Sunday, April 1, 2018

Week 11 Story: The Turtle Who was Not Afraid of Thunder

Once there was a turtle who lived happily in a lake.  However, he had one problem.  Something kept hitting him while he was in the water.  One day, he came out and tried to investigate what it was but could not find anyone.  

Instead he called out "who will help me?".  The first to respond was deer.  Turtle asked deer to show him his best fighting skills to defeat whoever it was hitting him.  

Turtle was not impressed by deer's skills and called out again, "who will help me?"  Next to respond was bear.  Turtle again asked him to show his best fighting skills and again, turtle was not impressed.  

He called out one more time, "who will help me?"  This time, an army of little turtles arose and showed turtle their best fighting skills.  Turtle was very impressed and knew they would be the ones to defeat his bully.  So turtle went back down into the water while his army awaited the return of the bully.  

The next day he awoke to his army of turtles yelling for him to come out and look.  Turtle arose from the water and saw a lonely bird a tree dropping rocks into the water.  "This is Thunder Bird!" one of the turtles said.  Turtle knew that Thunder Bird was the only one of his kind and was very lonely, but also too shy to make any companions.  It turns out that he had been dropping rocks into the lake in hopes that turtle would come out and talk to him.  

From that day forward Thunder Bird and the turtles were great friends and Thunder Bird provided protection for the turtles during thunderstorms.  


The Friendship between Turtle and Thunder Bird. Web Source. 


Author's Note: This week's story is taken from "Turtle and Thunder" from the British and North America Tales unit.  I kept the beginning of the story the same up until when the turtle army takes stance to wait for whoever it was dropping rocks.  In the original story, the bully drops a rock on the turtles and kills them all.  Turtle comes out from the water and asks his neighbor who did it and his neighbor responds that it was Thunder Bird and that he was very afraid of him.  From that day forward Turtle stayed hidden under the water during thunder storms.  I thought that version of the story was a little morbid so I wanted to make it happier.  I portrayed Thunder Bird as a lonely bird wanting to make friends who eventually makes friends with the turtles.  From that day on, he provided protection for his friends during thunder storms.  

4 comments:

  1. McKenzie, I liked this story a lot! It was a happy ending. It made me laugh when the turtle was not impressed with the deer's fighting skills, because I do not think I would be very impressed with a deer's fighting skills either. It made me happy that instead of being mad at the bird they recognized its loneliness and became its friend. Great job!

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  3. McKenzie, I liked this story! I always like when stories end happy, as a lot do not. I hadn't read the original story before this, so your author's note was very helpful too. It's funny to think about a turtle and a deer interacting, so I liked that you chose these animals for your story. Good job with imagery too! Can't wait to read more!

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  4. Hi McKenzie! What a cute story that you created. I like that you kept it pretty similar to the original one in the unit, I always tend to love those with the small little twist. Since I haven't read the original story, I liked that you kept a happy ending. Since this unit told stories about ways animals came to be friends, I like that the bird protected the turtle! Good job!

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