Friday, September 19 - Sunday, September 21

HAPPY WEEKEND! You have reached the end of Week 4! The Week 4 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, and the remaining Week 4 assignments are due on Friday or on Saturday or Sunday - please make sure you get started on those assignments soon.

IMPORTANT NOTE: IT Maintenance. On the third Sunday of every month, IT does maintenance on its servers. There will be a maintenance window this Sunday, September 21. This often causes service outages, which may affect you if you are trying to publish webpages at that time. The maintenance window is in the morning, and the maintenance should be completed before noon on Sunday. For specific information and updates, see the IT Alerts page at alerts.ou.edu (this is also a good page to check if you are experiencing problems with Desire2Learn, email, or other IT services).

Font size in Composer. Many of you will be working on your Storybook coverpage this weekend. As you do that, please be careful with font size and read these Instructions for Larger Fonts in Composer. The best way to change the font to something larger is by designating it as a Heading. That way, you can be sure that you will get good results on every browser. Other methods of changing the font size can vary enormously from browser to browser and may not lead to the results you want. So, make sure if you want to make something a larger font size, you choose Heading 1 or Heading 2 or Heading 3 - depending on how large you want it to be.

Storybook Stack. I have finished reading and replying to the Storybook assignments that were turned in by noon on Friday. I don't do any grading over the weekend, so if you turn something in after noon on Friday, it will go into the stack, and I'll start working through the stack first thing on Monday morning. I work through the stack in the order that the assignments are received - and there is always a tidal wave of assignments turned in on Sunday evening. If you want comments back from me sooner rather than later, try to get your assignment turned in on Friday or Saturday instead of waiting until Sunday.

Storybook Introduction ideas. For some ideas and inspiration about writing your Storybook Introduction (the Week 4 assignment), you can take a look at these Introductions that people have already published online: Keeping the Stars Alive, HyeRyun's Journey, The King Arthur Chronicles, Italian Princesses, and Untold Stories of the Willowbranch Poisionings. Plus there are even two Storybooks which have their first stories already: Ghost Stories of Japan and Escaping Maya's Traps. Congratulations to all of you who are working ahead on your Storybook like this - it's really exciting to see them starting to appear online!

Sunday, September 21: Milk miracle. In 1995, on September 21, there was what many people regard as a modern miracle: statues of the Hindu god Ganesha, as well as the statues of other gods and goddesses, appeared to be imbibing milk which was offered to them. You can read about the event in this Wikipedia article, and you can see a milk offering in this BBC video. The image below is from a British newspaper, the Sun, and you can find other newspaper headlines archived at the MilkMiracle.com website which documents the event:

Thursday, September 18

Today is Thursday of WEEK 4 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 3 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit. For those of you in Myth-Folklore or World Lit, Thursday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Wednesday. (Indian Epics has no Wednesday assignments, so there is no Thursday morning grace period.)

Writing Center. As you start working on your Storybook Introduction this week, and for all your future Storybook assignments, you are expected to turn in a formal piece of writing, with correct English usage, spelling, and punctuation. If you would like some extra help with that, make a visit to the Writing Center in Bizzell Library where you can get free assistance. Whether you need a refresher course on English punctuation or some help in learning how to proofread your own work, the Writing Center is the place to go! For hours and services, visit the Writing Center website. You can even schedule an appointment online!

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the large stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in. If you turned in an assignment over the weekend, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, it is probably still in the stack, waiting for me to get to it (contents of the stack). If you want comments back from me on an assignment before the weekend, make sure to get it turned in by Friday at noon at the latest.

Friday event: Patricia Grace, Maori writer. Tomorrow, Friday, September 19, at 11 AM, there will be a public lecture by Patricia Grace, a Maori writer from New Zealand and winner of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. The event will take place in Meacham Auditorium. Get there early for performances by Joy Harjo and the Gary White Deer Stomp Dancers starting at 10 AM. For more information about events in honor of Patricia Grace, visit the World Literature Today website or the article in Thursday's edition of the OU Daily.

September 18: Witkacy. Today, September 18, marks the date on which the Polish artist and writer, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz ("Witkacy"), committed suicide, following the Soviet invasion of Poland. For those of you who are anthropology majors, you might recognize the name of one of Witkacy's closest friends and colleagues, Bronisław Malinowski. Witkacy's life was marked by brilliant achievements in both his painting and in his writing, as well as by tragedy and absurdity, all of which you can read about in this Wikipedia article. The image below is a self-portrait which Witkacy painted on August 11, about one month before his death.

Wednesday, September 17

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 4 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 3 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit. Wednesday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Tuesday.

My Wednesday schedule. I do most of my work during regular business hours on Monday-Tuesday and Thursday-Friday, while scheduling my out-of-office commitments on Wednesdays. That means I may be a bit more slow to respond to your emails on Wednesday than on the other days of the week - but if you send me an email during the day on Wednesday, I'll definitely get back to you by the end of the day.

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the large stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in. If you turned in an assignment on or before Sunday at 10PM, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in after 10PM on Sunday or on Monday or on Tuesday, it is probably still in the stack, waiting for me to get to it. If you want to check and make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. I reply to the assignments in the order that they are turned in, so if you want comments back earlier in the week, try to turn your Storybook in before the Sunday when it is due! The Storybook stack is very much a first-come first-served process. :-)

Week 4 Storybook: Introduction. If you did not read yesterday's announcements, please check those announcements for important information about the Week 4 Storybook assignment.

September 17: Visvakarman. Today, September 17, is a festival of the Visvakarman, the divine architect of the gods in the Hindu tradition. As those of you in the Indian Epics class have learned, it is not easy to put Sanskrit names into Roman letters, so you can read about this god in two different Wikipedia articles based on different spellings of the name in English: Viswakarma and Vishvakarman (which is the source of the image shown below). The Visvakarman Puja holiday is celebrated by architects and also by engineers and all kinds of technicians and craftspeople, especially in eastern India. Happy Visvakarman Day!

Tuesday, September 16

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 4 of the class. For those of you who are working ahead, Weeks 5 and 6 are also available! If you have not turned in your Week 3 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit.

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the large stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in. If you turned in an assignment on or before Sunday at 2PM, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in after 2PM on Sunday or on Monday, it is probably still in the stack, waiting for me to get to it. If you want to check and make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here.

Week 4 Storybook: Introduction. For your Week 4 Storybook assignment, you will be writing the first draft of the Introduction, and then in Week 5 you will be revising the draft and publishing the Introduction online. A few students have already finished the Week 5 assignment and published their revised Introductions. Just to give you a sense of the creative freedom you can take with the Introduction take a look at these two great examples, which combine a very imaginative style while still giving you lots of background information about the topic: Ghost Stories of Japan and Escaping Maya's Traps. Also, I have to single out Bekah's amazing progress on her Storybook: The Jataka Tales Retold - she is a Visual Communication major (!), so she is taking a very original approach to the design of her Storybook, doing all her own artwork (it's gorgeous, as you will see) - and she is also well into developing her stories too; you can read her Introduction (it's in a more traditional style), and even read the first drafts of the four stories she will be developing over the course of the semester. Although you are not required to plan out all your future stories in such detail as Bekah has done, any planning and organizing of your project that you do now will make the rest of the semester all that much easier to manage. Way to go, Bekah!

September 16: Pitra-Paksha. Today marks the beginning of the Pitra-Paksha observance (also known as Mahalaya Paksha) in the Hindu calendar, a ritual period in honor of departed ancestors. Like many religious holidays (including Easter), this ritual period changes its date each year, depending on the lunar cycle, and the ritual period will culminate with the new moon two weeks from now. The rituals performed during this period belong to the respects owed to the ancestors, or Shraddha. If you are interested in learning more about the rituals for honoring the departed in Hinduism, you can read more about the practice of Shraddha in this personal account of a Hindu funeral. The image below shows the use of pinda (balls of rice) as a funeral offering:

Monday, September 15

Today is Monday, and Week 3 of the class is now over. That means the semester is 20% over already - wow! Monday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Friday/Saturday/Sunday. Week 4 will begin tomorrow - and those assignments are available now if you want to get started. The Week 5 assignments are also available now, too! (Week 6 will be available tomorrow.) For those of you who are working ahead, you will note that the Week 5 Internet assignment is not available yet; you'll need to wait on those until everybody has gotten their Storybook coverpages published online. :-)

Storybook stack. As always on Monday, I will have a huge bunch of assignments in the Storybook stack that were turned in over the weekend or on Monday morning. The first thing I will do on Monday morning when I get to work is to update the list of items in the Storybook stack. So, after 8 a.m. or so on Monday, you will be able to check the contents of the stack to make sure I received your assignment. I will then start reading the assignments in the order they were turned in. Please do not go on to the Week 4 Storybook assignment until you get Week 3 comments back from me (and the same is true for those of you who have turned in Week 4 assignments - please do not go on to the Week 5 Storybook assignment until you get my Week 4 comments).

Late Storybook assignments. Each week, the Storybook assignment is the only assignment that can be turned in late for partial credit. Since I cannot get all the Storybooks graded and returned immediately, it is fine with me if you turn in the Storybook late. A Storybook assignment turned in on Monday after noon can receive up to 9 points credit; if it is turned in on Tuesday, you can get up to 8 points of credit, up to 7 points on Wednesday and up to 6 points on Thursday. The absolute deadline for turning your Storybook assignment for partial credit is noon on Friday, when you can get up to 5 points of partial credit.

September 15: Marco Polo. Today, September 15, marks the birthday of the great Italian explorer Marco Polo in the year 1254. Marco Polo together with his father and his uncle were among the first Europeans to travel and live in China (Marco spent almost 20 years in China). After he returned to Europe in 1295, Marco Polo wrote a marvelous account of his travels, part fact and part fiction, which is known in English as The Travels of Marco Polo (Il Milione in Italian). You can read more about Marco Polo in the detailed article at Wikipedia, which is also the source for this image, showing an illuminated manuscript of Marco Polo's famous account of his travels: