Class Procedures and Reminders:
STORYBOOK VOTING: Polls close at 5PM today. Today, Thursday, is your last chance to vote for your favorite Storybooks. Because all the Storybooks are so good, the votes are VERY close — so, yes, a single vote can indeed make a difference in this very local micro-election. Here are the nominees here for both classes. The voting will go until 5PM today, Thursday, and I'll share the results in Friday's announcements!
Storybook stack. If you turned in a Storybook on Monday morning, you should have comments back from me, but if you turned something in on Monday afternoon, Tuesday, or Wednesday, it might still be in the stack.You can check the contents of the stack to make sure I have received your assignment. If the points for the Storybook 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.
Grading and points. (repeat announcement) When you finish up with the class I record a "FINAL GRADE" in the D2L Gradebook so you can be sure you are done. So, just let me know when you have completed the number of points you need: 410 for an A, 360 for a B, 320 for a C. It's entirely up to you what grade you want to finish with in the class. There is no need to apologize for stopping out with a grade of B or C (many people are taking this class just for Gen. Ed. credit, and I know that means it is often not a top priority). Whatever grade you decide to stop with is fine with me; just let me know when you are done, and I'll record the grade!
The following items are for fun and exploration:
Writing Humor: Commas Matter. This is something like the famous "Let's eat Grandma," but for medical professionals.
Words to Watch: Today's words to watch out for are CUE and QUEUE. For details, see this blog post.
Featured Storybook: The Last of the Seapeople: The Weight of the World. This Storybook from last yearcontains the tales of Shameil, last of the seapeople. The seapeople once thrived in the great waters of the world until humanity destroyed their habitat, and the stories of the seapeople contain a warning for us all.
FREE Kindle eBook: Santal Folk Tales by A. Campbell. Here is a link to the book at Amazon, and this blog post provides additional information about the contents of the book. The Santals are a Munda people who live in eastern India and in Bangladesh; they are the largest tribal population in India.
Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is Your fingers can’t be of the same length (a Chinese proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. In other words, diversity is a good thing! If all your fingers were of the same length, your hands would not be as useful as they are.
Mahabharata Image: Today's Mahabharata image is Vyasa and Janamejaya. The king, on the left, has a bow and arrows by his side.
Thursday Event on Campus: Holocaust Survivor Eva Unterman will tell her story in a presentation at 6:30PM in the Kerr Auditorium of the Natural History Museum (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.
Poem in Your Pocket Day. Today is "Poem in Your Pocket Day" 2014, which means you carry a poem with you and share it with people you meet! You can learn more at the Poets.org website. Below I've embedded a video from YouTube about this fun holiday, and the nice folks at World Literature Today have some poems for you to explore, too: World Literature Today - Poetry.
Note: You can page back through older blog posts to see any announcements you might have missed.
