Time Strategies... taking a break for the pandemic

Just as I was about to write this post, OU announced its replacement for spring break: a Friday off in March, and a Tuesday off in April.

Well, I had already made plans to take two week-long breaks in this class, and I'm sticking to that plan. Two days is NOT good enough! It's not even close to a replacement for spring break... and in a pandemic, we need MORE than just the usual break, not less. 

Sigh.

But then it's like OU refusing to offer P/NP grading in the fall. They are thinking about what their administrative convenience, not about what students really need.

Sure, some students are just going to cruise on through this semester, and I am so happy for them. That's great! And for students who want to do all 15 weeks of the class, I am here and ready to provide feedback on your writing every single week.

But I hope most people really will take the weeks off! Some people are going to be struggling, just as people were struggling in the fall and also last spring, maybe even more so given the terrible COVID numbers right now (I'm writing this post on January 13). I lost someone very important to me just a few weeks ago who died of the COVID, and my husband lost a close colleague just last week. Needless deaths that did not need to happen if our government had had a coherent response to the pandemic.

So, I'm always glad that an asynchronous online class can give people the flexibility they need... and especially now in the pandemic. It took me a while to come up with this plan for the two breaks, but I'm very happy with it, and I hope it will make the semester more manageable.

Because really...... this is feeling like an even more impossible semester than last fall.

Maybe things will be better after the inauguration: just one week away.

Class Technology... the wiki just needs to hang on one more semester! :-)

For class tools, I will say a fond farewell to the very very very old PBWorks wiki that I've used for this class for about 15 years.

Yes, it is looking pretty old-fashioned, and also rather sad with their plea for new customers along the top.

If I were going to carry on teaching, my summer project would be to migrate the wiki to a new site. But, with just one more semester to go, I'll hope that PBWorks can hang on for a little while longer.

And, while it is not the most up-to-date platform, it is still way better than using Canvas. They even have a sidebar where I can put the class Twitter feed. So, there's David Bowie singing to me from the sidebar.

Canvas instead uses the sidebar for navigation not even relevant to my class for the most part. No David Bowie singing in the Canvas sidebar, that's for sure....... and here's a link to the YouTube.

Assignments: even more excited about microfiction options

After discovering microfiction myself back in December of 2019 (which seems a lifetime ago...), I introduced them as a class activity in Spring 2020. Yes, the pandemic semester. People responded to that really enthusiastically, so I wove the microfiction even more into the class last semester, and LOTS of people wrote stories which we turned into a book: Tiny Tales of Fall 2020.

So, my biggest hope for the assignments overall this semester is that lots of people will again experiment with microfiction and contribute their stories to a book.

For my own work in the class, I'll be focusing on the project (something trickster-related; I'm not sure what yet), plus I want to do famous last words and the connection Padlet every week. (The way the Padlet turned out last semester was so cool!) 

With the two weeks break, that will give me most of what I need for the class, along with doing storytelling and story labs for Weeks 2-10. That's the plan anyway. Planning in a pandemic feels mostly impossible, though. Anyway, I'm excited to be writing trickster stories... and there are tricksters everywhere in the reading, so I'll have fun planning out my reading strategy in Week 2. :-)

Growth Mindset... and a great new book on self-efficacy!

For the Growth Mindset post this semester, I knew right away what I wanted to write about: a new book by my friend Laura Ritchie which is all about "self-efficacy," a concept in educational psychology that has a lot in common with the idea of growth mindset. It's a fantastic book; highly recommended if you want to learn more about yourself as a learner and how to take charge of your own learning

Yes I Can: Learn to Use the Power of Self-efficacy ($8.99 Kindle).

I've known Laura for years online (she is a music teacher in England... but that's the power of online teaching communities: you can connect with people all over!), and I actually wrote a review of the book at Amazon since I liked it so much. Here's the review I posted, and there are some other positive reviews there already also. Yay! I hope this book will find its way into the hands of many readers; it definitely gave me a big boost reading it now in the midst of all the pandemic stress. In fact, its especially in chaotic and stressful times like this when it really helps to be able to take a deep breath and find your own purpose, learning how to use your own potential for growth and change to cope with the chaos. 

