Wednesday, April 5

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 11. If you have not written a story for this week yet, that means today is Storytelling Day. Have fun with that, and maybe you can find some ideas to use from today's announcements. Here is a link to this week's assignments.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project Stack. I'm working on the Sunday assignments now, and if you turned something in before 2PM on Sunday, you should have received comments back from me. I'll keep working on the Sunday assignments today, and you can check the stack to make sure I've received your email.

Style: Cumulative Tale. Each Wednesday I like to share a style idea from someone's project, and today I want to share a wonderful cumulative tale that Logan wrote using elements from the Blackfoot stories: The Old Man and an Aching Tooth. You might know this as a "House that Jack Built" type of story, and you can find out more here: Cumulative Tales.

And here's a video by Nina Paley (who did Sita Sings the Blues) showing the Jewish cumulative tale of Chad Gadya, One Goat, which ends with: Then came the Holy One, and smote the angel of death, who slew the slaughterer, who killed the ox, that drank the water, that extinguished the fire, that burned the stick, that beat the dog, that bit the cat, that ate the goat. (This is a Passover song, and Passover is coming next week!)

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Life. Good advice from Robert Fulghum about life, and about writing too: Life is about using the whole box of crayons.

Writing. Maybe you can invent a "plot generator" based on the stories you have been reading, like John Atkinson did here for Hollywood movies.

Words from India. Today's Sanskrit word is BUDDHA, which means "awakened."

Featured Storybook. This project is from the Indian Epics class: Dharma News Weekly. The Dharma News contains gossip, editorials, court reporting — and there's also a music review, covering Ravana's latest release from Lanka Records entitled "Demon Rap."

Free Book Online: Today's free book is Piskey-Purse: Legends and Tales of North Cornwall by Enys Tregarthen. See the Freebookapalooza blog for links and the table of contents. Cornwall was one of the great Celtic centers of ancient Britain.

Words of Wisdom: Today's saying is We never know the worth of water till the well is dry (an English proverb). Find out more at the Proverb Lab. This is another one of those environmental sayings that is just as relevant today as ever.

Video: The video for today is a reading of Beowulf... in old English. Yep, that IS English, but it's like a foreign language, isn't it? You can find out more about Old English at Wikipedia.

Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset kitten is ready to receive feedback: I need feedback to help me grow. You can find out more at the Growth Mindset blog.

Event on Campus: It's Henna Night, a charity fundraiser at Pi Phi House, 5-7PM (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

April 5: Rama Navami. Today is the holiday of Rama Navami, "Rama's Birthday," which you can read about at Wikipedia. Those of you in Indian Epics will not be surprised to find out that many of the biggest Rama Navami festivals take place in Ayodhya. This video shows someone making a kolam (rangoli) for the festival. It's safe to play the video anywhere because there's no sound, just the picture! :-)

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