughout the entire story. I also liked how you can sense that boisterous essence about the lion when he communicates with animals that he thinks are below him. You did a great job of foreshadowing that his ego would be his demise in some way. I really liked how you used the humility angle for the jackal to pull his trick on the mighty lion. I can’t wait to read the rest of your stories!
ReplyDeleteI really like the colors for your storybook page. The brightness of the yellow really engages you and it also goes with your topic! The first thing I notice about your introduction is how descriptive you are! The scenery is clearly being set and your adjectives are spot on to paint a picture for your readers. I think the personalities that you gave to the different animals are pretty spot on for what society would personify those particular animals with! I think you’ll do a good job of writing a project where people come to root for the jackal. It sounds like your approach is almost as if the jackal is an underdog. If you continue to get people to empathize and understand the jackal you’ll have a great storybook on your hands! You’re doing a great job though! Keep up the great work and keep writing for the little guy!
ReplyDeleteGreat introduction! You did a really good job of setting the scene. I could picture everything as if I were actually there. Also, I like the color layout for your storybook, it reminds me a lot of The Lion King, which fits pretty well with your storybook. In the third paragraph, you start out with “”under the tree… under the shade.” Maybe you could say in the shade instead of under the shade. The reuse of under just seems a little repetitive. Then, in the next paragraph, you say the jackal “trots unapologetic”, but I think there should be a comma there. Or you could say the jackal trotted unapologetically.
ReplyDeleteBut all of this is just me nitpicking a really good storybook. It’s a great introduction, and I was kind of bummed out that you only had one story to read. I’ll have to come back next week and see if there’s another story.
I love the colors of your storybook! Yellow is one of my favorite colors! I would probably play around with some of the options for the layout though. You could make your page look so much more exciting and colorful. Your introduction is great! You're so descriptive! You did so well writing out the setting! I can easily imagine the story in my head as I read your story! Your introduction definitely has me wanting to know more about the jackal stories! It's cool that you had each of the animals say a small bit about the jackal tricking another animal. It kind of gives us glimpse into your future stories, which is awesome! You were very creative with this story book idea! I love the idea of the different animals telling stories about Jackal. I really look forward to reading more of your stories!
ReplyDeleteHi Matt, thank you for leaving feedback for me about my storybook. All of your comments have been very helpful and I like how you include specific parts of my story to back up what you are saying. I am glad that you have enjoyed my stories so far. I appreciate your comments and thank you for all of your help and feedback.
ReplyDeleteHi Matt!
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I think you did a good job laying out your blog. Some people in the class have background pictures that are too busy and they distract from the text and pictures. I like the colors you chose because they fit well with your story as well.
Great introduction. I honestly was interested from the beginning because of the title of your project, Tales from the Watering Hole. I think this is a clever idea. I thought that your paragraphs were organized well and your sentences flowed smoothly.
My only suggestion would be to place the picture in the middle of the story. This is break up the text so it is easier for the reader to navigate and easier on the eyes. That's just a suggestion though. Take it or leave it because the stories are good.
Overall, nice job. I look forward to reading more of your stories in the upcoming weeks.
Hi Matt,
ReplyDeleteSo, last week commented about your storybook for extra credit. This week, I was assigned to read your stories. I have read new stories and will comment on new aspects of your project.
I read the story "Baboon's Tale". I really enjoyed it because you chose to use a lot of dialogue. I thought this was a good way to give you characters a voice and help the readers further understand them in the story. I also liked that you chose words like "jumpin' and screamin'" because it gave your writing more authenticity. I felt that African feel that you mentioned you were trying to incorporate with all our your stories. I thought that you did a good job with your authors note. It gave me needed background for the story and I enjoyed reading about your intentions with the story.
Again, great job overall. I will surely be reading more from you in the future.
Hi! I don’t think I’ve been to your portfolio before so it was nice to see new stories with new ideas! I read your introduction and that intrigued me and made me want to continue to read your other stories. I particularly like that the overall theme of your portfolio has to do with animals because I am a huge animal lover and I especially love some of the animals that you’ve chosen, like elephants and giraffes. Your stories are really different from some of the other portfolios I’ve read because we didn’t read that many animal stories throughout the semester. If we did, they were usually related to the supernatural world or something a little more out there but yours were really different and you spun your stories in a unique way. I look forward to reading some more of your stories and think that you have done a good job overall on the stories you have now!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your overall theme. Just the name “Tales of the Watering Hole” has got me excited to read the story. I like to think of all the different animals in the world that all use a watering hole. They all probably have great stories, if only we could communicate with them. Your storybook gives us an opportunity to hear some of those stories. I really also like the yellow theme to your storybook. It gives it a nice “spring” or “outdoor” feel. You did a great job in your introduction by getting me hooked. After reading your intro, I couldn’t wait to read one of your stories. I also got an opportunity to read the Baboon’s Tale. I thought you did an excellent job writing that story. It had a very nice flow throughout the entire thing and also it had a great story line. I hope to read more of your storybook whenever you complete more of it.
ReplyDeleteMatt, first of all, I never realized how utterly adorable jackals are. When I think of them I see snarling, bony creatures in my mind but in reality your first photo showed me that they appear to be just big cats with large ears. Of course, they are still as vicious as ever. I read your story of the “Baboon’s Tale.” First off, it was well written and flowed together. I had no trouble following the tale. I did not catch any mistakes in the story but it does not hurt to do one more quick read through out loud to check for errors. I find that this helps me immensely; it always surprises me to find minor errors that I may have missed the first two or three times. I had never hear or seen of an African Sausage tree before so I was happy to see that you provided a reference. Great job, you are an excellent writer!
ReplyDelete