Wednesday, September 13

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 4. The second part of the reading is due today, and I hope you are finding good ideas to inspire your story this week! Here is a link to this week's assignments.

Class Procedures and Reminders

My schedule today. I'll be away from my office for most of the morning, and at least part of the afternoon. So, I won't be as quick to respond to emails, but if you send me an email, I'll reply as soon as I'm back online.

First Portfolio! This is the first semester where people will be creating Portfolio websites, and Nancy (Indian Epics) has got her Portfolio started already: Valmiki's Library - Living Stories. There will be a lot more Portfolio websites to show and share next week, plus the Storybook websites too!

Project Stack. I'm working my way through the projects turned in on Sunday; if you turned something in before 3PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me, and I will keep working through the Stack today. While you are waiting on comments back from me, you can check the stack to make sure I received your email.

Extra Credit. If you enjoyed this week's reading, keep on reading! There are always more stories; find out how the extra credit reading option works in this week's assignments.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Class Twitter. From yesterday's Twitter @OnlineMythIndia, here is an article about Scythians in the Guardian newspaper. The article compares the ancient Scythians to the Dothraki in Game of Thrones... a good comparison!

Writing Humor. And here's a cartoon from the genius Tom Gauld. Watch out for those fiendish librarians and the malignant barrista!

Storybook Archive. This project is from the Myth-Folklore class: The Tales of Garden Creatures. Cocoa and the other little dogs who live in the garden are at war with the pixies, trolls, and gnomes. These dogs have seen things going on in the garden that the humans do not even suspect, like when Cocoa is kidnapped by an evil, amorous gnome. Who will be brave enough to rescue her from the gnome kingdom?

Free Book Online: Today's free book is Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. See the Freebookapalooza blog for links and the table of contents. And yes, this is the same Rudyard Kipling who wrote The Jungle Book; you can read more about Kipling at Wikipedia.

Story of the Day. Today's story is from India: The Rat's Swayamvara. A powerful sage turns a rat into a woman, and then that woman decides she wants to marry the most powerful being in the world: who will she marry?

Video: The video for today is another one of Amy Burvall's mash-up music videos: The Trojan War (from "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell).

Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset kittens are fearless learners: Kittens don't worry about making mistakes. You can find out more at the Growth Mindset blog.

Event on Campus: It's the WGS Art Gallery Opening in Robertson Hall, 4PM-6PM (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

September 13: Noor Inayat: Today marks the death of Noor Inayat Khan in the year 1944, executed by the Nazis at the Dachau concentration camp. Noor Inayat wrote a beautiful book of Buddhist birth stories, Twenty Jataka Tales, and she was also an Allied SOE agent infiltrated into France to work with the Resistance. You can learn more about her life at Wikipedia, and here is the trailer for a recent film about her: Enemy of the Reich.

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