Grading. Now that we have finished Week 6 of the semester, there have been 180 points of required work. You can consult this chart to get an indication of how you are doing in the class overall: if you have around 165 points (155 points if your Week 6 Storybook has not been graded yet), you are headed for an A; if you have around 145 points (135 points), you are headed for a B; if you have around 125 points (115 points), you are headed for a C; with less than 125, you are in danger of failing the class. There are still 9 weeks left in the semester, which gives you plenty of time to improve your grade. Just make sure you budget time to do more of the assigned work and, if you do miss an assignment, make sure you complete some extra credit points to make up for it.
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 9AM 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 replying to the assignments in the order they were turned in.
Storybook: Working ahead. In order to do the Week 7 Revision assignment, you will need to wait for comments back on your Week 6 Story assignment. Depending on just when you turned in your Week 6 assignment, you may have to wait until later in the week, even as late as Friday, in order to get comments back from me. If you want to work ahead on your Storybook, though, just move right ahead, adding another story to your Storybook! You cannot actually turn that in until after you get the Week 7 assignment back from me with comments, but that is no reason to stop working on the Storybook: you can keep on writing and adding stories even while you are waiting on comments back from me about your previous assignments. So, keep on writing and publishing, even if you have to turn in the assignments in order, one at a time - working ahead is always a good strategy in this class, including the Storybook.
OU-Texas Football. Although it is not an official school holiday on the University calendar, Friday is indeed an unofficial school holiday (GO SOONERS!). In this class, you have nothing due on Friday, so there is no need to adjust the schedule. For those of you headed down to Dallas, I would strongly recommend that you finish up your Week 7 assignments before you leave town so that you can have a totally fun time and not be worrying about your work for this class. The Friday morning grace period for Thursday assignments remains unchanged.
Monday Events on Campus. There's a seminar on Monday, "What's Your Learning Style?" from 2PM-3PM in the Housing Learning Center, Adams Center, Muldrow Tower 105. (time/location/details). Find out more about this event and other events happening on Monday at the Campus Calendar online.
October 3: Gore Vidal. Friday, October 3, marks the birthday in the year 1925 of the great American author, Gore Vidal. Happy birthday, Gore Vidal! You can read more about Gore Vidal's life and career in this Wikipedia article. My favorite of his novels is without a doubt his historical novel Julian, about the 4th-century emperor Julian, nicknamed "Julian the Apostate," the last of the pagan emperors of Rome. I am also a big fan of another of his historical novels, Creation. Here is the cover of a recent edition of Julian:
