Posting the assignments for the week will be delayed by a day.

I heard some bad news about my father this afternoon, and dealing with it has put me behind in polishing and activating this week's assignments.  I'll post them tomorrow.  Here's the short version:

Reading:

Read Mary's Rowlandson's captivity narrative.  She's found in the section on New England fairly early on.  The captivity narrative is the story of her going through an Indian raid and the captivity of her and her family during King Phillip's War.  In all likelihood, you've never heard of the war, but it killed more per capita than any war in which the US or US colonies were involved before or since.  One out out every eleven people in the MA colony was killed.  Think about this number.

Writing:

Start updating your mid-term cover essay to become your portfolio cover essay.  As you do, make sure you have solid claims to make about what you have learned in the course and can point to one or--preferably--more pieces of evidence--mainly from your blog and class discussion--to demonstrate and discuss this learning.  I'm not just interesting in what you've learned and in your performance in the course, I'm much more interested in how you learned what you learned and--most important--how you see it affecting you now and in the future.  Remember, not all you've learned has come from the reading.  If the semester has gone well, you've learned a lot from the constellation of thinking, discussion, and writing which surrounds this reading, and not all of it will be "book learning."

In any event, as pre-writing start reviewing the material you've produced in the course and connecting these with claims you can make about what you've learned.

Sorry to be late with posting the work for the week.  My father is dying, and right now, my family needs me more than y'all need to know what to do tomorrow.

Steve