Laura Ritchie's latest book, "Yes I Can:  Learn to Use the Power of Self-efficacy," could not come at a better time. If you have been struggling in the pandemic to learn new skills or relax with a new hobby, or if you are contemplating something even more extreme such as a change in careers, Laura Ritchie's warm, honest, encouraging voice in these pages can help you take charge of your learning. Her emphasis on deliberation and self-awareness can help you channel the doubts and fears of your inner critic into a new direction: self-efficacy, a belief in yourself and in your capacity to take/make opportunities that will help you to achieve your goals. Learning is not easy or automatic like so many of the conveniences of modern life, but learning is always possible, and this book will help you embrace that sense of possibility, of challenge, of change. Change is inevitable; there is no standing still, and the pandemic has made that fact of life even more clear, sometimes scarily so. But change also creates an open space for learning, and in that open space you can take charge of your own learning. In fact, you have always been in charge of your own learning, despite the best efforts of school to try to convince you otherwise. As Ritchie says, "Only you can judge and decide what your capabilities are." If you are ready to begin to explore your untapped capabilities, this book is a great place to start!

(Do you have a favorite author? Write a review for them at Amazon; it really can make a difference in reaching new readers!)

The Final introduction... yes, really... wow.

So here we are: this is my final semester of teaching at OU. On the one hand, I'm really excited that I am moving on to a new adventure (I'll be writing full-time, expanding my Tiny Tales book series), but it is also sad at the same time. Every semester I have taught at OU has been a wonderful experience — and I've been teaching at OU since Fall 1999, which might actually be since before some of you in this class were even born. :-)

There have been so many good semesters (I've been happily teaching online since all the way back in 2002), and I hope this final semester will be a good one too, despite the pandemic and all the other chaos going on right now. I'm going to be a student in Myth-Folklore this semester, and I already have a project in mind: African trickster tales!

About those Tiny Tales books: these are free OER (open educational resources) which I started publishing last summer. It is the most fun and satisfying project I have ever worked on! You can see all the books here: Nasruddin - India - Aesop - Sufis - Anansi - Ramayana - Mahabharata. The Ramayana and Mahabharata books are reading options for the Indian Epics class this semester, and you'll see the Nasruddin, India, Aesop, Sufi, and Anansi books as reading options in Myth-Folklore.

These books are collections of "microfiction," specifically: stories that are just 100 words long. I started writing them for my father last year (more about that; he died in August...), and then last semester, we created a class Anthology of microfiction written by the students in both classes. It's really fantastic; you can find it here as a free book online: Tiny Tales of Fall 2020. Last semester, students just took that leap without being able to see what an anthology would look like; I hope this semester even more of you will want to participate since you can take a look and see how it works... there are so many different kinds of microfiction in there: 100-word stories, plus also stories that are even shorter. You'll see how that all works when you get into the writing assignments for class in Week 2 and beyond.

Also, for those of you who are aspiring writers and interested in self-publishing, I can highly recommend Pressbooks, which is the system I am using for these books. Their emphasis is on open educational materials, but you can also use their services for commercial book publication too. As someone who has published both with traditional publishers and also be self-publishing, I have to say: I am a huge fan of self-publishing. With tools like Pressbooks (there are more and more services like this now), it is easier than ever, and if you write for a niche market (I definitely write for a niche market, ha ha), then you can publicize your work on your own, without having to rely on a traditional publisher.

So, during the pandemic I've been writing a lot (A LOT)... but I also have a new hobby too: drumming. I've always liked to drum on my desktop or just clap my hands or whatever, but for my New Year's Resolution this year, I started drumming every day (with bongo drums, plus a djembe drum). Of all the instruments I've messed around with just for fun, the drums are clearly my instrument of choice. So, when May arrives and I retire from OU, I will be writing and drumming all day long. Did you get into the Jerusalema pandemic dance challenge? That's one of the songs I like to drum with. Here's a great Jerusalema video filmed at a rhino preserve in South Africa. Enjoy....... and I am wishing everybody a good semester ahead, despite all the chaos around us............

Storybook Favorites... a blast from the past

Since this is my final semester using this blog as a student in this class, I thought I would use this Storybook Favorites post to do a quick inventory of the Storybooks I developed here at this blog. 

I started this blog in Fall 2018, and here's my Storybook from that semester. I am still really fond of this project because I love (LOVE) chain tales, and I hope someday to publish an anthology of chain tale stories from around the world. I keep finding new ones wherever I look; it's one of the great global folktale genres.

Chain Tale Anthology:

One Thing Leads to Another

Then Spring 2019: of all the Storybooks I've done, this one has what I think is the best writing. I just felt really inspired telling Hanuman's story. I also did a ton of reading to prepare for this one, since I read the whole Ramakien in English. I would like to do a "tiny tales" version of the Ramakien someday!

Hanuman in the Ramakien:

Tales of the Monkey Warrior

And Fall 2019: this is my favorite of all the topics. I am still obsessed with Brer Rabbit, and I'm working on a "tiny tales" book of Brer Rabbit stories this semester in fact. I'm really glad I had a chance with this project to write longer versions of the Brer Rabbit stories, in addition to the super-short versions I'm writing now for the book.

Brer Rabbit and the Witch-Rabbit

Then the pandemic semester of Spring 2020: this was the project that convinced me it really IS possible to do the Indian Epics in a microfiction format. As a result, I've now done the whole Ramayana! It's online here: Ramayana.LauraGibbs.net.

Big Epic, Tiny Stories

Microfiction from the Ramayana

And then last semester, pandemic Fall 2020, when I did both classes. For Myth-Folklore, I did a Twine project that was so fun; I actually learned Twine programming language for the Anansi story: The Anansi Game.

Aesop Survivor and Other Twine Games

And this project was super-helpful in gearing up for the Ramayana that I published (see link above) because I figured out based on this project how to organize the Ramayana website for the Indian Epics class this semester. 

Beyond the Ramayana:

Lesser Known Folktales and Legends of

Rama, Sita, Hanuman, and Ravana

And here is that website: Ramayana. 

I am so curious what people are going to think about that! And I'm working on the Mahabharata site right now too. The page layout I came up for this Storybook last semester was a real breakthrough for me in figuring out how to manage a Google Site with 200 stories and images. :-)

And now.......... one last Storybook! I know it is going to be trickster-related this semester, but I am not sure what it will be. I'm excited to start the brainstorming process in Week 2.

Tucson, Cracow, Berkeley... My Favorite Places

 Like other returning students, I'm re-using my favorite place blog post from last time, but adding in some new pictures. So, here are my three favorite places (because I cannot choose just one!).

Tucson, Arizona. I lived in Tucson in the 1970s when I was a little kid, and of the many places we lived, Tucson was my favorite. It is so beautiful! We lived in a house in the foothills of the Catalina mountains which you can see here. Aren't the saguaros beautiful?

(Sabino Canyon in the Catalinas:
Wikimedia Commons)

The saguaro blossom is the state flower of Arizona:

(photo by Alan Levine)

Kraków (Cracow), Poland. I did a "study abroad" in the summer of 1985 — and what an adventure! I was a Polish major in college, so getting to live in Poland that summer was a dream come true. Here's a picture of the "Sukiennice" ("The Cloth Hall") on the main town square in Kraków:

(Stary Rynek: Wikimedia Commons)

I stayed in a dormitory called Dom Piast, and it's still going strong (the Piasts were the first kings of Poland):

(Dom Studencki Piast: PolHotels.com)

After I graduated from college I moved to Poland and lived there for a while, near Płock; here's a picture of Płock; it is located on the Wisła (Vistula) river, the same river that runs through Warsaw:

(Płock: Nocowanie)

Berkeley, California. I lived in the Bay Area for over 10 years, and I guess it is the place I love the most. For sure it is the place I know best. I moved to San Francisco after graduating from high school because it seemed like the most exciting place to be ... and it was! Then, after working as a secretary for a year, I decided to go to college, so I went to Berkeley. After graduating from Berkeley in 1986, I lived in other places, but for grad school I went back to Berkeley again; that was in the 1990s. It's a great place and is definitely a big part of who I am! Here is a beautiful picture that shows the Campanile (bell tower) on the Berkeley campus, with San Francisco Bay in the background.

(Campanile seen from the Stadium,

photo by Tristan Harward)

Here is the campus building where I took most of my classes: Dwinelle Hall, home to the departments of Classics, Slavic Languages, and South Asian Studies:

(Dwinelle Hall)

And here is the best building of all (for me, bookaholic that I am): Doe Library.

(Doe at sunset)