Storybook stack. There are still quite a few assignments in the Storybook stack. If you turned in your assignment before 10AM on Monday, you should have comments back from me now. Assignments turned in later on Monday, or on Tuesday or Wednesday are probably still in the stack. You can check the contents of the stack to make sure I have received your assignment.
Writing Center. (repeat announcement) In addition to the writing you have been doing for this class, some of you probably have writing assignments, such as final papers and projects, which you will be turning in for your other classes. So, I wanted to remind you that for any kind of writing project you are doing in any of your classes, 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), figuring our research strategies for a research paper, or whether you have some basic questions about writing mechanics (especially punctuation), the tutors at the Writing Center can help. For hours and services, visit the Writing Center website.
November: Thanksgiving Break. (repeat announcement) You will be getting a full week off for Thanksgiving in this class. Thanksgiving falls on November 25 this year, just two weeks from today. Week 13 will start as usual next week on Tuesday, November 16 and you will have your usual Week 13 Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday assignments; I would urge you to finish up Week 13 on Friday, November 19. Then you can have the entire next week off from November 20 - November 28, with the Week 13 grace period on Monday morning, November 29. See the class calendar for more details.
Armistice Day - November 11: Kurt Vonnegut. Today, November 11, is celebrated in the United States as Veterans Day, although it was originally known as Armistice Day, "Day of the Setting-Down-of-Arms (Weapons)," to mark the end of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I on November 11 in 1918. November 11 is also the birthday of one of the greatest American writers of the 20th-century, Kurt Vonnegut. You can read about Vonnegut's life and career in this Wikipedia article. Vonnegut was the author of many novels and short stories, including Cat's Cradle (1963), Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), and Breakfast of Champions (1973) - it is the last one, Breakfast of Champions, which is my own personal favorite. Here is a quote from that novel where Vonnegut talks about the fact that he was born on Armistice Day in 1922, just a few years after the end of World War I: "When I was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind." Sadly, Kurt Vonnegut died in 2007... but left behind many wonderful stories for us to remember him by!
