Thursday, March 15

Today is Thursday of Week 9. If you have not done your story yet for this week, that means today is Storytelling Day. Go wild, and try something new as you start the second half of the semester! Here is a link to all of the Week 9 assignments.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Success Tip: Jumpstart your storytelling with other people's stories. A great way to get ideas for your own storytelling is by looking at other people's stories, and this week is a perfect time to try that out because for the Week 9 blog comments, you are browsing people's story posts to choose what you want to comment on... which can give you lots of new ideas too! So if you have time, do the Week 9 blog commenting before you do this week's storytelling, and see if other people's experiments can inspire your own storytelling.

Spring Break is coming! Your Week 9 end-of-week assignments are not due until the weekend at the end of Spring Break (March 24-25), but I would urge you to finish them now so that you won't even have to think about this class during vacation. Week 10 will start on Monday, March 26, after Spring Break.

Project Stack. If you turned something in by Sunday at 9PM, you should have comments back from me, and I will continue working on the Sunday assignments today. While you are waiting on comments back from me, you can check the stack to make sure I received your email.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog Stream. If you are looking for a storytelling style to try, you might combine the first-person style with backstory, imagining that character's earlier life and ending your story where the traditional story begins. For a great example of how that can work, here's Ashley imagining the life of the hero Karna; her title lets you know that it is a backstory: Before the Rivalry Began, and the first sentence expresses in first-person form the driving force of Karna's identity: I am born to be something more.

India Item. People have strong feelings about the "Abused Goddesses" campaign in India; speaking for myself, I think it is a powerful expression. Find out more here: Abused Goddesses. This is their Saraswati poster:

Myth Video OR India Video: And following up on the goddesses, here is another one of the Crash Course Mythology videos: Great Goddesses.

Myth Book Online: Today's free book is Some Chinese Ghosts by Lafcadio Hearn. See the Freebookapalooza blog for links and the table of contents.

Proverb of the Day: Today's proverb is from Japan: Someone who stands behind a wall can see nothing else. Find out more at the Proverb Laboratory.

Writing: Here are some wise words from Maya Angelou about creativity: You can't use up creativity; the more you use, the more you have.

H.E.A.R.T.: And here's a reminder from TinyBuddha.com about being good to yourself:

Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat knows that mistakes are part of the growth process: My mistakes help me grow. You can find out more at the Growth Mindset blog.

Video: And here are some writing tips from the genius writer Kurt Vonnegut: Tips on How to Write a Great Story.

Event on Campus: It's a Dance Party in the Union Food Court tonight with Bollywood and Angolan dances from 6PM-9PM (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

March 15: The Ides of March. Each month in the Roman calendar was marked by special days known as the Kalends, the Ides and the Nones. Today, March 15 a.k.a. "The Ides of March," is the most famous day in the Roman calendar because it is the day on which Julius Caesar was assassinated. Caesar failed to heed the warning to "beware the Ides of March" (a line made famous by the soothsayer who appears in Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar). You can read more about the Ides of March in this Wikipedia article.

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