New Responding Groups. The blog responding groups have been shuffled around this week one last time before the end of the semester! So be sure to check on who is in your group: Blog Responding. The blog responding gets really chaotic at the end of the semester since it's harder and harder to predict just who is participating in what assignments - thanks for your patience with that!
Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in this week. If you want to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. Everyone who turned in a Week 12 assignment on time should have gotten that back from me; if you turned in a late Week 12 assignment or an early assignment for Week 13, 14 or 15, I will get comments back to you on Friday. If you want comments before the weekend, make sure you turn in your assignment by Friday at 8AM.
Grading and points. (repeat announcement) For detailed information about finishing up the class, see the Grading Information page. In short, you need 410 to get an A, 360 points to get a B, and 320 points to get a C. When you get the number of points you need, you are done! It is fine with me if you decide to stop doing work for the class whenever you have the grade you want to receive (many of you are taking this class for Gen. Ed. requirements, which means you just need a C to get graduation credit). My only request is that you please let me know when you are done so I can record the final grade for you in the Gradebook.
Mix and match points. (repeat announcement) Now that there are just a couple weeks of the semester left, you might want to plan to do some "mix and match" in terms of just which assignments you want to complete this semester to get the points you need for the grade you want to get. So, based on the assignments you enjoy most/least in the class, you can certainly skip some assignments, provided that you end up with the points you need at the end. My only recommendation is that you do this cautiously. You don't want to skip so many assignments that you end up not getting the points you need for your desired grade.
Friday Events on Campus. There will be a lecture by former Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern, "What It Means to Be a Democrat," followed by a reception and book signing (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.
April 22: Earth Day. Sunday, April 22, is Earth Day, an environmental holiday which was first celebrated in 1970. You can read about this holiday in Wikipedia. In honor of Earth Day this year, I wanted to reflect for a moment on how much paper we have saved in this class! Based on the writing assignments each week for the total number of students in these two online classes, I would estimate that we have saved about 9000 pages, or 18 reams of paper, this semester by doing the writing online rather than printing it out in traditional form - so by working together in this way, we have saved a tree! Happy Earth Day!
