Friday, October 15 - Sunday, October 17

HAPPY WEEKEND! You have reached the end of Week 8! The Week 8 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, and the remaining Week 8 assignments are due on Friday or on Saturday or Sunday - please make sure you get started on those assignments soon. Have a great weekend!

Spring 2011 enrollment. (repeat announcement) For those of you who will enrolling for next semester, I wanted to give you a chance to reserve a place in one of the online classes that I teach, if you are interested. The online courses all fill up very fast, but if you let me know BY WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 20 that you would like to take one of these classes in the Spring, I will reserve a space for you. You can get more information about each of the three classes here: 2003 World Literature (lower-div. Gen. Ed. Western), 3043 Myth-Folklore (uper-div. Gen. Ed. Western), and 4993 Indian Epics (upper-div. Gen. Ed. Non-Western). Please make sure you contact me to reserve a space if you think you want to enroll; the Spring semester always has a tidal wave of people looking for Gen. Ed. online classes that they need to graduate. I will gladly reserve a place for anyone who wants one, but you need to let me know BEFORE enrollment starts!

Flexible Storybook Schedule. I'd like to call everybody's attention to the information here about the flexible Storybook schedule; scroll down that page and you will see a description of how the flexible schedule works. Right now, about one-third of the class is either one, two or three weeks off the regular schedule. That is not a problem; you only start to run into real problems if you get four weeks off schedule, and if you become more than five weeks off schedule, things get really serious (you cannot turn in any more Storybook assignments if you are more than five weeks off schedule). If you get off schedule, you cannot make up the missed work (although you can do extra credit to make up for missing points) - but just because you are on a different schedule does not mean you cannot work ahead! So even if you are on a different schedule, you can turn work in early. In fact, that is great - if you have not published a story yet, the sooner you can do that, the better; once you get a story published, you can start getting comments back from other students in the class as part of the Internet assignment.

Writing - Revising. For those of you on the regular Storybook schedule, you will be adding your second story to your Storybook for Week 8. The pattern of the last two weeks - writing, then revising - will repeat for the next six weeks of the semester. In Week 8, Week 10, and Week 12, you will be adding new stories to your Storybook. In Week 9, Week 11, and Week 13, you will be revising, along with some final revision assignments to complete your project in Week 14 and Week 15. I know that for many of you having to do all this revising is something unfamiliar, since in many university courses there is not a lot of emphasis on revising. By including revision - lots of revision - as part of the writing process, I hope everybody will wind up with something they can be really proud of by the end of the semester.

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in this week, with some early Week 8 and Week 9 assignments still in the stack (on Thursday I finished all the Week 7 assignments, including the late ones). As always, my goal is to return comments to you before the weekend for any assignment submitted before noon on Friday. If you want to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here.

Saturday, October 16: Oscar Wilde. October 16 marks the birthday in the year 1854 of the great Irish writer, Oscar Wilde. You can read more about Oscar Wilde's life and career in this detailed Wikipedia article. Wilde is probably most famous for his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and his play The Importance of Being Earnest - and also for his conviction in 1895 of "gross indecency" (a.k.a. homosexuality). This seems a very timely event to remember since our society, over hundred years later, still has a LOT to learn about accepting human sexuality (although, as in the title of this great video, It Gets Better). As a result of his conviction on these charges, Wilde spent two years in jail, and died three years after his release from prison, penniless and in self-imposed exile. My favorite works by Oscar Wilde are his fairy tales, which you can read online at SurLaLune. The image below is an illustration by Jessie King for Wilde's fairy tale entitled The Fisherman and His Soul:

Thursday, October 14

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.

Spring 2011 enrollment. For those of you who will enrolling for next semester, I wanted to give you a chance to reserve a place in one of the online classes that I teach, if you are interested. The online courses all fill up very fast, but if you let me know BY WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 20 that you would like to take one of these classes in the Spring, I will reserve a space for you. You can get more information about each of the three classes here: 2003 World Literature (lower-div. Gen. Ed. Western), 3043 Myth-Folklore (uper-div. Gen. Ed. Western), and 4993 Indian Epics (upper-div. Gen. Ed. Non-Western). Please make sure you contact me to reserve a space if you think you want to enroll; the Spring semester always has a tidal wave of people looking for Gen. Ed. online classes that they need to graduate. I will gladly reserve a place for anyone who wants one, but you need to let me know BEFORE enrollment starts!

Storybook Stack. I've still got 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. Today, Thursday, at noon is the final deadline for turning in a late Week 7 assignment for partial credit. If you want comments back on a Storybook assignment before the weekend, make sure you get that turned in by Friday at noon.

October 14: e e cummings. October 14, marks the birthday in the year 1894 of the American poet, Edward Estlin Cummings - better known as e e cummings. Cummings experimented with spelling and typography and the conventions of the English language in ways that were unheard-of at the time. You can read about his life and career in this Wikipedia article. I have reproduced in an image below the unusual layout of one of his poems, the sky was candy luminous:

Wednesday, October 13

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 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.

Week 8 Internet assignment. (repeat announcement) The Week 8 Internet assignment is now available. Once again, you will be commenting on the Storybooks that already have at least one STORY available for you to read. Most of the Storybooks do now have at least one story, since many people who did not publish a story in Week 6 did publish a story during Week 7, so that means they have a story online now for you to read. Some of the Storybooks even have two stories already and one of them - Amber's Goddesses on Trial - already has all four stories. Congratulations, Amber!

October 13: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Monday, October 13, marks the birthday in 1948 of the great Pakistani qawwali singer, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Sadly, he died in 1997, but he left behind an amazing musical career with many beautiful recordings. You can read more about his career and legacy in this Wikipedia article. I was lucky enough to hear him perform in 1994, and it was one of the most marvelous concerts I have ever attended. Qawwali is a musical style traditionally associated with Sufism (that should mean something to those of you in World Literature, and also to those of you in Myth-Folklore who read about Rumi back in Week 6). There are some wonderful concert recordings at YouTube (this particular video has had a million and a half viewers - wow!) - and here is a picture that give you a sense of what his ecstatic concert performances looked like:

Tuesday, October 12

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.

CNN Advice on Writing. I thought some of you who are interested in writing professionally might enjoy this very nice article at CNN: How to Edit Your Way to a Can't Miss Story. It lists some great suggestions for storytelling, and I was struck by the fact that the #1 item to consider is point-of-view. So, the way that many of you are experimenting with point-of-view in your  stories for this class is something that the reporters at CNN recommend as a technique for aspiring journalists to consider also! As the article explains, the first question you have to ask yourself when you write a story, any story, is: Through whose eyes am I telling this story?

Storybook Title Listing. As I explained in an email you got yesterday, I need everybody to check your title listing and let me know if you want me to make any changes. Everybody has a Storybook website now, which means I can make the final adjustments to that "randomizer" script. So, if you would like me to make any changes to the way your Storybook title is listed, please let me know by the end of the day on Tuesday at the latest. If you like your title as it is listed, there's no need to write me back - but if you want me to change it, please write back and let me know. Here are the listings: MythFolklore, World Lit, and Indian Epics. 

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 Friday afternoon or 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. 

Week 8 Internet assignment. The Week 8 Internet assignment is now available. Once again, you will be commenting on the Storybooks that already have at least one STORY available for you to read. Most of the Storybooks do now have at least one story, since most of the folks who did not publish a story in Week 6 did publish a story for Week 7. Some of the Storybooks have two stories already and one of them - Amber's Goddesses on Trial - already has all four stories. Congratulations, Amber!

October 12: Columbus Day / Día de las Culturas. Traditionally, October 12 is celebrated as Columbus Day in the U.S., although the federal holiday is moved to the second Monday in October for convenience (that's why the Post Offices were closed yesterday). Throughout many of the countries in Central America and South America, however, October 12 is designated instead as Día de la Raza (Day of the Race) or Día de las Culturas (Day of the Cultures) to honor all the cultures of the Americas, including those exterminated by the European invasion. When Columbus made his report about his journey to the Americas, he wrote that report in Latin; if you are studying Latin, you might find it interesting to read Columbus's words - the Latin text of his Epistola de Insulis Nuper Repertis is available online at the Latin Library. The image below, from the Library of Congress, shows an early printed version of Columbus's writings from 1494:

Monday, October 11

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 some emails recently as people are checking up on their grades, so I thought I should make a general announcement about that, especially 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 (scroll down to the bottom of the page for the chart) - 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.

Writing Center. For those of you who are finding it difficult to proofread your own writing, 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), or whether you have questions about writing mechanics (especially punctuation), the tutors at the Writing Center can help. For hours and services, visit the Writing Center website. The Writing Center is there to help with the writing assignments you have in this class, as well as any writing assignments you will have in your other classes, too.

October 11: Thich Nhat Hanh. Today marks the birthday in the year 1926 of the Vietnamese writer and Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. You can read about his life and career in this Wikipedia article.  Over 40 of his books have been translated into English, and they are a wonderful way to learn about Buddhism. There is a collection of quotes at Wikiquote, including these words which will certainly resonate for those of you who have been looking at the notion of karma in the Indian Epics class: The present moment contains past and future. The secret of transformation, is in the way we handle this very moment. The photo below comes from Thich Nhat Hanh's website, PlumVillage.org: