Writing a book about Norse Mythology

By Robin van Zelst. Supervisor: Bianca Harren, mentor and German teacher at supreme college Nederland.

Introduction

I am Robin van Zelst, I am a student of the MYP 5 class at Supreme College Netherlands (SCN), in
Castricum, and I live in Heiloo. For SCN we got the task of doing our personal project, a project about
one of your own interests, with which you will learn ATL skills, and get to explore your own interest
more. My project is to write a book about Norse mythology, and learn how to publish a book, and
potentially earn some money with said book. This is my report on the process, and final product of
this project, and every step in between.

Learning goal
My main learning goal for this personal project is to get better at writing, and to learn more about the
Norse mythology. I want to improve my writing skills, since this will definitely come in handy in
university, where I will undoubtedly have to write essays, and potentially also for my future. My dream
is to become an astrophysicist, and having writing skills would be especially useful when 1. writing a
paper, and 2. writing a book about work that has been done. I would also like to get to know more
about Norse mythology, since I am very interested in mythology in general, and I don’t know a lot
about Norse mythology. My second learning goal is learning how to publish a book, and potentially
earn money with it. This would mainly be useful if I decide to write another book in the future, and
also for this book.

Product goal and success criteria

My product goal for this project is to write the first part of a book about Norse mythology, written in
a way/from a perspective that you may not see very often. My success criteria for this project are to
write the first three to six chapters of my book about Norse mythology and to write these chapters in
a new and different perspective, or one that you wouldn’t see very often. I chose to do the first three
to six chapters, since I did not expect myself to write a finished book in the time we got for the project.
I can of course write more than six chapters, but I consider the product to be successful if I have three
to six chapters I am happy with. I also decided to write in a different and unusual perspective to
challenge myself to come up with something new, and not copy a story I’ve read before.

Plan of action
My plan for this project was to look on the internet for books about Norse mythology, and then to see
if I could get these in the local library of Heiloo. I had also decided I wanted to speak with my former
Latin teacher at my previous school, Murmellius Gymnasium Alkmaar, because he has written multiple
books about old art in Italy, and I thought he could give me some advice on writing and publishing a
book. I also decided I would look on the internet to see if I could find any help about writing and
publishing a book, and I came by a masterclass called Self-Publishing School. I would use the tips I got
from my former teacher and the webinar to start writing the book.

In the table below, my planning for the personal project week, in which we got a week to work on our
project.

Monday October 10th
Tuesday October 11th
Wednesday October 12th
Thursday October 13th
Friday October 14th
Begin the research of Norse mythology online and get in contact
with a former Latin teacher for advice.
Go to the library in Heiloo to find books for research about Norse
mythology.
Read books from Tuesday and more online research
Meet with former Latin teacher to ask about writing tips.
Begin with brainstorming ideas for writing and do some more
research using the internet and library books.

On Tuesday October 11th, 2022, I started by going to the library in Heiloo, Noord-Holland, to get some
books to read. I could then take the stories in these books as ideas for the book I’m writing myself. I
got the books “Over Goden en Reuzen”, by Simone Kramer, and “Noorse Sagen: voorbij de
regenboogbrug”, by Kevin Crossley-Holland.

On Thursday October 13th, 2022, I went to a teacher from my previous school, Mr. Caspers, and I asked
him a few questions about how to write a book, and what to do when you want to publish said book.
He taught me some ways to stay inspired and always have something to write.

I have also taken a webinar about writing and publishing your book, and how this works. This was on
Saturday, November 19th, 2022, and was hosted by the owner and founder of “Self-Publishing School”,
Chandler Bolt. This webinar taught me how to easily and quickly write out a chapter for your book,
how to start publishing your book, and some important steps when you do decide to publish it.

On Saturday, December 17th, 2022, my father later also orders the book “Norse Mythology”, by Neil
Gaiman off the internet, so I could use this as a reference for stories as well.

Proof of the process

Conversation through email with Mr. Christiaan L. Caspers; teacher in ancient Greek, Latin, and art
history at the Murmellius Gymnasium in Alkmaar

Translation of above email:

“Dear Mr. Caspers,

How are you? I’m doing pretty well. I had a question for you, for my new school we have something
called the “personal project”, and for this I decided to write a book about Greek mythology. I have the
entirety of next week to work on this, and I thought to myself that you also write books, about art in
Italy. So I was wondering if you could sit down with me and give me advice about writing a book.
Ideally this would be Wednesday or Thursday, but Friday works too. Thanks in advance!

Sincerely, Jochem van Zelst.”

The email says Greek mythology, this would quickly be changed to Norse, and I would also explain this
when I met with Mr. Caspers.

Mr. Caspers’ reply to my initial email:

Translation of above email:

“How fun! You are very welcome. I have a spot on Wednesday between 12.10-13.30, Thursday after
16.00, and Friday after 14.20. You know where to find me.

Greetings

CAS”

In this instance, CAS is the abbreviation for the surname, Caspers, in the school system.

My final reply to Mr. Caspers:

Translation of above email:

“Amazing, thank you very much!

I will most likely visit you on Thursday afternoon, at 16.00.

If the planning changes, I will let you know.

Thanks in advance!

Sincerely, Jochem van Zelst.”

Below, a picture of Mr. Christiaan L. Caspers, taken by a friend at the Murmellius Gymnasium Alkmaar.

Below, a screenshot of the confirmation email from Chandler Bolt, the owner of Self-Publishing school
and host of the webinar I followed on November 19th 2022.
ATL skills
The ATL skills that I used the most and focused on during this project were: Communication skills,
Organizational skills, reflection skills, information literacy skills, and creative thinking skills. I
applied communication skills in this project in a number of ways. I reached out to my former Latin
teacher, from my previous school, to ask for advice about writing and publishing a book, I asked
some of the VWO 5 students at our school – who were MYP 5 last year and had done the Personal
Project already – about advice they could give me about the project, and time management. I have
also had multiple meetings with my supervisor, discussing my progress at the moment.

I think I improved my communication skills quite substantially. As mentioned earlier, I am not the
type of person to reach out and ask for assistance in something and would rather do everything
alone and figure it all out by myself. By immediately challenging myself in contacting people,
reaching out and asking for advice, I set a clear standard for this project: I will be asking for help, I
will accept this assistance, and I will use it to my best ability to improve my project. I think this really
helped in asking for help later, and with that I improved my communication skills.

I applied organization skills in this project by attempting to manage my time and tasks in a manner
that would allow me to finish them in time and be able to calmly perfect everything afterwards. This
did not go as well as expected, but I think I did sufficiently organize my tasks, especially in the
beginning of the project. Later in the project, the organization started slacking off due to lack of
motivation, and quite frankly: time.

I think I did improve my organization skills. This may not have been a very big improvement, like
with communication, but I think the improvement was still worth mentioning. As I’ve mentioned, the
organization started off pretty well, but eventually started slacking off. I overestimated myself and
did not give myself enough time. I am not used to planning projects like these out very much, since I
prefer to take a more impulsive approach usually and just “do”. By still attempting to start
organizing, I’ve noticed that I quite like the structure, and clarity. I think the biggest improvement
I’ve made in organization skills is the fact that I will most definitely be improving my skills more now
and working in a more organized manner.
During the process of developing my process, I did not reflect very much on my progress, other than
“What did I read?” after doing research, and “What did I learn?” after the webinar and appointment
with my former Latin teacher. I did reflect quite a lot afterward, mainly for this report, but also when
meeting with my supervisor, and when making a presentation for my supervisor as a small “test”
report, to get some information for the report already, and to help reflect.

I think I’ve improved my reflection skills quite a bit, compared to how assignments and tests would
go at my previous school. Unless prompted by a teacher to, I would rarely reflect on what happened
during an assignment or while studying for a test that went well or could’ve been better. By starting
to ask myself “What did I learn?”, “What went wrong?”, “What could go better?”, etc., I’ve started
to notice the advantages of reflecting. Because of reflecting I now know what works well, and what
doesn’t. What could be improved upon, and what I just shouldn’t do at all. This will be of great use in
future assignments here at Supreme, but also when I go to university, or have a job.

I applied information literacy skills in this project, mainly by doing lots of research for my product,
and by having to filter this research into useable information.

I don’t think I’ve improved my information literacy skills a lot during the process of this project,
mainly because, in my opinion, I’ve had quite good information literacy skills already, and I did not
change or improve my way of doing research and finding useable information.

I applied creative thinking skills by working on my product, mainly. I attempted writing the Norse
mythology in a new way, using a different perspective than may be expected.

I think I’ve improved my creative thinking skills by quite a margin. I specifically chose this project to
attempt to improve my creative thinking skills, as well as my writing skills. I challenged myself by
trying to write from a different perspective than books are usually written, making me design a
whole new structure.

Prior knowledge

I started gaining interest in mythology when I read the Percy Jackson books for the first time, when I
was about 9 or 10 years old. This was mainly the Greek mythology, and this interest only grew when I
started getting Latin and Greek at school. The Latin and Greek classes would both contain big parts
about mythology, which was my favorite part about both subjects. When I started reading the Magnus
Chase books, a series by the same author as the Percy Jackson series about Norse mythology, I thought
Norse mythology was awesome, I fell in love with the books and read all three of them in a few
months. Since then, I haven’t learned a lot more about Norse mythology, and I’d love to get to know
more about it. I’ve read lots of books about Greek mythology, and this is an opportunity to read about
Norse. I’ve also tried writing a book twice, the first time being 3 years ago, and the second time being
last year. I did not make a lot of progress, since I had a lot of trouble maintaining motivation and I
found it very difficult to write the actual book.

Reflecting
My project started off quite well in my opinion. I had a solid idea of what I would be doing in the
personal project week, where we’d have a full week to work on our project, without any classes. In
my head everything was good and ready to go, but in hindsight I may have been a little too ambitious.
I wasn’t able to finish what I wanted to, and certain tasks took far more time than anticipated, such as
doing research.

After the personal project week, we went back to having our normal classes, so we’d have to balance
the personal project with our social lives outside of school, and also still work on assignments for our
classes. In the start, this went quite well; I was able to study for tests and work sufficiently on my
normal assignments, while also working on my personal project at home. I would mainly be doing
research and continuing writing the book.

After a few weeks, however, this started to go downhill. My motivation levels were dropping rapidly,
I started having to do lots more for other subjects, such as big assignments and tests. This caused a
substantial lag in my work, since I made next to no progress for quite a while.

Once a deadline for making a presentation about your project started creeping closer, and becoming
more apparent, I quickly picked up the pace again, and made good progress on my product again, and
finished the presentation in time. My product now as good as finished, but my report still needed
work.

Once a deadline for handing in my report for feedback from our teachers came closer as well, the
same situation occurred with my report: I started working on it a lot, making good progress and,
eventually, handing it in. Due to technical issues, however, this was a few days late.

In retrospect I think my main issues during the process were: time management; overestimating my
efficiency in executing certain tasks, resulting in unexpected delays in my personal deadlines, as well
as set deadlines; and finally, communication. I was able to communicate with my supervisor, and ask
people such as my supervisor, my parents, fellow students, and other parties for help, but I think I
should definitely have asked for more help, and definitely earlier. I have noticed, however, that my
communication skills have definitely improved, seeing as I would rarely ask for any assistance in
anything, and in this case I have asked for, accepted, and used help I received.

What I’ve learned about myself from this project is that even though I may have a well thought out
plan in my head, it will most likely never all go perfectly, so I should allow myself to ask for help when
I do need it, even if I feel I want or have to do it all on my own. I think by finding this out about myself,
I’ve also learned to actually take the initiative in asking for help, instead of waiting for any help to
come to me.

I’m really happy with my final product, as it has taught me to ask for help when needed, I’ve learned
much more about a great passion of mine, which is always really fun, and it’s allowed me to be more
prepared for similar projects or situations in the future, such as a low motivation and bad time
management, but also not seeking help when I need it and using all resources available to me.

In the end, I think the achievement I am most proud of is not even writing the book, as that was the
catalyst allowing me to improve myself in many ways and was not the improvement itself. The thing I
am most proud of after finishing this project is my personal growth as a student, and as a person.
Being able to find more organized ways to handle issues, asking questions and requesting help when
needed

Evaluating the product

In the end, my project did meet my success criteria. This was to write 3-6 chapters of a book about
Norse mythology and to write it in a new or different perspective, or one you don’t see very often. I
have met my requirements by writing a sufficient number of chapters and managing to write these in
an unusual perspective. I do, however, think that my quality of writing the chapters could have been
better. I think they were quite short and maybe did not contain a lot of detail. While I did manage to
write the chapters in an unusual way, I think I could have utilized the difference more than I did, by
adding in little snippets of Heimdall reacting while he’s telling the story. Overall, I am quite happy with
the end result, and I’m glad I got to round the project off like this.