Wednesday, November 9

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 12. If you have not written a story for this week yet, that means today is Storytelling Day... perhaps fueled by extra coffee for those of you who stayed up all night watching close races around the country. See below for a new storytelling idea you might want to try, and here is a link to this week's assignments.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Wednesday Style. If you are looking for a new storytelling style idea, try this: take a character from one story and weave that character into another story! You could do a mash-up of two different stories you read this week, or you might want to take a character from a story you read last week and add that character into a story you read this week. For an example of this mash-up style, check out Bailey's Storybook, where characters from one Grimm Brothers fairy tale wander into another Grimm story: Brothers Grimm — An Unexpected Visitor.

Project Stack. Yesterday I got through the projects turned in by 3PM on Sunday, and today I'll carry on with the projects turned in on Sunday afternoon and evening. You can check the stack to make sure I received your assignment.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Motivation. I really like this quote from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, and here are more Quotes from Children's Literature. Not being afraid is good advice at all times IMO.

Writing. Insults often come in handy for creative writing purposes, and you can look to Shakespeare's Insults for ideas in this amazing chart; see below for a close-up of how it works.

Here's a detailed view:

Spelling. This GrammarCat is struggling with the difference between Than and Then.

Featured Storybook. This project is from the Myth-Folklore class: The Search for Bo Peep's Sheep. Bo Peep has lost her sheep, but she has a whole world of nursery rhyme friends who can help her to find them.

Free Book Online: Folklore of the Telugus by G.R. Subramiah Pantulu. See the Freebookapalooza blog for links and the table of contents. Yes, there are tigers in these folktales from southern India, and you can learn more about the Telugu people at Wikipedia.

Words of Wisdom: Today's saying is Big oaks from little acorns grow (an English proverb). Find out more at the Proverb Lab. This is true both for real acorns and metaphorical acorns too.

Today's Video: Illuminated Manuscripts ("Nowhere Man" by the Beatles). It's another one of Amy Burvall's wonderful history/music mash-ups:

Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat knows that you need to be confident in yourself, fearlessly: Confidence comes from not fearing to be wrong. You can find out more at the Growth Mindset blog.

Event on Campus: Tame the stress with Fitness Yoga at the IT Store on Boyd at noon today (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

November 9: Howard Pyle. Today, November 9, marks the death in the year 1911 of the American illustrator and author, Howard Pyle. You can read about Howard Pyle's life and career in this Wikipedia article, and you can find some of his books at the Freebookapalooza blog. The image below shows one of Howard Pyle's most haunting paintings, The Mermaid:

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