Preliminary Community Service Findings

I was looking at volunteer opportunities with the SFPL. I liked the Fort Mason farmer's market sale or working at the bookstore at the main branch.
http://www.friendssfpl.org/?Volunteer_Opportunities
It looks like for opportunities through the library I need to fill out an application.
http://sfpl.org/index.php?pg=2000562101

Maps in Other Books

Today, I focused on other books which have maps in them.

These ones are from a fantasy series called the Land of Elyon by Patrick Carmen.

I like the clouds on the edge and the way the title is incorporated. 

These next ones are from several series that take place in the same fantasy world all written by Tamara Pierce. The first one is from The Lioness series.

The next ones are from the Protecter of the Small series. 

The next one is from the Wild Magic series.

The next ones are from the Trickster series.

The last ones are from the Beka Cooper series.

I like how each map of the whole world is different because of the it implies history behind each map.

The next few maps are from a book called Voices of the Storm about Hurricane Katrina

I like the before and after effect. You can tell that it is the same map with a new layer.

The next map appears in a book in the Chronicles of Narnia. 

I like the detail on the compass and the title and the mountains.

I also had an idea. I could make the border of my maps runes or elvish writing.

If I did a journey of the ring map the border could say the poem about the rings of power. For my tikkon olam map I could use one of Gandalf's quotes.

12/9 One thing that I notice about maps of fantasy worlds is that their purpose is different than conventional maps. They seek to orient the reader in the world of the story but not to show the reader how the reader can get from point a to point b. Thus representations of the height of a mountain or even distance are relatively unimportant in fantasy maps. What is important is that you can find were the story is. Thus fantasy maps lend themselves to a more stylistic approach. For example, terrain becomes more important than elevation. 

Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas

http://www.amazon.com/Infinite-City-San-Francisco-Atlas/dp/0520262506

Keystone Proposal

This is my keystone proposal. I have bolded the ideas I am going forward with so far.

Proposed Theme/Topic(s):

The World of the Lord of the Rings

Guiding Questions you have about your topic:

How does Tolkien create the world of Middle-Earth?

What elements did he use?

Some initial thoughts/ideas on how I might pursue my topic of interest:

Product-focus:

-Redraw the maps of Middle-Earth that appear in the books.

-Learn Elvish and use it to write a story.

Bringing It Back-Put up the maps around school with an explanation and and quotes from the books corresponding to the locations on the map.

Service-focus:

-Volunteer at an after-school program like the Village Project to help kid improve their reading.

-Work at the SFPL or the JCL to create a Lord of the Rings exhibit to get kids excited about reading the series.

Bringing It Back- Exhibit at the JCL.

Research-focus:

-Research Tolkien’s work in linguistics and possible linguistic connections between it and other languages.

-Analyze types scenes in Tolkien’s mythology of Middle-Earth and their recurrence in the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit.

Bringing It Back-Teach a Basic Elvish Workshop.

First Meeting- Brainstorming

On Wednesday I had my first meeting with Mr. Cole about my keystone project. We brainstormed about the final product and the steps to get there. These are the notes from our meeting.

A)     the list of maps (product) you plan to create – in order of importance (realizing you may not be able to complete all of them in the course of the year)

Types of maps we discussed:

-          Locations of battles/events

-          Locations of the peoples of Middle-Earth (Humans, Hobbits, Dwarves, Elves, etc.)

-          Journey of the Fellowshipe

-          Journey of the ring from creation to destruction

-          ‘Jewish Thought’ map showing acts of lovingkindness, teshuvah, tikkun olam, etc.

B)      a list of the charts/lists of items you need to research for each map (for example, a list of the major events in the books)

Charts we mentioned included:

-          Events

-          ‘owners’ of the ring

-          Major characters

-          Related myths

-          Jewish Thought elements

We set up another meeting for next Wednesday to go over my work-plan.