Tuesday, February 14

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 5, and I've re-arranged the Modules area in Canvas so the new week is on top, and here is a link to this week's assignments. I hope you are enjoying this week's reading!

Class Procedures and Reminders

Feedback Groups! I am pleased to announce that the Feedback Groups for Week 5 are ready, and I had a lot fun yesterday setting up all the links to everybody's projects and then setting up the first week of Feedback groups. You can see the project lists here: Myth-Folklore Projects and Indian Epics Projects.

Project Stack. Because I was busy with setting up the project pages yesterday, I did not have a lot of time for working on the stack, but I did reply to everything that had been turned in on Friday. Today I will start working on the projects turned in on Saturday. You can check the stack to make sure I received your assignment.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Reading. As you can guess, I am a huge fan of libraries: Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace, and wit, reminders of order, calm, and continuity.

Writing. The proofreader's work is never done: Before You Hit Sned.

Spelling. And here's a word pair that is easy to mix up (no help from the spellchecker for this one!): ANGEL versus ANGLE.

Featured Storybook. This project is from the Indian Epics class: Here Comes Surya: A View from Above. The god of the sun, Surya, has a television show... along with a tumultuous family life of his own too!

Free Book Online: Today's free book is Speak Bird, Speak Again: Palestinian Arab Folktales edited by Ibrahim Muhawi and Sharif Kanaana. See the Freebookapalooza blog for links and the table of contents. This is one of the books generously put online by the University of California Press.

Words of Wisdom: Today's saying is Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience (Ralph Waldo Emerson). Find out more at the Proverb Lab. This snail is a cousin to Aesop's tortoise in the fable of the tortoise and the hare.

Video: The video for today is Ganesha Sharanam by Jai Uttal. You can find out more about Jai Uttal at Wikipedia.

Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat is a curious cat: Follow your natural curiosity and see what you learn. You can find out more at the Growth Mindset blog.

Event on Campus: There's an informational event today at 3PM in Collings Hall 325: come learn about Teacher Certification (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

Valentine's Day. In honor of the holiday, here is a Valentine's Day legend from Snopes. In 2008, the Mars Candy Company promoted the distribution of packages of all-green M-and-M candies because the green candies are supposedly an aphrodisiac — true or false? Well, Snopes.com tells us that it is true that Mars promoted the green candies for Valentine's Day, but as to whether the green M-and-Ms really are an aphrodisiac, Snopes.com is not saying. Happy Valentine's Day!

Check out the Twitter stream for information and fun stuff during the day, or click here for past announcements.