The Sunday School 8th January 2023 - Elizabeth Philip

While reading A Wedding to Remember from Sudha Murty's book Wise and Otherwise, we found a reference to her novel Mahashweta.

What is a novel?

A novel is a long-written story about imaginary people and events.

(Collins dictionary)

a long printed story about fictional characters and events

(Cambridge dictionary)

an invented prose narrative that is usually long and complex and deals mainly with human experience through a usually connected sequence of events

(Merriam Webster dictionary)

a story long enough to fill a complete book, in which the characters and events are generally imaginary

(Oxford dictionary)

The novel is a genre, or kind, of literature. It is fiction, which means the writer invented the story.

https://kids.britannica.com

One thing leads to another. Now, we need to know what genre and literature mean. 

Let's start with literature.

Literature is writing that is usually considered to be a work of art. It differs from written works such as cookbooks, travel guides, or how-to books. Those are meant only to provide information. In general, literature communicates ideas of lasting interest. A writer of literature takes special care in choosing and arranging words. Some common types of literature include novels, poetry, and dramas.

Read more…

https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/novel/390589#

Let's move on to genre.

A genre is a specific type of music, film, or writing.

https://www.vocabulary.com/

Here's the link to help you determine how genre is pronounced.

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/genre

A genre (from Latin: genus) is a style or type of music, literature, movies, or other media. Some genres (styles) are used in more than one form of art or communication. For example, fantasy and science fiction are used in literature, movies, and television.

https://kids.kiddle.co/Genre

Now that you know what literature and genre mean, would you like to read more about some of the genres in children's literature?

Go ahead…

https://www.harpercollins.com/blogs/harperkids/childrens-book-genres

This is enough for today! You know that a novel is longer than a short story.

How long is long, and how short is short?

You'll be getting more information about short stories and novels…soon!

- Elizabeth Philip
More about her work: 
http://champions.prathambooks.org/2013/09/pratham-books-champion-elizabeth-philip.html

What You Believe Is What You Achieve - Rishona Chopra

Our lifestyle relies on it – the quality of our thoughts, feelings, attitude, habits, personality and finally, our destiny. This means what we believe has a dominating influence on our future. We cannot afford to hold a single wrong belief. Society spreads limiting beliefs like Anger is necessary, Happiness is in achievements, Stress is natural, People and situations decide how I feel, and so on. Believing "anger is necessary", we used anger repeatedly. Although we set such a belief in our mindset, does our destiny know about this belief? It is simply influenced by our thoughts. Each thought of yours affects us, what we think we do. My thoughts full of anger come out in words; my words can influence my actions.

For example -
Due to some reason, I was angry at someone, and I started shouting at them. The situation didn't calm down, so I started hitting them. Without thinking, my thought became my words, and they became my actions. I began to respect it again and again. Soon, getting angry about the most minor things became my habit. Slowly, it became my character, and then my destiny followed along through karma. It becomes too late when we realise it has become our character because, at that stage, you simply can't reverse yourself without karma following along. You could change, there is a possibility, but your past actions won't. Therefore, start with your thoughts. Improve your thinking, and soon your positive thoughts will become your destiny.

Rishona Chopra       
Grade VI
Gyanshree School

Responsibility - Rishona Chopra

Responsibility is taking ownership of one's actions. It is to accept your mistake to help around and work hard. Responsibility is accepting that you are the cause and the solution to the problem. When we take responsibility, we should take it with total commitment and honesty. 

At my earlier school, we did an activity, in fact, not an activity but a daily exercise. Every day, after lunch, we had to clean the class. We got duties of dusting, sweeping and mopping. Whoever finished their duty would get to play outside. This taught us responsibility; my favourite task was to mop the floor. If you try it once, you'll realize it's fun to mop the floor, unlike sweeping. Even cleaning the bathroom is a cool duty, well, only if it's a small one!

Every relationship with friends or family brings a sense of duty and responsibility. Each family member has a duty, a responsibility to fulfil. For example, a child has the duty to help with chores, study and work hard; likewise, other family members must fulfil their jobs. A little compromise from everybody always results in something great or, in this example - A happy family. An important part is responsible for our actions. We all make mistakes and some wrongdoings, and instead of covering them up with thousands of lies, we could make it easy with one truth and take responsibility for our actions.

Sometimes we are insecure about handing over responsibility to others. We seek to keep responsibility for ourselves. Check if you hesitate to pass on duties to other people. Even I feel the same. I feel hesitation in giving responsibility to others. The only thought that helps me improve is, "What if other people start feeling the same hesitation? Won't I feel bad?"

Giving responsibilities can only be done with a bridge of trust and confidence. If you trust the person and feel confident about yourself, this bridge can be crossed.

Rishona Chopra
Grade VI
Gyanshree School