ENC 1102.5865
Writing About Literature
-- Mainpage --

Fall 2002 / MWF Per 3 (9:35 a.m. - 10:25 a.m.) / TUR 2305
Nick Melczarek, instructor Department phone: 392-6650
Office: Turlington 4357 e-mail nickym@melczarek.net
(send no attachments!)
Office hours: MW Per 4 (10:40-11:30 a.m.) & by appt. Office phone: t.b.a.

Course listserve: FALL-5865-L@lists.ufl.edu
"The Imagination that produces work which bears and invites rereadings, which motions to future readings as well as contemporary ones, implies a shareable world and an endlessly flexible language."
-- Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark (xii)

"This experience of rereading a text over the course of forty years has shown me how silly those people are who say that dissecting a text and engaging in meticulous close reading is the death of its magic. Every time I pick up Sylvie, even though I know it in such an anatomical way -- perhaps because I know it so well -- I fall in love with it again, as if reading it for the first time."
-- Umberto Eco, Six Walks in the Fictional Woods (12)

Contents
(click to jump to the following sections)
  • Course Purpose & Overview
  • Required Texts and Materials
  • Assignments/ Grade Dispersement
  • Course-Related Sites Links
  • Course Policies Page
    • Updated Schedules (highlighted as available); these sites overrule the paper syllabus schedule:
    »»Course Purpose & Overview
    Even though the title of ENC 1102 is "Writing About Literature," the course focuses on developing students' abilities to read, write, and think critically. Prewriting, writing, and revising are the main concerns of this coourse, with attention to punctuation, grammar, and correct usage of "college English." The course is more concerned with writing than with literature itself. We will use literature and reactions to it as sources of ideas to write about. Section 5865 employs the concepts of ambivalence, ambiguity, and the aleatory to produce open-ended readings of literature.
    NOTE: I assume that students enrolled in ENC 1102 have displayed sufficiency to enter ENC 1102. Therefore, I expect students already to have a grasp of composition basics: thesis, paragraph, elementary grammar, etc. We will attend to these items throughout the semester only as necessary.
    (back to Contents)
    You must have an e-mail account and web access to participate in this course. If you don't have both of these yet, obtain them immediately.
    »»Required Texts and Materials
  • available at Wild Iris Books, 802 W. University Ave. (next to U-Haul dealership and Leonardo's 706):
    ----- Rodriguez and Tuman, Writing Essentials (Norton, second edition) ($14)
    ----- Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior ($12)
    ----- Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 ($12)
  • available at Custom Copies, 309 NW 13th Street (across from Krispy Kreme):
    ----- course packet for ENC 1102.5865 (Melczarek, job#3646) ($14)
  • general items, acquired on your own:
    ----- a working e-mail account and WWW access
    ----- your choice of college dictionary and thesaurus
    ----- a two-pocket folder (for drafts and final papers)
    (back to Contents)
    »»Assignments/ Grade Dispersement (for quizzes, A=100-90, B=89-80, C=79-70, D=69-60, F= no cigar)
    (for papers, A+=4.5 gp, A/A-=4 gp, B+=3.5 gp, B/B-=3 gp, C+=2.5 gp, C/C-=2 gp, D+=1.5 gp, D/D-=1 gp, F= no cigar)
    The course listserve (FALL-5865-L@lists.ufl.edu) offers an on-line space for student questions, explorations, and discussions of the course materials outside the traditional classroom space. Treat the listserve as s somewhat informal extension of the class -- treat others with respect I require of you in the classroom. Remember that e-mail to the listserve gets sent to everyone in the course; e-mail for me alone should be sent to my e-dress above. (Q.v. the Course Policies Page.)
    See Course Policies Page for any other details.
    (back to Contents)
    »»Course-Related Sites Links (back to Contents)