Today is Monday, and Week 2 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 3 will begin officially tomorrow - and those Week 3 assignments are already available now if you want to get started.
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 then start reading the assignments in the order they were turned in. Please do not go on to the Week 3 Storybook assignment until you get Week 2 comments back from me (and the same is true for those of you who have turned in Week 3 or Week 4 assignments - please do not go on to the next Storybook assignment until you get my comments). I'll be updating the stack as I make my way through the assignments!
Late Storybooks. Each week, the Storybook assignment is the only assignment that can be turned in late for partial credit. Since I cannot get all the Storybooks graded and returned immediately, it is fine with me if you turn in the Storybook late. If you want full credit (10 points) you must turn the Storybook in on time, that is, before noon on Monday. If you turn it in late, you can receive partial credit, as follows: turn it in on Monday after noon and you can receive up to 8 points; on Tuesday, you can receive up to 7 points; on Wednesday you can receive up to 6 points. If you turn the Storybook assignment in on Thursday before noon, you can receive up to 5 points. No late Storybook assignments will be accepted after noon on Thursday.
Monday: Your chance to get ahead. Although being able to set your own schedule is one of the biggest benefits of an online class, the majority of the people in these classes are doing the assignments on the same day that they are due. Yet we all know that life is FULL of surprises, both good and bad. So please try to work ahead and that way you are ready for any surprises that might come up. If you can take advantage of Monday to get ahead on the Week 3 assignments, that will give you a lot more freedom and flexibility, making this class a lot easier to manage.
Monday, January 31: Final day to drop with refund. (repeat announcement) Today, Monday, January 31, is 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. Monday is the last day to drop with a refund.
January 31: Alan Lomax. Today marks the birthday of Alan Lomax, one of the most important figures in the history of American folk music. He was born on January 31 in 1915 and died in 2002. You can read about his life and career at Wikipedia. After he graduated from college, Lomax began working in 1937 at the Archive of Folk Song of the Library of Congress. He traveled all over the country recording folk singers and recording interviews with musicians like Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly and Jelly Roll Morton. In the 1950s, he began collecting folk music from all over the world and produced the influential multi-volume record series, Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music. Check out the Alan Lomax Collection at the Library of Congress online; the image below is an album cover from his collection of Prison Songs:
