Wednesday, November 2

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 11. If you have not written a story for this week yet, that means today is Storytelling Day... or you might choose the Story Planning option. Here is a link to this week's assignments.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Wednesday Style. If you are pondering a style to use for this week, you might consider "Dear Abby" (who even has her own article at Wikipedia) or some other kind of advice-type column. For ideas about how this can work, just take a look at McKenzie's Parvati's Counseling Service Storybook for Indian Epics, where the goddess Parvati is the one giving the advice, as in this back-and-forth she has with the epic heroine Damayanti.

Project Stack. Yesterday, I managed to get through the projects turned in by 2PM Sunday. I'll be carrying on with the Sunday assignments today, and you can check the stack to make sure I received your assignment.

Michaela's Survey. (repeat announcement) Here is another Capstone survey; this one comes from Michaela in Indian Epics, and it is for past study abroad participants (Michaela is studying the relationship between language study and study abroad satisfaction): Study Abroad Survey.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Stories. You might also get some storytelling ideas from John Atkinson's Movie Plot Generator.

Reading. Here is a wonderful quote from George RR Martin: A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.

Word from Mythology. Today's word comes from the Greek epic hero Odysseus: ODYSSEY.

Featured Storybook. This project is from the Indian Epics class: Elephants of Indian Epics. Singh's two sons Deepak and Tupac are in need of some life lessons, and they are even blessed with a dream vision of Ganesha to help focus their attention on the elephant stories that their father will tell them.

Free Book Online: The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle. See the Freebookapalooza blog for links and the table of contents. Howard Pyle also did the illustrations:

Words of Wisdom: Today's saying is The birth of a golden deer is impossible; nevertheless, Rama longed for the chase (a proverb from India). Find out more at the Proverb Lab. Those of you in Indian Epics will understand this one: Rama may have been a god incarnate, but he was still fooled by that golden deer and agreed to go chase after it.

Today's Video: What do you know about it?. This film is in German, but you can click the CC at the bottom of the screen to turn on the English subtitles; you'll see that this too is a storytelling technique, and it is a powerful one!

Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat is clearly going to do the Story Planning post option: First, I make a plan. You can find out more at the Growth Mindset blog.

Event on Campus: The world premiere of Laughter Without Borders: Swedish Clowns in Greece Helping Syrian Refugee Children will take place at 7PM in Meacham (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

November 2: All Souls Day. After the holiday of All Saints on November 1 comes the holiday of All Souls. In many Catholic countries, the two days — November 1 and November 2 — are celebrated together as the Day (or Days) of the Dead, Día de Muertos in Spanish. This is a traditional time for offering prayers on behalf of the dead, and also for visiting cemeteries and decorating the graves. There will be a celebration of the festival from 10AM-10PM today on the South Oval sponsored by the Brown Collective and Latino Student Life:

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