Class Procedures and Reminders
Week 14 ends this weekend. This weekend is the end of Week 14, so any remaining Week 14 assignments are due now, with the usual grace period on Monday, December 1. For those of you who were waiting on the Week 14 Internet assignment, that is available now.
Week 15 schedule. The schedule for Week 15 is compressed because of finals. Instead of lasting over the weekend, Week 15 will end at NOON on FRIDAY, December 5. So, please make sure you get your assignments all turned in by that time. Week 15 is a review week with no new reading; here are the Week 15 assignments if you are ready to work on those this weekend! The sooner you can get the class finished up, the better: that way you can have a real dead week next week.
Storybook/Portfolio Stack. Some of you are still planning to turn in a Storybook assignment for Week 14. Please make sure you turn that in this weekend or during the Monday morning grace period at the latest. Because of the compressed schedule for Week 15, there can be no late Week 15 Storybook/Portfolio assignments; you have to get that turned in this weekend or during the grace period so that I can get comments back to you in time to complete the Week 15 assignment. You can check the stack to make sure I received your assignment.
Finishing the class. You should now have a specific plan in place for the assignments that you will complete in order to get the points you need, and I would urge you not to put any of those assignments off until the last minute. As you reach the points you need for your final grade in this class — 410 points for an A, 360 points for a B, 320 points for a C — let me know, and I'll record the letter grade for you there in the Desire2Learn Gradebook.
The following items are for fun and exploration:
Plot Twist. Yes, you can use your writing skills to change your life!
Indian Words in English: Today's Indian word in English is Aryan, a Sanskrit word that meant "noble, honorable" — a word whose later usage has become completely perverted from its Sanskrit usage. For details, see this blog post.
Featured Storybook: Women in White: Legends of the Haunted Hitchhikers. Dr. Daniel Christopher Augustus Anthony Brendan, a.k.a. Dan, is a parapsychologist, and he has stories to tell us about ghosts: ghostly women in white whom you might see by the side of the road, hoping to hitch a ride.
FREE Kindle eBook: Folk Tales from the Russian by V.X.K. de Blumenthal. Here is a link to the book at Amazon, and this blog post provides additional information about the contents of the book. This collection contains the story of the famous "Baba Yaga," along with other famous Russian fairy tales.
Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is There’s a many a slip between cup and lip (an English proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. In other words: even when something looks certain, you can never be 100% sure. :-)
Mahabharata Image: Today's Mahabharata image is Ganesha. Notice that he has just one tusk, while he holds his broken tusk in one of his right hands, and there are various legends about how he ended up with just one tusk.
November 29: C. S. Lewis. Today marks the birthday in the year 1898 of the famous author and scholar, C. S. Lewis. Lewis is probably best known today for his series of Narnia books. You can read more about Lewis's life and career in this Wikipedia article, and there is also a biographical film about his later life which is very much worth watching: Shadowlands. The image below shows the first-edition covers of the Narnia books. I like these books very much; my personal favorite is The Magician's Nephew!
Note: You can page back through older blog posts to see any announcements you might have missed, and you can check out the Twitter stream for information and fun stuff during the day.
