Storybook Stack. As usual at the beginning of the week, there are still LOTS of Storybook assignments in the stack. If you want to check and make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. If you need just the points for the Storybook assignment(s) you have turned in in order to finish up the class, let me know and I will put your assignments up at the top of the stack.
Overview of remaining Storybook assignments. In Week 11, you turned in revisions for your Storybook. In Week 12, you will be adding your final new story, and the Week 13 assignment consists of revising that final story. The Week 14 assignment is to do a final revision of your Introduction. The Week 15 assignment involves revisions to your bibliography and image information for each story, making sure they are all complete. After you receive my comments back on your Week 11 assignment, you can skip the Week 12 and Week 13 assignments, and proceed directly to Week 14 and Week 15 if you want. Be careful: if you take this option, you cannot go back and add a new story later - but if you are close to finishing, and do not need the points from the Week 12 and Week 13 Storybook assignments, feel free to proceed directly to Week 14!
November 11: Kurt Vonnegut. Today, November 11, is the birthday of one of the greatest American writers of the 20th-century, Kurt Vonnegut. You can read about Vonnegut's life and career in this Wikipedia article. Vonnegut was the author of many novels and short stories, including Cat's Cradle (1963), Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), and Breakfast of Champions (1973) - it is the last one, Breakfast of Champions, which is my own personal favorite. Here is a quote from that book where Vonnegut talks about the fact that he was born on Armistice Day in 1922, shortly after the end of World War I: "When I was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind." Sadly, Kurt Vonnegut died in 2007... but left behind many wonderful stories for us to remember him by!
