Working ahead. Monday is a great day to work ahead! You do not have any assignments due on Monday, which means you can use this as a chance to get a head start on the Week 4 assignments that will be due later this week. In addition, the assignments for future weeks are available to you now, too. For some of you, midterms will be starting in your classes next week or the week after - so, if you get ahead in this class now, you can take a week off here when the midterms arrive in your other classes.
Proofreading practice. For those of you who had some punctuation and other writing topics to review, I've put up some "fable challenges" that you can use for review. You can find the ten fables, along with the answer keys, here: Take the Fable Challenge. You can also find review materials there for comma usage, sentence structure and other basic writing mechanics. Remember also that the OU Writing Center provides free tutoring services, which means you can get one-on-one help if you would like someone to review comma usage with you, for example, or any other writing questions you might have.
Week 5 Internet assignment. For those of you who are working ahead, you will note that the Week 5 Internet assignment is not available yet; you'll need to wait on that assignment until everybody has gotten their Storybook coverpages published online, which will be happening later this week! During Weeks 5-12, the Internet assignment will be available on the first day of each week (Tuesday) and you will have all week to complete it. I'll make more information available about all that next Tuesday, February 14.
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 then start reading the assignments in the order they were turned in. Please DO NOT go on to the Week 4 Storybook assignment until you get Week 3 comments back from me (and the same is true for those of you who have turned in Week 4 assignments already - please do not go on to the Week 5 Storybook assignment until you get my Week 4 comments).
Late Storybook assignments. 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. A Storybook assignment turned in on Monday after noon can receive up to 8 points credit; if it is turned in on Tuesday, you can get up to 7 points of credit; on Wednesday, 6 points of credit; the absolute deadline for turning in your Storybook assignment for partial credit is noon on Thursday, when you can get up to 5 points of partial credit. So, if you were not able to turn your Storybook in over the weekend, the sooner you can turn that in late, the better.
Monday Events on Campus. In the Lightwell Gallery on the second floor of the Art Museum there is an ongoing exhibit, "Reclaimed and Remixed: Chicano Art" by Narciso Argüelles (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.
February 6: Aldus Pius Manutius. Today marks the anniversary of the death of Aldus Pius Manutius in the year 1515. Manutius founded the Aldine Press of Venice in 1494, which issued some of the first printed editions of the Latin and Greek classics. The Aldine Press was also the first publishing house to issue "octavo" printed books, something like our modern paperbacks, for easy handling and portability. Aldus was an innovator in typography, too; most famously, he invented the italic font! You can read more at Wikipedia about Aldus and about the Aldine Press. The image below shows a page from his 1501 edition of Horace; even though it is a printed book, it is designed to imitate the style and layout of a medieval manuscript:
