Tuesday, October 11

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 8, and I've re-arranged the Modules area in Canvas so the new week is on top. The starting assignments are different this week; no new reading. Instead, there are some reflection posts and surveys! Here is a link to this week's assignments.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Feedback groups. The feedback groups for Week 8 are available now; it's Storybooks this week, and quite a few of the Storybooks have a first story now too, so you can see how those projects are really starting to take shape.

Project Stack. Yesterday, I read all the assignments turned in on Friday and most of the Saturday assignments. Today, I'll finish the Saturday assignments and move on to Sunday morning. You can check the stack to make sure I received your assignment. If you didn't turn in a Week 7 Project assignment but want to turn in your Week 8 assignment now, that would be great; if you turn it in now, I'll be able to get comments back to you before the weekend.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Alphabet. Writing is my favorite technology, and in this graphic you can watch the evolution of the alphabet.

Writing. Wise words from Margaret Atwood: If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.

Words from India. The word/name "Buddha" is from Sanskrit, and it means the "awakened one." Find out more: BUDDHA. And see the free book below for the story of the Buddha as Josaphat!

Featured Storybook. This project is from the Myth-Folklore class: I Was A Teenage Mythological Creature. On this reality TV show, there are five contestants — Charlie the Unicorn, Ashley the Harpy, Serena the Siren, Milo the Minotaur, and Jack the Chimera — and you can read all the behind-the-scenes gossip in their not-so-private diaries.

Free Book Online: Barlaam and Josaphat: English Lives of Buddha by Joseph Jacobs. See the Freebookapalooza blog for links and the table of contents. Did you know that the Buddha's life story became the legend of a Christian saint? Really! His name is Saint Josaphat!

Words of Wisdom: Today's saying is A thousand probabilities do not make one truth (an English proverb). Find out more at the Proverb Lab. Life is indeed full of probabilities... but truth is harder to discern!

Today's Video: Divine Beings. This is a promotional video for one of the Amar Chitra Katha comic books that you can find in Bizzell:

Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat is a thoughtful cat: Thinking is part of doing. You can find out more at the Growth Mindset blog.

Event on Campus: It's "Write Night" at the Writing Center from 8PM - 10PM (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

October 11: Dussehra. The Hindu holiday of Dussehra (known also as Vijaya Dashami, Dasara, or Dashain) celebrates the victory of Rama over Ravana, good over evil — a story that is now very familiar to everybody in the Indian Epics class, and to some of you in Myth-Folklore also! You can read more about the festivities at Wikipedia. The multi-headed demon Ravana is often burned in effigy as part of the Dussehra celebration as you can see in the image below:

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