Thursday, October 6 - Sunday, October 9

OU-TEXAS. Yes, this Friday is an "unofficial" school holiday, so there will not be new announcements until Monday: 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; there will be the Monday morning grace period for finishing up Week 7 as usual. Also, I'll be working as usual on Friday, trying to get through the Storybook stack, so you can contact me on Friday via email with any questions you have - I'll be here! :-)

New Responding groups. The blog responding groups have been shuffled around for the Week 7 Responding assignment. So, thanks to the power of random, you will probably have at least one new person in your group, and probably two. Please review the instructions for the assignment and make sure you check your group!

Storybook Stack. I read and replied to all the Storybook assignments turned in by noon on Friday, and I'll be updating the stack again on Monday morning. You can always check to make sure your assignment is in the stack: contents of the stack (but I usually don't update the stack over the weekend).

Week 7 Internet assignment. (repeat announcement) For the Week 7 Internet assignment, which is available now, you will be reading Storybook Introductions AND a story from each Storybook assigned to you. Since you have more reading to do this time (three stories and, possibly, a couple of Introductions also), you will have just THREE Storybooks that you comment on - and you need to make sure there is a story to read at each of those Storybooks. If the Storybook does not have a first story published yet, please skip it and go to another one instead. You can definitely do the assignment now; no need to wait! So, if you are trying to finish up your work this week early (see next announcement), you can indeed do the Week 7 Internet assignment now.

Thursday, October 6: Dussehra. The Hindu holiday of Dussehra (known also as Vijaya Dashami, Dasara, or Dashain) celebrates the victory of Rama over Ravana, good over evil - a story that is now very familiar to everybody in the Indian Epics class! The holiday falls on the tenth day of the Hindu autumn lunar month of Ashvin, which means it is celebrated on October 6 of this year. You can read more about the festivities at Wikipedia. The multi-headed demon Ravana is often burned in effigy, as you can see in the image below!

Wednesday, October 5

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 7 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 6 Storybook assignment yet (adding your first story), 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.

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the large stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in. If you turned in an assignment before 5PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in later on Sunday or on Monday or Tuesday, your assignment is probably still in the stack, waiting for me to get to it. If you want to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here.

Week 7 Internet assignment. (repeat announcement) For the Week 7 Internet assignment, which is available now, you will be reading Storybook Introductions AND a story from each Storybook assigned to you. Since you have more reading to do this time (three stories and, possibly, a couple of Introductions also), you will have just THREE Storybooks that you comment on - and you need to make sure there is a story to read at each of those Storybooks. If the Storybook does not have a first story published yet, please skip it and go to another one instead. You can definitely do the assignment now; no need to wait! So, if you are trying to finish up your work this week early (see next announcement), you can indeed do the Week 7 Internet assignment now.

OU-Texas Football. (repeat announcement) 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.

Wednesday Events on Campus. Through October 21, the art exhibit "Satan's Camaro" by Justin Strom and Lenore Thomas is showing in the Lightwell Gallery of the Fred Jones Jr. Art Center (time/location/details). Find out more about this event and other events happening on Wednesday at the Campus Calendar online.

October 5: Isaac Bashevis Singer. On this day in 1978, the writer Isaac Bashevis Singer won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Singer was one of the greatest Jewish writers of all time (he wrote in Yiddish), who won acclaim for his amazing novels and short stories about Jewish life in Poland and in America. He was born in 1902 in Poland, emigrated to the United States in 1935, and died in 1991. You can read about his life and career at Wikipedia and at this online exhibit at the Library of Congress. You can also read Singer's Nobel Lecture online, where he had this to say about writing in Yiddish: "Yiddish has not yet said its last word. It contains treasures that have not been revealed to the eyes of the world. It was the tongue of martyrs and saints, of dreamers and Cabalists - rich in humor and in memories that mankind may never forget. In a figurative way, Yiddish is the wise and humble language of us all, the idiom of frightened and hopeful humanity." The image below shows Singer's tombstone; meanwhile, you might also be interested in this list of Yiddish words used in English.

Tuesday, October 4

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 7 of the class, and I've re-arranged the Quiz area in Desire2Learn so Week 7 is on top. This week's topic is India or Japan in Myth-Folklore. In Indian Epics, you are finishing up Buck's Ramayana. If you have not turned in your Week 6 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit.

Storybook Stack. As usual at the beginning of the week, there are still LOTS of Storybook assignments in the stack. If you turned something in on Friday or Saturday, you should have comments back from me already. If you turned something in on Sunday or on Monday, it is probably still in the stack. If you want to check and make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. PLEASE DO CHECK: if something did go wrong with your email, it is important for you to let me know right away.

Week 7 Internet assignment. For the Week 7 Internet assignment, which is available now, you will be reading Storybook Introductions AND a story from each Storybook assigned to you. Since you have more reading to do this time (three stories and, possibly, a couple of Introductions also), you will have just THREE Storybooks that you comment on - and you need to make sure there is a story to read at each of those Storybooks. If the Storybook does not have a first story published yet, please skip it and go to another one instead. You can definitely do the assignment now; no need to wait! So, if you are trying to finish up your work this week early (see next announcement), you can indeed do the Week 7 Internet assignment now.

OU-Texas Football. (repeat announcement) 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.

Tuesday Events on Campus. There will be a free NOON concert by Valerie Watts, Flute and Jeongwon Ham, Piano in the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, Sandy Bell Gallery (time/location/details). Find out more about this event and other events happening on Tuesday at the Campus Calendar online.

October 4: World Animal Day. Today, October 4, is the international holiday designated as World Animal Day. The purpose of the holiday is "to celebrate animal life in all its forms, to celebrate humankind’s relationship with the animal kingdom, to acknowledge the diverse roles that animals play in our lives, and to acknowledge and be thankful for the way in which animals enrich our lives." You can find out more at the World Animal Day website. CELEBRATE ANIMAL LIFE!

Monday, October 3

Today is Monday, and Week 6 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 7 will begin tomorrow - and those assignments are available now if you want to get started.

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: