Sunday, August 30

Today is Sunday of Week 1. I hope you are having a great weekend! If you have not finished the Week 1 Orientation assignments yet, today is the day to do that. Here is a link to Week 1. Some of you will be starting on Week 2 this weekend, so here is that link also: Week 2 assignments. Working ahead is always the best strategy, especially if you have a little more free time now at the start of the semester.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Week 2 Extra Credit. You can do extra credit ANY time during the week, including at the start of the week. So after you finish the Week 1 items today, you might want to start off Week 2 by trying out some of the extra credit options just to see what they are like! For example, you could do one of the Tech Tips, like experimenting with the design of your blog, or try the Check-in/Connect and add something to the class Padlet.

Announcements. As you can see, there are new announcements over the weekend, plus here is a link to this past week's announcements. You can also subscribe to the announcements by email if you want; here's a link to do that: subscribe to the announcements. (You'll receive the new announcements each morning by email.)

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog stream. Last week I shared a cat named Henry, so here's a dog named Henry, plus his other dog friends, and his cat friend Ollivander. You can find out more at Natalie L.'s blog post.

Twitter stream. One of my favorite things at Twitter is being able to learn more about authors in India, and I thought this was really cool: one of the authors I follow is writing 100-word microfiction! Her name is Koral Dasgupta, and here's her story; maybe you'll do your own 100-word Microfiction for extra credit this week!

Of course there were also so many tributes at Twitter to Chadwick Boseman, like this one from Ava DuVernay. 

One of my favorites is this review of Black Panther from back when it first came out: Revenge of the Black Nerds.

Storybook. In the spirit of superheroes and superheroines, here's a Greek mythology Storybook: Wonder Women of Mythical Greece.

100-Word Stories. In the spirit of Koral's 100-word story above, here's another Shiva story: Sunda and Upasunda. It's about how Shiva outsmarted two dangerous demon brothers:

Laura Gibbs · 128. Sunda and Upasunda

The god Shiva also has a place at CERN in Geneva: 

Plus here's some good advice for the weekend or any time: Unplug for a few minutes.

You might even find some friends to hang out with: Friends Furever.

August 30: Birthday of Mary Shelley. August 30, marks the birthday in 1797 of the famous English writer, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, best known for her novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus, published in 1818. I'm sure you are all familiar with Frankenstein and his monster; Prometheus, meanwhile, was the Greek Titan who created human beings out of clay. You can read more about Mary Shelley in this Wikipedia article; here's a portrait by Richard Rothwell:

And here's a nice example of a YouTube audiobook; this one has rolling text: Frankenstein.

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