SNOW. For those of you who are living in Norman, it looks like winter weather is on the way (where I live, the snow will not be arriving until the weekend). For this class, thank goodness, you don't have to worry about driving on icy roads to get to campus for a class meeting. If the weather does end up causing you some inconvenience that means you miss some assignments (power outage, etc.), that's okay - there is lots of extra credit to make up anything that you might miss because of the weather. That's what the extra credit is there for! So, try to work ahead so that you are not facing the pressure of due dates and deadlines - and if you do end up missing an assignment or two, you can use extra credit to make up the missing points, no problem.
Week 2 Read and Respond (blog comment) assignment. The Week 2 blog commenting assignment is not available yet; it will be available starting on Friday. The blog commenting assignment is the only assignment you cannot complete early, because people will still be adding posts to their blog today, Thursday. So, after midnight tonight, that is, at 12:01AM on Friday, you can do that Read and Respond assignment; you have Friday, Saturday and Sunday to finish that assignment, where you will be reading some more blog posts at random from people in your assigned blog group. Make sure you check your groups; there has been a bit of shuffling based on class add/drops. You will probably see the same people you did last time, but check the group listing to make sure.
Storybook Stack. I've still got a few Storybook assignments in the Storybook stack (you can check the contents of the stack here). If you turned something in on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turn in your assignment on Monday or later, it is probably still in the stack, but I will be sure to get comments back to you today, Thursday. If you want comments back on a Storybook assignment before the weekend, make sure to get it turned in by Friday at noon. My goal every week is to clear out the Storybook stack before the end of the day on Friday - and if you want comments back on Friday, make sure to get your Storybook assignment turned in either on Thursday or before noon on Friday.
Monday, February 1: Final day to drop with refund. Monday, February 1, will be the final day to drop a class and get a full refund. So, if you are finding out that this class does not fit into your schedule after all, or that the workload is too demanding, you can still drop the class and get a refund. The Week 2 assignments will give you a sense of what the regular weekly assignments will be like for the rest of the semester, so you will have a good basis on which to make your decision. If you have any questions about the class you'd like to ask before you make your decision, let me know!
January 28: William Butler Yeats. Today, January 28, marks the anniversary of the death of the great Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, who died on this day in the year 1939. You can read more about Yeats' life and career in this Wikipedia article. Those of you in the World Lit. or Myth-Folklore course may have encountered William Butler Yeats in your research for the class so far, because Yeats was a crucial figure in the revivial of Irish popular culture in the 19th century and you can find many of his works online at the Sacred Texts Archive. The image below shows Yeats' gravestone in a cemetery in Drumcliff, County Sligo, Ireland; the simple inscription - "Cast a cold Eye / On Life, on Death. / Horsemen pass by!" - was what Yeats himself asked to have carved on the stone.
