Friday, March 26 - Sunday, March 28

HAPPY WEEKEND! You have reached the end of Week 9! The Week 9 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, and the remaining Week 9 assignments are due on Friday or on Saturday or Sunday - please make sure you get started on those assignments soon.

Week 9 Internet assignment. (repeat announcement) For this week's Internet assignment, instead of three free choices, you will have three RANDOM Storybooks. Just like last week, there needs to be a new story for you to read - most people already have two or more stories up at their Storybook, so if you are randomly assigned a Storybook you have seen already, check to see if there is a new story there you have not read yet. To be able to leave comments, you need to have one new story at the Storybook that you can read - along with the Introduction, if you have not read that already.

Storybook Week 9 and Week 10. For the Week 9 Storybook assignment this weekend, most of you will be turning in a revision assignment. Then, for Week 10, you will be turning in a new story. Remember that you do not need my comments on your Week 9 revisions before you start writing your new story - so don't let me hold you up! After you finish the Week 9 assignment, please feel free to move straight on to the Week 10 assignment and get to work on your new story.

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in this week. If you turned in your Week 8 Storybook assignment on time, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned in a late Week 8 assignment, or an early Week 9 or Week 10 assignment, it might still be in the stack. In order to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. I will do my best to get comments back to any assignment that is turned in before noon on Friday. If you turn in something after noon on Friday, it will go into the stack for Monday.

Friday, March 26: Joseph Campbell. Friday, March 26, marks the birthday in the year 1904 of Joseph Campbell, one of the greatest scholars of mythological traditions in the 20th century. You can read about his life and career in this Wikipedia article. One of my favorite books by Campbell is The Power of Myth, based on a series of interviews he did with Bill Moyers for PBS. If you have never read any of Campbell's books, this one is great one to start with. Campbell is probably most famous for his marvelous motto: Follow your bliss!

Thursday, March 25

Today is Thursday of WEEK 9 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 8 Storybook assignment yet, you may turn that in BEFORE NOON today 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've still got quite a few items left in the Storybook stack. If you turned in an assignment over the weekend, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday, your assignment is probably still in the stack, waiting for me to get to it. If you want to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here.

Extra Credit. As you strategize about getting the points you need to finish up the class, remember that extra credit points go straight into your total and can help you either to make up for missed work or to finish the class early. There are some extra credit assignments available each week (like the "Famous Last Words" post), and there are some extra credit assignments you can do in advance (like the "Technology Tips," which you can do now for Weeks 9-15), plus there are the Grammar Quiz extra credit points which are available now and which will continue to be available for the rest of the semester.

This Week: Sherman Alexie at OU! (repeat announcement) Thanks to the folks at World Literature Today, the fabulous Native American writer Sherman Alexie is in Norman this week. There is a whole series of public events connected with his visit to campus, starting today, Thursday, including a Native American Film Festival from 1:30-5:00PM. You can see a complete schedule of events here at the World Literature Today website: Sherman Alexie Schedule.

March 25: Annunciation. March 25 marks the Christian festival of the Annunciation, when the Angel Gabriel announced the birth of Jesus to Mary. The festival of Jesus's birth, Christmas, is celebrated nine months later, on December 25. You can read more about the festival of the Annunciation in this Wikipedia article. The image below is a painting of the Annunciation scene from the late 14th century (Web Gallery of Art):

Wednesday, March 24

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

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 TODAY, Wednesday, 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.

This Week: Sherman Alexie at OU! Thanks to the folks at World Literature Today, the fabulous Native American writer Sherman Alexie is in Norman this week. There is a whole series of events connected with his visit to campus, starting tomorrow, including a Native American Film Festival on Thursday from 1:30-5:00PM. You can see a complete schedule of events here at the World Literature Today website: Sherman Alexie Schedule.

March 24: Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Today marks the birthday in the year 1919 of the American poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who is probably most famous as the founder of the City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. You can read more about him in this Wikipedia article. The City Lights Bookstore was a regular place of pilgrimage for me back in the 1980s and 1990s and it is still going strong... as is Mr. Ferlingetti, who turns 91 years old this year. Happy birthday, Lawrence Ferlinghetti!

Tuesday, March 23

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 9 of the class, and I've re-arranged the Quiz area in Desire2Learn so Week 9 is on top. This week's topic is Robin Hood or King Arthur in the Mythology-Folklore class, and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in World Literature, with the Mahabharata getting started in Indian Epics. If you have not turned in your Week 8 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit.

Week 9 Internet assignment. The Week 9 Internet assignment is available now! For this week's assignments, instead of three free choices, you will have three RANDOM Storybooks. Just like last week, there needs to be a new story for you to read - most people already have two or more stories up at their Storybook, so if you are randomly assigned a Storybook you have seen already, check to see if there is a new story there you have not read yet. To be able to leave comments, you need to have one new story at the Storybook that you can read - along with the Introduction, if you have not read that already.

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 before 6PM on Saturday, you should have comments back from me already. If you turned something in later on Saturday or on Sunday or 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. If you still have not turned in your Week 8 Storybook assignment, you can still do that late for partial credit - and the sooner you can turn that in, the better!

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 tomorrow, WEDNESDAY, 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.

March 23: Akira Kurosawa. March 23 marks the birthday in the year 1910 of the great Japanese film director, Akira Kurosawa, one hundred years ago today! You can read about his long career and many cinematic achievements in this Wikipedia article. Of all of Kurosawa's films, my personal favorite is Dersu Uzala, a story set in Siberia around the year 1900, when Russian mapmakers rely on the skills of a native Nanai tribal member, Dersu Uzala, to survive the harsh Siberian climate. It's a fantastic movie, which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1975. Highly recommended!

Monday, March 22

Welcome back from Spring Break! Week 8 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 at the end of Week 8. Week 9 will begin tomorrow - and those assignments are available now if you want to get started.

Storybook stack. As always on Monday, and especially this Monday, I will have a huge bunch of assignments in the Storybook stack that were turned in over the past week during Spring Break 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, beginning with the assignments turned in on the Friday before Spring Break, March 12.

Grading. With the beginning of Week 9 tomorrow, that means there are a total of seven more weeks of the semester (9-10-11-12-13-14-15), which means 210 points of regular assignments available, plus extra credit (extra credit that is available week by week, plus the Grammar Quiz extra credit options). You may want to start planning now how you want to finish up the class. For a chart that shows you week by week point totals and other information about the grading system, you can consult this Grading Information page. It's fine with me if you want to finish the class with a grade of "B" when you get 360 points or "C" when you get 320 points; for an "A" you need 410 points. So, when you have reached the the points required for the grade you want to take, just let me know. As soon as you get the points you need, you do not need to do any more of the class assignments.

This Week: Sherman Alexie at OU! Thanks to the folks at World Literature Today, the fabulous Native American writer Sherman Alexie is in Norman this week. There are a whole series of events connected with his visit to campus, including a public lecture on Friday, March 25, at 11AM in the Molly Shi Boren Ballroom in the Union. You can see a complete schedule of events (including film showings) here at the World Literature Today website. Sherman Alexie is one of my very favorite writers. You may have seen the wonderful film Smoke Signals, for which he wrote the screenplay. If you are interested in reading his books, I can recommend no better place to start than The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. What a great book!!!