Wednesday, September 2

Today is Wednesday of Week 2. Here is a link to the Week 2 assignments. Yesterday you did the reading overview, and today you have some actual stories to read in an Anthology; here's the Week 2 reading link. As you read through  the stories in the Anthology, look for a story you want to retell in your own way. If you're curious, take a look at the stories people have written so far. There are already stories in both classes, all so different from each other; that's the power of creativity: no two stories ever come out the same way.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project Stack. So far, I've been keeping up with people turning in their Week 2 project assignments, getting projects back to people the next day. So, if you turned in a project assignment on Tuesday, I should be able to get that back to you today! As those projects come in, I add them to the "stack," and you can check the stack to make sure I have received your project.

Introductions. I'm working on the Introductions, and hopefully you will be getting some comments from other students as people start doing the Week 2 Comments, and you'll be getting comments all semester on the Introduction posts as you'll see when you get to the Week 3 Comments.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog stream. I just have to say WOW about Eden's microfiction inspired by one of the Anthology stories: not only did she do a microfiction version of the story... she did a graphic to go with it! Here's her blog post: Week 2 Microfiction.


Twitter stream. In honor of Tolkien (see below), I snagged these Tolkien items at Twitter:


And here's something I saw in the Twitter stream of a wonderful Indian author, Kanishk Tharoor; here's the article: How The Lord of the Rings Made Me a Better Parent


Storybook. I know there are Tolkien fans in class, and also Harry Potter fans, so here's one for the Harry Potter fans: Stories from the Wizarding World.


100-Word Stories. And for my 100-word story today, here's another one about Nasruddin; this one is about getting your money's worth: Nasruddin Eats the Walnuts and the Shells.


And for a video, here's a Tolkien-related TED talk by Kate Messner: How to build a fictional world.


Plus another TED video, this one from John McWhorter: Are Elvish, Klingon, Dothraki and Na'vi real languages?




An online friend of mine translated The Hobbit into Latin, which inspired me to make some Latin Hobbit posters, like this one: I am Gandalf, and Gandalf means me.


September 2: J.R.R. Tolkien. Today marks the death in 1973 of the  English author, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, who is best known for creating the fantasy world of Middle Earth, in which he set his novel The Hobbit and the trilogy known as Lord of the Rings. You can read about Tolkien's life and career in this Wikipedia article, which is also the source for this drawing that shows Tolkien's own design for the covers of The Lord of the Rings trilogy:



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