Friday, March 9 - Sunday, March 11

HAPPY WEEKEND! You have reached the end of Week 8! The Week 8 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, and the remaining Week 8 assignments are due on Friday or on Saturday or Sunday - please make sure you get started on those assignments soon. Have a great weekend!

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in this week. Since I was out of the office for much of the day on Thursday, I have a lot to get through on Friday! My goal as always is to return comments to you before the weekend for any assignment submitted by 8AM on Friday. If you want to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here.

Writing - Revising. For those of you on the regular Storybook schedule, you will be adding your second story to your Storybook for Week 8. The pattern of the last four weeks - writing, then revising - will repeat for the next six weeks of the semester. In Week 8, Week 10, and Week 12, you will be adding new stories to your Storybook. In Week 9, Week 11, and Week 13, you will be revising, along with some final revision assignments to complete your project in Week 14 and Week 15. Those of you on the alternate schedule will also be writing and revising, but in different weeks. I know that for many of you having to do all this revising is something unfamiliar, since in many university courses there is not a lot of emphasis on revising. By including revision - lots of revision - as part of the writing process, I hope everybody will wind up with something they can be really proud of by the end of the semester!

Friday Events on Campus. The Irish playwright Marina Carr will be giving the 2012 Puterbaugh Keynote speech in Meacham Auditorium at 10:30 AM - but show up at 10AM if you can, because they will be presenting some scenes from her play, By the Bog of Cats, beforehand (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

Sunday, March 11: Douglas Adams. This Sunday, March 11, marks the birthday of Douglas Adams, one of my most beloved writers, who was born in 1952 and who, sadly, left this world in 2001. Adams is most famous as the creator of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and his two books about the detective Dirk Gently are also delightful. Happy birthday to you, Douglas Adams, wherever in the galaxy you now may be!

Thursday, March 8

Today is Thursday of WEEK 8 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 7 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that on Thursday morning 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. If you turned in a Week 7 assignment on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now; if you turned something in on Monday or later, 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. If you want comments back on a Storybook assignment before the weekend, make sure to get that assignment turned in by Friday at 8AM. If you have something turned in when I get to work on Friday morning, I can be sure to have comments back to you by the end of the day (possibly late in the day!) on Friday.

My Thursday Schedule. I will be out of the office for a while today, so I may not be as quick to respond to email as usual. I'll definitely get caught up by the end of the day, though - so if you have a question or problem, please do send the email and I'll get back to you by the end of the day, just not as quickly as I might usually.

Fall Enrollment. (repeat announcement) Enrollment will be starting for Fall classes, and these online classes fill up really quickly. If any of you would like to enroll in MLLL-3043 Myth-Folklore or MLLL-4993 Indian Epics for Fall, please let me know by Friday at the latest so that I can save you a space in the class.

Thursday Events on Campus. At 7PM in the Journalism Foundation Auditorium of Gaylord Hall, Lilly Ledbetter will be giving a talk: "Fighting For Fairness: Lilly Ledbetter In Her Own Words." Ledbetter's struggle for equal pay at a Goodyear Tire and Rubber Plant in Alabama resulted in the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which was signed into law in 2009; you can read more about her in this Wikipedia article (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

March 8: Purim. Today markes the Jewish festival of Purim (the festival began at sunset on Thursday evening and carries on throughout the day today). This festival celebrates events described in the Book of Esther in the Bible, which tells how Esther saved her people from the evil Haman, who was plotting to destroy them. You can read more about Purim in this Wikipedia article. The image below shows some yummy Hamantaschen - "Haman's pockets" - a special pastry baked in honor of Purim:

Wednesday, March 7

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 8 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 7 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 Stack. There are still quite a few Storybook assignments in the stack and I am making my way through them in the order that they were turned in. If you turned something in by 7PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me already. If you turned something in later on Sunday or on Monday or Tuesday, 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.

Week 8 Internet assignment. (repeat announcement) The Week 8 Internet assignment is now available. Once again, you will be commenting on the Storybooks that already have at least one STORY available for you to read. Most of the Storybooks do now have at least one story, since many folks who did not publish a story in Week 6 did publish a story for Week 7. Check the assignment instructions for details about how to find your Storybooks to look at for this week!

