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Website Name: Jatakas and Justice
As you read through my storybook project, imagine you are a law student or just someone interested in the law and how it works.
In the Jatakas, a central theme is Dharma (which means law and order) for the characters to live by. I will be telling the stories from Yama's, the god of Dharma, perspective.
The kind of experience I want to give to my readers is one
that is unique from any other project that has been done. I want my readers to
get a sense of my love for the law, and I want them to think of these “life
lessons” that appear in Jatakas as laws to live by.
PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS!
Hello Leigh! First off, I like the name of your Portfolio because it sounds like a band name.
ReplyDeleteI loved your first-person introduction! It really sounds as if the words are coming from a wise soul who seeks to give important lessons to others. You explained how your stories would work very well, and made it easy to understand what all of your terminology meant and what you planned to do. I'd say it was an A+ intro!
Your story was additionally nice! I liked that you put your own spin on the original but kept the ultimate lesson being learned, plus you added personal dialogue (I'm very partial to dialogue). One thing I would say is that you could spice it up a little too if you wanted. You could add some more dubiousness to some characters, or perhaps drag out the main conflict with hesitation? It's all up to you!
Hello Leigh!
ReplyDeleteI love the name of your blog. I don't think it's a coincidence that you want to go to law school and have the word 'justice' in your title! So clever! I really love your story project and the point of view you are telling it from. it makes for a very interesting story. I personally loved when we loved the Jatakas, and I think it is a great idea to center your project around them. I can't wait to read more of your stories! I hope every one of them provides the moral of the story for us to take away from them.
Your use of dialogue was great, and your writing style kept me super engaged. I didn't notice any think that needed to be corrected on the grammatical side of things. You're writing looked error free to me! :) Great job!
Hi Leigh!
ReplyDeleteYour background and the theme of the Portfolio is absolutely wonderful. I like the pictures you used throughout the blog as well, especially the justice sign. I like the selection of your topic, kind of similar to mine, reincarnation. Your introduction had all the aspects needed to let the audience know about the topic as well as what you were further going to be talking about. Good Job! I read your story, I could not find any errors. It was nice to add dialogues into the story, it kept the story interesting wanting me to read more. I also love that you added moral at the end of the story! One thing I was curious about was, what did Yama do after talking to turtle's spirit? Was the turtle able to reincarnate into a different form of life or was it sent to hell? Overall, I really enjoyed reading your portfolio and cannot wait to read more. Good Luck!
Hi Leigh!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad I found your project! What a cool idea. As a pre-law student I love the idea of stories centered around order and justice and how those concepts play out in other cultures! I thought your introduction managed to explain a lot of information and was still a fun read. I was excited to move on to your stories and learn more about Dharma. I also really liked that the stories and introduction are in first person. (Although that may just be a personal bias because my project is written first person from a god's perspective as well.) Your first story, The Boasting Turtle, was a very unique spin on the original story. I like having Yama reveal that the reason the bird offered to show the turtle how to fly was all a test from Yama. I also thought it was interesting that Yama's "judgement" on the turtle was the consequence of this one choice, rather than a judgement after the turtle died weighing a sum of his choices. Overall, I thought your project was so interesting and well done! I look forward to reading more!
-Elizabeth
Leigh!
ReplyDeleteI was unable to find a link to your comment wall on your project website. You should definitely add this to your homepage in a place where it is easily seen so that you can receive feedback from anyone who views your project! I really enjoy your layout for your project. I may make some adjustments if I were you to the size of your photos that you have on your website. Whenever you are in the editing mode, you will hover your mouse over the photo and click. It will give you different size options (small, medium, etc.) to change your photo to. Most of your pictures are so big that they take up your entire page. I think making this small change would make your website look cleaner.
Besides that small thing, I really found a hard time finding an issue with your project. I had previously read your story 'Jatakas and Justice' when you originally wrote it. I absolutely love the changes you have made to your first retelling! It is grammatically correct, easy to read, and such a fun story.
