Class Procedures and Reminders:
Storybook Stack. As usual at the beginning of the week there are LOTS of Storybook assignments in the stack. If you turned something in on Friday or Saturday morning, you should have comments back from me already. If you turned something in later on Saturday or on Sunday or 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 have at least one story now, since many folks who did not publish a story in Week 6 published their first story last week. Plus, there's an extra credit option this week - you can visit the Storybooks in the other class and find a story to read!
Spring Enrollment. (repeat announcement) Enrollment will be starting for Spring classes, and the 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 Spring, please let me know by noon this Thursday at the latest so that I can save you a space in the class for Spring.
The following items are for fun and exploration:
Featured Resource: Time Management: Choosing Your Work Plan. For a resource today, I wanted to share a page from a couple months ago in the Orientation week of class. I know some of you are feeling the pressure of the semester now, but you will find this class so much easier to manage if you create a schedule that really suits you, instead of trying to do things at (literally) the last minute. Believe me: the work will feel much less burdensome if you don't have to watch the clock ticking. Choose your own deadlines! You know your own schedule best, so you can find the deadlines that are the most convenient for you.
Featured Storybook: Luminescent: The Supernatural Creature Laboratory. This Storybook from last year builds on the novel by H.G. Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau, creating a new collection of stories that is fascinating to read regardless of whether you have read the Wells novel or not. Great stuff!
FREE Kindle eBook: Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria, West Africa by Elphinstone Dayrell. Here is a link to the book at Amazon, and this blog post provides additional information about the contents of the book. The book contains an introduction by Andrew Lang, whose own republications of African folktales provide the reading for Myth-Folklore this week.
Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is It is not economical to go to bed early to save the candles if the result is twins (a Chinese proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. This is an especially dramatic example of the Law of Unintended Consequences!
Ramayana Image: Today's Ramayana image is Rama and Hanuman as portrayed by actors in a "Ramlila" theater production. You can read more about the Ramlila folk theater tradition at Wikipedia.
Tuesday Event on Campus: There will be a noon concert by the Choral Music Studio in the Sandy Bell Gallery of the Art Museum at 12PM (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online. And be sure to check out the article in the OU Daily which features Kate Carlton (in the Indian Epics class), who is a reporter at KGOU working on a series of stories about people who were affected by the May 2013 tornadoes. You can find out more in the Daily article: KGOU to broadcast lessons learned from May storms.
Note: You can page back through older blog posts to see any announcements you might have missed.
