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 you want comments back from me this week, please get your assignment turned in soon; see the following announcement about Thanksgiving Break - you will have next week off, and so will I!
November: Thanksgiving Break. You will be getting a full week off for Thanksgiving in this class. Thanksgiving falls on November 24 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 18. Then you can have the entire next week off from November 19 - November 27, with the Week 13 grace period on Monday morning, November 28. I will also be taking that week off, so any Storybook assignments you turn in during that time will go into the stack for the Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday, November 28.
Week 13 Internet assignment: Storybook nominations. The Week 13 Internet assignment will be available starting tomorrow, Tuesday, November 15. 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. As soon as the online course evaluation form is made available by the College of Arts & Sciences, you should be receiving an email from the College about that - and they may even be giving away iPads in a lottery for people who complete the evaluation; that's what they have done for the past few semesters. The Week 14 Internet assignment will not be something you can do until that online course evaluation becomes available; as soon as I hear anything more about that, I will let you know.
Monday Events on Campus. At 7:30PM there will be a free concert of the OU Chamber Singer & Norman Children's Chorus in the Sharp Concert Hall of the Catlett Music Center (time/location/details). Find out more about this event and other events happening on Monday at the Campus Calendar online.
November 14: Karen Armstrong. Today is the birthday of the writer Karen Armstrong, born this day in 1944; she is one of my favorite authors on religious history. You can read more about her life and career in this Wikipedia article. She is extremely prolific and I have read at least a dozen of her books; my personal favorite is The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Even though the book came out before the 9-11, I think you can learn more about 9-11 from that book than from any other single book. Happy birthday, Karen Armstrong!
