Friday, April 23 - Sunday, April 25

HAPPY WEEKEND! You have reached the end of Week 13! The Week 13 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, and the remaining Week 13 assignments 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.

NEW RESPONDING GROUPS. The blog responding groups have been shuffled around this week one last time before the end of the semester, so you should find some new people to read and respond to when you do the blog responding assignment for Week 13. 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 someone you have been in a group with before, or you may have all new people - that is the magic of randomness!

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in this week. If you want to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. Everyone who turned in a Week 12 assignment on time should have gotten that back from me; if you turned in a late Week 12 assignment or an early assignment for Week 13, 14 or 15, I will get comments back to you on Friday. If you want comments before the weekend, make sure you turn in your assignment by Friday at noon.

Mix and match points. (repeat announcement) There is no special requirement about which assignments you choose to do or not do as the semester comes to a close, provided that you get the total points you need. You can focus on your Storybook, you can pick and choose which reading assignments and quizzes you want to do - it's really up to you. So, based on the assignments you enjoy most/least in the class, you can certainly skip some assignments, provided that you end up with the points you need at the end (410 points for an A, 360 points for a B, 320 points for a C). My only recommendation is that you do this cautiously. You don't want to skip so many assignments that you end up not getting the points you need for your desired grade!

Choose Your Adventure. I wanted to highlight here a really wonderful Storybook technique that Anna used in her final episode of CSI: Wilderness, which is about the adventures of Aesop, the Duck Detective. During the final story, you become the detective and get to choose which clues you will follow! If you want to see how Anna created this hypertext branching story, take a look at this Storybook page: The Boy Who Cried Lion?

Thursday, April 22

Today is Thursday of WEEK 13 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 12 Storybook assignment yet, you may turn that in BEFORE NOON 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 complete any of the assignments that were due on Wednesday.

Storybook stack. There are still a few assignments in the Storybook stack. If you turned in your assignment in on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. Assignments turned in 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. Because there was an Exchange email outage for part of the day on Wednesday, I would urge you to check and make sure I've received your assignment! For any of you who use OU Exchange email, there is a real possibility that emails were delayed or lost during the morning on Wednesday.

Week 13 Internet assignment now available. (repeat announcement) Now that Week 13 has begun, the Week 13 Internet assignment is available: you will be asked to nominate your favorite Storybook projects in various categories, and also to leave some thank-yous to the people whose comments were most helpful to you this semester. Then, on Monday afternoon, April 26, when everybody has submitted their nominations, I will put up a ballot based on the most nominated Storybooks.

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.

April 22: Earth Day. Today, April 22, is Earth Day - in fact, it is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, which was first celebrated in 1970. You can read about this holiday in Wikipedia. In honor of Earth Day this year, I wanted to reflect for a moment on how much paper we have saved in this class! Based on the writing assignments each week for the total number of students in these three online classes, I would estimate that we have saved about 9000 pages, or 18 reams of paper, this semester by doing the writing online rather than printing it out in traditional form - so by working together in this way, we have saved a tree! Happy Earth Day!

Wednesday, April 21

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 13 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 12 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 assignments in the Storybook stack. If you turned in your assignment on Sunday or earlier, you should have comments back from me now. Assignments turned in on Monday or Tuesday are probably still in the stack. You can check the contents of the stack to make sure I have received your assignment.

My Wednesday schedule. I do most of my work during regular business hours on Monday-Tuesday and Thursday-Friday, while scheduling any out-of-office commitments on Wednesdays. So, today I'll be away for part of the day, but I should be back in the late afternoon and available to answer any email questions by the end of the day.

Mix and match points. (repeat announcement) Now that there are less than three weeks of the semester left, you might want to plan to do some "mix and match" in terms of just which assignments you want to complete this semester to get the points you need for the grade you want to get: 410 points for an A, 360 points for a B, or 320 points for a C. So, based on the assignments you enjoy most/least in the class, you can certainly skip some assignments, provided that you end up with the points you need at the end. My only recommendation is that you do this cautiously. You don't want to skip so many assignments that you end up not getting the points you need for your desired grade.

