Friday, January 28 - Sunday, January 30

HAPPY WEEKEND! You have reached the end of Week 2. The Week 2 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, and the remaining Week 2 assignments are due on Friday or on Saturday or Sunday - please make sure you get started on those assignments soon. If you do not finish them on Friday, you will need to make sure you finish them over the weekend.

Week 2 Read and Respond (blog comment) assignment. The Week 2 blog commenting assignment is available now! Make sure you check your groups; there has been a bit of shuffling based on class add/drops. You will probably see the same people you did last time, but check the group listing to make sure. I'll keep these same groups for another week or two, and then shuffle things around!

Week 2 Internet: Websites. For your Week 2 Internet assignment, you will be creating a website as a practice website before you create the website for your Storybook. If you are curious to see the websites that other people in class have already created, you can see the list here: World Literature, Myth-Folklore, Indian Epics.

Storybook assignments. As of Friday morning, I had some Storybooks in the stack; you can see the Stack contents here. I always do my best to read and reply on Friday afternoon to all the assignments turned in before noon. Anything that comes in after noon on Friday goes into the stack on Monday. Please do NOT go on to the next Storybook assignment until you get comments back from me about the assignment you have turned in. You can keep working ahead on the other assignments in class, but please wait for my comments back on your Storybook assignment before you go on to the next one.

Monday, January 31: Final day to drop with refund. Monday, January 31, will be 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. These Week 2 assignments will give you a sense of what the regular weekly assignments will be like for the rest of the semester, so you will have a good basis on which to make your decision.

OU Mens Gymnastics on SATURDAY. An announcement from Bobby Shortle in Myth-Folklore: On Saturday, January 29, there will be an OU Mens Gymnastics meet - FREE for students - at 7pm, in the Field House. #4-ranked OU will be facing off against #7-ranked Minnesota and also... TEXAS - it's a three-way meet! Find out more at Mens Gymnastics @ SoonerSports.com.

January 28: William Butler Yeats. Today, January 28, marks the anniversary of the death of the great Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, who died on this day in the year 1939. You can read more about Yeats' life and career in this Wikipedia article. Those of you in the World Lit. or Myth-Folklore course may have encountered William Butler Yeats in your research for the class so far, because Yeats was a crucial figure in the revival of Irish popular culture in the 19th century and you can find many of his works online at the Sacred Texts Archive. The image below shows Yeats' gravestone in a cemetery in Drumcliff, County Sligo, Ireland; the simple inscription - "Cast a cold Eye / On Life, on Death. / Horsemen pass by!" - was what Yeats himself asked to have carved on the stone.

Thursday, January 27

Today is Thursday of WEEK 2 of the class. 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. (Indian Epics has no Wednesday assignments.)

Week 2 Read and Respond (blog comment) assignment. The Week 2 blog commenting assignment is NOT available yet; it will be available starting on FRIDAY. The blog commenting assignment is the only assignment you cannot complete early, because people will still be adding posts to their blog tonight, Thursday. So, after midnight tonight, that is, at 12:01AM on FRIDAY, you can do that Read and Respond assignment; you have Friday, Saturday and Sunday to finish that assignment. Make sure you check your groups; there has been a bit of shuffling based on class add/drops.

Storybook Stack. If you turned in a Storybook assignment before Wednesday, you should have comments back from me; if you turned something in on Wednesday, it might still be in the stack (you can check the contents of the stack here). If you want comments back on a Storybook assignment before the weekend, make sure to get it turned in by Friday at noon. My goal every week is to clear out the Storybook stack before the end of the day on Friday. Assignments that come in after noon on Friday will appear in the stack on Monday.

My Thursday schedule. I try to schedule any appointments or out-of-office commitments during the week on Thursday which means I am usually away from my desk for at least part of the day on Thursday. If I am slower than usual to respond to an email, that is why - but don't worry: if you write me with a question or problem on Thursday, I will definitely get back to you by the end of the day; I just might be a little slower about that than usual.

Monday, January 31: Final day to drop with refund. Monday, January 31, will be 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. These Week 2 assignments will give you a sense of what the regular weekly assignments will be like for the rest of the semester, so you will have a good basis on which to make your decision.

January 27: Holocaust Remembrance Day. The day of January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, has been designated by the United Nations and many other countries as a day in remembrance of those who died in the Nazi Holocaust of World War II. The person I hold in my special remembrance for this day is Janusz Korczak (Wikipedia), a visionary educator of the 20th century, who organized the Jewish orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto. In 1942, the Nazis raided the orphanage and sent the children to the death camp at Treblinka. Although Korczak's Polish friends begged him to escape and hide with them for the rest of the war (Korczak was a famous radio celebrity in Poland before the war), he would not leave the children, and died together with them at Treblinka. This image from shows the Yad Vashem Memorial for Korczak and his children:

Wednesday, January 26

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 2 of the class. Wednesday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Tuesday.

Storybook Stack. I'm still making my way through the stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in. If you turned in an assignment on Sunday before 8PM, you should have comments back from me. If you turned in an assignment later on Sunday night or on Monday or Tuesday, it is probably still in the stack. If you want to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. Remember: save the emails I send you back about your Storybook assignments. My comments are marked with ==> in the body of the email, and you will need those comments when you go on to the next week's assignment.

Extra Credit: Grammar Quizzes. In addition to working ahead now at the beginning of the semester, before things get busy in your other classes, this is also a good time to do some of the Grammar Quizzes. They can help you to build up a cushion of extra credit in case you miss some assignments later on, and they can also help you review some aspects of English writing before you begin turning in your Storybook story pages. The grammar quizzes focus on common spelling and punctuation problems, based on what I have seen in student writing over the past ten years. So, if you have a few minutes, take some time to review things like Comma Rules and Apostrophe Rules and take an extra credit quiz to test your knowledge. Here is more information about the Grammar Quizzes.

Tech Tip emails. (repeat announcement) Until I get through the Storybook stack, I won't be responding to all the Tech Tip emails, but I'll get to that later in the week. Meanwhile, please feel free to go ahead and do more Tech Tips if you want. You certainly don't need to wait on my reply to your latest Tech Tip email for you to go ahead and do more of the Tech Tips.

WLT Book Club: TODAY. Here is information from Katlin about the event that was canceled because of the snow day last week. The World Literature Today Book Club meeting has been rescheduled for WEDNESDAY, January 26, at 12:30 pm in the WLT conference room (105 Monnet Hall, 630 Parrington Oval). Lunch will be provided. The discussion selection is The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. The February selection is A Corpse in the Koryo by James Church. FREE COPIES of February's book will be available at this week's meeting - so, come enjoy the discussion of Kite Runner, and get your copy of February's book, too! :-)

January 26: India Republic Day. On this day in 1950, the Indian Constitution came into force, making India officially a "Republic," and so January 26 is celebrated as "Republic Day" in India. You can read more about the holiday at Wikipedia. Each year on Indian Republic Day, heroes of the nation are celebrated. One of the heroes who has been honored as a hero of the nation on this day is the environmental activist, Sundarlal Bahuguna, a member of the Chipko movement fighting to preserve the forests in the Himalayas. The image shows Sundarlal Bahuguna standing in front of a painting that depicts his meeting with the Dalai Lama (source):

Tuesday, January 25

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 2 of the class. I've moved the Week 2 Quizzes and Declarations to the TOP of the list now. This week in Indian Epics you are starting Narayan's Ramayana, while it's Buddhist Jataka Tales in the World Literature class, and it's Ancient Near East week in Myth-Folklore. I really hope you will enjoy the readings!

Storybook Stack. A very large number of Storybook assignments came in over the weekend, and I've been reading through those in the order that they came in. If you turned in a Storybook assignment on Friday or Saturday, you should have comments back from me, with points recorded for you in the Gradebook (check and make sure!). If you turned something in on Sunday or on Monday morning, it is probably still in the stack waiting for me to get to it. If you want to check and make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. If you want comments back sooner on your Storybook, turn it in before Sunday! If you turn your assignment in on Friday or Saturday, you will get comments back more quickly than if you wait until Sunday to do the assignment.

Storybook Comments via email. When I send back Storybook comments to you via email, you will see that my comments are inserted into your email, and are marked with ==> to make them easy to find. PLEASE READ THESE COMMENTS. The comments for each week should help you when you do your assignment for the next week, and possibly in future weeks, too, so make sure you save the emails that I send back to you about your Storybook assignment so that you can consult them later as needed.

Tech Tip emails. Until I get through the Storybook stack, I won't be responding to all the Tech Tip emails, but I'll get to that later in the week. Meanwhile, please feel free to go ahead and do more Tech Tips if you want. You certainly don't need to wait on my reply to your latest Tech Tip email for you to go ahead and do more of the Tech Tips.

Myth-Folklore: Week 2 Reading. Repeat: this is an announcement that applies to the Myth-Folklore course only. Each week, you have a CHOICE of two reading units. You choose only one, and you do your storytelling and essay posts based on that unit. So, in Week 2, you do Egypt OR Gilgamesh. It means you will have blank spaces in the Gradebook for the quizzes about the other unit you did not choose, but that's okay - it's just a result of the fact that Desire2Learn doesn't understand the idea of students choosing things (pretty sad that such expensive software can't wrap its mind around the idea of a choice, eh?). So remember: each week you will choose just ONE reading unit to do. For Week 2, that's Egypt OR Gilgamesh.

WEDNESDAY WLT Book Club: Rescheduled. Here is information from Katlin about the event that was canceled because of the snow day last week. The World Literature Today Book Club meeting has been rescheduled for WEDNESDAY, January 26, at 12:30 pm in the WLT conference room (105 Monnet Hall, 630 Parrington Oval). Lunch will be provided. The discussion selection is The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. The February selection is A Corpse in the Koryo by James Church. FREE COPIES of February's book will be available at this week's meeting - so, come enjoy the discussion of Kite Runner, and get your copy of February's book, too! :-)

Monday, January 24

Today is Monday, and Week 1 of the class is now over. Monday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the Week 1 assignments that were due on Friday/Saturday/Sunday. If you want to remain in the class you MUST complete all the Week 1 assignments!

Monday: Time to work ahead. You do not have any assignments due on Monday, which makes it the PERFECT chance to work ahead on the Week 2 assignments. Believe me: if you put off the assignments in this class until the day that they are due, you are going to be under a lot of stress. If you can work at your own pace just a day or two ahead of the deadlines, you will find the class much easier to manage!

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. For those of you who are working ahead: please do NOT go on to the next Storybook assignment until you get my comments back on the earlier assignment you turned in. Instead, use your time to work ahead on other assignments; I will get the Storybook assignments returned as quickly as I can.

Myth-Folklore: Week 2 Reading. This is an announcement that applies to the Myth-Folklore course only. Each week, you have a CHOICE of two reading units. You choose only one, and you do your storytelling and essay posts based on that unit. So, in Week 2, you do Egypt OR Gilgamesh. It means you will have blank spaces in the Gradebook for the quizzes about the other unit you did not choose, but that's okay - it's just a result of the fact that Desire2Learn doesn't understand the idea of students choosing things (pretty sad that such expensive software can't wrap its mind around the idea of a choice, eh?). So remember: each week you will choose just ONE reading unit to do. For Week 2, that's Egypt OR Gilgamesh.

Google Doodle Contest. Many of you are parents with children, so perhaps you will want to help them participate in the Google Doodle contest. The fourth annual Doodle contest has just been announced; you can find out how to join the contest at the Doodle for Google website. The artwork that children have produced for this contest in previous years is absolutely marvelous! Here are some of the winning entries from last year's contest in the K-3 group: