Wednesday, December 3

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 15. Wednesday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you did not finish the Tuesday work — and if you missed them yesterday, here's a link to Tuesday's announcements.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Storybook/Portfolio Stack. (repeat announcement) As always, you can check the stack to make sure I received your assignment. I should be able to get assignments back on the same day this week so that you can see your total points and be able to finish up the class.

Week 15 Schedule. (repeat announcement) The schedule for Week 15 is compressed because of finals. Instead of lasting over the next 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 — and let me know if you have any questions about the special schedule for this week.

Finishing the class. (repeat announcement) 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:

Writing Humor: The-saurus. You've heard of brontosaurus, stegosaurus, and tyrannosaurus... and now meet thesaurus-saurus:

Words to Watch: Today's words to watch out for are PRAY and PREY. For details, see this blog post.

Featured Storybook: Faery Legend. This Storybook is a wonderful example of interwoven stories, where characters appear and re-appear from one story to the next, and the stories themselves are all magical love stories about humans and faeries.

FREE Kindle eBook: The Real Mother Goose by Blanche Fisher Wright. Here is a link to the book at Amazon, and this blog post provides additional information about the contents of the book. This was the Mother Goose book I had when I was little!

Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is When the bee comes to your house, let her have beer; you may want to visit the bee’s house some day (a proverb from the Congo). Details at the Proverb Lab. As you can imagine, I was very happy to find an image of a bee with a beer to use for this poster!

Mahabharata Image: Today's Mahabharata image is Damayanti's Swayamvara. As you can see, the gods have disguised themselves as her beloved Nala!

Wednesday Event on Campus: It's Tribute Massages again in the Crossroads Lounge in the Union; reservations for massages 1PM-4PM open at 12:45AM, first come, first served (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

December 3: International Day of Persons with Disabilities. The United Nations has declared December 3 to mark the observance of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, and the theme for 2014 is: Sustainable Development: The Promise of Technology. You can learn more about the disability rights movement in this Wikipedia article, which also lists additional resources.




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.