Wednesday, April 24

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 14 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 13 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. If you turned in a Storybook assignment on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now; if you turned something in on Monday or Tuesday it is probably still in the stack (you can check the contents of the stack to make sure I have received your email). Meanwhile, if the points for that assignment will give you the points you need to finish the class, send me a separate email to let me know, and I'll put your Storybook at the top of the stack. 

Saving Your Ning Blog. (repeat announcement) The class Ning will not be available after the end of the semester. That is because I have to pay for the Ning out of pocket and it has a maximum of appx. 100 students, which means I have to clear it out at the end of every semester.  If, however, you create your own writing portfolio, you can copy your best Ning blog posts in your portfolio. You can use Google's Blogger to create your own writing portfolio online, or you can create a new GoogleSite and/or you can use GoogleDocs to publish research papers and other long writing samples online. Having your own writing portfolio is a great way to document your best work in college! A portfolio can provide something both more personal and more tangible to go along with your resume, GPA, and transcript, showcasing your work in a more memorable way.

Course Evaluations. (repeat announcement) For the Week 14 Internet assignment, I hope you will choose to complete the online course evaluation of this class. The evaluation is taking place at the eval.ou.edu website, and it is available now. You should have received an email directly from the College of Arts & Sciences with specific information about how to log on to the site. THANK YOU in advance for your input. Every semester I make changes to these classes, trying out new things, improving things, etc., and your input is very valuable in deciding what changes to make. Student input is also extremely important to the continuation of the online course program. Plus, you might win an iPad!  

Wednesday Events on Campus. The OU School of Drama is staging the Irish play "Eclipsed" by Patricia Burke-Brogan at 8PM at the CDT Gilson Studio Theatre in Old Science Hall  (time-location-details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

April 24: Daniel Defoe. Friday, April 24, is the anniversary of the death in the year 1731 of the great English writer, Daniel Defoe, who is best known today for his novel Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719, which is generally regarded as the first novel in the English language. You can read more about Robinson Crusoe in this Wikipedia article, which is also the source for this image from the first edition of the book (click here for a larger view). The full title of the book is quite a story in and of itself: The Life and strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, where-in all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates. Written by Himself: