Class Procedures and Reminders:
Project Stack. I'm still working my way through the enormous stack of Project assignments that people have turned in. If you turned in an assignment on Sunday before 3PM, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in later on Sunday or on Monday or Tuesday, it is probably still in the stack, waiting for me to get to it. If you want to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. Please wait to get my comments before you go on to the next Project assignment — although you can certainly keep working ahead on other assignments in the class while you wait! The Project is the only item each week where you need to wait for my comments back to you.
The following items are for fun and exploration:
Language Resource: From the Open University in England comes this wonderful series of videos about the History of the English Language. Here is the first video in the series:
Writing Resource: The Writing on the Wall. One of the best books I read over winter break was Writing on the Wall: Social Media: The First 2,000 Years by Tom Standage. If you are interested in the history of writing and social networks, this book is a must-read - very informative and very thought-provoking — from ancient Rome to the modern Internet and everything in-between.
Foreign Words in English: Today's foreign word in English is shampoo. I bet you did not know that is a word that comes from Hindi! For details, see this blog post.
Featured Storybook: Mermaids: An Eternal World of Waters. Inside a mysterious grotto on the ocean's shore, Lydia finds a tattered book, adorned with pearls and clamshells - a magical book which "shows" the dramatic stories of Melusina and other famous mermaids.
FREE Kindle eBook: The First Book of Adam and Eve by Rutherford Platt. Here is a link to the book at Amazon, and this blog post provides additional information about the contents of the book — I think you will find the chapter titles very intriguing! The book is also known by this title: The Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan.
Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is Failures are the pillars of success (a Welsh proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. One of the biggest problems with school, it seems to me, is that we punish mistakes rather than embracing them as the pillars on which we will build our future success, just as the proverb says!
Ramayana Image: Today's Ramayana image is Ravana Fighting with Jatayu. This is a wall painting from West Bengal, India.
Wednesday Event on Campus: The 100th Annual Student Art Exhibition continues at the Fred Jones Museum through February 16 (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.
January 29: Edward Lear. Today marks the death in the year 1888 of the English illustrator and poet, Edward Lear (he was born in 1812). You can read more about Lear's life and work in this Wikipedia article. He is most famous for his limericks and nonsense verse - especially the poem entitled The Owl and the Pussycat. You can listen to the poem at this Tales of Curiosity video:
Note: You can page back through older blog posts to see any announcements you might have missed.
