Friday, November 19 - Sunday, November 28

HAPPY THANKSGIVING BREAK

Friday, November 19 - Sunday, November 28. You have a full week off for Thanksgiving in this class. The Week 13, Week 14 and Week 15 assignments are available for any of you who want to work ahead and finish up the class. The Week 13 grace period will be on Monday morning, November 29, after Thanksgiving. I'll be answering email on and off during this week, but I will not be grading any Storybook assignments until class starts up again on Monday, November 29, when I will start reading and responding to the Storybook assignments in the order they were turned in after noon on Friday, November 19 and during the break.

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 see someone you have been in a group with before, or you may have all new people - that is the magic of randomness! In addition, this week you will find that a lot of people have finished the class, so they may not have blog posts for the current week. That is not a problem - just go ahead and respond to any of their blog posts which catches your interest.

Storybook stack. There are still a few assignments in the Storybook stack - these are late Week 12 assignments and early assignments for Weeks 13 and 14. If you turned in a Week 12 assignment on time, you should have comments back from me now and points recorded in the Gradebook. You can check the contents of the stack to make sure I have received your assignment. If you want comments back BEFORE the Thanksgiving Break, MAKE SURE you turn in your Storybook assignment by Friday November 19 at noon. I won't be doing any Storybook grading over Thanksgiving Break, so any Storybooks that come in after noon on Friday November 19 will go into the stack for Monday morning, November 29.

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!

ENJOY THE HOLIDAY!!!

(A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving)

Thursday, November 18

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 - these are late Week 12 assignments and early assignments for Weeks 13 and 14. If you turned in a Week 12 assignment on time, you should have comments back from me now and points recorded in the Gradebook. You can check the contents of the stack to make sure I have received your assignment. If you want comments back BEFORE the Thanksgiving Break, MAKE SURE you turn in your Storybook assignment by Friday at noon. I won't be doing any Storybook grading over Thanksgiving Break, so any Storybooks that come in after noon on Friday November 19 will go into the stack for Monday morning, November 29.

Week 13 Internet assignment now available. (repeat announcement) For the Week 13 Internet assignment, 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, November 29, when everybody has submitted their nominations, I will put up a ballot based on the most nominated Storybooks.

November: Thanksgiving Break. (repeat announcement) You will be getting a full week off for Thanksgiving in this class. Thanksgiving falls on November 25 this year, which is next Thursday. You have your usual Week 13 Thursday assignments; make sure you complete those as usual! I would also urge you to finish up the remaining Week 13 assignments this Friday, November 19. Then you can have the entire next week off from November 20 - November 28, with the Week 13 grace period on Monday morning, November 29. See the class calendar for more details.

November 18: William Caxton. Today, November 18, is a remarkable day in the history of English literature because on this day, in the year 1477, William Caxton produced the first printed book in England! The first printed book in Europe, the famous Gutenberg Bible, had been printed in Germany in 1453, and it was about 25 years later that William Caxton started printing books in England. You can read more about William Caxton's life and career in this Wikipedia article. The first book that William Caxton printed was not a Bible, but a book about Greek mythology: Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye. I am most interested in Caxton because one of the other books he published was the first printed edition of Aesop's fables in English in 1484! The image below shows the fable of the man who debated with the lion from Caxton's edition of Aesop:

Sanskrit Word in English: Nirvana

This post has moved to the Writing Lab.

moved

The contents of this post have moved: Avatar.

Sanskrit Word in English: Mantra

This post has moved to the Writing Lab.

Wednesday, November 17

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. The regular Week 13 schedule applies today and also on Thursday; see the Tuesday announcements for how Thanksgiving Break works all of next week.

Storybook stack. There are still quite a few assignments in the Storybook stack. If you turned in your assignment by 10PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. Assignments turned in later on Sunday or 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.

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.

November 17: Birth of "The Mouse." On November 17 in the year 1970, computer pioneer Douglas Engelbart was granted a patent for what would become the "mouse" interface for supplying data, manually, to a computer. In the patent application, he described the wooden box with its two metal wheels as an "X-Y position indicator for a display system," although he nicknamed it the "mouse" because it had a tail coming out one end that connected it to the computer system. Dr. Engelbart has not profited from his invention because the patent ran out in 1987, before the widespread use of personal computers made the mouse ubiquitous (although I remember first seeing someone using a mouse in the summer of 1984). You can read more about the history of the mouse in this Wikipedia article, which is also the source for this image, which shows Dr. Engelbart's mouse, circa 1970:

Turkish Word in English: Baklava

This post has moved to the Writing Lab.

Arabic Word in English: Sofa

This post has moved to the Online Course Lady: Writing Laboratory.

Arabic Word in English: Lemon

This post has moved to the Online Course Lady: Writing Laboratory.

Turkish Word in English: Sherbet

This post has moved to the Online Course Lady: Writing Laboratory.

Hindi Word in English: Seersucker

This post has moved to the Writing Lab.

Arabic Word in English: Saffron

This post has moved to the Online Course Lady: Writing Laboratory.

Sanskrit Word in English: Punch

This post has moved to the Writing Lab.

Hindi Word in English: Jungle

This post has moved to the Writing Lab.

Arabic Word in English: Elixir

This post has moved to the Online Course Lady: Writing Laboratory.

Hindi Word in English: Dungarees

This post has moved to the Writing Lab.

Turkish Word in English: Caviar

This post has moved to the Writing Lab.

Hindi Word in English: Bungalow

This post has moved to the Writing Lab.

Arabic Word in English: Alfalfa

This post has moved to the Online Course Lady: Writing Laboratory.

Tuesday, November 16

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, November 28, when everybody has submitted their nominations (that's right after Thanksgiving Break), I will put up a ballot based on the most nominated Storybooks. For information about the Week 14 Internet assignment, see Monday's announcements.

November: Thanksgiving Break. You will be getting a full week off for Thanksgiving in this class. Thanksgiving falls on November 25 this year, which is next Thursday. Week 13 begins as usual this week, so you will have your usual Week 13 Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday assignments; make sure you complete those as usual! I would also urge you to finish up the remaining Week 13 assignments this Friday, November 19. Then you can have the entire next week off from November 20 - November 28, with the Week 13 grace period on Monday morning, November 29. See the class calendar for more details.

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 Sunday before noon, 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.

November 16: Oklahoma Admission Day. Today, November 16, marks the admission of Oklahoma to the United States of America in the year 1907, the 46th state (followed later by New Mexico and Arizona in 1912, and then Alaska and Hawaii in 1959). When the state of Oklahoma was created, it combined the lands of the Oklahoma Territory as well as Indian Territory, putting an end to plans to create a State of Sequoyah in eastern Oklahoma, which had been Indian Territory. You can read about the proposed State of Sequoyah in this Wikipedia article; the image below shows the Oklahoma and Indian Territories circa the 1890s:

Monday, November 15

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, which is after Thanksgiving break), 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 used to fill out in the classroom for your regular classroom-based courses (depending on your College, almost all of the course evaluations are done online now). 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 and you should also be getting an email from the College of Arts & Sciences when the online form is available.

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. If the points for your Storybook assignment(s) will give you the points you need to finish the class, send me a separate email so that I will know you are waiting on those final points.

November 15: Birthday of Johannes Secundus. As many of you know, I used to be a Latin professor, and one of my favorite Latin authors, Johannes (or Janus) Secundus, was born on November 15 in the year 1511. Yes, that's right: 1511 - not in ancient Roman times, but in Renaissance Europe. Johannes Secundus is what is called a "neo-Latin" poet, rather than a classical Roman writer. He is most famous for a series of poems he called Liber Basiorum in Latin, or The Book of Kisses. If any of you have studied Latin, you might enjoy taking a look at these delightful poems, which you can find online at The Latin Library. To learn more about Johannes Secundus and his all-too-short life (he died when he was just 24 years old), you can take a look at this Wikipedia article, which is also the source for this image: