ISA PROJECT

Lets enter into the world of folktales !!

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THANK YOU SO MUCH, FOR SUCH AN EXCEPTIONAL OPPORTUNITY! Tarini Jamwal Blog-5 Group- Russia

Hey everyone! I’m sure y’all are doing great. So, today I will be sharing my remarkable learning experience from this project.

First of all I’d like to convey a massive and heartfelt thanks- to all our encouraging and lovely I.S.A teachers! They were the ones who introduced us to this prestigious and estimable project ,helped us out at every stage and were our guiding lights right from the start till the end! Without whom it wouldn’t have been possible! ✨💖💖Then I would like to tell all my group members that I was so fortunate to work alongside such creative, talented and esteemed students. They were all so sincere  and co-operative throughout the entire project! I really cherished those moments together😉🤗. Moving on to my personal experience! I say, this project has not only taught me about “Folktales- A Comparative Study” but soo many other things. It has given me a platform to explore myself and my creativity beyond my comfort zone! Frankly speaking, I never knew much about  the culture of Russia. However, this project gave an opportunity to learn about and explore the world of fascinating and mesmerizing folktales! Through the vast variety of folktales, I came to know  a lot about Russian culture, customs, traditions, beliefs, legends and their narration style! It was great fun.....as if actually venturing into the land of these amazing folktales. In fact, not only folktales from the Russia but  also the absorbing folktales of 3 other countries(Japan, India and U.S.A)! Wait, there’s more, not just folktales!

Honestly, the I.S.A project has enhanced my computer skills a lot with activities like- blogging, PowerPoint Presentation making, Video editing and compiling and digital collage making! Moreover, I have learnt the beautiful and interesting skill of dramatics and the pleasurable art of narration(that too from home)! This project has definitely expanded my reading horizon! Now, I’d like to try different works of literature not only from India but from other countries too! Once again I thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, from my inspiring teachers to my peers for making me a part of this project and help making it a success! (I really wish I could express and fit all of my gratitude for the loving teachers for all their encouragement and support here in this little space. ) In the end all I would like to say is that it has been an inspiring, extremely enriching and an unbelievably exciting journey for me, and I was enthusiastic right from the beginning!

(So much )

Sonia  Malhotra ma’am 

Sunita Rawat ma’am

Tarushika Arora ma’am 

Rashmi Kohli ma’am 

Group members and other groups😀

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Day-3 (29/9/20)

‘Sup folks! I hope you all are wrapped tight. I apologize for writing after such a long time, but I have come back with tales to tell. As you all know I am in the India group with some fellow mates of mine; we compiled our videos for the story play last week. The story which the India group enacted was- 'In the Kingdom of Fools'. It is an intriguing story of a kingdom run by a foolish king. One day, a guru and his disciple reached the kingdom. The guru was astonished to see that the people were sleeping during the day and worked during the night. He was disturbed to see that all the food items in the kingdom cost the same- one duddu. He analyzed that it was a kingdom of fools and ordered his disciple to leave the place. The disciple did not leave with his guru; he was lured by the abundance of cheap food.

One day, a man (brother of the burglar) approached the king for justice. He claimed that his brother (the burglar) was committing his ancient trade of theft, and during that, the wall of a man's house fell on him, and he died. He asked the king to get him compensated. As the king was foolish, he did not analyze that the dead man was a burglar. On the contrary, he tried all the people who were involved in the death of the thief- the rich merchant who was the owner of the house whose wall had broken, the man who had built the wall- the brick-layer, the dancing girl due to whom the builder had built a weak wall as he had gotten distracted and the goldsmith because of whom the dancing girl had to move around in the street that day. After each one of them passed on the blame, it ended on the rich merchant because there was a wedding in his house, for which he had asked the goldsmith to make jewelry. When the merchant was blamed, he protested that his father had gotten the wall built.

Finally, the king decided that the merchant’s father was the real culprit. As he was dead and his son had inherited all his property, so, he would also get punished in place of his father. Another turn of events takes place when the minister feels that the merchant is too thin to be killed by the stake. The king orders his soldier to find a fat person who could be punished in place of the merchant. As the disciple had become very fat, the soldier took him to the king. The innocent man prayed to his guru for help. The guru visualizes that his disciple is in trouble and arrives to save him. He uses his wisdom to trap the foolish king. Finally, the king and his minister get themselves killed by the stake in place of the guru and his disciple. The people of the kingdom and the dancing girl beg the guru and his disciple to become their new king and minister. The disciple agreed, but the guru took some time to convince. The guru agreed and the kingdom functioned normally as all other kingdoms did. In this story, I played the role of the dancing girl. I had to dress up in a traditional Indian dress, lehenga, and wear jewelry. It was fun to enact this story. Well, I hope you enjoyed the story of India group. I’ll be signing off for today. See you in my next blog. Stay safe, Stay healthy!

-Kenisha Bhansali, VII-F

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Blog 2 September 29th, 2020

11:15 am

This Isa project helped me learn alot about Folk Tales from all around the world. I got to know about people's belief, culture, tradition and heritage and nature.

This Project gave me an opportunity to do so much fun in lockdown.

After such a long time, I dressed up for a drama. (That too from home) Super exciting!!

Our story was - In the kingdom of Fools

Where from the King to a poor man all where fools.

Day was night and night was day

In that town nothing was gay...

I played the role of a merchant and soldier.

At the end I want to thank my teachers for giving me the opportunity to be a part of such a prestigious project. Thanks alot ma'am !

Sonia Malhotra ma'am

Rashmi Kohli ma'am

Tarushika Arora Ma'am

Sunita Rawat Ma'am

-Pratithi Devmani

7c

ISA British Council

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Learning experience while performing the skit on our folktale

Tarini Jamwal

28th September 2020 Monday 

12:01 PM

Team- Russia

Blog -2 

 Once we decided on the folktale to represent our group Russia, “ The Honest Nephew And The Dishonest uncle”, I was assigned the interesting tasks of narration and art and illustrations for the PowerPoint presentation of our folktale. It was indeed enjoyable working on these tasks!!!This was a very unique, humbling and enriching experience, even though we didn’t meet physically but were in tune with each other. The script writers took charge of writing an impressive and beautiful script, which all of our team members discussed. Then all of us shot individual videos of our roles, which were later compiled in a final video for the complete skit for the folktale. The teamwork and the groupwork was the best part of this project. It taught me how “Teamwork makes the dreamwork”. In spite of not meeting physically and not knowing one another from before, having met only “virtually”, we accomplished our task of making a beautiful and an aesthetic presentation of our chosen folktale.

Working on the illustrations for our team!

Memorizing the script for narration 

I also prepared a handmade Russian headgear for narration inspired by the “Kokoshnik”

Costume for narration 

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Kokoshnik

Tarini Jamwal 

28th September, 2020 Monday

10:00 AM 

Blog 3

Team- Russia 

Greetings, everyone! 

Today I would like to tell everyone about the famous Russian headgear , “Kokoshnik” which I came across while researching about Russian culture!  The aesthetics and beauty of Russian headgear intrigued me, hence I decided to learn more about it. While reading about the headgear, I came to know : The Kokoshnik is a traditional headdress worn by women and girls to accompany the sarafan. The Kokoshnik tradition has existed since the 10th century in the ancient Russian city of Veliky Novgorod. It spread primarily in the northern regions of Russia and was very popular from 16th to 19th century and is still an important feature of Russian dance ensembles and folk and inspired the Kokoshnik style of architecture. This beautiful handmade piece is made of Linen and Gold fabric and is decorated with Pearls and Rhinestones. Also, here are some interesting facts about the Kokoshnik:- (i) Kokoshnik are worn exclusively on special holidays (ii) They are also pictured on playing cards!(iii) “Kokosh” in old Russian means a Hen or Cockerel.(iv)There are different shapes of Kokoshnik for different regions. 

Inspired by the grandeur of the Russian headgear Kokoshnik, I crafted an attractive one for myself: 

 Work in progress. I also decided it would add a perfect Russian element to my narration !

Real Russian headgear worn by women in Russia 

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Avni Khandelwal

21st September,2020

9.06 PM

Group: Japan

Time to say Sayōnara !!

"A teacher affects eternity, she can never tell where her influence stops " Henry Brooks Adams

I am ever so grateful and obliged to all my inspiring teachers to make me a part of this esteemed ISA project. This project gave me a platform to explore myself beyond my comfort zone. I wasn't much acquainted with Japan's culture, religion, facts, and history but with the first task only, I started my research and got quite versed with Japan's outlook and with no time to waste, I started working on writing the Japanese folktale. I was humbled and filled with gratitude when my story got highest vote and was praised by all.🤗

Under Rashmi ma'am's tutelage, I was getting motivated to strive forward and put on my best foot forward. I worked hours on the script against the clock with one of my team mate, played one of the main character- Aiko, made one of the slides in the PPT and tried my hands at compiling the video. Oh! This is too short a space for me to express how much learning, knowledge and inspiring this journey was. Thankyou so much once again my fellow Japan teammates for constant support and to the teachers for emboldening me and helping me see that I can be more!!!😊

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Mission Accomplished!!!!

Adrija Mukherjee, 20-Sep-2020, 10:41 PM, Noida, Uttar Pradesh With our video and PowerPoint Presentations done, this project has come to an end. With the help of our lovely teachers, we got involved in such a wonderful project and came to know so much!

We came to know about blogging, video and movie making, and most importantly, about folktales, the topic of our project! (Folktales: A Window To The World). Folktales are truly a window to the world. I honestly admit here, I never knew half of the things I studied about Japan and it’s folklore before! This has been a wonderful journey! With awesome narration and editing, our video was a blast and so engaging!

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Sit back and watch!

Shreshtha Bansal 7-J, 20 September-2020

9:47 PM

Hello everyone! Today was a very important day. As you know that in the ISA British Council Project each of the country teams(India, Japan, Russia, USA) had to make videos of their chosen folktales. My team(India) had the folktale “In the Kingdom of Fools”. Everyone in the group had to make videos of their dialogues. Then send them to me so that I could compile them and make the final video. I started this task on Friday(18-9-2020) and I completed making it today(20-9-2020). The file that was created in the end was very large an took a long time to upload. Now the task that remains with me is making a blooper video. It was our group’s incharge’s idea to have a video totally dedicated to showcasing our hard work not only for the small clips put in the main video, but also for those other small videos that could not make it to the final product. I am almost done with  that video. This project has taught me another skill in the digital world that I did not have before which is video editing.

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Done and Dusted

08:54 PM

20 - 09 - 2020

As the title says, we are done and dusted! I have completed the final video and at this moment it is being uploaded on our Japan group’s classroom. As the video is very big (1.6 GB), provided my internet speed and the fact that I started the upload at 08:30 PM (approximately) it will take about another half an hour to  get fully uploaded. I think it good and I wish that everyone also thinks so. It did take about the whole day and I got less time to revise for the test but the video is good. Plus not much worries for the test as it is very easy (Computer Sc). We also had to make placards on which qualities we learned from the story were written. Then we had to speak a line on it. But we didn’t do it as we didn’t have enough time.

09:25 PM

The video has been uploaded on the stream! It looks like the work is done.

Shreshtha Bansal

7 - J

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Work In Action!

Adrija Mukherjee, 19-Sep-2020, 04:48 PM Uttar Pradesh, Noida

Hi! Hope everyone is doing well! Yet another blog from my side! Here I’ll be telling (and showing of course) how our groups made our progress. I have to say though... This project was very demanding. Every night I would stay up till 11:15 PM and modify the PPT. But it’s not just me, every group member has done his/her utmost. This project has taught me a lot too! I refreshed my PowerPoint Presentation skills as I made the Presentation with my group! 

Shatakshi, Yatika and Sarah learning script lines and dialogues-

Shreshtha Editing the final video-

Me making the PowerPoint Presentation-

Avni and Alveerah working on the script-  

Tanishka and Medhansh’s props- (sorry couldn’t get their pictures)

Here is the movie making process- 

Title-The Child Gods

 Intro- The story begins with a couple having a conversation at the dining table. They are trying to work out something for buying mochis, or Japanese rice cakes. Because they are supposed to bring good fortune, and also, without them, the 'Shogatsu' custom will remain incomplete. Theme / main idea- The story revolves around how the main character, Takeshi, overcomes difficulties to trade her wife Aiko's kimono so that they can  buy some rice cakes for the new year. Plot- The protagonist, Takeshi, has set out from his Minka in Kyoto so that he can trade his wife's kimono and buy some rice cakes. Instead, he ends up having an adventure! He has also promised to offer the 'Child Gods' of Japan mochis. Will he be able to do that? Or does a surprise await for him back home, for the good deeds he has done?Setting- The tale is set in the old town of Kyoto. Props needed- Kimonos, Happis, Omamori bell, Ōgi, and backgrounds.

Characters:

Bamboo hat seller- Adrija

God Fugen- Shatakshi

Takeshi- Medhansh Bell seller- Shreshtha Fan seller girl- Tanishka God Jizo- Vidit God Miroku- Alveerah God Seishi- Sarah God Monju- Yatika Narrator- Yatika, Alveerah (voice-over) Events- The couple have their supper and discuss how they can buy mochis.Then, Takeshi sets off for the town of Geisha to trade Aiko's kimono.On the way, he meets five 'Child Gods', seeks their blessings, and promises to bring a mochi for each of them.Finally, when he reaches the town, he meets a poor girl who wants to sell her hand fans to buy a wedding kimono. Takeshi shows empathy and gives her Aiko's Kimono instead. The girl is thankful and gives all her hand fans. He then meets a pilgrim who is desperately in need for hand fans, because he is travelling to a hot place. Takeshi again exchanges the hand fans with him for a good luck bell the pilgrim possesses.He starts to shiver because it is very cold. So he buys 5 bamboo hats and pays for them with the good luck bell.He comes back home empty-handed. Since he could not buy any mochis, he gives the Gods the hats instead and goes to sleep with Aiko. Ending-The Gods are impressed with the karmas of Takeshi and bestow the couple with delicacies and good fortune. This folktale teaches us to be compassionate.

This project is to be over soon, we all have dramatized our parts, Shreshtha has combined and edited them. Lastly, I am giving a hearty thank you to our wonderful teachers, Sonia mam, Rashmi mam, Tarushikha mam and Sunita mam for giving us this wonderful project full of experience! Bye for now!

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19th September 2020

3:16 PM

I’m very proud to announce that my group (Russia) was able to complete the ISA Project on time.

We completed the project on Wednesday. Sonia Ma’am round our video and PPT presentable. I am grateful to all the ISA teachers to have guided us so well. They have been very encouraging. I’m thankful that I was chosen for this prestigious project. I’m glad that I had the good fortune to work alongside such creative and cooperative group members! Well, I should get going. I need to eat lunch now! See you!

6H

Ipsa Singh

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The Final Stage

18th September 2020

01:14 PM

You might be think that why have I named this blog as the final blog. Well the reason is that this is the final stage. All of the tasks are done and now only the presentation and the video is left. Our group’s (Japan group) powerpoint presentation is made and now only the video remains. I am the one who is making our group’s video. Yesterday after a tremedous amount of work I made the rough draft and then gave it to ma’am. She will see it and then I will refine it. When I am done refining it, the video will be complete. I think the rough draft has come up nice and so will the final one. I have made it in such a way that I think there will be no need for props at all (meaning I will not have to show that the stuff is being passed hand to hand)! I have a good feeling about it. I just hope that everybody else also likes it. I have put a lot of effort into it. I started at 2:30 and ended at about 10:15, about half an hour for one scene. During this time I also figured out how to export my final product as one video (I did video editing for the first time so I had no experince). First when I ran the video in my pc, it was blank! I could only hear the audio. The video was blank! I panicked but then I found the problem. For some reason, my pc could not play the video. But when I tried it in a different pc, it worked just fine. I am happy with my work.

Shreshtha Bansal

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12th September 2020

8:29 PM

I apologise for not posting in such a long time. This was because lots of projects kept coming up one after the other and I didn’t have time to write my blog.

Anyways, I’m going to be telling you about what I did today!

First, as soon as I got up at 7 AM I immediately started working on the ISA project. The story for our group(Russia) was ‘The honest nephew and the dishonest uncle’. I was assigned the illustrations in this story. I decided to do digital art instead of drawing on paper. I was able to finish the drawing at 10 AM. I was very happy with the end result! Sadly I got a few blisters on my fingers for drawing for so long... After I finished it I moved on to my content in the PPT. I was able to do it in under 15 minutes. That’s all for today! Good night everyone!🌌

Ipsa Singh-H

VI-H

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Progress!

Shaurya Bansal, September 5 - 2020, 1:15 PM

Hi! Today we had yet another meeting of all the students and teachers involved in ISA. On our previous meeting all the country groups were given the stories that they needed to present. My India group’s story was ‘The Kingdom of Fools’. On Thursday we had a meeting and decided who would do what like 2 students will make a PPT, 2 students will make the script, and so on.Today’s ISA meeting was to discuss which country group had started their work and till where had it reached. My group(India) and Russia have already started but Japan and USA are yet to start. Though they will start very soon and each group will come up with brilliant plays and PPT’s.

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Virtual Interactions!

Adrija Mukherjee, Day 9, 01- Sep- 2020, 12:54 PM, Noida, Uttar Pradesh

Hi! Another long time after which I’m posting( I apologize yet again)! But today me and my friends did something really fun! We had our geography group presentation today. It went really well so we decided to keep a little fun meeting.

In that we shook hands, shared books etc. You must be wondering- “How? You’re probably joking!” But wait, I have proof!

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Task 6!

Adrija Mukherjee, Day 8, 27-Aug-2020, 02:03 PM, Noida, Uttar Pradesh

I know I haven’t posted in a very long while. We have had quite a lot of projects to do in fact! Each of them was very fun to do and we are even starting project presentations! Me and my group are having Google Meet meetings for discussing our group presentation. We also had a project on digital detoxification! But the most interesting thing, our British Council ISA Project is finally explaining itself and now at last I know why role-playing skills were much  important of the bunch. My last blog was about how three of the ten stories were selected for each group. Now out of those three stories, we are to pick one for each country-

Stories of Russia group-

1.The honest nephew and the dishonest uncle

2. The language of the birds

3. The goat and the Ram

Stories of India group-

1.  The Tiger, Brahmin and Jackal

2. The Kingdom of Fools

3. The Greedy Innkeeper

Stories of USA group-

1. Baker's Dozen

2. Old Man at the Beginning- The Crow People

3. A gift from Saint Nicholas

I need to read each of these and select the story I think will be best. Then the particular country will represent the chosen story (the story with the most votes).

This Task (Task 6) is divided into two parts.

Part A: Elections PART B: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS While reading the stories from the other countries, we will be required to make brief notes along with, of how the folktales of these countries differ or draw similarities from the folktales of our country(assigned to us). These points will later be used during the power point presentation that we make. So we are to choose... Let’s say... Wisely. We are to choose wisely. 

I have not written for a while so thought I would make this blog a bit longer. 

Bye for now!

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The Three Best Stories!

Adrija Mukherjee, Day 7, 23-Aug-2020, 08:23 PM, Noida, Uttar Pradesh

Hi! I have not written for a while, (specifically two dayssince I was studying for a test) but today I have a piece of news to tell! Finally the much awaited moment has come and the our submitted stories have been selected! We had a meeting the previous Friday and everyone narrated the folk tales they had chosen, mine being The Mirror of Matsuyama. I was most excited to see the results of the survey. The three stories with the highest votes were-

a) The Child Gods (70% of the votes)

b) The Story of Hashnu the Stonecutter (50% of the votes)

c) The  Strange Medicine(50%of the votes)

Bye for now!