Week Twelve: Storytelling

Tom had always lived in his brother's shadow. Being the second born cat to a king and queen cat, Tom was always compared to his brother Tim. Tim was the older, bigger cat. He was in line to become king soon and everyone loved him. First in school, athletic and popular, Tim was the perfect child. Their parents fawned over Tim, destined to take the cat crown and carry on their father's legacy.

Tommy on the other hand was the opposite. Not a bad cat, but not as perfectly rounded as Tim. Tom loved his brother, obviously, but was secretly very jealous of all his status and position. When their father died, Tim became King of all the Cats. And Tom was still nothing. Bitter and jealous, Tom ran away a week later. He found a nice home in the woods and a older couple to take care of him. He caught mice in their barn and napped on their rug by the fire. At his nice home he was no longer "Tim's kid brother," here he was a beloved part of the family.

He spent many years with the older couple. During this time he never went back to his home or checked on his family members. Sometimes he'd hear some news: Tim got married, visited a neighboring cat society, blah blah. Tom never told any cats he met that he was Tim's brother. He didn't want to be in Tim's shadow any more.

One day, as Tom was falling asleep on the warm rug after having a delicious can of Fancy Feast and a dish of milk, his owner barged in. He was sweaty like he had just gone for a run and was frantically yelling Tom's name. Why is he calling for me? Tommy wondered. He doesn't know my real name.

The older woman calmed her husband and asked him what in the world was going on. As Tommy's master retold the story, Tommy was in shock. Apparently, his master was at a graveyard and had witnessed a traditional cat death processional. Nine black cats with white spots on their chests, like Tommy, were carrying a cat coffin to a new grave. They came and stared at the old man and then one stepped forward and told him to tell Tommy that Tim is dead.

By the time his master had gotten through the story, Tommy knew what it meant. He kept meowing as he got more and more excited. Tim had gotten married but he had never had kittens. That meant that Tommy was now the King of the Cats! He could barely believe it! He meowed loudly and then rushed out the door, never looking back.

Author's Note. This story is based off of The King o' The Cats. I kept most of the original plot line and the same story theme. The only thing I changed was the point of view. The original was told from a third person point of view, focusing on the human couple. The husband walks in and retells the story and when he finishes their cat, Tommy, runs away saying he will be king. I took that idea but told the story from the cat's point of view. I thought it would make an interesting twist.

Bibliography. The King o' The Cats by John D. Batten (1894) English Fairytales Unit (2). Picture Source.

Week Twelve: Essay

First Memories of Writing

I remember when I started first grade and started to learn cursive, we always used "inventive spelling." This meant that if we didn't know how to spell something we had to write it the way we thought it should be spelled first. It taught us to sound out the word and piece together words based on our previous knowledge. Of course, I didn't always get it right. What I found most frustrating at the time was that fact that I didn't get an eraser on the end of my pencil. We had creative writing portion of school and we always had to use our "inventive spelling" without any erasers. I remember being frustrated by this and that I couldn't change what I wrote down after I wrote it. They wanted us to mark it out but still be able to draw on our changes if we wanted. I understand the idea, but when I was in second grade I didn't like the way it looked on my paper. I couldn't understand why I couldn't just erase my mistakes and re write them.

Even before that, I remember we used to retell what we learned and other stories to a teacher who would write down our ideas for us. We got to do the drawings, but the writing was physically done by someone else. That was when I was really small, maybe in kindergarden. As I moved up, we wrote down our own stories. I've read some of them and it's pretty funny to see the way I wrote and the way I spelled when I was younger.

When we learned cursive we had an outline to follow that showed us where all the letters were supposed to go, like the image below. For a long time I just had to write in cursive and even today many of my letters are still connected and curly like cursive is. I actually enjoyed cursive once I got the hang of it. It was a little difficult, but I liked it when I learned. These are my first memories of writing.

(Source)

Week Twelve

Part A: I read the More English Fairytales unit. I really enjoyed the stories, they were sometimes silly and sometimes serious, but had interesting plot lines. I didn't really recognize any of them from my childhood either. I vaguely know of Pied Piper, but I didn't remember what exactly happened. In the  unit story The Pied Piper, a town is filled with rats and a man with a pipe comes and says if he gets paid he will get rid of all of the rats. For fifty pounds, he plays his pipe and leads all the rats into the ocean where they drown. The mayor then refuses to pay and he plays his pipe again, this time enticing the children. From my understanding, I think the children followed the Pied Piper into the woods and they were never seen again. A pretty sad ending. In the first part, I also thought The Three Wishes was interesting. A man goes into the forest to cut down a tree and a fairy pleads that he spare the tree. Because he listened, she granted him three wishes. In the end he wishes for black pudding, his wife wishes the pudding was on his nose (not sure why) and then he finally wishes for the pudding to get off his nose. In the end, they stayed just as they were with the exception of some nice pudding.

Part B: I really enjoyed reading The King o' the Cats. The story was about a man who comes home to his cat and his wife and tells the strange events he encountered that evening. He said he witnessed a cat death processional. He said that the cats spoke to him and told him to find his cat and tell him that Tim Toldrum had died. His cat, apparently Tom Toldrum, said he was the King of the Cats and scurried off.