Friday, September 3 - Monday, September 6

HAPPY HOLIDAY WEEKEND! You have reached the end of Week 2. The Week 2 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, and the remaining Week 2 assignments are due now.

LABOR DAY. Because Monday is a holiday, there will be no new announcements on Monday. The next announcements will be on Tuesday, September 7. Because you do not have any assignments due on Monday, there is no change in the class schedule for this holiday. If you are planning to take off for the three-day weekend, make sure you finish all the Week 2 assignments today, Friday! If you do not finish those assignments on Friday, you can finish them over the weekend; the grace period on Monday still applies as usual.

Week 2 Read and Respond (blog comment) assignment. The Week 2 blog commenting assignment is available now! Make sure you check your groups; there has been a bit of shuffling based on class add/drops. You will probably see the same people you did last time, but check the group listing to make sure. These groups will stay the same for another couple of weeks, and then I will shuffle things around again at random.

Storybook assignments. If you want to receive comments from me about a Storybook assignment before the weekend, please turn it in before noon on Friday. I always do my best to read and reply on Friday afternoon to all the assignments turned in before noon. If you turn in an assignment after noon Friday or over the holiday weekend, I'll be updating the list again on TUESDAY, after the Monday holiday. So, on Tuesday morning, you can check the list of assignments in the Stack and you'll be able to make sure I received your assignment; I'll then start reading through the assignments in the order received to send you back comments. Please do NOT go on to the next Storybook assignment until you get comments back from me about the assignment you have turned in. I reply to the Storybooks in the order they are turned in, so the earlier you turn in your assignment, the sooner you will get back comments and be able to move on to the next Storybook assignment.

Refund reminder: Friday is the last day for refund. For those of you who are still deciding whether or not you want to stay in the class, Friday, September 3, is when you need to make that decision. You can still drop on Friday and get a full refund. After Friday, you can drop the class with an automatic W on your transcript, but the university will be keeping your money.

Monday, September 6: Birthday of Robert Pirsig. Monday, September 6, marks the birthday of Robert Pirsig, who was born in 1928 and who is still with us today: Happy birthday, Robert Pirsig! Pirsig is the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I first read this book when I was 16 years old and I've read it again pretty much every year or every other year since then - let's say twenty times or so. This is the only book I don't think I will ever catch up with - every time I come back to it, it seems a little more far out, in the best sense of that phrase, and I keep running right on after it, learning new things every time. The novel itself is about a motorcycle journey that Pirsig took across the country in 1968 together with his young son, Chris - here's a picture from the trip showing the two of them on the bike; you can learn more about Pirsig in this Wikipedia article.

Thursday, September 2

Today is Thursday of WEEK 2 of the class. 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. (Indian Epics has no Wednesday assignments.)

Week 2 Read and Respond (blog comment) assignment. The Week 2 blog commenting assignment is NOT available yet; it will be available starting on Friday. The blog commenting assignment is the only assignment you cannot complete early, because people will still be adding posts to their blog today, Thursday. So, after midnight tonight, that is, at 12:01AM on FRIDAY, you can do that Read and Respond assignment; you have Friday, Saturday and Sunday to finish that assignment, where you will be reading some more blog posts at random from people in your assigned blog group. Make sure you check your groups; there has been a bit of shuffling based on class add/drops. You will probably see the same people you did last time, but check the group listing to make sure.

Storybook Stack. If you turned in a Storybook assignment before noon on Wednesday, you should have comments back from me; if you turned something in after noon on Wednesday, it might still be in the stack (you can check the contents of the stack here). If you want comments back on a Storybook assignment before the weekend, make sure to get it turned in by Friday at noon. My goal every week is to clear out the Storybook stack before the end of the day on Friday - and if you want comments back on Friday, make sure to get your Storybook assignment turned in either on Thursday or before noon on Friday.

Friday, September 3: Final day to drop with refund. Friday, September 3, will be the final day to drop a class and get a full refund. So, if you are finding out that this class does not fit into your schedule after all, or that the workload is too demanding, you can still drop the class and get a refund. The Week 2 assignments will give you a sense of what the regular weekly assignments will be like for the rest of the semester, so you will have a good basis on which to make your decision. If you have any questions about the class you'd like to ask before you make your decision, let me know!

September 2: Death of J. R. R. Tolkien. Today, September 2, marks the death in 1973 of the great English author, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, who is best known for creating the marvelous fantasy world of Middle Earth, in which he set his novel The Hobbit and the trilogy known as Lord of the Rings. I first encountered Tolkien when my fourth-grade teacher read The Hobbit to us in class, and I spent all of junior high reading and re-reading The Lord of the Rings. You can read about Tolkien's life and career in this Wikipedia article, which is also the source for this drawing that shows Tolkien's own design for the covers of The Lord of the Rings trilogy:

Wednesday, September 1

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 2 of the class. Wednesday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Tuesday.

Storybook Stack. I'm still making my way through the stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in. If you turned in an assignment on Sunday, you should have comments back from me. If you turned in an assignment on Monday or Tuesday, it is probably still in the stack. If you want to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. Remember: save the emails I send you back about your Storybook assignments. My comments are marked with ==> in the body of the email, and you will need those comments when you go on to the next week's assignment. I promise to reply to everybody by the end of the week - but when you turn in an assignment on Sunday or later, the stack is very big, and it takes me all week sometimes to get through it.

