Grading and points. Some people have been asking me about the points and grading, so let me refer you again to this Grading Information page. In short, you need 410 to get an A, 360 points to get a B, and 320 points to get a C. When you get the number of points you need, you are done! It is fine with me if you decide to stop doing work for the class whenever you have the grade you want to receive (many of you are taking this class for Gen. Ed. requirements, which means you just need a C to get graduation credit). My only request is that you please let me know when you are done so I can adjust the comment assignments accordingly!
Mix and match points. Now that there are just five weeks of the semester left, you might want to plan to do some "mix and match" in terms of just which assignments you want to complete this semester to get the points you need for the grade you want to get. So, based on the assignments you enjoy most/least in the class, you can certainly skip some assignments, provided that you end up with the points you need at the end. My only recommendation is that you do this cautiously. You don't want to skip so many assignments that you end up not getting the points you need for your desired grade.
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. You can check the contents of the stack to make sure I received your assignment. As usual, I will be reading and replying to the assignments in the order they were turned in, starting with the ones that were turned in on Friday afternoon and on Saturday.
November 2: All Souls Day. As you probably know, the festival of Halloween gets its name from being the "Eve of All Hallows," that is, the evening before the Christian holiday of All Hallows, also known as the holiday of All Saints, which falls on November 1 (hence the eve of that holiday falls on October 31). After the holiday of All Saints on November 1, which honors the dead who have achieved beatitude, comes the holiday of All Souls on November 2, today, which commemorates all the dead who have not yet attained heaven. In many Catholic countires, the two days - November 1 and November 2 - are celebrated together as the Day (or Days) of the Dead, Día de los Muertos in Spanish. This is a traditional time for offering prayers on behalf of the dead, and also for visiting cemeteries and decorating the graves, as you can see here in this image of a tomb in Ocotepec, a town near Cuernavaca, Mexico:
