Class Procedures and Reminders:
Wednesday assignments. You have assignments due today, Wednesday, that will get you ready for the creative kinds of story re-telling you will be doing in this class. Please make sure you complete Wednesday's assignments today — and start on Thursday's assignments now if you can, too!
Ning posts. I'm still replying to the Introduction posts that people have shared at the Ning; if you did an Introduction post on Tuesday and didn't get a reply from me yet, I'll be sure to reply today, Wednesday. My goal this week is to reply to everyone's Introduction posts, along with other posts at random, based on how much time I have. Then, at the end of the week, I'll assign everyone to "blog groups" so that you can start getting to know each other, reading and responding to each other's blog posts!
Your announcements for the class. If you are involved in campus activities that you want me to publicize, please let me know. I'll be glad to include them here in the class announcements! Send me specific information about day-time-location, and also a link to a webpage or any additional online information you have about the group or activity. I'm also glad to share work you have done for other classes that you are proud of. For example, I learned about this great film from Chris in Myth-Folklore via his Introduction post: wow! He shows us OU as you have probably never imagined it —in black and white... and red! Here is his video at YouTube:
Call me Laura! Really! I know that it can be confusing when different classes work different ways in terms of formality, names, etc. — but you really can call me Laura, and I've written up this blog post to explain that I am not a professor... so "Prof. Gibbs" would not be me. But you really can just call me Laura!
The following items are for fun and exploration:
Writing Resource: Writing Good Titles. This blog post has tips on writing titles, both for the stories you will be adding to your Ning blog and also for your Storybook project later in the semester.
Words to Watch: Today's words to watch out for are desert and dessert. For details (including information about the notorious phrase "just deserts"), see this blog post.
Featured Storybook: Sky Warrior: A Tournament of Champions. Those of you who are fans of "Hunger Games" might want to take a look at this project in which a brave warrior does battle with the flying creatures in the arena as each round threatens death in a new form — Medean dragons, the bloodthirsty flying goddesses called Keres, and more. What will she do in order to survive?
FREE Kindle eBook: Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry edited by William Butler Yeats. Here is a link to the book at Amazon, and this blog post provides additional information about the contents of this book. It is one of the best collections of traditional Irish beliefs and legends that you will find online!
Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is A book that remains shut is but a block (an English proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. I don't know about you, but I always feel kind of guilty about the books on my bookshelves that I have not read yet!
Ramayana Image: Today's Ramayana image is Rama and Lakshmana, the loyal brothers, sons of King Dasaratha. (Rama is the blue one.)
Great Things about OU: One of my very favorite organizations at OU is World Literature Today. You may know them already from their lovely magazine or from the wonderful literary and cultural events they organize on campus every year. If you are a fan of world literature, you should check out the Student Opportunities at their website!
January 15: Peter Christen Asbjørnsen. Today marks the birthday in the year 1812 of the great Norwegian folklorist Peter Christen Asbjørnsen. Together with his collaborator Jørgen Engebretsen Moe, he published a monumental collection of Norwegian folktales. You can read these Norwegian folktales online at Sur La Lune, and you can learn more about Asbjørnsen at Wikipedia. The image below shows the cover of the book Norske folkeeventyr as published in 1874.
Note: You can page back through older blog posts to see any announcements you might have missed.