Wednesday Events on Campus. From 12:30PM to 1:30PM there will be a bake sale AND print sale in the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art; the Print Club is raising money to fun their trip to Southern Graphics Conference: baked goods $1, prints starting at $5 (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

March 7: World Read Aloud Day. You can find out more about the "World Read Aloud Day" event at the LitWorld.org website. I am such a huge fan of reading aloud... even if you just read aloud to yourself. Even better if you read aloud together with someone else! So, grab one of your favorite books and read a random a paragraph out loud - then think about just what the writer has done to make the magic of words happen. Reading aloud is definitely part of the magic!

Tuesday, March 6

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 8 of the class, and I've re-arranged the Quiz area in Desire2Learn so Week 8 is on top. Yes, this means the semester is now about half over! In the Indian Epics class, you have a Ramayana review week before you start the Mahabharata in Week 9. In Myth-Folklore, the choice is Africa or Jamaica. If you have not turned in your Week 7 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit.

Midterm Grade Reports. This is the week when faculty turn in grade reports at Ozone; I've entered grade reports now which means (I think) that you can see that now at Ozone. The midterm grade is based on Weeks 1-7, but not counting the Week 7 Storybook (since I am marking those right now). So, here is how that works out, based on a total of 200 points: if you had 182 points or more, you are headed for an A; with 160-181 points, you are headed for a B; with 142-159 points you are headed for a C. Of course, you can check your progress at any time; there is a Grading Chart that shows each week of the semester and what your total points indicate. If you want to improve your grade, there is still plenty of time to increase your level of participation in the class both by turning in the required assignments and/or doing extra credit to make up for any assignments you have missed.

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 by noon on Sunday, you should have comments back from me already. If you turned something in later on Sunday or on Monday, 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.

Week 8 Internet assignment. The Week 8 Internet assignment is now available. Once again, you will be commenting on the Storybooks that already have at least one STORY available for you to read. Most of the Storybooks do now have at least one story, since many folks who did not publish a story in Week 6 did publish a story for Week 7. Check the assignment instructions for details about how to find your Storybooks to look at for this week!

Tuesday Events. The Puterbaugh Festival Opening Night Reception honoring Irish playwright Marina Carr will begin at 7:30PM at the Norman Depot, 2oo S. Jones Avenue (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

March 6: Andrzej Wajda. Today marks the birthday of one of the world's great film directors: Andrzej Wajda, who was born in 1926 and who is still an active filmmaker. In fact, one of his recent films, Katyń, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 2007. Katyń is the name of a forest near Smolensk in western Russia where over 20,000 Polish military officers and other Polish prisoners of war were executed. At first, the Nazis blamed the crime on Stalin, and then Stalin blamed the crime on the Nazis, and only recently has it become undeniably clear that the executions were in fact carried out by the Soviet NKVD on Stalin's orders. This was a very personal film for Wajda to make, as his father was one of the slain Polish officers. I highly recommend the film; you can read a review I wrote about it here to learn more.

Monday, March 5

Today is Monday, and Week 7 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 8 will begin tomorrow, on Tuesday.

Fall Enrollment. Enrollment will be starting for Fall classes, and these online classes fill up really quickly. If any of you would like to enroll in MLLL-3043 Myth-Folklore or MLLL-4993 Indian Epics for Fall, please let me know by Friday of this week at the latest so that I can save you a space in the class.

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 reply to the assignments in the order they were turned in. It is really important to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack; especially during these revision weeks, I have no way of knowing that you have completed the assignment except for the email that you send me.

Writing Center. For those of you who are finding it difficult to proofread your own writing, the Writing Center is the place to go for help. Whether you are struggling with the overall organization of your writing or whether you have questions about writing mechanics (especially punctuation), the tutors at the Writing Center can help. For hours and services, visit the Writing Center website. The Writing Center is there to help with the writing assignments you have in this class, as well as any writing assignments you will have in your other classes, too.

Monday Events on Campus. Art Museum Ambassadors are sponsoring a workshop on "how to take a good picture with a camera phone" at 6PM in the Union (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

March 5: Howard Pyle. Today, March 5, marks the birthday in the year 1853 of the American illustrator and author, Howard Pyle. You can read about Howard Pyle's life and career in this Wikipedia article, and you can find a listing of all his books that are online at his Online Books page. Some of you in the Myth-Folklore or the World Literature class may be familiar with Howard Pyle's work, since he is the author of a collection of stories about famous pirates, as well as books about legendary heroes such as Robin Hood and King Arthur. The image below shows one of Howard Pyle's paintings, The Mermaid: