Showing posts with label repeatavail. Show all posts
Showing posts with label repeatavail. Show all posts

WEEK 11 WEEKEND: April 10-11

It's the WEEKEND of Week 11. Happy Weekend! Here is a link to Week 11 ... and if you are ready to start Week 12, here's that link also: Week 12, along with a link to the class calendar if you are working ahead, plus the progress chart so you can make sure you are on track as the semester starts winding down.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project Stack. I'll try to update the stack periodically over the weekend, so you can check the stack to make sure I received your assignment. On Monday, I'll start replying to the assignments in the order turned in, starting with the assignments that were still in the stack on Friday.

Finishing up the class. A few more people finished the class last week, which is great to see! It's always nice to finish this class early if you have intense end-of-semester stuff to do in other classes. I'd encourage everybody to make a plan for finishing up, and if you have any questions about that, let me know.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog stream. It's so fun seeing the microfiction experiments that people are trying... like this fun one from Tyler: New Beginnings. It's a combination of looking ahead but also blending in wacky details from the past (see her author's note for details).


Twitter stream. I noticed this lovely India item in Brain Pickings: The Secret Life of Trees.


This is a beautiful Twitter hashtag: #MuseumMomentOfZen ... and here's a Zen Moment item from LACMA:


And just to blow your mind: a backwards clock (it's in Bolivia). Weird time for a weird world!


Plus a great cartoon about pandemic time from Awkward Yeti:


And an essay on the Mahabharata by Sanskrit scholar Audrey Truschke: The living Mahabharata.


Plus modern Greek mythology: the classical myth of Jason and vengeful Medea... as Social Medea.


Here's a TED-Ed video about Jason and Medea:


April 10. Today marks the birthday of Montague Summers in 1880, an English clergyman and writer known for his books on werewolves, witches, and vampires. You can learn more about his life and career at Wikipedia, and you can find his book The Vampire: His Kith and Kin online. In addition, he  translated the Latin Malleus Maleficarum, a 15th-century manual for witch hunters. Here is the title page of a Latin edition of the Malleus:


April 11: Margaret of Navarre. Today is the birthday of the French writer Margaret, Queen of Navarre, in the year 1492. You can read about her remarkable life and career at Wikipedia, and selections from her book The Heptameron will be one of the reading options coming up in the Myth-Folklore class! Here is her portrait:


This video provides a quick introduction to her work; it's a promo for what sounds like a great class!



Check out the Twitter stream for information and fun stuff during the day, or click here for past announcements.
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Friday, April 9

At last....... FRIDAY! You have reached the end of Week 11, and you can access future weeks on the class calendar if you are working ahead in order to finish this class early. I hope you are looking forward to a great weekend!

Class Procedures and Reminders

Stories for the randomizer. I'll update the randomizer to add in the new stories later today, so there will be lots of new stories in the randomizer for your Week 11 blog comments. Thanks to everybody for the new stories this week!

Project Stack. If you turned in your project on Sunday, you should have gotten comments back from me, and I should be able to get through the rest of the stack by the end of the day today. As always, you can check the stack to make sure I received your project.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog stream. I noticed this post because of the beautiful dragon painting, and when I clicked to look I saw that Jennifer has two dragon stories here side by a side, a Chinese legend and a Japanese legend. Very cool! You can see the stories here: Two Dragon Myths.


Twitter stream. One of my favorite myth-fantasy book series is the Aru Shah / Pandava series by Roshani Chokshi... the fourth book just came out, and you can snag the first three books in the series for just 99 cents each as part of the promotion for the new book; highly recommended, especially for any fantasy fans in the Indian Epics class: 99 cent Pandava series.




From #FolkloreThursday yesterday, here's a fairy legend about eating rowan berries:


Plus a fascinating article about trying to imagine stories from the distant past: hunter-heroines! Early big-game hunters of the Americas were female.


Another great cartoon from Awkward Yeti with heart and brain (larger view):


Plus something beautiful from Grant Snider (larger view):


And something from Crash Course about trees:


April 9: Tom Lehrer. Today, April 9, is the 93st birthday of Tom Lehrer, born in 1928, an American mathematician and composer of some very funny satirical songs. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TOM LEHRER! Here's one of his science songs: The Elements.


And here's one of his mythological songs: Oedipus Rex.



Check out the Twitter stream for information and fun stuff during the day, or click here for past announcements.  
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Thursday, April 8

Today is Thursday of Week 11... and that means it will be a Storytelling day for a lot of you: let your imaginations run wild! Here is a link to Week 11, and you can find links to all the weeks at the class calendar.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project Stack. If you turned in your project on Sunday, you should have comments back from me, and today I'll start working on the projects from Monday. As always you can check the stack to make sure I received your project.

Finishing early. (repeat announcement) For those of you who are on track to finish early, I've put the "Finished!" form right there in Canvas. When you're done, you can fill that out to let me know your final grade (410 A, 360 B, 320 C), and that's it: you're all done for the semester. :-)

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog stream. It's so fun seeing the images that people include with their reading notes, and for his notes on a story about Bear and Coyote, Christian found this picture of a bear and a coyote! Here's Christian's blog post.


Twitter stream. Here's an interview with the wonderful Indian author, Usha Narayanan: Of Mystery, Magic and Mythology.


And news from the British Museum about a new exhibition: Exploring the Silk Roads.


Here's a heartwarming graphic from Molly Hahn at Buddha Doodles:


Plus a glimpse into the world of ancient Buddhist nuns: Poems by the first Buddhist nuns.


And something from the genius Tom Gauld (larger view): Some Advice on How to Cope in These Tough Times... and, yes, Morrigan really is a war goddess.


And something new from Grant Snider: Hopscotch (larger view).


April 8: Yom Ha-Shoah. Today is the Yom Ha-Shoah, the "Day of the Holocaust," in remembrance of the victims of the Nazis. You can read more about this memorial holiday in Wikipedia, and also learn about the term Shoah. This holiday is observed throughout the state of Israel, with special ceremonies taking place at Yad Vashem, which is the official Holocaust memorial in Israel. This image below is the Hall of Names from Yad Vashem:


The person I hold in my special remembrance for this day is Janusz Korczak (Wikipedia), a visionary educator who organized the Jewish orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto. In 1942, the Nazis raided Korczak's orphanage and sent the children to the death camp at Treblinka. Although Korczak's Polish friends begged him to escape and hide with them for the rest of the war, he would not leave the children, and he died together with them at Treblinka. This image below shows the Yad Vashem Memorial for Korczak and his children:


There is a film about Korczak by the Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda; here is the trailer (it's streaming at Amazon):



Check out the Twitter stream for information and fun stuff during the day, or click here for past announcements.
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Wednesday, April 7

Today is Wednesday of Week 11. Here is a link to Week 11 and also Week 12 if you are working ahead. Working ahead is great, especially if you want to take advantage of finishing up early! Since yesterday was an OU holiday, both Reading A and Reading B are available today in Canvas. :-)

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project Stack. If you turned in your project on Saturday, you should have comments back from me, and I'll start working on Sunday items today. You can always check the stack to make sure I received your project.

Finishing early. For those of you who are on track to finish early, I've put the "Finished!" form right there in Canvas. When you're done, you can fill that out to let me know your final grade (410 A, 360 B, 320 C), and that's it: you're all done for the semester. :-)


The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog stream. One thing you can always do with a blog post or project is to work on the design elements, especially illustrations. Savannah is using Canva to create illustration sets for her stories, which is so cool; here's her latest: The Heart Wants What the Heart Wants with four different images to tell the story:


Twitter stream. Savannah's use of Canva connects up with a really cool use of Canva that I saw from a teacher at Twitter: 30-word autobiographies made into Canva graphics (click that link and then click on an image to read the tiny autobiographies).


And here are some really cool photos from Art Historian, matching up Indian paper money with the places depicted on them:


And Nirali from the musical group Maati Baani is in a new ad worth watching for the music: 

A few years ago Maati Baani did a charming ad for Pepsi, very much worth a look/listen:


For another video today, here's one about the medieval legend of the hedgehog, rolling in grapes to take home for its young ones: De Herinacio. On the Hedgehog, with English subtitles.


Positive thoughts from Grant Snider: Optimism (larger view).


And some thoughts about creativity as sketched by Sylvia Duckworth (larger view). When times get tough, I say: get creative!


April 7: Ravi Shankar. Today is the birthday of the amazing Indian musician, Ravi Shankar, one of the modern masters of the sitar. He was born in 1920, and he died in 2012. You can read about Ravi Shankar's life and career at his official website and in this Wikipedia article, which is the source for this photo of Ravi Shankar with George Harrison of the Beatles, back in 1967. You can also find some great Ravi Shankar videos at YouTube.com - such as this wonderful video of Shankar's appearance on the Dick Cavett show. He left us with much beautiful music!




Check out the Twitter stream for information and fun stuff during the day, or click here for past announcements. 
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Tuesday, April 6

Today is Tuesday of Week 11. Here is a link to Week 11, plus the whole rest of the semester here at the class calendar.

Class Procedures and Reminders

OU Holiday. OU declared today a holiday for the Spring semester, making up for Spring Break (partly)... although they did not make that announcement until after I had already scheduled the Week 5 and Week 10 breaks for this class. So, there's still a Reading A item for this week, but I've extended that due date in Canvas through Wednesday. If you are taking today off as a holiday (yay!), you can catch up on the reading tomorrow, Wednesday, if you want/need to do Reading A for this week.

Project Stack. If you turned in your assignment on Friday, you should have comments back from me now. I'll get to work on the Saturday projects today! As always, you can check the stack to make sure I received your project.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog Stream. This is actually something from a Storybook rather than from a blog; Lewis did something really cool here pairing up some animated gifs with a marble statue for his story of Hercules and Antaeus. I really like how the animation in the gif gives you a way to imagine the movement the sculptor tries to express in his sculpture.


Twitter Stream. Beautiful new music video from Maati Baani with lyrics by the Indian saint Kabir; lyrics and more information at the YouTube page:


Some procrastination humor from Dinoman (larger view):


And some decision-making humor with Heart and Brain from Awkward Yeti (larger view):


A piece from the Smithsonian about one of my all-time favorite modern adaptations of a classical story: Black Orpheus. How a French Film Introduced the World to Brazil.


And some advice for writing, specifically for scientific writing: keep it short! This could have been shorter.


April 6: Raphael. Today is the birthday of the great painter Raphael; he was born in 1483, and he died on his birthday in 1520, only 37 years old. You can read more about his life and career at Wikipedia, which also features many of his mythological paintings, like this painting of Saint George and the Dragon:




One of his most famous paintings, The School of Athens, has now become a meme. You can make your own School of Athens meme image of Plato and Aristotle at imgflip.



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

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Monday, April 5

Today is Monday of Week 11, and I hope everybody enjoyed the break last week! Here's a link to Week 11 for those of you who are ready to get started on the new week, plus you can see the whole calendar here: just 5 weeks to go!

Class Procedures and Reminders

Reading for Week 11. In both classes, Week 11 continues the reading options from Week 10: Krishna OR Jatakas in Indian Epics (details) and in Myth-Folklore, it's Native American traditions (details).

Project Stack. Thanks so much to everyone who turned in projects this weekend; I am glad to have some stories to read this week! You can check the stack to make sure I received your project, and today I'll start working through them in the order turned in.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog stream. This is not from the blog stream, but a screenshot of the Padlet; people added some really cute things for Easter. And remember: you can jump in and do that check-in-and-connect option anytime. Thanks so much to everybody who's been contributing! 




Beautiful exploration of Mughal art at the NYTimes: What a Tiny Masterpiece Reveals About Power and Beauty.


From IndiaDivine at Twitter, statues in the Kodandarama Temple honoring Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana:


And a fascinating article at Daily Beast: Was Jesus a Wizard?


Some beautiful thoughts on Beginner's Mind from Aeon. (I am a believer in the power of beginner's mind!)


And just for fun, since I know plenty of you have been Zooming, so here's Every Type of Zoom Call Participant, Illustrated by Cats. For example: The One With the Random Family Member Cameos.


And just so you know things could be worse than pandemic-Zooming, here are some thoughts from Crash Course about the end of the world: Apocalypse.


Plus an Apocalypse Now - Winnie the Pooh mash-up... this is a seriously genius mash-up!


April 5: Śmigus-Dyngus Day. The Monday after Easter, also known as "Wet Monday," is a fun holiday in Poland and other Catholic countries in central Europe. It's basically a free-for-all water fight. You can find out more at Wikipedia. This photo shows an after-Easter drenching in Hungary:


Even if you don't speak Polish, you might enjoy this How-to-Play-Wet-Monday video:


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