Friday, November 6 - Sunday, November 8

HAPPY WEEKEND! You have reached the end of Week 11! The Week 11 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, and the remaining Week 11 assignments are due on Friday or on Saturday or Sunday - please make sure you get started on those assignments soon. Also, 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 stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in this week. If you want to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. Everyone who turned in a Week 10 assignment on time should have gotten that back from me; if you turned in a late Week 10 assignment or an early assignment for Week 11 or Week 12, I will do my best to get comments back to you on Friday (this week has turned out to be the biggest Storybook stack of the whole semester because of the number of people working ahead, so I still have a lot to read on Friday!)

Final Grade in Gradebook. There are now a few students who have finished the course completely - by working ahead and doing extra credit, they already have the 410 points needed to get an A in the class. Exciting! I've now added the Final Grade item to the Gradebook. This is where I will record your letter grade when you have finished with the class. That way you can be sure about the grade you will receive, even though I will not be filling out the actual grade report forms until the end of the semester in December. Congratulations to those of you who are finished with the class already!

Week 11 Internet: REPEAT visit to Storybooks. (repeat announcement) For the Week 11 Internet assignment, you will see that the instructions are slightly different from previous weeks. For this week, you need to be visiting Storybooks you have visited before, reading your second (or third or fourth) story at that particular Storybook. So, please make sure you read the instructions for the Week 11 Internet assignment before you start reading the Storybooks this week.

Mix and match points. (repeat announcement) Several people have written to me with questions about mix-and-match strategies, so I thought I should repeat this announcement. There is no special requirement about which assignments you choose to do or not do as the semester comes to a close, provided that you get the total points you need. You can focus on your Storybook, you can pick and choose which reading assignments and quizzes you want to do - it's really up to you. 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 plan carefully. You don't want to skip so many assignments that you end up not getting the points you need for your desired grade.

Thanksgiving. (repeat announcement) I have also had several questions from people about Thanksgiving, now that it is November. So here's the good news: You will get a full week off for Thanksgiving break in this class. So, Week 13 will start on Tuesday, November 17, with the usual Tuesday-Thursday assignments due that week. Then, you have a whole week off between Friday November 20 until Friday November 27 (Thanksgiving Day is November 26). You will have the usual Week 13 weekend assignments due November 28-29, with the usual grace period until noon on Monday, November 30. Then Week 14 will start up on Tuesday, December 1. I am guessing that many of you will probably already be done with the class by the time Thanksgiving break arrives!

Sunday, November 8: Bram Stoker. November 8 marks the birthday in 1847 of the Irish novelist Bram Stoker who is, of course, most famous for his invention of the modern literary figure of Count Dracula, published in 1897. Stoker's Count Dracula has in turn given rise to a whole genre of vampire fiction including the recent Twilight series of novels by Stephanie Meyer. You can read more about Stoker's life and career in this Wikipedia article. Stoker's Dracula has inspired many later novels, films and even comic books, but I will confess that my favorite Dracula is Count von Count of the Muppets! :-)

Thursday, November 5

Today is Thursday of WEEK 11 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 10 Storybook assignment yet, you may turn that in BY NOON TODAY 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.

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

Mix and match points. Several people have written to me with questions about mix-and-match strategies, so I thought I should repeat this announcement. There is no special requirement about which assignments you choose to do or not do as the semester comes to a close, provided that you get the total points you need. You can focus on your Storybook, you can pick and choose which reading assignments and quizzes you want to do - it's really up to you. 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 plan carefully. You don't want to skip so many assignments that you end up not getting the points you need for your desired grade.

Thanksgiving. (repeat announcement) I have also had several questions from people about Thanksgiving, now that it is November. So here's the good news: You will get a full week off for Thanksgiving break in this class. So, Week 13 will start on Tuesday, November 17, with the usual Tuesday-Thursday assignments due that week. Then, you have a whole week off between Friday November 20 until Friday November 27 (Thanksgiving Day is November 26). You will have the usual Week 13 weekend assignments due November 28-29, with the usual grace period until noon on Monday, November 30. Then Week 14 will start up on Tuesday, December 1. I am guessing that many of you will probably already be done with the class by the time Thanksgiving break arrives!

November 5: Guy Fawkes Night. In England, the night of November 5 is celebrated as Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes Night, commemorating the occasion when the so-called Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was prevented. So, even though the holiday is named after Guy Fawkes, the holiday is not in his honor: Guy Fawkes, a Catholic, was involved in a plot to blow up the House of Parliament in England as a protest against the Protestant government's persecution of Catholics. The plot was discovered, and Guy Fawkes, along with the other conspirators, was condemned to death. In the celebrations of Bonfire Night, Guy Fawkes is often burned in effigy; those of you who have read T.S. Eliot's poem The Hollow Men may remember the line, "A penny for the old Guy" - and the origin of our English word "guy" actually goes back to this use of the word! You can read more about Guy Fawkes in one of the Storybooks for this semester: Heroes of the United Kingdom. The recent film V for Vendetta made the Guy Fawkes mask familiar to many of you, I am sure!