April 21: John Muir. Today marks the birthday of John Muir, a great American environmentalist and writer. Muir was born in Scotland in 1838 and immigrated to America with his family in 1849. Muir was instrumental in the protection of Yosemite Valley and other natural treasures of northern California. You can read more about Muir's amazing life and inspiring achievements in this Wikipedia article. There are many places named in honor of John Muir, and one of my favorites is Muir Woods, located just north of San Francisco. Here is a picture of the beautiful redwoods there:

Tuesday, April 20

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 13 of the class. That means it is time for the Pandavas to hide at the court of King Virata in Indian Epics, while in World Literature you will be sailing the seas with Sindbad, and in Myth-Folklore, the topic is Native American legends. I've moved the Week 13 quizzes up to the top of the quizzing area in Desire2Learn. If you have not turned in your Week 12 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit.

Week 13 Internet assignment NOW AVAILABLE. Now that Week 13 has begun, the Week 13 Internet assignment is available: you will be asked to nominate your favorite Storybook projects in various categories, and also to leave some thank-yous to the people whose comments were most helpful to you this semester. Then, on Monday afternoon, April 26, when everybody has submitted their nominations, I will put up a ballot based on the most nominated Storybooks.

Storybook Stack. As usual at the beginning of the week, there are still LOTS of Storybook assignments in the stack. If you turned in an assignment on Saturday, you should have comments back from me by now. If you turned something in later on Sunday or Monday, it is probably still in the stack. You can check on the contents of the stack here. If you need just the points for the Storybook assignment(s) you have turned in in order to finish up the class, send me a SEPARATE email with "Storybook Final Points" (or something like that) in the subject line so that I'll put your Storybook assignment(s) at the top of the stack.

April 20: Bram Stoker. April 20 marks the death in the year 1912 of the Irish novelist Bram Stoker who is, of course, most famous for his invention of the modern literary figure of Count Dracula, published in 1897. Stoker's Count Dracula has in turn given rise to a whole genre of vampire fiction including the recent Twilight series of novels by Stephanie Meyer. You can read more about Stoker's life and career in this Wikipedia article. Stoker's Dracula has inspired many later novels, films and even comic books, but I will confess that my favorite Dracula is Count von Count of the Muppets! :-)

Monday, April 19

Today is Monday. Week 12 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 13 will begin tomorrow - and those assignments are available now if you want to get started. The Week 14 and Week 15 assignments are also available now, too!

NOTE: For the availability of the upcoming Internet assignments in Week 13 and Week 14, please read the notes below.

Week 13 Internet assignment: Storybook nominations. The Week 13 Internet assignment will be available starting tomorrow, Tuesday, when Week 13 begins. I hope you will find this a fun assignment: you will be nominating your favorite Storybooks from the semester. After everyone has turned in their nominations (the assignment is due by the end of Week 13), I'll prepare a ballot with the Storybooks that get the most nominations, and you'll be able to vote on the best ones - the voting is not for a grade, but just for fun, as a way to give the people who worked really hard on their Storybooks some well-deserved recognition.

Week 14 Internet assignment: Course evaluation. For the Week 14 Internet assignment, you will be completing a course evaluation online, much like the evaluation you fill out in the classroom for your regular classroom-based courses. As soon as the online course evaluation form is made available by the College of Arts & Sciences, I will let you know. The Week 14 Internet assignment will not be something you can do until that online course evaluation becomes available; I'll keep you posted based on what I learn about when that will be.

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. You can check the contents of the stack to make sure I received your assignment. I will be reading and replying to the assignments in the order they were turned in.

April 19: Mae West. On this day in in 1927, the American actress Mae West was sentenced to ten days in jail on obscenity charges - "corrupting the morals of youth" - for her play Sex, which was a big hit on Broadway for a year until New York City officials raided the theater. She served eight days and got two days off for good behavior. You can read more about Mae West's successful and scandalous career in this Wikipedia article. The image below shows Mae West on her "Ev'rybody Shimmies Now" sheet music publication in 1918.