Great job!
Hi Leigh!
ReplyDeleteYour website looks great. It is very neat, clean, and easy to navigate. I like the picture that you chose for your main page, it really fits with the mini-intro you have on this page. I agree with Kayleigh that you should add a link to you comment blog on your main page, but I also think you should add what you have here. I feel that it adds even more to an already great website. It's like an intro to your intro. I'm also not sure that future students will be able to see it if it isn't on the website.
You are an extremely talented writer and I love that your project is based on something that you have a strong interest in. I can definitely tell that you have put a lot of time and thought into this. I'm looking forward to see how it progresses over the rest of the semester. Great job!
Leigh!!!!
ReplyDeleteGreat work on your Indian Epics project! I love the way you included pictures, it really helped me to visualize what you were talking about since I literally know nothing about Indian epics! I also think the way you set up your whole site made it super easy to navigate! I love that your whole project seems to center along the idea of justice and what that looks like in different cultures since I know law school is your goal! So cool to see you incorporating your passions in all that you do! Love it@
Keep up the great work!
Hey Leigh.
ReplyDeleteYour site is really good and easily navigable. Also I really like the justice theme you have going on. I appreciate the fact that not only do the stories go along with it but so do the banners at the top of the page. Your introduction post was really great at introducing Yama, and the overall theme of your stories. I also like how well all your stories fit in well with the theme. Your author’s notes were also very good at explaining the original stories and the link to the justice theme you have going on in the project. The author’s notes were also good at explaining why you changed things in the story and it also made it clear how these changes bought out the Dharma themes. All in all, they are very well written stories and I look forward to reading more of your work. I hope you have a good rest of the semester.
Hi Leigh!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great project! Your works are centered firmly around the central theme of dharma and Yama teaching about law and justice, which is so nice. It gives everything a really solid point of focus, which makes the reading easier to understand. You tweaked the jakatas so delicately and perfectly to make them fit your story, too, which was wonderful. I wonder if you meant to put the picture for the turtle story at the bottom of the story? It's a great picture, and I think it would help to set the scene better if it were at the beginning of the story. Other than that, though, your stories are easy to decipher, but they're not so straightforward that it feels like someone is screaming in your face "THIS IS THE LESSON." Yama simply explains gently at the end of the stories what he was trying to teach the characters so that the reader can learn the same story as well.
Hey there Leigh!
ReplyDeleteWow! Your project is so cool! Your introduction was really an excellent overview of your project. I thought it gave a lot of good information so we know what to expect. But, you didn’t give too much away. I also like the title of your project. It is a nice little alliteration that makes it fun to say! You were really able to set the tone in your stories. The way you write and the words you chose made it flow really well. You also are able to teach good lessons and I think a lot of those vibes come from the tone you set. Your stories were great and I like the dialogue you throw in the stories. It makes it more fun to read and almost feels like you are there while you are reading it. I honestly do not have any critiques. You have done some excellent work!
Leigh, I had never visited your portfolio project before, so I am happy that I finally got to read some of your work! Just a quick note about the home page - the Introduction tab is listed second, so I suggest going into the "List" tabs in Blogger and rearranging this. I liked your first tale, Raja the Great Elephant. I liked that Raja was a female elephant, because words like "great" are often associated with men, and I was expecting a male elephant. It was so nice that Raja was the "mother" of the oasis they lived in. When the men arrived, I was worried that they might try to sabotage her or the oasis or that she would be taken advantage of because of her kind nature. It was great to see that this did not happen, but it was so sad when Raja took the men back to their families and that she was never able to return to her oasis herself. I imagine that all of the creatures there missed her greatly and that the oasis did not function the same way after her departure. Good job on this tale!
ReplyDeleteHey Leigh!
ReplyDeleteFirst off i really enjoyed your subject matter. I think that the Jataka tales are a very great source material to take from and that can only help your storytelling.