(image source)

Wednesday, November 4

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 11 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 10 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.

Storybook Stack. There are still a lot of 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 by 8PM on Sunday, 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. A lot of people have gotten a burst of inspiration to work ahead on their Storybooks, which is great - but it also means the stack is really big this week, and it will take me more time to read and reply to them all! Thank you for your patience with that. :-)

Week 11 Internet: REPEAT visit to Storybooks. (repeat announcement) For the Week 11 Internet assignment, you will see that the instructions are slightly different from previous weeks. For this week, you need to be visiting Storybooks you have visited before, reading your second (or third or fourth) story at that particular Storybook. So, please make sure you read the instructions for the Week 11 Internet assignment before you start reading the Storybooks this week.

My Wednesday schedule. I'm back to my usual schedule this week, doing 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 on Wednesday than on the other days of the week - but if you send me an email during the day on Wednesday, I'll definitely get back to you by the end of the day.

November 4: Guido Reni. Today marks the birthday in the year 1575 of the famous Baroque artist Guido Reni (you can read about his life and career in this Wikipedia article). He did paintings with religious themes, and also paintings with mythological themes. Some of you may be familiar with the legend of Atalanta, whose suitors had to run against her in a race, and how Hippomenes was able to slow her down by tossing golden apples given to him by Aphrodite in order to distract her. That is the story illustrated in the painting below (or click here for a larger view), where you can see that Atalanta has already got one golden apple in hand while she bends down to pick up another one just now tossed by Hippomenes who continues to race on ahead.

Tuesday, November 3

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 11 of the class. For those of you in Indian Epics, that means starting Buck's version of the Mahabharata, while it's more fairy tales in Myth-Folklore (this time from Denmark and Estonia), while it's French fabliaux in World Literature.
If you have not turned in your Week 10 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit.

Storybook stack. As often on Tuesday during a "new story" week, there is still a huge bunch of assignments in the Storybook stack. If you turned in a Storybook assignment on or before Sunday at 3PM, you should have comments back from me and points recorded in the Gradebook. If you turned something in later on Sunday or on Monday, it is probably still in the stack. You can 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.

Week 11 Internet: REPEAT visit to Storybooks. For the Week 11 Internet assignment, you will see that the instructions are slightly different from previous weeks. For this week, you need to be visiting Storybooks you have visited before, reading your second (or third or fourth) story at that particular Storybook. So, please make sure you read the instructions for the Week 11 Internet assignment before you start reading the Storybooks this week.

Last Words and looking back. Some of you have been doing the Last Words extra credit. As you've seen, those are more like messages to yourself rather than something for other people read; the idea is to take a breather, pat yourself on the back for having made it through another week, and get ready to move on to the next week. If you've been doing those for the whole semester, you might enjoy taking a look back at some of your Last Words posts from the very beginning of the semester. It's been almost three months now, and summer sure seems like a long time ago. So, if you want to remember what life was like back in August, just take a look back at the beginning of your blog - doesn't it seem like a long time ago? Wow!

Thanksgiving. I have also had several questions from people about Thanksgiving, now that it is November. So here's the good news: You will get a full week off for Thanksgiving break in this class. So, Week 13 will start on Tuesday, November 17, with the usual Tuesday-Thursday assignments due that week. Then, you have a whole week off between Friday November 20 until Friday November 27 (Thanksgiving Day is November 26). You will have the usual Week 13 weekend assignments due November 28-29, with the usual grace period until noon on Monday, November 30. Then Week 14 will start up on Tuesday, December 1. I am guessing that many of you will probably already be done with the class by the time Thanksgiving break arrives!

November 3: Dog in space. The dog Laika ("Barker") became the first animal in outer space on this day in 1957. Laika traveled aboard the Soviet spaceship Sputnik 2. You can read more about this cosmonaut dog in the Wikipedia article. While the Soviets launched dogs into space, the United States space program launched chimps instead (Ham the chimp, the first hominid in space, flew a Project Mercury flight in 1961). Laika proved that it was possible for an animal to sustain a weightless state in outer space, although she did not return to earth (she died during the mission from heat stroke when a heating unit in the space capsule malfunctioned). A monument was unveiled this year in honor of Laika; click on the image to view a Russian news video about the dedication of the monument (yes, the news video is in Russian, but it's still fun to watch even if you don't speak Russian):

Monday, November 2

Today is Monday. Week 10 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 11 will begin tomorrow - and those assignments are available now if you want to get started.

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: