Showing posts with label week05. Show all posts
Showing posts with label week05. Show all posts

Week 5 WEEKEND: Feb. 27-28

Yes, it's the weekend of WEEK 5 already. Some of you are taking a break this week, while some of you are doing some/all of Week 5, so here's that link: Week 5, and also a link to Week 6 if you are ready to get a head start on the week to come.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project Stack. I had a few items left in the stack on Friday afternoon, and those projects will be at the top of the stack on Monday. Meanwhile, I'll update the stack periodically over the weekend so you can check to make sure I received your project.

Week 5 break (repeat announcement). Because of the winter storm last week, the whole Week 4 / Week 5 break became a little more confusing than originally planned, but there's an easy way to check and see if you need to do any end-of-week assignments for Week 5: just go to Canvas and check your total points. If you have around 150, you're good: no need to do any Week 5 end-of-week assignments. If you have fewer than 150 points in Canvas, then do some Week 5 work now to fill that gap. I hope that makes sense, and if you have any questions about that, just let me know.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Stream. Carlee is doing Looney-Tunes-style stories for Indian Epics (yes, really!), and seeing this picture in her latest story got me hoping for summer: Gossip and the Swim Day.


Twitter stream. Here's a great cartoon from Grant Snider (see a larger view):


One of my favorite things about Twitter is seeing lovely works of art from India; here's a painting of Rama and his brothers arriving at the court of King Janaka:


And I thought this was hilarious: hypnotic llama!


And here's an idea for writing stories without words at all: Literojis!


And here is a super-fun word tool: the European Word Translator is a mash-up using Google Translate. You type a word into the "Translate it!" box, and then the translations show up on the map for the language of each country, and you can hover over each word to see what language it is.


Plus another language graphic, a linguistic family tree drawn by Minna Sundberg, and here is a larger version:


And here's a video about mythical languages from Crash Course:


For those of you who are doing some revising today, here's a thought from Robert Cormier:


And for those of you who are writing, just write; don't wait! Advice from Margaret Atwood:


And a writing video: Grammar Lessons with Food. Watch out for the man-eating chicken!


February 27: Leonard Nimoy. Today marks the anniversary of the death of Leonard Nimoy just four years ago in 2015 (he was born in 1931). Nimoy is most famous for having played Spock in the Star Trek original series. You can read more about his life and career at Wikipedia, and I highly recommend this documentary, made by his son, which you can watch streaming at Netflix: For the Love of Spock.


And yes, Spock was a Vulcan... so I made this Spock Cat meme: Be a Vulcan! Not a Vulcan't.


February 28: John Tenniel. Today marks the birthday in the year 1820 of the great English illustrator, John Tenniel, who is most famous for his illustrations to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. You can read about Tenniel's life and career in this Wikipedia article. Here is one of his Aesop's fable illustrations: the donkey in the lion's skin.


And here's a quick video showing his Alice illustrations:




Check out the Twitter stream for information and fun stuff during the day, or click here for past announcements.
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Friday, February 26

HAPPY FRIDAY! Today is Friday of Week 5... which means the semester is already one-third over. Incredible, but true! Here is a link for finishing up Week 5 and, for those of you working ahead, here is Week 6.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project Stack. If you turned your project in on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. I'll finish the rest of the Week 4 project assignments that are in the stack today for sure, and I will reply to as many of the Week 5 and Week 6 assignments as I can. As always, you can check the stack to make sure I received your project. (And anything left in the stack at the end of the day Friday will be at the top of the stack for Monday.)

Week 5 break. Because of the winter storm last week, the whole Week 4 / Week 5 break became a little more confusing I know, but there's an easy way to check and see if you need to do any end-of-week assignments for Week 5: just go to Canvas and check your total points. If you have around 150, you're good: no need to do any Week 5 end-of-week assignments if you want to have this weekend off. If you have fewer than 150 points in Canvas, then do some Week 5 work now to fill that gap. I hope that makes sense, and if you have any questions about that, just let me know.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog stream. Mangoes are a fruit you often find in Indian folktales (and even in the epics, like Hanuman and the famous sun-mango), and I really like this beautiful photo of mangoes that Daphne found to use in her Bengali folktale reading notes. Gorgeous! Plus here is a random factoid: the word "mango" is a south Indian word that we have adopted in English. For details, see this post: Tamil Word in English: Mango.


Twitter stream. One of my favorite OU people at Twitter is Prof. Burstein who studies patent and copyright law. She shares historical patent tweets, and this one is positively mythological! 


And here's something fun from another wonderful OU faculty member, Prof. Heddy in the Ed School:


If you're experiencing Zoom fatigue during these pandemic semesters, here's why: Nonverbal Overload: Causes of Zoom Fatigue.


Another example of how punctuation saves lives:


Getting ready for the weekend: breathing gifs from Nathan Pyle; see the thread for more:

As you're breathing, you might even want to use a mantra, which is a word that English has taken from one of the ancient languages of India: Sanskrit. More about the word mantra.


And for your viewing pleasure, here's a Crash Course video about Mythological Horses:


In the spirit of written-text traditions, here's a beautiful new open-access book you can read online: Continuous Page: Scrolls and Scrolling from Papyrus to Hypertext.


February 26: Purim. Yesterday evening at sunset marked the start of the Jewish holiday of Purim which celebrates the events described in the Book of Esther in the Bible. Esther saved her people from the evil Haman, who was plotting to destroy them. You can read more about Purim in this Wikipedia article. And for your viewing enjoyment, here is Raise Your Mask - Purim by the Ein Prat Fountainheads in Israel: 


And more cats: this is a hilarious animated-cat-gif retelling of the Book of Esther: The Entire Story Of Purim, As Told By Cat GIFs. Here are a couple of my favorites:

Meet King Ahasuerus


King Ahasuerus was not pleased


Check out the Buzzfeed article for more. :-)

And you can also visit the Twitter stream for information and fun stuff during the day, or click here for past announcements.
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Thursday, February 25

Today is Thursday of Week 5. Here is a link to Week 5. For a lot of you this is Storytelling Day, so I hope you will have fun with that (let your imagination run wild!), and then tomorrow I'll be able to add all the new stories into the blog comment randomizer.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project Stack. If you turned your project before 4PM on Sunday, you should have heard back from me now, and I'll keep working on the Sunday items today. As always, you can check the stack to make sure I received your assignment.

Week 5 break. A lot of you are taking a break now in Week 5, while some of you took your break already last week (or earlier). If you're wondering just how much of the Week 5 work you should try to do, take a look in Canvas: you should have around 150 points or so at the end of Week 5. If you are short of that, try doing some of the Week 5 work this week in order to get caught up and ready to move on ahead with Week 6 next week. This chart can also help you keep track of your progress.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog stream. Krishna did the extra credit Tech Tip about embedding YouTube videos in a blog post, so here's the video, and you can see the video embedded in that blog post here: Tech Tip: Embedding YouTube.


Twitter stream. This is a request from Muneeb Ata, an OU graduate (and former Myth-Folklore student!) looking for people to complete a survey:


And here's a gorgeous depiction of the Indian god of love with composite figures used to create the elephant:


Plus a very cool astronomical dragon from the Bodleian Library in Oxford:


And something about Canvas via Twitter. One of many reasons I do not rely on Canvas is that it gathers student data and instructor data and uses it without obtaining permission for that reuse: Hidden Canvas analytics violate student privacy (I've written about Canvas data here if you want to learn more.)


And here's a cool video from Crash Course today: goddesses.


Plus a very cool punctuation infographic; yes, the comma has too much to do, which is why it can be confusing about when to use, or not use, a comma.


And check out these punctuation personalities:


February 25: George Harrison. Today marks the birthday of George Harrison in 1943; he died in 2001. You can read about his life and career in this Wikipedia article. Today is my birthday too, and when I was growing up I always felt special because I shared my birthday with one of the Beatles. Here is a recording of George Harrison performing Om Hare Om: Gopala Krishna: those of you in the Indian Epics class will recognize many of the names in this song from the Ramayana (Rama! Sita!), and other names are coming up next week in the Mahabharata.


Here is an interview with Ravi Shankar and George Harrison about one of their collaborative projects: Chants of India.


This recording is from that album; it is a version of the ancient Mangalam mantra:



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

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Wednesday, February 24

Today is Wednesday of Week 5. I hope you are enjoying this week's reading! Here is a link to Week 5. (And of course some of you are taking this week off, but it's about half-and-half, so I'm doing regular announcements all this week.)

Class Procedures and Reminders

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

Use the Suggestion Box. If there is something I can be doing to improve this class, you can let me know, either by email or via the Suggestion Box. You'll see the Suggestion Box here in the sidebar of the blog, and it's also a menu item there in Canvas. The Suggestion Box is anonymous, and of course you can always send me an email with a request or suggestion too!


The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog stream. It is always fun to see new illustrations in people's blog posts, and Nicholas found this great depiction of the Pandavas which you can see in his Mahabharata Reading Notes. It's the five Pandava brothers, armed and ready for epic action (and everybody in Indian Epics will be meeting the Pandavas in Week 6 when the Mahabharata reading officially begins).


Twitter stream. Here's a wonderful new cartoon from Grant Snider (larger view):


And a very cool cartoon from Dino-man also (larger view):


And some beautiful art from an Urdu manuscript; click the tweet link to see more of each image (learning about beautiful art is one of my main reasons for hanging out at Twitter!).


And speaking of beautiful art, here's something from the Verge: Studio Ghibli releases 400 free-to-use images.


Their website is in Japanese, but I used Google Translate to navigate my way to the Spirited Away collection for example: wow! Plus they are large-sized images that you can use for computer wallpaper, website banners, etc.


I know some of you are interested in flood stories, so here's a Crash Course video about ancient Near Eastern floods:


And a spelling graphic about Noah and that ark, not arc:


And some more writing humor: punctuation saves lives again!


February 24: Anant Pai. Today marks the anniversary of the death of Anant Pai in the year 2011, ten years ago today. He was the visionary genius behind the Amar Chitra Katha comic books that many of you have been enjoying in the Indian Epics class. You can find out more about Anant Pai here, and below is a Google Doodle in his honor:


And here is a video about him:



Check out the Twitter stream for information and fun stuff during the day, or click here for past announcements.
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Tuesday, February 23

Today is Tuesday of Week 5. Some of you are taking a break this week, and some of you took the break last week (or are saving it up to finish early). Here is a link to Week 5 for those of you who are doing some/all of the work this week, and I hope you will enjoy the new readings this week! It's a new take on the Ramayana in Indian Epics, and a switch to the Middle East and India in the Myth-Folklore class.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project Stack. If you turned in something before noon on Saturday, you should have comments back from me now, and I'll be working on the Saturday items today. As always, you can check the stack to make sure I received your project.

Project lists. Thanks again to everybody for all these great websites! I've updated the class lists for Myth-Folklore and Indian Epics, and I'm also working on updating the slideshow also (it takes me a little longer to add the slides compared to updating the lists). Today I'll try to get the Week 6 Feedback set up for those projects that are already ready for comments!


The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog stream. This is from the Padlet rather than from the blog stream; I thought this was such a great image, so thank you to whoever it was that contributed this one! 


And you can see more from Chibird (Jacqueline) at her website.


Twitter stream. Here's an Oklahoma music celebrity doing an NPR Tiny Desk Concert! You can find out more about Bartees Strange, born in England and raised in Mustang, Oklahoma (among other places) at Wikipedia.


I was glad to learn about this gorgeous work of art from Nathdwara, in Rajasthan, India:


And here's an ancient mosaic showing all the Muses of ancient Greece and Rome (larger view):


And brace yourselves for a total cuteness overload: this dog definitely deserves to be the the hero of a story or the star of a TV show:


For those of you reading Egyptian stories this week in Myth-Folklore: here's a Crash Course video about Egyptian and other Mediterranean Pantheons.


And here's a charming graphic with a profound message: going through things differently.


February 23: W.E.B. DuBois. Today marks the birthday of the remarkable writer and activist, W. E. B. DuBois, in the year 1868. You can read more about him at Wikipedia. Here's an animated video inspired by DuBois's article: Strivings of the Negro People, first published in The Atlantic in 1897 (!).


Of DuBois's many projects, one that is especially relevant to this class is his magazine for Black children published in the 1920s: The Brownies' Book. You can read the old issues online at this University of Nebraska website:



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


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Monday, February 22

Today is Monday of Week 5. Let's hope nothing "unprecedented" awaits us this week! Here is a link to Week 5 (and if you're using the grace period this morning, here is a link to Week 4).

Class Procedures and Reminders

Week 5 Break. I had originally planned for Week 5 as an optional break week, but a lot of people needed that break week last week. So, some of you will be doing Week 5 as usual, and some of you may be taking a break this week, or maybe you will not take a break now and save it for later; it's all good. You can decide what works best for you! If you have fewer than 150 points in Canvas right now, that means you should probably do at least some of Week 5, and if you have any questions about how that works, just let me know. More info here: Spring 2021 Break Weeks.

Project Stack. There were so many project websites that people published over the weekend: thank you! It's very exciting to see that happening. You can check the stack to make sure I received your assignment, and later today I'll update the Myth-Folklore and Indian Epics project lists, plus I'll start sending back comments on everyone's projects, starting with projects turned in on Friday, then Saturday, and so on.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog stream. I was excited to see the new story Kaelan published: it's a story inspired by Game of Thrones! Find out more here: The Unburnt.


Twitter stream. I can definitely relate to this writing graphic I saw go by at Twitter (larger view).


And more wonderful art from India: this is the god Indra riding on his vahana, the elephant Airavata (who often has multiple heads and/or multiple trunks):


This weekend was the birthday of the amazing Buffy Sainte-Marie; she just turned 80 years old! Here is she is appearing on Sesame Street back in the 1970s:



For another video today, here's a playlist by David Brown of the Norman Library... all about Mythology, Fairy Tales, Folklore and Fantasy!


David was a student in this class last year, and you can check out his Storybook here: Doors of the Damned: Gates of Hell.


As you get ready to write this week, you might ponder this cartoon from Grant Snider: All I Need to Write.


Plus this handy writing flowchart:



February 22: Zitkala-Sa. Today marks the birthday in 1876 of the Lakota writer, Zitkala-Sa ("Red Bird"). You can read more about her life and career at Wikipedia. The University of Oklahoma Press recently published a biography of this remarkable woman and writer: Red Bird, Red Power: The Life and Legacy of Zitkála-Šá. You can read her book Old Indian Legends for free online.


Here is a short video about her: Zitkála-Šá: Trailblazing American Indian Composer.


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


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