Online Course Announcements: 2010-02-07

Friday, February 12 - Sunday, February 14

HAPPY WEEKEND! You have reached the end of Week 4! The Week 4 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, and the remaining Week 4 assignments are due on Friday or on Saturday or Sunday - please make sure you get started on those assignments soon!

New Responding groups. As I mentioned in an email on Thursday, the blog responding groups have been shuffled around, so you should find some new people to read and respond to this week. I'll be shuffling the blog groups like this every three or four weeks during the semester. If somehow I've accidentally left anybody off the list, please let me know! With these new groups, if someone has not done the blog posts for the current week, you should certainly be able to find other posts in their blog from previous weeks that you can comment on.

Storybook Stack. On Friday, I should finish reading and responding to every Storybook assignment in the stack that was turned in before Friday at noon (contents of the stack). If you turn something in before Friday at noon, my goal is to get comments back for you before the weekend. I don't do any grading over the weekend, so if you turn something in after noon on Friday, it will go into the stack. I'll start working through the stack first thing on Monday morning, in order. If you want to get comments sooner from me next week rather than later, turn in your assignment earlier - the huge majority of people turn in their assignments on Sunday, and it sometimes takes me several days to reply to all of those. Turn your assignment in on Saturday, not Sunday, if you want comments back sooner.

Storybook comments. (repeat announcement) Please make sure you look for my comments in the emails I send back to you; my comments are marked with ==> which should make them easy to see as you scan down the text of the email. So, in addition to the top part of the email, the main comments are inserted into your assignment below. You will need this email when you work on the next Storybook assignment, and you should save these emails, too, since you will be working on the Storybook all semester and you might need to look back at a previous email to get some information to help you with a later assignment.

Valentine's Day: Green M&M Legend. In honor of Valentine's Day on Sunday, February 14, I decided to look for a Valentine's Day Legend from Snopes.com. Here is the first one I found: in 2008, the Mars Candy Snackfood Company promoted the distribution of packages of all-green M&M candies because the green candies are supposedly an aphrodisic - true or false??? Well, it is true that Mars promoted the green candies for Valentine's Day that year, but as to whether the green ones really are an aphrodisiac, Snopes.com is not saying! Other legends about the candy colors are as follows: orange M&Ms are good luck, brown ones are bad luck, and if you get a red one last out of the bag, you should make a wish and it will come true. As for the green candies being an aphrodisiac, no one is quite sure how this rumor got started - but it has been circulating since the 1970s! Happy Valentine's Day!

Thursday, February 11

Today is Thursday of WEEK 4 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 3 Storybook assignment yet, you have UNTIL NOON TODAY to turn that in 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. 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 or before Sunday at 11PM, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in after 11PM on Sunday or during the week this week, it is probably still in the stack, waiting for me to get to it. If you want to check and make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. I should be able to get through the remaining items in the stack by the end of the week. If you want comments back from me on a Storybook assignment, please turn that in by Friday at noon. If you turn something in before noon on Friday, I will do my best to get comments back to you before the weekend!

Ning editor. (repeat announcement) For those of you who are just seeing the new Ning editor for the first time, I think you will be able to get answers to any questions you have at the revised tip pages I wrote up last week:

If you have a question or problem when using the new "rich text" editor at the Ning which is not answered in these tip pages, let me know!

Writing Center. As you start working on your Storybook Introduction this week, and for all your future Storybook assignments, you are expected to turn in a formal piece of writing, with correct English usage, spelling, and punctuation. If you would like some extra help with that, make a visit to the Writing Center where you can get free assistance. Whether you need a refresher course on English punctuation or some help in learning how to proofread your own work, the Writing Center is the place to go! For hours and services, visit the Writing Center website.

February 11: Frank Herbert. Today marks the anniversary of the death of the science fiction writer Frank Herbert who 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, February 10

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 4 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 3 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 comments. Please make sure you look for my comments in the emails I send back to you; my comments are marked with ==> which should make them easy to see as you scan down the text of the email. So, in addition to the top part of the email, the main comments are inserted into your assignment below. You should save these emails, too, since you will be working on the Storybook all semester and you might need to look back at a past email to get some information to help you with a later assignment.

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 or before Sunday at 6PM, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in after 6PM on Sunday or on Monday or on Tuesday, it is probably still in the stack, waiting for me to get to it. If you want to check and make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. I reply to the assignments in the order that they are turned in, so if you want comments back earlier in the week, try to turn your Storybook in before Sunday. The Storybook stack is very much a first-come first-served process!

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 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.

Ning editor. For those of you who are just seeing the new Ning editor for the first time, I think you will be able to get answers to any questions you have at the revised tip pages I wrote up last week:

If you have a question or problem not answered there, let me know!

February 10: Sadequain. Today, February 10, marks the anniversary of the death of the great Pakistani painter and calligrapher, Sadequain, who died in 1987. You can read about his life and works in this Wikipedia article and at the Sadequain Foundation website, where you can find examples of his calligraphy (as below), along with paintings, murals and other artwork. The phrase "eid mubarak" is something like "happy holidays" in English; you can read more about that at Wikipedia, too!

Tuesday, February 9

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 4 of the class, and I've re-arranged the Quiz area in Desire2Learn so Week 4 is on top. This week's topic is ancient Greece in Myth-Folklore, Sufi stories in World Literature, and a new version of the Ramayana in Indian Epics. If you have not turned in your Week 3 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit.

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 or before Sunday at 2PM, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in after 2PM on Sunday or on Monday, it is probably still in the stack, waiting for me to get to it. If you want to check and make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here.

Week 4 Internet: Coverpage. For your Internet assignment in Week 4, you will be publishing a coverpage for your Storybook. If you are using GoogleSites, this means you will create a NEW SITE, and the homepage for that new site will be your coverpage. If you are using Composer, you will create a new page called storybook.html (or something like that) and it will be your coverpage - although be careful; if you already published a page with that name in a previous class, make sure you give your page a diferent name so it will not erase your previous work.

Storybook Coverpages published! Some people have already published their coverpages - and some people already have their Introduction pages published, too. To see the new Storybooks for this semester, check out the lists for each class: Myth-Folklore, World Literature and Indian Epics. Congratulations to all of you who are working so far ahead! (The list is complete as of the coverpages people had done over the weekend - for those of you who added coverpages on Monday, I'll add your pages to the list on Tuesday!)

February 9: Paul Laurence Dunbar. Today marks the death in the year 1906 of the great African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. Dunbar was born a free man, in the state of Ohio, in the year 1872, but both of his parents had been slaves. His father served in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, a black regiment of the Union Army whose story is told in the amazing film, Glory. There is a special section of the Library of Congress website dedicated to Dunbar's poetry - it is definitely worth browsing through! The image below shows a poster advertising a public reading by Dunbar of his poetry (Ohio Historical Society):

Monday, February 8

Today is Monday, and Week 3 of the class is now over. That means the semester is 20% over already - wow! Monday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Friday/Saturday/Sunday. For those of you who are working ahead, you will note that the Week 5 Internet assignment is not available yet; you'll need to wait on that assignment until everybody has gotten their Storybook coverpages published online, which will be happening later this week!

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 then start reading the assignments in the order they were turned in. Please do not go on to the Week 4 Storybook assignment until you get Week 3 comments back from me (and the same is true for those of you who have turned in Week 4 assignments already - please do not go on to the Week 5 Storybook assignment until you get my Week 4 comments).

Late Storybook assignments. Each week, the Storybook assignment is the only assignment that can be turned in late for partial credit. Since I cannot get all the Storybooks graded and returned immediately, it is fine with me if you turn in the Storybook late. A Storybook assignment turned in on Monday after noon can receive up to 8 points credit; if it is turned in on Tuesday, you can get up to 7 points of credit; on Wednesday, 6 points of credit; the absolute deadline for turning in your Storybook assignment for partial credit is noon on Thursday, when you can get up to 5 points of partial credit.

Working ahead. Monday is a great day to work ahead! You do not have any assignments due on Monday, which means you can use this as a chance to get a head start on the assignments that will be due later this week. In addition, the assignments for future weeks are available to you now, too. For some of you, midterms will be starting in your classes next week or the week after - so, if you get ahead in this class now, you can take a week off here when the midterms arrive in your other classes.

February 8: Nirvana Day. In some Buddhist countries, February 8 is celebrated as Nirvana Day or Parinirvana Day (in other countries it is celebrated on February 15). This is, by tradition, the anniversary of the day on which the Buddha left this life; as he died, he achieved "nirvana" which is release from the cycle of life, suffering, death and rebirth. You can read more about this holiday at the BBC Religions website. The image below is a depiction from Thailand of the Buddha's parinirvana: