Participation
Weight: 20% of final grade


Since this course is mid-sized, it will balance lecture and student participation. You should come to class prepared to answer general and detailed questions about the texts on the syllabus. You will also have a chance to participate in class discussions over our listerv. I will post questions and comments to the list, but this forum should allow you to engage with the other members of the class and pursue discussion topics that spring from our regular class sessions.

- As part of your class participation, one substantive email message to the class listserv will be required. This can be in response to one of my messages, a response to the reading, or a response to a topic discussed in class.

- We will also have one chat session to discuss a hypertext by Jeff Parker (we will be reading his hypertext, "A Long Wild Smile," beforehand). He will be a "visiting" speaker during this chat session, and you will all have the opportunity to speak directly to a hypertext author. We will likely participate in this chat session in our regular classroom, but we may visit a Phelps IT lab, and you are also welcome to participate from home.

Close Reading of an Electronic Text
Weight: 15% of final grade
Due: varies

One of the assignments for this course is a formal analysis of one of the electronic texts on our syllabus. You may choose any genre that you like: story, poem, experimental writing, hypermedia text. Your analysis should present an argument about the text that accounts for both its form and its content. Some of your close reading, then, should concern the design and related elements of the text (e.g. links and linking structure, layout, colors, fonts, maps, images, sound). To begin developing your argument, you might ask yourself these questions: How does the text "work"? What are its primary themes? What motifs emerge in the language of the text? What is the relationship between the medium and the content of the hypertext? What are the effects of the formal and technological design and would they be repeatable in a different moment or in a different medium? What are the temporal and spatial perimeters of the electronic text? To what extent does the text depend upon your interaction and response to it?

- Please note that you should attend to the scale of both the electronic text and of your paper. Since the close reading is to be relatively short, you will need to establish a balance between general and particular comments (between the work or project as a whole and the work in its component parts). To allow for focused and detailed analysis, you will need to single out a few elements (thematic, formal, machinic) of the text.

- Close readings are due the day we are to discuss your chosen text in class. So, for example, if you wished to write about Dan Waber's Strings, your paper would be due on November 14.

Midterm Paper
Weight: 25% of final grade
Due: October 31, 2002

The midterm paper should be 4-5 pages. Questions and topics will be assigned.

Final Project
Weight: 40% of final grade
Due: December 9, 2002

For the final course project, all students will compose a hypertext that is placed online at the end of the quarter. You should all determine your own topics, but you should do so in consultation with me. If the project is a standard seminar paper, then the approximate length should be 8 pages in print and the supporting research should be substantial. If the project is not a linear critical paper, however, then the guiding quantifiable principle should be subsumed to conceptual scope; that is, the project should be equivalent to a final course paper in argumentative range and ambition. This project will allow you to demonstrate the extent and quality of your engagement with the material and issues covered in this course.

- Hypertext fiction and poetry projects are also welcome, but they should be accompanied by a short (3 pg.) critical analysis and close reading of the composition. Creative projects should be original to this course and should not simply be a mark-up of a previously composed piece.

- On October 10, a Transcriptions RA will visit our class to present a tutorial on the basics of HTML, WYSIWYG editors, FTP, and umail. Also, there will be drop-in hours in the Transcriptions Lab in South Hall, and there are a number of technicians in the campus labs who can assist you.

- Before Thanksgiving break, a 1 pg. abstract of your final projects will be due.

- On December 9, you should send me an email message that includes the URL of your final project. I will link all of the projects to our class webpage. If your critical response does not already comment on the technical specs of your site (e.g. the number of pages), you might want to mention them in your email message. If some of your links are buried, for example, mention this.

- As you begin planning your own electronic text, it may be helpful and interesting to see some of last year's Engl 165LT projects.