The Assignment Link for Week Thirteen Is Now Active

Thanks to those who wrote to ask about my father.  My brohter called yesterday.  My father is in the last stages of Alzheimer, and he is at the stage where his body is shutting down, he's only conscious once in awhile, and he's forgetting how to swallow.  The family made the decision yesterday to discontinue his IV and to let him go ahead a die.  It's time.  Hospice and my mother's church are there for the rest of the family, but--as you can guess--the immediacy of the problem and the effects on the family presented a difficult day.  Sometime over the next couple of weeks, I'll be taking of to go down and say good-bye, attend the funeral, and to be there for my family.  We have no way of knowing when this will be.

I'll keep you in the loop, but if I stopped teaching right now, you've learned more than most any other of my sections of ENG 241.  Your main job over the next weeks is to finish a first rate portfolio, so I can give you the high grade you've earned.

This week we'll touch on New England and the Puritans, then we'll jump to the Virginia colonies and settlement.  That will be the last reading for the course.  I'll leave you a full week to work on your portfolio, but you should begin now, as it's not a project to be rushed.

Steve