Today is Monday of Week 6. (Yes, the semester really is one-third over!) Here is a link to Week 6 (and if you are finishing up Week 5 during the grace period this morning, here is Week 5). I hope you will enjoy the new readings this week: it's the Middle East or India again in Myth-Folklore, while you will be starting the Mahabharata in Indian Epics! (Of the two epics, the Mahabharata is my favorite; I am very curious what you all will think.)
Class Procedures and Reminders
Project Stack. While you are waiting on comments back from me about your project, you can check the stack to make sure it's there. I'll be replying in the order received, starting with projects that were left in the stack at the end of the week on Friday.
Start the week with extra credit. If you put off doing the extra credit until the end of the week, you might run out of time, but you can do Week 6 extra credit at the start of the week, or at any time during the week. So, if you feel like tinkering with your blog to add new features or playing with some meme generators, etc., you can do that for extra credit this week. Check this progress chart to see if you might need some extra credit as Week 6 gets started.
The following items are for fun and exploration:
Blog stream. I'm so excited some people are doing microfiction already (I hope you all will want to make a book together this semester like last semester)... there's a microfiction writing process built into the Story Lab options (coming up this week), and also as extra credit every week. Here's a microfiction revision from Rachel; it's a great example of how some microfiction morphs into poetry-in-prose: What I Wish My Best Friend Knew.
Check out the Twitter stream for information and fun stuff during the day, or click here for past announcements.
Class Procedures and Reminders
Project Stack. While you are waiting on comments back from me about your project, you can check the stack to make sure it's there. I'll be replying in the order received, starting with projects that were left in the stack at the end of the week on Friday.
Start the week with extra credit. If you put off doing the extra credit until the end of the week, you might run out of time, but you can do Week 6 extra credit at the start of the week, or at any time during the week. So, if you feel like tinkering with your blog to add new features or playing with some meme generators, etc., you can do that for extra credit this week. Check this progress chart to see if you might need some extra credit as Week 6 gets started.
The following items are for fun and exploration:
Blog stream. I'm so excited some people are doing microfiction already (I hope you all will want to make a book together this semester like last semester)... there's a microfiction writing process built into the Story Lab options (coming up this week), and also as extra credit every week. Here's a microfiction revision from Rachel; it's a great example of how some microfiction morphs into poetry-in-prose: What I Wish My Best Friend Knew.
Twitter stream. Something gorgeous from India: a famous statue of Shiva's bull, Nandi, in Andhra Pradesh:
And there are so many tweets popping up of people using Deep Nostalgia™ to animate photos; here are two examples from Legonium's Twitter feed:
Made from a photograph of the bust of Nefertiti, currently housed at the Neues Museum in Berlin. pic.twitter.com/DkqZR6gZsp
— Legonium (@tutubuslatinus) February 27, 2021
‘Sappho’ wall painting from Pompeii, animated by the MyHeritage app. Tip of the hat to to @drcorabeth. pic.twitter.com/skLFuPnl9s
— Legonium (@tutubuslatinus) February 27, 2021
A friend of mine who teaches first-year English comp asks his students to create memes, and here's a fun writing meme that one of his students made:
And just to remind everyone that the Indian Epics tradition involves theater too, here's a video with theater professor and puppeteer, Kathy Foley, about the power of masks in epic performance:
And a related video about the shadow-puppet theater tradition of south Asia:
March 1: Zero Discrimination Day. Today is world-wide Zero Discrimination Day, celebrating diversity, tolerance and inclusion. The global event is sponsored by UN-AIDS whose goal is to reach people who have HIV with treatment, eliminate HIV stigma, and reduce sexual transmission of HIV. The theme for this year is End Inequalities.
And a video: Education is the best "social vaccine" to prevent HIV (click CC for the English captions):
Check out the Twitter stream for information and fun stuff during the day, or click here for past announcements.
