I am taking an online class called Fantasy and Fairytales....

I need to write an essay that contains no less than 270 words and no more than 320. We had to write on one of the Grimm Tale stories. I chose "The Twelve Brothers."

This is my rough draft, so far. Comments, please?

After I read the story of "The Twelve Brothers," I immediately thought about the story in the Bible about Jacob's twelve sons and one daughter. In Genesis 29:31, this bible story recounts the life of Jacob and his two wives and their offspring. In Genesis 30:21, Leah, one of the two wives of Jacob, gives birth to a daughter, Dinah. By the time we read Genesis 35:18, we see the birth of Benjamin, the youngest of twelve brothers.

In the Twelve Brothers' story, there are twelve boys, the youngest one's name is Benjamin. In this biblical story of Jacob and his family, the youngest son's name is Benjamin, too. In Genesis 37, we see the story of Joseph, the second youngest of the twelve brothers, unfolding. Joseph's brothers became very jealous of Joseph and the special attention their father gave Joseph. The brothers, with the exception of Benjamin, plotted and got rid of their brother, Joseph, by selling him into slavery.

The 10, oldest brothers became alienated both emotionally and spiritually, from their father, Jacob. They were so ashamed of themselves for selling their brother Joseph and watching their father's pain as he believed his son, Joseph was dead. In the Twelve Brothers' story, all the boys flee their home, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, due to their father, the King, and his edict that the boys be killed if a daughter is born.

Lastly, in the Twelve Brothers' story, the daughter (princess) eventually marries her father. The underlying theme here is that a father married his daughter, and we assume, had physical relations with her.

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I forgot to mention that I will not be getting a "grade" for this online course. If I do all the assignments, then I get a certificate of completion. So I could turn this in, right now for submission, and get "credit" for Unit 1 being completed. However, this essay, once submitted, goes out to 4 of the other students, anonymously for their evaluation.

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I just read the story.

I don't think the princess married her own father. It says she married "a" king, not "the" king. If it were her father, there would have to be an explanation of what happened to her mother, the queen. And, there would certainly be some reason given why she would have chosen to commit an evil act when the story depicts her as completely virtuous in all respects.

The theme of the story should be the moral lesson the story teaches. In this case, it is a little obscure, but it seems to me to be about filial duty, just taking a guess.

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Good catch, Anna. I didn't notice that about the King, part.

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I think you need to spend more time on explainig how the story corresponds to the story of Jacob and not Jacob to the story. The way it's written sounds like the focus is on Jacob and his story. Instead of mentioning Jacob first in your sentences mention the story and then Jacob. Use more specific examples of how they are similar. Right now you describe the story oj Jacob but you do little to explain the actual story. I'm not familiar with the story and that's why it sounded like you were focusing on Jacob more. I didn't really learn much about the story. I hope I'm making sense. The class is on fairy tales not the bible so need to up play fairy tale aspect.

A question that popped into my head was: what is the purpose of the essay? Is it to compare the stories? Is it to summarize the story you chose? ??? Without that it is hard to know if you have met the criteria of the essay. The other comments are spot on to other questions that arose while I read what you wrote.

Here is the explanation for the essay...

Please write an essay that aims to enrich the reading of a fellow student who is both intelligent and attentive to the readings and to the course. Each essay should be between 270 and 320 words.

The essay should focus on this unit's reading and the subject may be any literary matter that you studied in that reading: plot, style, theme, structure, imagery, allusion, narrator reliability, and so on. Such matters are discussed in the video clips. Do not use the essay as an occasion to discuss non-literary matters that fall outside the course reading and the process of reading. For example, while it is true that beauty often (but not always) represents goodness in fairy tale characters, an essay for this course should not be about how today's society does or does not fairly reward attractive people. However, one could write a fine essay for this course by comparing Sleeping Beauty and her step-mother to argue that their story implicitly questions the reliability of beauty as a moral indicator in the story and hence the reliability of a superficial understanding of what we encounter, both in reading a story and in life. Of course, since the intelligent and attentive fellow student in this course has just read that thesis about "Sleeping Beauty," an essay merely restating it would not enrich that student's reading further. An essay with that thesis would have to explore its working in the story in deep and revealing ways to enrich further the reading of a fellow student. These essays should become ever more insightful as the course progresses and as you progress, but the assignment is always the same: write an essay that aims to enrich the reading of a fellow student who is both intelligent and attentive to the readings and to the course.

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Prayer should be your first response.
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If this is the purpose of the essay, you've completely missed the mark. You need to discuss one of the matters in the above quote. You could do that by comparing one of those areas with the same area in another book or discussing how they intrigued you or how they are different than most stories etc. He's not asking you to compare the story with another story or tell you the story. He's asking you to pick out a particular aspect of the writing and talking about that. Also I realized you didn't really have a thesis statement. Your first sentence should be something that explains to the reader what the intent of the essay is about and then the rest of the essay is actually doing it. Sometimes I have trouble putting my thoughts into words so I hope you can understand what I'm saying here.



Remember this essay is to another student who is reading this story and has been attending your class.

Thanks for your feedback, Alyce. I'll work on this.

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Okay, I ditched the Twelve Brother's story, and instead wrote about the Queen Bee. What are your thoughts about this essay? My final essay is due, tomorrow. Thanks.


Can animals show their gratitude towards human beings?

In 'The Queen Bee," we see three brothers on a journey to find an adventure. Each time they come across a group of animals, the older two brothers want to either mess them up or completely destroy these animals, while the youngest brother does not want to bother the animals, at all. The two older brothers want to destroy the ant hill, but the youngest brother stops them. The two older brothers want to catch some of the ducks and cook them for dinner, but the youngest brothers persuades them not to. Then, the youngest brother prevents his brothers from smoking the bee hive so they could collect the honey. In time, the brothers are put on a quest. While the two older brothers fail in their quest and eventually turn to stone. These two brothers failed in their quest because the ants, ducks, and bees refused to help them. The youngest brother is rewarded by the ants, the ducks, and the bees. The ants collect all the pearls, the ducks go under the water to retrieve a key, and the "queen bee" lands on the mouth of the sleeping princess that had some honey on her lips. Hence, the youngest brother receives the best reward of the prettiest and youngest princess plus becoming the King, while his two other brothers had to "put up with the other two sisters." Thus, the animals in this story did show their gratitude towards the youngest son by helping him on what was thought to be an impossible task, but turned into a "possible" task with the animals' help.

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Prayer should be your first response.
Not your last resort.