Class Procedures and Reminders:
Storybook Stack. As usual at the beginning of the week, there are still LOTS of Storybook assignments in the stack. I'm slowly making my way through the huge stack of assignments people turned in over Spring Break. If you turned something in the weekend at the beginning of Spring Break before noon on Sunday, March 16, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned in an assignment and did not get comments back yet, please check to make sure your assignment is in the stack: contents of the stack.
Finishing up the class: Storybooks. As I've mentioned before, there is no absolute requirement about the number of stories in a finished Storybook; based on your strategy for getting your points in the class, you can finish your Storybook with just three stories or even just two stories if you want - it is up to you! The Week 14 and Week 15 Storybook assignments are final revisions, so if you are stopping with just two or three stories, for example, you can skip ahead to the final revision assignments for your Storybook. If you have any questions about that, let me know, and there is more information about grading and finishing the class here.
The following items are for fun and exploration:
Writing Resource: Commas and Modifiers. Using free modifiers is a great way to vary your sentence structure, and if you review the information on this page, you'll know when and where to use a comma to separate the free modifier from the rest of the sentence.
Words to Watch: Today's words to watch out for are COMPLEMENT and COMPLIMENT, a very common spelling error. For details, see this blog post.
Featured Storybook: Zoo Animal History. In Sarah's Storybook for Indian Epics this semester, you can learn about Matsya, Hanuman and Jatayu from their modern-day fans and descendants!
Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is Every blade of grass gets its own drop of dew (a Scottish proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. Like many proverbs, this is an observation about a very small thing which can offer a big lesson in life.
Mahabharata Image: Today's Mahabharata image is Arjuna and Krishna as Krishna recites the Gita to Arjuna before the battle.
Tuesday Event on Campus: As part of the Noon Concert series, there will be an oboe concert by Professor Dan Schwartz in the Sandy Bell Gallery (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.
March 25: Annunciation. March 25 marks the Christian festival of the Annunciation, when the Angel Gabriel announced the birth of Jesus to Mary. The festival of Jesus's birth, Christmas, is celebrated nine months later, on December 25. You can read more about the festival of the Annunciation in this Wikipedia article. The image below is a painting of the Annunciation scene from the late 14th century (Web Gallery of Art); notice that Mary is shown reading when the angel arrives - Mary's book is a detail you will find in many depictions of the Annunciation scene although it is not mentioned in the Biblical narrative:
Note: You can page back through older blog posts to see any announcements you might have missed.
