Friday, April 20 - Sunday, April 22

HAPPY WEEKEND! You have reached the end of Week 13! The Week 13 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, and the remaining Week 13 assignments are due on Friday or on Saturday or Sunday - please make sure you get started on those assignments soon. Friday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Thursday.

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!

Thursday, April 19

Today is Thursday of WEEK 13 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 12 Storybook assignment yet, you may turn that in BEFORE NOON for partial credit. For those of you in Myth-Folklore, Thursday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to complete any of the assignments that were due on Wednesday.

Storybook stack. If you turned in a Storybook assignment before 10AM on Monday, you should have comments back from me now and points recorded in the Gradebook. If you turned something in later on Monday or on Tuesday or Wednesday, it is probably still in the stack. You can check the contents of the stack to make sure I have received your assignment. If you want comments back on an assignment before the weekend, make sure you get that turned in by 8AM on Friday morning at the latest.

Week 13 Internet assignment NOW AVAILABLE. (repeat announcement) The Week 13 Internet assignment is available: you will be nominating your favorite Storybook projects in various categories, and you will also leave some thank-yous for the people whose comments were most helpful to you this semester. Then, on Monday afternoon, April 23, when everybody has submitted their nominations, I will put up a ballot based on the most nominated Storybooks. For information about the Week 14 Internet assignment, see Monday's announcements.

Thursday Events on Campus. There will be a workshop on "Managing Stress" from 4PM to 5PM in 245 Wagner Hall (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

April 19 2012: Yom Ha-Shoah. Today is the 27th of Nisan in the Jewish calendar, which means it is the Yom Ha-Shoah, the "Day of the Holocaust," in which the Jewish victims of the Nazis are remembered and honored. You can read more about this memorial holiday in Wikipedia, and also learn about the term Shoah. This holiday is observed throughout the state of Israel, with special ceremonies taking place at Yad Vashem, which is the official Holocaust memorial in Israel. This image below is the Hall of Names from Yad Vashem:

Wednesday, April 18

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 13 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 12 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 assignments in the Storybook stack. If you turned in your assignment by 10PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. Assignments turned in later on Sunday or on Monday or Tuesday are probably still in the stack. You can check the contents of the stack to make sure I have received your assignment. If the points for your Storybook assignment are all you need to finish up the class, send me a separate email to let me know and I will move your assignment to the top of the stack.

Mix and match points. (repeat announcement) Now that there are less than three weeks of the semester left (rest of Week 13, plus Weeks 14-15), 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 (you need 410 points for an A, 360 points for a B and 320 points for a C). 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. When you read the points you need for your final grade, send me a note to let me know and I will record the final grade in the Gradebook for you.

Wednesday Events on Campus. From 11AM to 1PM on the South Oval you can enjoy chips and guacamole from Chipotle and pot your own cilantro plant (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

April 18: Lucrezia Borgia. Today, April 18, marks the birthday of Lucrezia Borgia in the year 1480. The illegitimate daughter of Rodrigo Borgia, a.k.a. Pope Alexander VI, she lived a life full of scandal and intrigue. By her various marriages, she is related to many of the royal families of Europe. She is, for example, an ancestress of King Juan Carlos of Spain - and she is even related to the late Lady Di. For those of you who like historical drama, I highly recommend the television series The Borgias, starring Jeremy Irons as Rodrigo Borgia and Holliday Grainger as Lucrezia. It's sinfully fun! The portrait below, by Bartolomeo Veneto, is widely assumed to be that of Lucrezia Borgia:

Tuesday, April 17

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 13 of the class. That means it is time for the Pandavas to hide at the court of King Virata in Indian Epics, while in Myth-Folklore, the topic is Native American legends. I've moved the Week 13 quizzes up to the top of the quizzing area in Desire2Learn. If you have not turned in your Week 12 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit.

Week 13 Internet assignment NOW AVAILABLE. Now that Week 13 has begun, the Week 13 Internet assignment is available: you will be nominating your favorite Storybook projects in various categories, and you will also leave some thank-yous for the people whose comments were most helpful to you this semester. Then, on Monday afternoon, April 23, when everybody has submitted their nominations, I will put up a ballot based on the most nominated Storybooks. For information about the Week 14 Internet assignment, see Monday's announcements.

Storybook Stack. As usual at the beginning of the week, there are still LOTS of Storybook assignments in the stack. If you turned in an assignment on Sunday before noon, you should have comments back from me by now. If you turned something in later on Sunday or Monday, it is probably still in the stack. You can check on the contents of the stack here. If you need just the points for the Storybook assignment you have turned in in order to finish up the class, send me a SEPARATE email with "Storybook Final Points" (or something like that) in the subject line so that I'll put your Storybook assignment at the top of the stack.

Tuesday Events on Campus. From 11AM-1PM you can Tie-Dye a Free T-Shirt on the South Oval as part of Green Week (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

April 17: Benjamin Franklin. Today, April 17, marks the anniversary of the death of Benjamin Franklin in the year 1790; he was born in 1706. I find Franklin to be a fascinating character and there is plenty of wonderful reading in this long Wikipedia article about his life and various careers. In particular, it includes words written by Franklin when he was only 22 years old, pondering what he would like to see as the epitaph written on his tombstone: The Body of B. Franklin Printer; Like the Cover of an old Book, Its Contents torn out, And stript of its Lettering and Gilding, Lies here, Food for Worms. But the Work shall not be wholly lost: For it will, as he believ'd, appear once more, In a new & more perfect Edition, Corrected and Amended By the Author. There is also a wonderful Latin verse composed in Franklin's honor by the French statesman Turgot: Eripuit caelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis, "He ripped the lightning from the sky, and the sceptre from the tyrants." You can see the verse included in the portrait of Franklin below:

Monday, April 16

Today is Monday. Week 12 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 13 will begin tomorrow - and those assignments are available now if you want to get started. The Week 14 and Week 15 assignments are also available now, too!

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. You can 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.

Week 13 Internet assignment: Storybook nominations. The Week 13 Internet assignment will be available starting tomorrow, Tuesday, April 17. I hope you will find this a fun assignment: you will be nominating your favorite Storybooks from the semester. After everyone has turned in their nominations (the assignment is due by the end of Week 13), I'll prepare a ballot with the Storybooks that get the most nominations and you'll be able to vote on the best ones - the voting is not for a grade, but just for fun, as a way to give the people who worked really hard on their Storybooks some well-deserved recognition.

Week 14 Internet assignment: Course evaluation. For the Week 14 Internet assignment, you will be completing a course evaluation online. As soon as the online course evaluation form is made available by the College of Arts & Sciences, you should be receiving an email from the College about that - and they may even be giving away iPads in a lottery for people who complete the evaluation; that's what they have done for the past few semesters. Based on past semesters, the evaluation will be available from April 25-May 4. So, for those of you who are working ahead, you'll need to wait until April 25 until you can do that Week 14 Internet assignment.

Monday Events on Campus. On the Union Lawn from 8:30PM-10:30PM you can see a free screening of the film "Fresh!" and also get a free Chipotle burrito too (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online. It's all part of Green Week - find out more at the Green Week website: