Friday, March 12 - Sunday, March 21: SPRING BREAK

HAPPY SPRING BREAK! You have reached the end of Week 8 of the semester, which means the semester is more than half-way over - and it is time for Spring Break! The Week 8 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, along the other end-of-week assignments for Week 8, but they are not due until the weekend after Spring Break - with the grace period on Monday, March 22, as usual.

Storybook Stack. If you turned in a Storybook on or before Monday, you should have comments back from me and points recorded in the Gradebook. If you turned something in on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, or on Friday morning, I will get comments back to you on Friday, before Spring Break. During Spring Break, I won't be reading any Storybook assignments, so if you turn something in during Spring Break, it will go into the stack and I'll update the contents of the stack first thing on Monday morning, March 22. Anything that comes in after noon on Friday will go into the after-Spring-Break stack.

My Spring Break schedule. Over Spring Break, my email access will be extremely limited because I'll be traveling. If you have questions or run into a problem, send me an email and I'll do my best to get back to you as soon as I can.

Working ahead on your Storybook. (repeat announcement) If you want to work ahead on your Storybook, please do so! You can actually write the second and third and fourth stories over Spring Break if you want, and have them all lined up and ready to go. Your second story is due during Week 8 (right after Spring Break), with the third story in Week 10, and then the fourth and final story in Week 12 - but there is no reason why you should wait if you are wanting to get ahead in the class. Especially for those of you who want to finish up the class early, getting ahead on your Storybook project is one of the best ways to do that.

Fall 2010 enrollment. (repeat announcement) I know that many of you are graduating this spring (congratulations!), but for those of you who will be in school next year, I wanted to give you a chance to reserve a place in one of these online classes for Fall, if you are interested. The online courses all fill up very fast, but if you let me know BY WEDNESDAY MARCH 24 that you would like to take one of these classes in the Fall, I will reserve a space for you. You can get more information about each of the three classes at MythFolklore.net, which links to the websites for each class.

Writing Tips - WOW, what a great list! (repeat announcement) There was recently a fantastic article in the London Guardian with writing tip lists from some famous writers, including Elmore Leonard and Margaret Atwood. One of my favorites is this one: Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn't work, throw it away. It's a nice feeling, and you don't want to be cluttered with the corpses of poems and stories which have everything in them except the life they need. Plus, I really like this one about how the rules for writing and the rules for life probably have a lot in common: The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you're allowed to do whatever you like. That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it's definitely true for writing.

CELEBRATE SPRING WITH HAIKU!

Thursday, March 11

Today is Thursday of WEEK 8 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 7 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that on Thursday morning 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.

Fall 2009 enrollment. I know that many of you are graduating this spring (congratulations!), but for those of you who will be in school next year, I wanted to give you a chance to reserve a place in one of these online classes for Fall, if you are interested. The online courses all fill up very fast, but if you let me know BY WEDNESDAY MARCH 24 that you would like to take one of these classes in the Fall, I will reserve a space for you. You can get more information about each of the three classes at MythFolklore.net, which links to the websites for each class.

Storybook Stack. I've still got about some items left in the Storybook stack that were turned in on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. If you want to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. Remember: The deadline for getting comments back from me before Spring Break is Friday at noon. If you turn in a Storybook assignment before noon on Friday, I will do my very best to get comments back to you before Spring Break.

Spring Break. (repeat announcement) Spring break is next week! That means the assignments for Week 8 are spread out. You have the usual Thursday assignments due today, March 11. Then, the weekend assignments are not due until the end of spring break, with the grace period on Monday after Spring Break, March 22. I won't be doing any Storybook grading over the Spring Break, so if you want to get ahead and receive comments back from me before the Spring Break begins, please get your early assignments turned in by this Friday, March 12, at noon. If you can get a Storybook assignment turned in by Friday at noon, I will get comments back to you before Spring Break; otherwise, if you turn something in after noon on Friday or during Spring Break, it will go into the stack for Monday, March 22, when classes resume.

March 11: Douglas Adams. Today marks the birthday of Douglas Adams, one of my most beloved writers, who sadly left this world in 2001. Adams is most famous as the creator of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and his two books about the detective Dirk Gently are also priceless. Happy birthday to you, Douglas Adams, wherever in the galaxy you may be!

Wednesday, March 10

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 8 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 7 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 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 before 9PM 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.

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. This Wednesday, I'll be away for part of the day, but I should be back in the afternoon and available to answer any email questions sometime in the afternoon.

Spring Break. (repeat announcement) Spring break is next week! That means the assignments for Week 8 are spread out. You have the usual assignments this week up to and including Thursday, March 11. Then, the weekend assignments are not due until the end of spring break, with the grace period on Monday after Spring Break, March 22. I won't be doing any Storybook grading over the Spring Break, so if you want to get ahead and receive comments back from me before the Spring Break begins, please get your early assignments turned in by this Friday, March 12, at noon. If you can get a Storybook assignment turned in by Friday at noon, I will get comments back to you before Spring Break; otherwise, if you turn something in after noon on Friday or during Spring Break, it will go into the stack for Monday, March 22, when classes resume.

March 10: Mikhail Bulgakov. Today, March 10, marks the anniversary of the death of one of the most extraordinarily talented writers of the 20th century, Mikhail Bulgakov. Bulgakov is best known for his novel The Master and Margarita - I won't even try to summarize the plot of this fabulous book (you can read a synopsis here at Wikipedia); I'll just mention that some of the characters include the Devil himself, a black cat named Behemoth, various and sundry witches, as well as Pontius Pilate and Jesus. Below you can see a statue of the cat Behemoth which adorns a wall in the city of Kiev, where Bulgakov was born.

Tuesday, March 9

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 8 of the class, and I've re-arranged the Quiz area in Desire2Learn so Week 8 is on top. Yes, this means the semester is now about half over! In the Indian Epics class, you have a Ramayana review week before you start the Mahabharata in Week 9. In Myth-Folklore, the choice is Africa or Jamaica, and in World Literature, it's another trip to the underworld - this time with Dante! If you have not turned in your Week 7 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit.

Storybook Stack. As usual at the beginning of the week there are still LOTS of Storybook assignments in the stack. If you turned something in on Saturday, you should have comments back from me already. If you turned something in on Sunday or Monday, 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.

Spring Break. (repeat announcement) Spring break is next week! That means the assignments for Week 8 are spread out. You have the usual Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday assignments this week, March 9-11. Then, the weekend assignments are not due until at the end of spring break, with the grace period on Monday after Spring Break, March 22. I won't be doing any Storybook grading over the Spring Break, so if you want to get ahead and receive comments back from me before the Spring Break begins, please get your early assignments turned in by this Friday, March 12, at noon. If you can get a Storybook assignment turned in by Friday at noon, I will get comments back to you before Spring Break; otherwise, if you turn something in after noon on Friday or during Spring Break, it will go into the stack for Monday, March 22, when classes resume.

Secret of Kells. Although it did not win the Academy Award for best animated film this weekend, one movie I am going to be very excited to see is The Secret of Kells. I learned about this film from an article in the New York Times - An Indie Takes On Animation’s Big Boys - which featured the film as a result of its being nominated for an Academy Award. It sounds like a wonderful film! You can read more about it in this Wikipedia article, and also at the official website for the film, which is the source for the image below:

Monday, March 8

Today is Monday, and Week 7 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 8 will begin tomorrow, on Tuesday.

Grading. I've gotten numerous emails recently as people are checking up on their grades, so I thought I should make a general announcement about that, especialy now that the semester is almost half-over. Each week there are 30 points of required work, so to get an A in the class, you need to be getting around 27-30 points per week. There is extra credit every week, too - some people use extra credit to make up for missed work, but you can also use extra credit to get ahead in class, earning more than 30 points per week. For a chart that shows you week by week point totals and other information about the grading system, you might want to look again at this Grading Information page - you saw this page back in the first week of the semester, but now you will be able to make better sense of the information, watching your total points adding up week by week. Let me know if you have any questions that are not answered on that page.

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 be reading and reply to the assignments in the order they were turned in.

Spring Break. Spring break is next week! That means the assignments for Week 8 are spread out. You have the usual Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday assignments this week, March 9-11. Then, the weekend assignments are not due until at the end of spring break, with the grace period on Monday after Spring Break, March 22. I won't be doing any Storybook grading over the Spring Break, so if you want to get ahead and receive comments back from me before the Spring Break begins, please get your early assignments turned in by this Friday, March 12 at noon. If you can get a Storybook assignment turned in by Friday at noon, I will get comments back to you before Spring Break; otherwise, if you turn something in after noon on Friday or during Spring Break, it will go into the stack for Monday, March 22, when classes resume.

Sita Sings the Blues. The folks in Indian Epics have now finished up the Ramayana (Week 8 is a Ramayana review week), and then 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 at YouTube (click on the image below), or you can visit the Sita Sings the Blues website - you can even view the movie online!