Friday, October 8 - Sunday, October 10

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.

New Responding groups. (repeat announcement) The blog responding groups have been shuffled around this week, so you should find some new people to read and respond to when you do the blog responding assignment for Week 7. If somehow I've accidentally left anybody off the list, please let me know. This is done completely at random, so you may be in a group with people you already know, or you may have all new people - that is the magic of randomness!

Mid-Term Grade Reports. 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. Likewise, if you did not read Tuesday's announcements, please make sure you take a look at that; the instructions for the Internet assignment 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.

Congratulations, Dhara! One of the students in Indian Epics completed the course this week with 410 points for a grade of A. Wow! Dhara's Storybook has just two stories in it, but they are a perfect pair: two lovely karma stories, one about a squirrel and one about a mongoose. As this example shows, there is no specific requirement about what you have to do to finish the class. If your Storybook ends up with just two stories or three stories, instead of four, that is fine! It's up to you how to mix and match the points you need for the grade you want to receive in the class. As soon as you get the points you need (410 for an A, 360 for a B, 320 for a C), you are done. Congratulations, Dhara!

Sita Sings the Blues. The folks in Indian Epics have now finished up the Ramayana (Week 8 will be a Ramayana review week), and then we will be moving on to the Mahabharata. There are many different versions of the Ramayana, of course, in many languages and styles, in addition to the two books we read in class - including a recent new film by Nina Paley, called Sita Sings the Blues You can see a trailer for the film (click on the image below), or you can visit the Sita Sings the Blues website - you can even view the entire movie online. Now that you are experts in the plot of the Ramayana, you might really enjoy this very modern take on the ancient story! :-)