Thursday, October 9 - Sunday, October 12

OU-TEXAS Weekend. This Friday is treated as an unofficial school holiday, and I know many of you will be out of town for the OU-Texas football game. Because there are no assignments due on Friday, I have not made any adjustments to the schedule because of the football weekend. If possible, you should work ahead and finish all your Week 7 assignments before leaving town, or else you need to be sure to finish the assignments during the usual Monday morning grace period. I will not be posting any new announcements here on Friday - the next new class announcement will be on Monday morning. For those of you traveling this weekend: have fun and be safe! Go Sooners!

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the large stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in, and my goal is to return comments to you before the weekend for any assignment submitted before noon on Friday. If you want to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. For the Week 7 Storybook assignment, you need to wait until you get comments back on Week 6 - but if you want to keep working ahead, go on to the Week 8 assignment, adding a new story to your Storybook. Even if you are still waiting on comments back on your Week 6 assignment, please feel free to go ahead and start work on the Week 8 assignment and turn that in early.

Writing Center. For those of you who are finding it difficult to proofread your own writing, the Writing Center is the place to go for help. Whether you are struggling with the overall organization of your writing (finding a focus, working with paragraphs), or whether you have questions about writing mechanics (especially punctuation), the tutors at the Writing Center can help. For hours and services, visit the Writing Center website. You can even schedule an appointment online! The Writing Center is there to help with the writing assignments you have in this class, as well as any writing assignments you will have in your other classes, too.

FRIDAY: Desire2Learn maintenance. (Repeat announcement.) On Friday, October 10, from 7AM until 9:30AM the Desire2Learn website will be unavailable due to scheduled maintenance on the system. For more details, see the previous announcement.

October 10: R.K. Narayan. Friday, October 10, is the birthday of the Indian novelist R.K. Narayan, who was born in 1906 and who died in 2001. This name is familiar to those of you in the Indian Epics class, since you are reading Narayan's versions of both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Narayan was one of the most famous Indian novelists who wrote in English, and he was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature more than once, although he did not win the award. You can find out more about Narayan's life and work in this Wikipedia article. The image montage below is from an article celebrating the centenary of Narayan's birth: 100 years of RK Narayan, The Master Storyteller.

Wednesday, October 8

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 7 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 6 Storybook assignment yet (adding your first story), 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.

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 10PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in late Sunday night or on Monday or Tuesday, your assignment is probably still in the stack, waiting for me to get to it. If you want to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here.

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.

FRIDAY: Desire2Learn maintenance. On Friday, October 10, from 7AM until 9:30AM the Desire2Learn website will be unavailable due to schedule maintenance on the system. Since there are no assignments due on Friday, I have not made any adjustments to the schedule - but for those of you who have gotten in the habit of using the grace period to complete your Thursday assignments, you should be aware of this scheduled D2L outage on Friday morning, from 7AM until 9:30AM. For more information check the OU IT Alerts page at alerts.ou.edu.

October 8: Eve of Yom Kippur. At sunset tonight, October 8, the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, the "Day of Atonement," will begin. (The holiday is based on a lunar calendar; this year the holiday lasts from the sunset of October 8 until sunset on October 9, and next year it will be observed on September 27-28.) Yom Kippur is the last day of the holidays marking the Ten Days of Repentance which began on New Year's Day, or Rosh Hashanah. You can read more about Yom Kippur in this detailed Wikipedia article, which is also the source for the image shown below: Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur, a painting by Maurycy Gottlieb (1878).

Tuesday, October 7

Today is Tuesday, the first day of WEEK 7 of the class. For those of you who are working ahead, Weeks 8 and 9 are also available! If you have not turned in your Week 6 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit.

Week 7 Internet assignment. For the Week 7 Internet assignment, which is available now, you will be reading Storybook Introductions AND a story from each Storybook. Since you have more reading to do this time, you will have just THREE Storybooks that you comment on - two which are assigned, and one which is your choice. If the Storybook does not have a first story published yet, please skip it and choose another one instead. There are quite a few people who have not added their first story yet because they are going to be turning in their Week 6 assignment late - so, make sure there is a story there for you to read before you start looking at a Storybook. For the Week 7 Internet assignment, there must be at least one story at the Storybook for you to read.

Storybook Stack. As usual at the beginning of the week, there are still LOTS of Storybook assignments in the stack. If you turned something in before 5PM on Saturday, you should have comments back from me already. If you turned something in later on Saturday or on Sunday or Monday, it is probably still 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.

October 7: Edgar Allan Poe. Today, October 7, marks the anniversary of the death of Edgar Allan Poe in the year 1849. You can read more about Poe's remarkable and tragic life in this detailed Wikipedia article. One of the best Storybook projects from last year was based on the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, so you might want to take a look at that - Poe's stories are so powerful and mysterious, and in this Storybook - Case Notes: The Mary Rogers Investigation - you can see the stories put to incredible use in the creation of a new mystery tale. Below is an image of the cover designed by the famous illustrator Gustave Dore for Poe's famous poem, The Raven:

Monday, October 6

Today is Monday, and Week 6 of the class is now over. 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 7 will begin tomorrow - and those assignments are available now if you want to get started. The Week 8 assignments are also available now, too! (Week 9 will be available starting tomorrow, Tuesday.)

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 be reading and reply to the assignments in the order they were turned in.

Storybook: Working ahead. In order to do the Week 7 Storybook assignment, you will need to wait for comments back on your Week 6 assignment. Depending on just when you turned in your Week 6 assignment, you may have to wait until later in the week, even as late as Friday, in order to get comments back from me. If you want to work ahead on your Storybook, though, you can do that - just move right ahead to the Week 8 assignment, adding the second story to your Storybook.

October 6: Saraswati Puja. As mentioned in a previous announcement, during Navratri, the Hindu festival of the goddess, there are festivities dedicated to Saraswati, the goddess of learning and the arts. Today, October 6, marks the beginning of the Saraswati Puja as it is being celebrated during the fall Navratri this year. You can read more about Saraswati in this detailed Wikipedia article. Below is an image of Saraswati, showing her with a vina (a traditional stringed musical instrument) in one hand as she strums it with another hand; in her two other hands, she holds a book (a symbol of learning and wisdom) and a string of beads to be used in meditation (symbolizing spiritual practice and dedication). Her traditional animal vehicle is the swan, so you can see swans swimming around her feet as well: