Friday, October 24 - Sunday, October26

HAPPY WEEKEND! You have reached the end of Week 9! The Week 9 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, and the remaining Week 9 assignments are due on Friday or on Saturday or Sunday - please make sure you get started on those assignments soon. If you have not turned in your Week 8 Storybook assignment yet, you may turn it in BY FRIDAY AT NOON for partial credit. Also, Friday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Thursday.

Storybook Week 9 and Week 10. For the Week 9 Storybook assignment this weekend, you will be turning in a revision assignment. Then, for Week 10, you will be turning in a new story. Remember that you do not need my comments on your Week 9 revisions before you start writing your new story - so don't let me hold you up! After you finish the Week 9 assignment, please feel free to move straight on to the Week 10 assignment and get to work on your new story. If you can get the Week 10 Storybook assignment turned in by this Monday, you can take a point of Early Bird extra credit for working ahead.

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in this week, and the deadline for turning in a late Week 8 assignment for partial credit is Friday at noon. If you want to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. Because of my schedule this Friday, I am not sure if I will have comments back to you before the weekend for anything turned in by noon on Friday - but if you turn something in by noon on Friday, I will be sure to get comments back to you sometime on Saturday at the latest.

Friday, October 24: United Nations Day. Each year, October 24 is "United Nations Day," commemorating the signing of the United Nations Charter on October 24, 1945. In announcing the observance of United Nations Day in 2008, Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the U.N., proclaimed, "The United Nations must deliver results for a safer, healthier, more prosperous world. On this UN Day, I call on all partners and leaders to do their part and keep the promise." You can read more about the United Nations in this Wikipedia article, and at the United Nations website, un.org. The image below shows the flags of many countries flying outside U.N. headquarters in New York City:

Thursday, October 23

Today is Thursday of WEEK 9 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 8 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.)

Storybook Stack. I've still got a few items left in the Storybook stack. If you turned in an assignment on or before 11PM on Monday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in later on Monday or on Tuesday or Wednesday, 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. The final deadline for turning in a late Week 8 Storybook assignment for partial credit is Friday at noon.

The Ning Comment Wall. (Repeat announcement.) For the next several weeks - through Week 12 of the class - people will be leaving comments about your Storybook at the Ning Comment Wall which is part of your Profile page. If you'd like to organize your Profile page to make more room for the Comment Wall, there is a Technology Tip where you can get extra credit for cleaning up your Ning Profile. So, if you'd like to reduce the amount of space that is taken up on your Profile page by the latest activity and blog activity on your Profile page, you can get extra credit for doing so!

British Library: Rare recordings. There was an article in the BBC news yesterday announcing some rare audio materials just released by the British Library, including the only existing recording of the voice of Virginia Woolf. You can listen to the Woolf recording online, and also to a recording of John Steinbeck, the author of the great dustbowl novel, The Grapes of Wrath. Click on the image of Virginia Woolf below to go to the actual audio player where you can listen to her voice:

Wednesday, October 22

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 9 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 8 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.

Spring 2009 enrollment. Next month, Spring 2009 enrollment will begin. Because of the limited number of online classes, these courses tend to fill up really quickly. If you are interested in taking another online course with me in Spring, I'll be glad to save a place for you - just let me know by next Wednesday (October 29), so that I reserve a place for you before enrollment gets underway. If you have friends who are interested in taking any of these online courses, let them know to fill out the waiting list form as soon as possible - there's an online waiting list form at each class website: World Literature, Myth-Folklore and Indian Epics.

Storybook Stack. There are still quite a few Storybook assignments in the stack and I am making my way through them in the order that they were turned in. If you turned something in before 8PM on Sunay, you should have comments back from me already. If you turned something in later on Sunday or on Monday or Tuesday, 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 22: Doris Lessing. Today, October 22, is the birthday of the great British author, Doris Lessing, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007. You can read more about Doris Lessing's life and career in this Wikipedia article. This summer I read Lessing's novel Shikasta, which is one of the greatest science fiction novels I have ever read - if you are a science fiction fan, or interested in political literature (like Orwell's 1984, for example), it's a book I recommend most highly! Here's a recent photo of Lessing when she learned she had won the Nobel Prize. Happy birthday, Doris Lessing!

Tuesday, October 21

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 9 of the class. For those of you who are working ahead, Weeks 10 and 11 are also available! If you have not turned in your Week 8 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit.

Finishing the course early. As you can see on the Grading page for this class, you need 320 points to get a C in the class, 360 points to get a B, and 410 points for an A. It's fine with me if you decide to finish up the course with a grade of C or B, instead of going for an A. I know many of you are taking the course for the Gen. Ed. requirement, often on top of a very full course load along with work and other personal commitments. So, just remember that as soon as you get the points you need for the grade you want in the course, you are done! My only request is that when you finish your work for the course, please let me know, so that I can adjust the blog commenting and Storybook commenting assignments accordingly. If you are interested in finishing up the course ahead of schedule, start doing the extra credit assignments. Each point brings you that much closer to finish up the course ahead of schedule!

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 2PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me already. If you turned something in later 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.

October 21: Jack Kerouac. Today, October 21, marks the death in 1969 of Jack Kerouac, the great American novelist of the "Beat" generation of writers. You can read more about Kerouac's life and career in this Wikipedia article. He is most famous for his novel On the Road, which he wrote in a burst of inspiration during the month of April in 1951. In order to keep pace with his writing style, he taped pieces of paper together in a continuous roll of paper that was 120 feet long which he could then feed into the typewriter without having to stop to put new pages into the typewriter. Just imagine what he could have done with a word processor, eh? The actual roll of paper has been preserved; here is the start of the novel at the top of the roll (click here for a larger view - and you can also see a display of the scroll rolled out):

Monday, October 20

Today is Monday. Week 8 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 9 will begin tomorrow - and those assignments are available now if you want to get started. The Week 10 assignments are also available now, too! (Week 11 will be available tomorrow, for those of you who are working two weeks ahead.)

Writing Center. I'd like to remind everybody again that the OU Writing Center in Bizzell is available to help you with your writing for this class or for any of your other classes. So, 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 schedule an appointment online, and you can even submit written work online for an email consultation with one of the writing tutors (very handy for those of you who are taking this online course while living away from Norman). For those of you in Tulsa, there is also a Writing Center at OU-Tulsa.

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.

October 20: Birth of the Bab. Today, October 20, is a holiday in the Bahai religious calendar, celebrating the birthday of the Bab, one of the three central figures in the Bahai tradition. He was born in Iran in 1819, and took the name "Bab" (meaning "Gate") when he announced his claims to be God's messenger in 1944. His radical religious claims were not accepted by the Muslim clergy of the time, and he was executed in 1850. You can read about his life and religious teachings in this detailed Wikipedia article, where you can also read this detailed article about the Bahai faith. The image below shows the Shrine of the Bab which is located in Haifa, Israel: