Wednesday, September 26

Today is Wednesday of Week 6. Here is a link to the Week 6 assignments. For some of you this is a reading day, and some of you might also be doing your story assignment already. Have fun with that! (There's a Story Lab option again this week!)

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project Stack. If you turned in something before 6PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. I'll keep working on the Sunday assignments today, and you can check the stack anytime to make sure I received your email.

Click for curiosity. As you are doing the reading today, you may run into links, or images that get your attention, or names you are curious about, words you don't know etc. etc. My advice is to pursue that curiosity; the answers you seek might be just one click away. And if you keep on clicking, you could end up with a nice Wikipedia Trail for extra credit.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog Stream. And speaking of Wikipedia Trails, here's one from Laura in Myth-Folklore: History of Writing to Baylonian Numerals. Not only is this a cool line of investigation, it is relevant to Laura's Storybook. For those of you doing Storybooks, the Wikipedia Trails option is a fun way to do project research.

Featured Storybook. I know there are a lot of fans of Greek mythology in these classes, so here is a fun Storybook to look at: Real Housewives of Greek Mythology. Things are tense around Mount Olympus these days: Hera and Zeus are fighting. Again. (Check out the stories to see full-blown script style in action too!)

Myth Video. And for those of you in Myth-Folklore looking at Buddhism this week, here is a quick BBC video: Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths.

India Video. Here's a video about an important concept in both Buddhism and Hinduism: Samadhi.

India Item. And here's a lovely Kashmiri proverb: Man is more fragile than a flower, and yet harder than a stone.

And here is a thought about books and reading from Madeleine L'Engle, author of A Wrinkle in time.

Growth Mindset Cats. When you read, you grow your knowledge, and that's good: Knowledge is enjoyable and often useful in strange and unexpected ways.

Writing. You can create graphics for your own stories using fun generators online like this Fortune Cookie Generator. If you want some modern "prophecy" in a story, use a fortune cookie!

And here is a fascinating video about your brain and storytelling: Empathy, Neurochemistry, and the Dramatic Arc.

Event on Campus. Tonight is the second meeting of the reading group for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein at 7PM in the Headington Library (details).

Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

September 26: European Day of Languages. You can find out more about this holiday at Wikipedia and at the EDL website. Celebrate the holiday by practicing your European language skills. For me, that means I will be singing along to Italian and Polish pop music. Maybe you can find a fun way to use your languages today!

A blast from the Polish past with Lady Pank:

And an Italian favorite: the late, great Fabrizio de Andre.

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