One slight issue I had is that the introduction is listed on the top of the website as the second page. This just confused me a bit when I went on to read through them, but isn't a super huge issue.
Besides for that though I enjoyed the stories and the way you told them was well done. I had little confusion when i was reading through the narratives.
Hey there Leigh,
ReplyDeleteI have read stories of yours a couple of times through out the semester, but this is the first time I have gotten a chance to read your portfolio! Well done! I really enjoyed reading all of your stories and thought they were done wonderfully. Your website is very clean and easy to navigate. The only suggestion I would make would be to move your introduction in front of Raja The Great Elephant, because I actually didn't even notice there was an introduction until I read the first story. I think telling all of your stories from the perspective of Yama is really interesting and creative. I realize now that we have read a lot of stories with characters that died so I'm sure you have had tons of ideas for your project! Good luck with the rest of your project and the rest of this semester. Great job!
Hi Leigh!
ReplyDeleteI am so glad that I came back read the rest of your portfolio. You did such a great job with it and I really enjoyed reading all the stories. I especially enjoyed reading "Raja the Great Elephant". I thought it was a nice change of pace from "The Boasting Turtle" and liked having the examples of both honorable and dishonorable characters in your stories. Raja is definetely an admirable figure and I was glad that she lived the rest of her life in comfort in the village. I did wonder what happened to the other animals in the Oasis after she left though? Also, I did notice you had on sentence in the passive voice "Raja was seen as the mother of all the other animals in the oasis; ". You might consider changing it to "All the other animals in the oasis saw Raja as a mother figure" or something similar. Otherwise well done! I am so glad I found your portfolio again.
-Elizabeth
Hi Leigh,
ReplyDeleteI really like the stories the topic for your project and the way you have decided to tell the stories. I like that you really seemed to focus on having Yama tell the stories instead of just presenting a story. It really helps them all feel a part of a bigger project and not just individual stories that are related. I also love the pictures that you have chosen with each story as they all seem to fit very well.
One suggestion that I have is to reorder your pages. Looking at the content, I assume you intend to have your pages set up in the following order: Intro, Chaddi Baniyan, Raja, and then The Boasting Turtle. It might help those giving feedback in case they don't understand the context of the stories.
Overall, you have done a really good job with your project and telling your stories!
Hey Leigh!
ReplyDeleteI really loved the theme of your project and all the stories that you wrote in the point of view of Yama. I thought the way you articulated the stories and wrote in the first person was really well done and it kept me engaged throughout the whole thing. I read the Jataka Tales so I understood your intentions behind the stories as well, and I think you did an amazing job of incorporating the theme and morals of each Jataka tale into all of your stories as well! I think the Chaddi Baniyan was my favorite story from your project just because it was so detailed and I could actually picture that plot in a scene of a detective TV show or movie! I also like how you explain Dharma in detail and explain why you picked the characters you did and why each was treated how they were. I love your creativity! Great job on your project overall :)
Hey leigh!
ReplyDeleteI came back to read the rest of the stories and was not disappointed! I said last time that I love reading the Jataka tales because they remind me of childhood bedtime stories. Your stories more feel like the slightly grown up version.
I like how you took the often dialog free stories of animals and childlike characters and made them feel much more like stories from a novel or something similar. The best part, though, is that you still didn't end up losing the original "lesson" the stories aimed to tell. It is something that I don't know if I've seen before, but i thought it was great.
Hi Leigh. I love that you have incorporated the Jataka tales into your project. I really enjoy the Jatakas and I have been reading them every week for the past month of free choice reading. I think it is very interesting that you tell the stories from the viewpoint of Rama. I think my favorite of your stories is the Boasting Turtle. I read that original Jataka a while ago and I think you did a great job of retelling the story. You have also done a great job with dialogue. Great job so far and good luck finishing out the semester!
ReplyDelete