Introduction to.... A future dental hygienist (hopefully)
Hi y'all! My name is Madeline Heath and I am a senior at OU - every time I say that I am a senior, I get a little more sad to be leaving. Here at OU I am graduating with a Bachelor Degree in Health and Exercise Science, however my academic career will not end in the Spring. Post graduation, I am attending Dental Hygiene school to further my love for science and helping others. One interesting (very, very weird) fact about myself is that I LOVE school and studying. My friends always joke with me saying that studying is probably my biggest passion. A little background from me: I was born and raised in the beautiful state of Colorado - more specifically in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Although I loved living in Colorado, I always knew I wanted to attend college out of town. Everyone always asked me why I would ever choose to leave Colorado to go to Oklahoma. I often laugh because leaving the mountains and crisp air for cloudy and humid sounds a little crazy. However, Oklahoma has b
Madeline,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I LOVE the look of your storybook. It is easy to look at and it is pleasing to look at as well. I love that the pictures take up the entire page when you first open it, it is a fantastic opener and attention-grabber.
One note I did have was on your "Betrayal" story. It looks like some of the formatting was a little off when it got down to your picture and picture information. You may have intended for it to be this way, but I think it would look cleaner if your picture information was underneath the photo rather than to the right of it. Just a suggestion!
Other than that, you formatting looks really fantastic! I think your fonts and pictures work well together. I specifically love the picture on the front page, it is magical and immediately sets the tone for some fairy tales! Great job!
Hi Madeline! I really like your storybook idea! I think taking older fairytales and myths and modernizing them is a very cool and interesting idea. It really helps the reader relate to the story and, I think, understand it and its morals better! First off, I liked the layout of your website a lot. The pictures you included were nice. However, on your first story, I noticed the spacing between each paragraph was a little inconsistent, so you might think about fixing that a little bit! As far as your writing goes, I really enjoyed reading your first story. It was very Mean Girls like, which was refreshing to read. I liked that you took the original story and changed it so much, leaving basically only the morals the same. I bet it was fun to write, just as it was fun to read. Great job, and I'm excited to read more of your stories!
ReplyDeleteHi Madeline,
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of creating a storybook out of the Mean Girl story. There's so much manipulation and drama in the story and so many ways to spin it from the original! I think it would help if the reader knew why Lindsay was so popular. Was it because she was the most attractive, or the most feared, or was there some other reason? And why did Lindsay and Emma not like Morgan at the beginning? I was really surprised and caught off guard to see Emma betray Lindsay at the end. Why did Emma betray her? And at what point did Emma decide to befriend Morgan instead of Lindsay? I wonder what would happen if Lindsay tried to make a scene at prom and try to get back at Morgan for her betrayal. Maybe pour a glass of fruit punch on her head which causes a fruit punch fight (as opposed to a food fight like in the movie)? Looking forward to see what happens next!
Hi Madeline! I really liked the first image you used for the banner in your storybook. It captures and conveys the magic of fairy tales very well. I would suggest changing the banner you used for your first Mean-Girls-inspired story to something that insinuates betrayal. I feel like something with a darker imagery or even something related to high-school would be more fitting for your story and would draw readers into the world you're trying to create. I liked that the story itself was well spaced out, as it made it easier on the eyes. I also liked the twist of Emma betraying Lindsay because I was under the impression that Emma was just going to betray Morgan. Since "Fairy Tale Stories" is a pretty general title, you might try to change it to something more specific and indicative of your stories. I feel like such a change would pique people's interest and invite more readers to click on your storybook. Good luck with the rest of your storybook!
ReplyDeleteHey Madeline! I really love your visuals. They get me excited for your story, relate well to the material, and at the same time, don't give too much away! They provide so much feeling! A picture really does mean 1000 words.
ReplyDeleteI would love some more detail. I love gossip and it is kinda fun to write. Fill up your word count with it please!!! The only thing is that your formatting is kinda weird. Are you going to add pictures of the character after you introduce them? Is that what the space is for? That would be really cool and break up the text nicely!
I really enjoyed the ending, but you could even make it more dramatic. It is a big deal when people show up in the same dress as you to prom. There is a national registry and everything so it doesn't happen. Many salons won't sell you a dress someone else has put on there that they are wearing, so add how they got around this or more about Lindsay's reaction to being upstaged at prom.
Hi Madeline!
ReplyDeleteI love your website. The opening page is absolutely magical! I'm interested to see your introduction and some other stories.
I do have a couple notes to make your project even more fabulous.
I would like to see you get a little more descriptive with your story. High school rivalries can be very painful, dramatic, and influential in people's lives, so you have ripe material to work with in creating compelling characters and a story with emotional value and complexity.
Put the Mean Girls picture up at the top of your story instead of at the bottom. It could serve to really set the mood more than your current cover image of the sunset, which felt unrelated to the subject matter.
There's also a lot of space in between paragraphs. I would recommend reformatting a little bit and maybe even adding some more images to your story to create a more dynamic environment.
I'm looking forward to seeing your finished product!
- Cate
Hi, Madeline! I’m glad that I had a chance to stop by and read your story. There are a few things here and there that could use some tweaking, but overall I think you’re off to a good start!
ReplyDeleteRegarding the layout of the “Fairy Tale Stories” website, I think it looks lovely! The pastel pink is a nice color, which helps to give the website an enchanted feel without being too harsh on the eyes. There seems to be a formatting issue in the first story, with large gaps between each paragraph, but that’s an easy fix if you’re using Google Sites. It seems that you haven’t published your introduction yet—I think it will help the reader understand what you wish to achieve with this project in the future.
In your first story “Betrayal,” tropes found in teen and young adult movies, such as “Mean Girls,” can be easily recognized. I see the connection between this story and the original “The Ass, the Lion, and the Fox,” though beyond that I didn’t get a strong sense of a fairy tale story. If you added magical elements to Morgan’s story, it could strengthen the fantasy genre overall (examples: Ella Enchanted, Harry Potter, Stardust).
Whether or not you want to use a fantasy or a modern setting is up to you—this is where an introduction comes in handy. Regardless, I’m excited to read the rest of your storybook project!
Hey Madeline,
ReplyDeleteYour storybook page looks so much better than mine, aesthetic wise. You definitely have picked a eye-pleasing theme and have stuck with it for your one story. That story was quite interesting. I liked the fact that it was set in high school, but I was waiting for some fairy-tale aspects to come into the story at some point. Maybe you can add more fantasy aspects to your next story? One thing that you did well in telling your story was the paragraphing. The way that you spaced out the lines provided a great pacing to follow the story in. By having dialogue be separate and smaller, more concise paragraphs the story flowed in such a way that it was easy to read. Finally, while I haven’t seen Mean Girls, from what I have heard about it you perfectly captured the essence of that movie. Overall, great job on this story!
Andrew
Hi Madeline! I really like the overall theme of your storybook. Fairy tale stories are my absolute favorite. I loved the banner image on the home page. It is beautiful and lets readers know that they are in for good, magical stories. Your first story was written very well and it had a nice flow to it. I do think that there is too much space between each paragraph of writing. It would be better if there was less space so that readers do not have to scroll so much to read the entire story. I liked that you gave us introduction to each of the characters at the beginning. However, I think that you could work it into the story without having it be introductory paragraphs. I think this would add more flow to the story overall. You might also want to add a few more words into your author's note which is supposed to be 200 words. Your story had such a modern theme and I really like how you made an old story completely your own!
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