Extra Credit: Grammar Quizzes. In addition to working ahead now at the beginning of the semester, before things get busy in your other classes, this is also a good time to do some of the Grammar Quizzes. They can help you to build up a cushion of extra credit in case you miss some assignments later on, and they can also help you review some aspects of English writing before you begin turning in your Storybook story pages. You will be expected to write correctly spelled and punctuated English for your Storybook, and this is something almost all students have trouble with. The grammar quizzes focus on common spelling and punctuation problems, based on what I have seen in student writing over the past ten years. So, if you have a few minutes, take some time to review things like Comma Rules and Apostrophe Rules and take an extra credit quiz to test your knowledge. Here is more information about the Grammar Quizzes.

Tech Tip emails. (repeat announcement) Until I get through the Storybook stack, I won't be responding to all the Tech Tip emails, but I'll get to that later in the week, I promise. Meanwhile, please feel free to go ahead and do more Tech Tips if you want. You certainly don't need to wait on my reply to your latest Tech Tip email for you to go ahead and do more of the Tech Tips.

September 1: Edgar Rice Burroughs. Today marks the birthday in 1875 of the American author Edgar Rice Burroughs, who is best known for having invented the story of Tarzan. You can read more about Burroughs's life and career in this Wikipedia article, and you can read many of his books online as they are in the public domain. Here is an inventory of Burroughs books online, including the Tarzan books - over 20 of them! There are even Tarzan audiobooks available for free download from LibriVox. So, get in touch with your inner ape and spend some time today with Tarzan if you are so inclined! The following image is for the LibriVox edition of Tarzan of the Apes:

Tuesday, August 31

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 2 of the class. I've moved the Week 2 Quizzes and Declarations to the TOP of the list now. This week in Indian Epics you are starting Narayan's Ramayana, while it's Buddhist Jataka Tales in the World Literature class, and it's Ancient Near East week in Myth-Folklore. I really hope you will enjoy the readings!

Storybook Stack. A very large number of Storybook assignments came in over the weekend, and I've been reading through those in the order that they came in. If you turned in a Storybook assignment on Friday or Saturday, you should have comments back from me, with points recorded for you in the Gradebook (check and make sure!). If you turned something in on Sunday or on Monday morning, 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 want comments back sooner on your Storybook, turn it in before Sunday! If you turn your assignment in on Friday or Saturday, you will get comments back more quickly than if you wait until Sunday evening to do the assignment.

Storybook Comments via email. When I send back Storybook comments to you via email, you will see that my comments are inserted into your email, and are marked with ==> to make them easy to find. PLEASE READ THESE COMMENTS. The comments for each week should help you when you do your assignment for the next week, and possibly in future weeks, too, so make sure you save the emails that I send back to you about your Storybook assignment so that you can consult them later as needed.

Tech Tip emails. Until I get through the Storybook stack, I won't be responding to all the Tech Tip emails, but I'll get to that later in the week, I promise. Meanwhile, please feel free to go ahead and do more Tech Tips if you want. You certainly don't need to wait on my reply to your latest Tech Tip email for you to go ahead and do more of the Tech Tips.

Myth-Folklore: Gilgamesh OR Egypt. (REPEAT ANNOUNCEMENT) Those of you who are in the Myth-Folklore class will have a choice of readings each week. This week, the choice is between Gilgamesh OR Egypt. You will do only one set of readings, and take the background quiz and reading quiz based on your choice of Gilgamesh OR Egypt. This means that will end up with some blank items in the Gradebook; please don't worry about that. Your goal is to get 30 points per week, and if you do the quizzes for just one of the reading selections, you will end up with the points you need.

August 31: Kinetoscope Patent. On this day in 1897, the American inventor Thomas Edison was issued a patent for the Kinetoscope, an early motion picture device. The image below shows an advertisement from the early 1900s promoting the use of a projecting version of the Kinetoscope for home viewing. We've come a long way in the past one hundred years, with technology like the DVD making movies as familiar in the home as books on a bookshelf! You can read more about the history of the Kinetoscope in this Wikipedia article. (Click here for a a larger view of the image.)

Monday, August 30

Today is Monday, and Week 1 of the class is now over. Monday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the Week 1 assignments that were due on Friday/Saturday/Sunday. If you want to remain in the class you MUST complete all the Week 1 assignments!

Monday: Time to work ahead. You do not have any assignments due on Monday, which makes it the PERFECT chance to work ahead on the Week 2 assignments. Believe me: if you put off the assignments in this class until the day that they are due, you are going to be under a lot of stress. If you can work at your own pace just a day or two ahead of the deadlines, you will find the class much easier to manage!

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 Week 1 Storybook assignments from Myth-Folklore and World Lit., plus early Week 2 and Week 3 assignments from all three classes. 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. For those of you who are working ahead: please do NOT go on to the next Storybook assignment until you get my comments back on the earlier assignment you turned in. Instead, use your time to work ahead on other assignments; I will get the Storybook assignments returned as quickly as I can.

Myth-Folklore: Gilgamesh OR Egypt. Those of you who are in the Myth-Folklore class will have a choice of readings each week. In Week 2, the choice is between Gilgamesh OR Egypt. You will do only one set of readings, and take the background quiz and reading quiz based on your choice of Gilgamesh OR Egypt. You will end up with some blank items in the Gradebook; please don't worry about that. Your goal is to get 30 points per week, and if you do the quizzes for just one of the reading selections, you will end up with the points you need.

August 30: Birthday of Mary Shelley. August 30, marks the birthday in 1797 of the famous English writer, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who is best known for her novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus, published in 1818. I'm sure you are all familiar with Frankenstein and his monster; Prometheus, meanwhile, was the Greek Titan who created human beings out of clay (he is also famous for having stolen fire to give it as a gift to humanity). You can read more about Mary Shelley in this Wikipedia article, which is also the source for this portrait of Shelley painted in 1840 by Richard Rothwell: