Saturday, August 26

Today is Saturday of Week 1. I hope you had a great first week of the semester! If you did not finish the Orientation week assignments on Friday, you can do that today. Here's the link: Orientation Week.

Class Procedures and Reminders

My schedule. I don't check email as often on the weekends, but do send me any questions you have. If it's something urgent, I'll get back to you as soon as I get back online; if it's not urgent, I'll get back to you on Monday morning.

Week 2. Just what day Week 2 starts for you depends on your schedule for the class; for most of you, Week 2 starts on Monday or Tuesday, but for those of you doing a lot of the coursework over the weekend, Week 2 might start on Saturday or Sunday, or it might even have started yesterday, on Friday. If you have any questions about that as you transition from Week 1 into Week 2, let me know: Week 2 assignments.

Blog comments. I'm having fun reading through the Introduction posts! I read all the Indian Epics Intros on Friday, and I'll be reading Myth-Folklore Intros next week. And on Tuesday, I'll have the Week 2 blog commenting assignment set up and ready to go! The idea is that in Week 2 you'll be commenting on the Week 1 posts, and in Week 3 you'll be commenting on the Week 2 posts, and so on. (Those of you who had a class with me before will see that is a change from how it worked in the past; now that the Myth-Folklore class is so big, I'm trying some new approaches with the commenting.)

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Spelling. This is one of those tricky word pairs in English that the spellchecker cannot help you with: COMPLEMENT v. COMPLIMENT.

Storybook Archive. This project is from the Myth-Folklore class: Adventure of Flight. King Zeus has set a challenge: who can find the secret of human flight? The attempt by Daedalus ends in tragedy, and things also do not turn out as planned for Perseus, so Zeus is ready to give up, when one more competitor arrives: Pegasus.

Free Book Online: Today's free book is Folktales of Bengal by Lal Behari Day. See the Freebookapalooza blog for links and the table of contents. The illustrations are by Warwick Goble, one of my favorite book illustrators!

Story of the Day. Today's story is an Aesop's fable about how a third party can profit when two animals, or people, are quarreling: The Lion, The Bear, and the Fox. The illustration is by John Tenniel; you may know him for his famous illustrations of Alice in Wonderland.

Video: The video for today is Unread Book: Just Read. If you are enjoying this Saturday night with a good book, this video is for you: Gotta stop myself I'm so nerdy. :-)

Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat understands the power of yet. You can find out more at the Growth Mindset blog.

Event on Campus: You can get a discount on a FIT Pass this weekend (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

August 26: The 19th Amendment. On this day in 1920, the 19th Amendment went into effect, so women could no longer be denied the right to vote. You can read more about the amendment in Wikipedia. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton had drafted this amendment all the way back in 1878, and it took over 40 years for the amendment to become part of the Constitution. The image below shows Stanton and Anthony circa 1900. Stanton died in 1902 and Anthony died in 1906; sadly, neither of them lived to see the 19th Amendment ratified.

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