Today is Monday, and Week 7 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 8 will begin tomorrow, on Tuesday. There are some new announcements related to OU-Texas weekend, so please make sure you read today's announcements: THEY ARE IMPORTANT. Please read them carefully, and if you have any questions, let me know.
Week 8 starts on Tuesday: NEW GROUPS. After the Week 7 grace period expires at noon on Monday, I'm going to be shifting the groups for the second half of the semester! So, when you do the Week 8 Internet Storybook comments assignment (available starting on Tuesday) and when you do the Week 8 Blog Responding assignment (available starting on Thursday, see below), you will see that you have new people in your groups. These will be the groups for the rest of the semester. So, when you do the Week 8 Internet and Week 8 Responding assignments, make sure you check the assignment instructions carefully to see which group you are in now.
Friday Holiday: OU-Texas Weekend. I know that many of you will be out of town for the OU-Texas football game. So, there will be one change to the schedule to accommodate the Friday holiday: the Week 8 Blog Responding assignment will be available starting on Thursday, so that you can finish that assignment before the Friday holiday. Now, that does mean quite a few people probably will have not posted their Week 8 blogs yet, but that is okay: since you have new people in your blog groups this week, that means you will be looking at totally new blogs! So if you are reading some Week 7 posts instead of Week 8 posts, that is fine: there will be plenty of new posts for you to read, from either Week 7 or from Week 8.
Storybooks this week: Wednesday noon. Because this week is shortened, the deadline for getting a Storybook in order to get comments back from me this week is Wednesday at noon. So, if you want comments back before the weekend, make sure you get it turned in by Wednesday at noon, and I'll be sure to get comments to you before the weekend. If you need to turn in a late Week 7 Storybook assignment for partial credit, you can still do that up to Thursday at noon, but you will not get comments back until Monday of next week. So, be warned: if you turn in a Storybook after noon on Wednesday, you will not get comments back until next week.
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 12: Columbus Day / Día de las Culturas. As you know, today is celebrated as Columbus Day in the U.S. as a federal holiday, but throughout many of the countries in Central America and South America it is designated instead as Día de la Raza (Day of the Race) or Día de las Culturas (Day of the Cultures) to honor all the cultures of the Americas, including those exterminated by the European invasion. If you would like to learn something new today about a nearly-lost Native American tradition, take a look at Cliff's Storybook for World Lit. this semester, which contains legends told by the Tejas Indians - the Indians whose tribal name gives us the name of the state "Texas." Especially if you are planning a trip to Texas this weekend, you might want to take a few minutes and learn something about the Tejas Caddo people who lived there long before the Europeans came. Here is a great story they tell: Why the Woodpecker Pecks, which you can see illustrated in the image below - to find out just what it is you see there in the image, read the story: it is really powerful!
