Wednesday, August 31

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 2. If you have not written a story for this week yet, that means today is Storytelling Day. I hope you will have fun with that! Here is a link to this week's assignments.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Introductions. I'm almost done with all the intros for Indian Epics, and I've replied to many of the Myth-Folklore intros. If all goes well, I will finish replying to all of those today; if not today, then tomorrow at the latest. It is fun getting to meet you all in more detail now!

Project Stack. Each week, you will be turning in one assignment by email: the weekly Project assignment. After you turn that in, you can check the stack to make sure I received your assignment.

Storytelling Style. Each week on Wednesday I will feature a storytelling style that you might want to play with this week or sometime later in the semester. The featured style this time: Rap Battle. You just need two people (or animals, or inanimate objects... anything goes!) who want to fight it out in the form of a rap battle. Check out Zeus and Thor... there are non-stop mythological allusions going on here! Watch with the captions on for all the details:

The following items are for fun and exploration:

The Periodic Table of Storytelling. Instead of chemical elements, this table has story elements: Sh is "superhero," for example. Even better, if you go to the full-sized version, each element is linked to the TVTropes website, where you can get, literally, thousands of storytelling ideas. It's so cool!

Scripturient. I hope you will be feeling scripturient as you create your stories for this class.

scripturient (adj.): having a consuming passion to write

Arc-Ark. Since some of you might be reading about Noah's ark this week in Myth-Folklore, I thought this would be a good spelling reminder: arc versus ark.

Featured Storybook. This project is from the Myth-Folklore class: Queen of the Underworld. From rebellious teenager to Queen of the Underworld, Persephone has stories to tell that are full of drama and intrigue.

Free Book Online: Nine Ideal Indian Women by Sunity Devee. See the Freebookapalooza blog for links and the table of contents. The book includes women from the Indian epics, such as Shakuntala, Savitri, Promila, Damayanti, Uttara — and Sita, whom you can see in the illustration below which shows Sita and Rama's wedding:

Words of Wisdom: Today's saying is Beware of Greeks bearing gifts (an English proverb). Find out more at the Proverb Lab. This saying alludes to the treacherous gift from the Greeks to the Trojans: a wooden horse... in whose belly Greek soldiers were hiding, ready to attack as soon as they got inside the city walls.

Today's Video: Heal The World - Child Prodigy Cover. This is a new production by the Indian duo Maati Baani featuring talented young artists from many countries:

Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat is curious... and active: Curiosity is not sedentary and passive. You can find out more at the Growth Mindset blog.

Event on Campus: Come relax and color in the HCLC community space in Bizzell from 5PM - 7PM (details). I love to color and since I can't be there (I live in North Carolina), I wrote to Kim Thomas who coordinates the "Boomer Buzz" events, and she shared the coloring pages with me. So, if you can't make it, you can still color the Psychedelic Sower! Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

August 31: Jahangir: Today marks the birthday of the Mughal emperor Jahangir ("Conqueror of the World") who was born in 1569. You can read about his life and rule at Wikipedia. He was the son of the Emperor Akbar, and you may have heard of his most famous wife: Nur Jahan. The image below shows his cenotaph in Lahore, Pakistan:

Check out the Twitter stream for information and fun stuff during the day.