Monday: last day to drop. Today, Monday, is the last day to drop a class and get a full refund. For more information about the academic calendar, visit the Admissions and Records Calendar: Spring 2009.
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 3 Storybook assignment until you get Week 2 comments back from me (and the same is true for those of you who have turned in Week 3 or Week 4 assignments - please do not go on to the next Storybook assignment until you get my comments).
Late Storybooks. 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. If you want full credit (10 points) you must turn the Storybook in before noon on Monday. If you turn it in late, you can receive partial credit, as follows: turn it in on Monday after noon and you can receive up to 8 points credit max.; on Tuesday, you can receive up to 7 points of credit; on Wednesday you can receive up to 6 points of credit. If you turn the Storybook assignment in on Thursday before noon, you can receive up to 5 points of credit. No late Storybook assignments will be accepted after noon on Thursday. (For those of you who were in classes with me previously, note that this is a slightly different schedule than in the past.)
Teach for America. I was contacted by Austin Spires, the OU coordinator for Teach for America, who asked me to make this announcement: "Teach For America is the national corps of outstanding recent college graduates and working professionals - of all academic majors, backgrounds, and career interests - who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools and become lifelong leaders for expanding educational opportunity for all children. We encourage you to apply to the 2009 Teach For America corps. Application Deadline: Friday February 13th. To learn more, visit www.teachforamerica.org." (If any of you have announcements like this related to campus events and activities that you would like me to share with the class, please just let me know!)
February 2: Imbolc. In the Wheel of the Year holidays, February 2 is celebrated as Imbolc (sometimes spelled Imbolg), the cross-quarter day which is in-between the Winter Solstice (shortest day of the year) and the Spring Equinox (when the day and night are of equal length, with the days growing longer). Because the seasons of the year are opposite in the northern and southern hemispheres, when it is Imbolc in the northern hemisphere, it is the holiday of Lughnasadh in the southern hemisphere! Here is the Wheel of the Year showing the four main holidays at the solstices and equinoxes, along with the four cross-quarter days:
