Friday, Feb. 10 - Sunday, Feb. 12

HAPPY WEEKEND! You have reached the end of Week 4! The Week 4 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, and the remaining Week 4 assignments are due on Friday or on Saturday or Sunday - please make sure you get started on those assignments soon!

RESPONDING GROUPS. This week I did a reshuffling of the blog groups. The groups are random, but you should have at least one new person in your group and hopefully there will be two new people. I sometimes adjust the groups from week to week, but every few weeks I do a big reshuffle like this. If somehow I've accidentally left anybody off the list, please let me know right away!

Proofreading. As you turn in the Introduction this weekend, along with your future stories, you must make sure you that you proofread your writing carefully and that you use standard English spelling and punctuation. For some help with that, I've put up this tips page: Writing and Proofreading. Especially for those of you who had trouble with the proofreading practice exercise back in Week 1 (the mouse-bride story), it is essential that you review any problem areas before you write your Storybook Introduction this weekend.

Grammar checkers. It is obviously a big help to use a spellchecker when you do a writing assignment; everybody benefits from using a spellchecker. I am trying to find a helpful grammar checker but so far the results have not been good. The grammar checker in Microsoft Word is a disaster, and I have also discovered that the grammar check service offered by Turnitin.com is really bad too (read the details here if you are curious). Meanwhile, I will keep looking to see what I can find. It's extremely important that you learn how to proofread your own work and if I can find a grammar checker that might help you with that, I will be sure to let you know.

Storybook Stack. On Friday morning, I still had some Storybooks left in the stack. I will make sure to reply to every Storybook assignment in the stack that gets turned in before Friday at 8AM (contents of the stack). If you want to get comments sooner, turn in your assignment earlier - the huge majority of people turn in their assignments on Sunday, and it sometimes takes me all week to all of those (especially next week, since the Introduction is often the most difficult part of the Storybook to write, which means a lot of comments back from me). So, if you want comments back sooner, turn your assignment in on Friday or Saturday, rather than on Sunday or Monday.

Week 4 Internet: Coverpages. (repeat announcement) For your Internet assignment in Week 4, you will be publishing a coverpage for your Storybook. If you are using Google Sites, this means you will create a NEW SITE, and the homepage for that new site will be your Storybook coverpage. I hope you will enjoy creating a website for your Storybook. To see how the Storybooks for this semester are taking shape, here they are: Myth-Folklore Storybooks and Indian Epics Storybooks. This list was updated Thursday at noon; on Monday I'll be able to update the whole list and then on Tuesday you can begin the Week 5 Internet assignment, commenting on each other's coverpages!

Friday Events on Campus. Friday night is the opening of the production of Mary Stuart, dramatizing the days leading up to the execution of Mary Queen of Scots by her cousin Queen Elizabeth I; the premiere is at 8PM on Friday at the Weitzenhoffer Theatre, with additional performances over the weekend and next week (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

February 10: Sadequain. Friday, February 10, marks the anniversary of the death of the great Pakistani painter and calligrapher, Sadequain, who died in 1987. You can read about his life and works in this Wikipedia article. There are various websites where you can find examples of his calligraphy (as below), along with paintings, murals and other artwork. Calligraphy has a special place in the Islamic tradition; you can read more about Islamic calligraphy at Wikipedia.

Thursday, February 9

Today is Thursday of WEEK 4 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 3 Storybook assignment yet, you have UNTIL NOON TODAY to turn that in for partial credit. For those of you in Myth-Folklore, Thursday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Wednesday.

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 on or before Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, 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. I should be able to get through the remaining items in the stack by the end of the week. If you want comments back from me on a Storybook assignment, make sure you turn that in by Friday at 8AM. I may or may not manage to get comments back on Storybook assignments that come in later on Friday. :-)

Week 4 Internet: Coverpages. (repeat announcement) For your Internet assignment in Week 4, you will be publishing a coverpage for your Storybook. If you are using Google Sites, this means you will create a NEW SITE, and the homepage for that new site will be your Storybook coverpage. I hope you will enjoy creating a website for your Storybook. To see how the Storybooks for this semester are taking shape, here they are: Myth-Folklore Storybooks and Indian Epics Storybooks. Congratulations to the people who are ahead of schedule on their Storybooks! This list was updated Wednesday evening; I'll keep adding new Storybooks to the list as people turn in their Week 4 Internet assignments.

Thursday Events on Campus. At 6PM in the Robert Kerr Auditorium of the Sam Noble Museum, Dr. Barrien Moore, Dean of OU's College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences, will give a talk entitled "What we know, what we think we know, and what we do not know about Climate Change" (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

February 9: Paul Laurence Dunbar. Today marks the death in the year 1906 of the great African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. Dunbar was born a free man, in the state of Ohio, in the year 1872, but both of his parents had been slaves. His father served in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, a black regiment of the Union Army whose story is told in the amazing film, Glory. There is a special section of the Library of Congress website dedicated to Dunbar's poetry - it is definitely worth browsing through! The image below shows a poster advertising a public reading by Dunbar of his poetry (Ohio Historical Society):

Wednesday, February 8

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 4 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 3 Storybook assignment yet, 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 comments. Please make sure you look for my comments in the emails I send back to you; in addition to comments at the top of the email, there are comments marked with ==> in the body of the email. Please read through all the comments in the email and if you have any questions, ask! You should save these emails, too, since you will be working on the Storybook all semester and you might need to look back at a past email to get some information to help you with a later Storybook assignment.

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 on or before Sunday at noon, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in on Sunday afternoon or on Monday or Tuesday, 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. I reply to the assignments in the order that they are turned in, so if you want comments back earlier, try to turn your Storybook in on Saturday - you will get comments back much sooner. About 50 people turn in their work every Sunday; it takes me a few days to get through that big stack!

Proofreading. As you turn in the Introduction and your Storybook stories, you will need to make sure you proofread your writing carefully and that you use standard English spelling and punctuation. For some help with that, I've put up this tips page: Writing and Proofreading. Especially for those of you who had trouble with the proofreading practice exercise back in Week 1 (the mouse-bride story), I would suggest you review this information carefully before this weekend so that you will have time to ask questions and also to get some practice before writing your Week 4 Storybook assignment.

Wednesday Events on Campus. Dr. Nicole Campbell will offer a workshop on "The Psychology of Student Success," 4PM-5PM in Wagner Hall 245 (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

February 8: Tu B'shvat. Today is the Jewish holiday of Tu B'shvat, the "Fifteenth (day) in (the month of) Shevat," also known as the "New Year of the Trees," a holiday that falls in either January or February of each year, depending on the Jewish calendar, coinciding with the full moon. This year it falls on February 8 (from dusk on the evening of February 7 until the dusk of February 8). In Israel, the date is especially associated with the flowering of the almond trees, which you can see in the image below. On this holiday, people eat dried fruits and nuts, and they also plant new trees, something like our our "Arbor Day" holiday. You can read more about the holiday at Wikipedia, which is also the source for this image showing an almond tree in bloom in Israel:

Tuesday, February 7

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 4 of the class, and I've re-arranged the Quiz area in Desire2Learn so Week 4 is on top. This week's topic is ancient Greece in Myth-Folklore and a new version of the Ramayana in Indian Epics. If you have not turned in your Week 3 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit.

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 on Friday or on Saturday before 3PM, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in later on Saturday or on Sunday or on Monday, 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. Remember: you need to wait on my comments back to you before going on to the next Storybook assignment.

Week 4 Internet: Coverpages. For your Internet assignment in Week 4, you will be publishing a coverpage for your Storybook. If you are using Google Sites, this means you will create a NEW SITE, and the homepage for that new site will be your Storybook coverpage. I hope you will enjoy creating a website for your Storybook. To see how the Storybooks for this semester are taking shape, here they are: Myth-Folklore Storybooks and Indian Epics Storybooks. Congratulations to the people who are ahead of schedule on their Storybooks! This list was updated at noon on Monday; I'll keep adding new Storybooks to the list as people turn in their Week 4 Internet assignments.

Tech Tip Emails. I got caught up on Tech Tip emails on Friday, and a new batch has come in over the weekend. It often takes me a week or two to get around to replying to those emails, but please don't let that hold you back - you can keep on doing Tech Tips for Week 4 and 5 and 6 and all the way through Week 15 if you want; you don't need to wait for a reply from me before going on to do another tip.

Tuesday Events on Campus. Dr. Jennifer D'Agostino, Head Veterinarian at the OKC Zoo, will be speaking about exotic animals and zookeeping on Tuesday evening at 7PM in Sutton Hall Room 312 - with snacks, too (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

February 7: Laura Ingalls Wilder. Today, February 7, marks the birthday in the year 1867 of the American author, Laura Ingalls Wilder. I'm sure many of you may have read her series of books about life growing up on the American frontier, starting with Little House in the Big Woods, and you might also have seen the old Michael Landon television series, Little House on the Prairie, which was (loosely) based on those books. You can read more about the life and career of Laura Ingalls Wilder in this Wikipedia article. This photograph shows the Ingalls family, with Caroline (mother) on the left, Carrie and Laura standing, then Charles (father) sitting, with Grace and Mary on the right (image source):

Monday, February 6

Today is Monday, and Week 3 of the class is now over. That means the semester is 20% over already - wow! Monday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Friday/Saturday/Sunday.

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: