Tuesday, March 7

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 8, and I've re-arranged the Modules area in Canvas so the new week is on top, and the Project Feedback and Blog Comment assignments for this week are ready now too. Here is a link to this week's assignments.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project Stack. Yesterday, I read all the assignments turned in on Friday and most of the Saturday assignments. Today, I'll finish the Saturday assignments and move on to Sunday morning. As always, you can check the stack to make sure I received your assignment.

Project Feedback. I hope you will have fun with the Project Feedback assignment for this week: you'll be visiting the other class to choose a project to read there! For the rest of the semester, the free-choice option will work like that, so you can choose from either the class you are in, or you can visit the other class to see what grabs your attention there.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Writing. It's ironic, isn't it? A Brief History of Writing Technology.

Growth. Wise words from Thor Heyerdahl: Borders? I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people.

Spelling. Yet another word-pair that the spellchecker cannot help you with: MINER versus MINOR.

Featured Storybook. This project is from the Myth-Folklore class: Legendary Heroines: The Diaries of Four Courageous Women. In this Storybook, the diaries of four courageous women — Joan of Arc, Cleopatra, Zenobia, and Lady Godiva — speak for themselves.

Free Book Online: Today's free book is The Iliad of the East: The Ramayana by Frederika Richardson Macdonald. See the Freebookapalooza blog for links and the table of contents. Instead of trying to tell the whole plot, this book zooms in on some key episodes in the Ramayana and retells them in detail.

Words of Wisdom: Today's saying is Fall down seven times, get up eight (a Japanese proverb). Find out more at the Proverb Lab. It's a growth mindset proverb!

Video: The video for today is Jao Priya by Maati Baani. You can find the English lyrics and more information at Maati Baani's YouTube page.

Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat believes in exploring: Use your energy to explore. You can find out more at the Growth Mindset blog.

Event on Campus: At noon in the Gaylord Hall of Fame room, Mary Anna Evans will give a Brown Bag Book Reading from her latest Faye Longchamp nove, “Burials” (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

March 7: Stith Thompson. Today marks the birthday in 1885 of Stith Thompson who became one of the greatest folklorists of the 20th century. He pioneered the classification of stories by their basic elements, which he called "motifs," and his Motif Index is still a widely used standard. I used his classic Tales of the North American Indians to create two of the reading units in the Myth-Folklore class:

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