Friday, October 9 - Sunday, October 11

HAPPY WEEKEND! You have reached the end of Week 7! The Week 7 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, and so is the Week 7 Internet assignment (Storybook commenting), along with the remaining Week 7 assignments that are due on Friday or on Saturday or Sunday - please make sure you get started on those assignments soon. Friday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Thursday.

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the large stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in. I've read and replied to all the Week 6 assignments turned in on time, but if you turned in a late Week 6 assignment, or an early assignment for Week 7 or 8, it may still be in the stack. My goal is to get comments back to everyone by the end of the day Friday for assignments turned in before Friday at noon. If you want to check and make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here.

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. 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.

Extra credit Grammar Quizzes. By now you are probably starting to get a sense of what aspects of English writing are the most difficult for you. Often, people have a really hard time with punctuation, which is understandable, since you do not have to use punctuation when you speak - only when you write. There are some Grammar Quizzes which you can do for extra credit to get some practice with commas, apostrophes, and other kinds of punctuation problems, along with homonyms and tricky spelling problems. You can find out more about the Grammar Quizzes here, and I'd really recommend them as a good way to get extra credit and review the rules of written English. As the semester goes on, I will expect your Storybook assignments to be written in English which is correctly spelled and correctly punctuated, so if you know you are having trouble with that, maybe these review quizzes can help!

Saturday, October 10: R.K. Narayan. Saturday, 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.

Thursday, October 8

Today is Thursday of WEEK 7 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 6 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit; please make sure you get it turned in by noon today at the latest. 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.

Grades and Points. If you did not read Tuesday's announcements, please see the note there about the university's mid-term grade reports.

Week 7 Internet assignment. If you did not read Tuesday's announcements, please read that; the instructions for this week are somewhat different from last week since you will be reading the Introduction AND a story at the Storybooks you comment on this week.

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 Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in on Monday or 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.

Storybook Week 7 and Week 8. For Week 7, you will be doing revisions to your first story, so that means you you need to wait until you get my comments back on your Week 6 assignment - but if you want to work again, go ahead and add the next story to your Storybook and turn in the Week 8 assignment early, adding your second story to your Storybook. Meanwhile, if you want to turn in an assignment early and get comments back before the weekend, make sure you turn it in by Friday at noon. I always do my best to get comments back to you before the weekend if you turn something in by noon on Friday.

October 8: Frank Herbert. Today marks the birthday of the science fiction writer Frank Herbert in 1920 (Herbert died in 1986). His novel, Dune, published in 1965, is one of the most popular science fiction novels ever written. Herbert himself wrote five sequels to the novel, with further volumes added by Herbert's son, Brian Herbert, using notes left by his father at his death. Below is a cover for one of the paperback editions of Dune, showing one of the mighty sandworms!

Wednesday, October 7

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.

Grades and Points. If you did not read yesterday's announcements, please see the note there about the university's mid-term grade reports.

Week 7 Internet assignment. If you did not read yesterday's announcements, please read that; the instructions for this week are somewhat different from last week since you will be reading the Introduction AND a story at the Storybooks you comment on this week.

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 by 10PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in later on 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 today than on the other days of the week - but if you send me an email during the day today, I'll definitely get back to you sometime this afternoon.

October 7: Edgar Allan Poe. Today, October 7, marks the anniversary of the death of Edgar Allan Poe in the year 1849, which is 160 years ago this year. 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:

Tuesday, October 6

Today is Tuesday, the first day of WEEK 7 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 6 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit.

Grades. This week the university sends out mid-term grade reports... but the problem is that they do this based on data from over two weeks ago! (There is always a delay, but this semester the delay was increased because of the oZone conversion.) So, if you want to check on your current progress in this class, you will find this Points Chart more helpful than the university mid-term grade report. The Chart shows, week by week, just how many total points you should have each week in order to get the grade you are aiming for. The semester is not even half over yet, so there is plenty of time to improve your grade; if you have any questions about your points or progress in the class, let me know.

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 - and you need to make sure there is a story to read at each of those Storybooks. If the Storybook does not have a first story published yet, please skip it and go to another one instead. You can definitely do the assignment now; you do not have to wait on someone who is running late with their first story. So, if you want to do the Week 7 Internet assignment now, it's ready to go!

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 3PM 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 6: William Tyndale. On this day in the year 1536, the religious scholar William Tyndale was executed. His crime was translating the Bible into English. He was strangled in a public execution, and this body was then burnt at the stake. His last words were reportedly, "Lord! Open the King of England's eyes!" (the King of England at the time was the notorious Henry VIII). You can read about Willian Tyndale's remarkable life and scholarly career in this Wikipedia article. For a sample of Tyndale's beautiful but very archaic English prose, you can read his rendering of the story of Noah and the Ark. The image below shows Tyndale at the stake:

Monday, October 5

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 (all except for the Week 7 Internet assignment, which will be available Tuesday, and the Week 7 Responding assignment, which will be available Friday, as usual).

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! You can turn in the Week 8 assignment before you turn in the Week 7 assignment, if you are wanting to work ahead.

October 5: Isaac Bashevis Singer. On this day in 1978, the writer Isaac Bashevis Singer won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Singer was one of the greatest Jewish writers of all time (he wrote in Yiddish), who won acclaim for his amazing novels and short stories about Jewish life in Poland and in America. He was born in 1902 in Poland, emigrated to the United States in 1935, and died in 1991. You can read about his life and career at Wikipedia and at this online exhibit at the Library of Congress. You can also read Singer's Nobel Lecture online, where he had this to say about writing in Yiddish: "Yiddish has not yet said its last word. It contains treasures that have not been revealed to the eyes of the world. It was the tongue of martyrs and saints, of dreamers and Cabalists - rich in humor and in memories that mankind may never forget. In a figurative way, Yiddish is the wise and humble language of us all, the idiom of frightened and hopeful humanity." The image below shows Singer's tombstone; meanwhile, you might also be interested in this list of Yiddish words used in English.