Author's Note: This week's storybook post was inspired by one
of the many tales of The Twenty Jatakas Tales.
I focused my story off of the different stories in reading A named “The Golden
Feathers.” This story is about a family who is very poor and the father set out
to find riches to return with. While he
was finding fortune to bring back to his family he was turned into a goose with
golden feathers. He went back to his
house and gave his family one feather telling them to sell it and that he would
be back. Before he retuned one time the
mother decided that they should take all the feathers in case he never
returned. When this happened all the
feathers turned white and were worthless.
This is a good lesson about learning that you have enough and to not be
greedy. The mother also learns that it
isn’t smart to take advantage of the help being received. Read my story about Kate and Ashley. Here Ashley learns how important it is to not
take advantage of people when they offer to help.
Kate Maxwell has always been one of the smartest girls in
school. Not only was she smart but also
she was extremely nice and loved helping people. Ashley on the other hand
struggled with school but was extremely popular. Kate and Ashley lived on the same street so
they saw a lot of each other out of school as well as in school.
They weren't much of friends expect maybe a wave here or there or a “Hello” while passing. One day during school Kate found Ashley crying in the girls bathroom. Kate being the nice person she asked her what was wrong. Ashley explained to her that she was failing her algebra class, and that if she did fail she wouldn’t be able to cheer on the squad. Kate knew that very upsetting to Ashley since she was cheer caption and all. Kate offered to help Ashley in her math class every day after school.
They weren't much of friends expect maybe a wave here or there or a “Hello” while passing. One day during school Kate found Ashley crying in the girls bathroom. Kate being the nice person she asked her what was wrong. Ashley explained to her that she was failing her algebra class, and that if she did fail she wouldn’t be able to cheer on the squad. Kate knew that very upsetting to Ashley since she was cheer caption and all. Kate offered to help Ashley in her math class every day after school.
Every day Kate would walk down to Ashley’s house with her
algebra homework. At first Ashley was
very interested in learning what Kate was trying to teach her. She took notes and was very organized with
all the information Kate was giving her.
It didn't take long for Ashley’s grades to start to rise. Once this happened Ashley figured out that
since she took her homework over to Kate’s house every day she could trick Kate into doing the problems for her. Kate thought she was helping Ashley but really she was just doing the problems for Ashley. Ashley started to take advantage of Kate and
found sneaky ways to get Kate to do the problem for her as a demonstration for
that type of math problem. Ashley would make
comments like “I just don’t understand” with the most confused and sad look on
her face. This would make Kate feel bad
for so she would tell her not to worry and show her how to do the problem. Ashley stopped taking notes and worked more
on her sad puppy dogface instead of learning how to do the problems.
Ashley’s final grade for algebra all depended on her final
test for the class. Since Ashley was
making good grades on all her homework, she didn’t even stop to think that she
would be on her own for the test. The
test day came and when Ashley received her test on her desk she quickly
realized that she didn't know how to do any of the problems because she was
having Kate do them all for her. Ashley
ended up failing the test and the class, resulting in her not being able to be
a cheerleader anymore. Ashley regretted
not paying more attention to Kate while she was helping her, but has learned to
never take advantage of help that was being offered.
(Photo Source)
Bibliography: The Golden Feathers tale in the book The Twenty Jataka Tales by Noor InayatRetold by Noor Inayat.
I really like the moral of this story. It kind of reminds me of the story of the goose that lays golden eggs. You did a great job in translating the message of the original story into a more modern setting. Ashley should have been more appreciative of the help Kate was giving her and taken it upon herself to learn the material instead of just taking advantage of her. Did you think about adding a picture of people working on homework or maybe even an algebra book/problem? I think those types of pictures would add more to the story.
ReplyDeleteSarah, what a great story! I love reading stories that have a clear moral to them. The concept of using someone's help in school is so common in real life. I've definitely seen people use others in this way. You did a great job of making the story short and straight to the point. Great job!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love this story! I read the original tale and the way you altered it to a more modern scenario was just perfect. I never would have thought to compare being greedy with feathers to being greedy with getting answers on homework! I love how the lesson in the story was still very much the same. Don’t be too greedy and don’t take advantage of people who help you out! Great story!
ReplyDeleteI also read the Golden Feathers and liked the message. Good job of taking a small story and changing it into something more relatable. This story is so true of school. Nowadays it's so easy to let homework just slip by and then tests are just that much harder! This was a great way to incorporate two morals into your story. I like the characters' familiar names, too! Very clever!
ReplyDeleteHi Sarah, I really liked reading your story and I absolutely loved the moral at the end. I wonder if Kate ever caught on to Ashley’s little scheme but felt obligated to help her. I think it’s really cool that you made the story more applicable to modern day times. I hope that Ashley learned her lesson and put a little more effort in her school work and friendships.
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