I really enjoyed the readings this semester! My favorite was Narayan's Ramayana. I think that the idea of offering more reading options is great. While Buck's Ramayana certainly provided a lot more information about the story, having read Narayan's version took away from a lot of the surprise. I enjoyed the freedom of choosing from the reading units, and it was nice to change the subject each week. Offering the reading units in place of the second version of each story would probably work perfectly, especially with the extra credit reading option. I found so much supplemental information while working on my storybook, and I really think that it helped me appreciate the Ramayana even more. Perhaps the extra credit reading assignment could allow students to look up additional information about their favorite characters or stories from the Ramayana, and they could share what they learned in a short blog post.
In regard to the balance between assignments, I tended to spend much more time on the readings each week. This is probably because I spent a lot of time taking notes and editing my notes to prove that I was doing the readings instead of just commenting on my favorite parts of the story. My advice to future students would be not to get too preoccupied with taking notes while reading. Enjoy the stories and use your reading diary to summarize and comment on your favorite parts of the story. It's okay if you read several pages without taking a note because the stories are loaded with surprising events.
Oh, Austin, that idea of doing some extra credit reading AS RESEARCH related to the Storybook could be really cool, and if people shared the links of what they were reading/researching in a quick blog post or something, I could build up a kind of library of what people were finding useful. What a great idea! Thanks for your comments in both these posts. It is so helpful seeing what ideas you all have at the end of the semester based on your experiences. Thank you!
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