Wednesday, January 31

Today is Wednesday of Week 3. The second part of the reading is due today, and I hope you are getting some good ideas for a story you want to (re)tell this week! Here is a link to the week's assignments.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Success Tips: Read like a writer. The goal for reading notes in this class is to be useful as you write your own stories. In other words: "read like a writer." Just what that means will vary from person to person (because everyone has different writing strategies of their own)... but as you do the reading and then write up your notes, think about how your notes can jumpstart your own story writing each week.

Project Stack. If you turned in a project before noon on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. Today, I'll be working on the assignments turned in on Sunday afternoon. While you are waiting on comments back from me about your Project assignment, you can check the stack to make sure I received your email. As you can see, the sooner you can turn that in each week, the sooner you will get comments back from me.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog Stream. Gavin did that growth mindset acronym challenge, and here's what he made: READ: Realize Everyone Acts Different.. I think that is a great way to "read" the world around us.

India Item. This word from India may surprise you: SWASTIKA. For thousands of years before it was so grotesquely misappropriated by Hitler, the swastika has been and continues to be a symbol of luck and prosperity in Indian religious traditions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.

Culture Video: And regarding the long history of religions, including religions in India, I thought you might enjoy this video: How Religion Spread.

India Comic Book: Those of you in Indian Epics are getting to know all about Rama, and today's comic book is about the sun-king dynasty to which he belonged: Ancestors of Rama. See the Amar Chitra Katha blog for the Bizzell Reserve call number and more information.

Proverb of the Day: Some of you in Myth-Folklore might be reading about the Trojan War this week, which is the source of this proverb: Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. Find out more at the Proverb Laboratory.

Writing: I recently wrote a story that involved a message in a fortune cookie, and I used this generator to create a graphic with the message I wanted. Maybe you will want to write a story that uses a fortune-cooking message too! Here's the Fortune Cookie Message Generator.

Reading: This one is for fans of Doctor Who: Every book is a TARDIS.

Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat is ready to work hard: It takes work to build a masterpiece. You can find out more at the Growth Mindset blog.

Video: And here's a video to inspire you to be consistent in your work: Intensity versus Consistency. This is a brief segment of a talk Simon Sinek gave at RSA, and here is a video of the complete talk.

Event on Campus: Kent Smith will be giving a talk at 4:30PM in Dale Hall Tower 900: Ancestry and Place of Ofi’Tohbi’ in Nature (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

January 24: Thaipusam. Today is the Hindu festival of Thaipusam which is celebrated during the Tamil month called Thai. The festival commemorates the goddess Parvati giving a weapon to her son, the god Murugan, so that he could kill the demon Soorapadman. You can read more about the festival at Wikipedia. The weapon is a spear or skewer called a vel, and some of the festival-goers have elaborate piercings with skewers and tiny spears, as you can see here in this festival from Thaipusam in Singapore:

And here is a Thaipusam documentary video: Living the Love.

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