An August Beginning...

Six days into August and just two days from our first due date (and with the days dwindling until school begins in earnest), I believe the time has come for me to interrupt your summer.

A few notes on the summer work:

1. Your first post about How to Read Literature Like a Professor is due by midnight 8/8. The posts so far have been excellent. However, I do implore you to READ the posts of others before you comment. This way you may say something new and interesting, instead of saying what has already been said. Please remember that this is a DISCUSSION board.
2. A few of you have completed the second posting assignment as well. If you haven't, please have Foster finished and post to that forum by midnight 8/15. By the way, you may comment on each other's posts after these due dates; I simply would like your initial posts up by then.
3. The final part of the summer assignment should be posted by early next week. It will involve written responses to three very short stories (a la Foster's practice with "The Garden Party" at the end of the book). This will be due the 28th at 3:15, and will be graded before the first day of class.

To close, I would like to make some general comments on various things that have come up.

• Use paragraphs in your forum posts, especially those of you who are a bit more verbose. People fear walls of text and are less likely to read them.

• If you use outside sources (which you shouldn't need to do at this point--in fact, I'd rather you didn't), you must cite them correctly in MLA style (not just the URL) at the end of your post.
• A couple of you have brought up a question many of you perhaps share, namely, "Does Foster expect us to have read all these book and stories he keeps referencing." The short answer is, "No." The long answer is that Foster's audience is, by definition, made up of people who have not read anywhere near as much literature as a college professor or even high school English teacher. One of the things I like about the book is the way he manages to weave in the many, many examples he requires to make his points without confusing his reader too much or becoming boring (you may disagree). Even I, who am pretty well-read, have read only perhaps half of the texts to which he alludes, but I'm OK with that, and you should be too.
• Finally, I can promise nothing, but at this point there are still two class sections and I don't anticipate that changing. My expectation is that even those of you "conditionally" admitted are reading the Foster book and will have at least A Doll's House and Oedipus Tyrannus when school starts. You can get the rest of the books when we're 100% sure.

That's it for now. Please do not hesitate to email with questions, comments, or whatever.

Enjoy the remaining weeks of your summer.