today's notes, containing stipulations for revision:

• 11-05: .pdf | .ppt

I'm setting up the CollectIt drop box right now.

Here are links for our intereactive electronic literature:

• Shelley Jackson's My Body
• Mateas & Stern's Facade. If you have any trouble with the software, there are help pages on the Facade website in the left hand column.
• just for fun, an Eliza Simulator and MyCyberTwin.

Here is the most recent set of notes. Really thought I had posted since last week...

• 10-27: .pdf | .ppt
• 10-30: .pdf | .ppt
• 11-03: .pdf | .ppt
• 11-04: .pdf | .ppt

One of you astute students out there caught my mistaken MLA formatting for the Ryan essay on the last post. Postmodern Culture is an online journal and so requires a combination of academic journal and website formatting. Here is the corrected and complete format. You can just cut and paste it into your works cited.

Ryan, Marie-Laure. "Immersion vs. Interactivity: Virtual Reality and LIterary Theory." Postmodern Culture 5.1 (1994) 25 October 2008
‹http://muse.jhu.edu.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/ journals/postmodern_culture/v005/5.1ryan.html›.

Here are today's notes:

• 10-23: .pdf | .ppt

Good luck writing this weekend!

Here are the notes for the past week. Looks like I am going to need to make a links page after all. Look out for that:

• 10-14: .pdf | .ppt
• 10-15: .pdf | .ppt
• 10-16: .pdf | .ppt
• 10-20: .pdf | .ppt
• 10-21: .pdf | .ppt
• 10-22: .pdf | .ppt

Also, people have asked for the link and reference for the Ryan's immersion essay. Here it is:

Ryan, Marie-Laure. "Immersion vs. Interactivity: Virtual Reality and Literary Theory." Postmodern Culture. 5.1. 1994.

Finally, here is how to cite the course pack as an anthology:

Author's Last Name, Author's First Name. "Title of Story," Title of Course Pack. Ed. Timothy Welsh. Seattle: Ave Copy. 2008. Range of pages

Rather than have you look up the actual reference, this is easier and still good practice, I think.

Great discussion again today. You all are really hitting on the pressing issues of our texts. Now that we have 2 weeks to talk about one of these text, In Cold Blood, we have an opportunity to get specific with those issues. Check today's notes [.pdf | .ppt] and play attention to how the text handles the themes we discussed in class.

Hey, all. Just discovered that the links i posted to the notes last week were wrong. Sorry about that! Help me out if you find a broken link by emailing me and letting me know. Also, if you think of some resource or link or something that you would like posted to the course website, tell me what it is. I want this to be useful for you so feedback is greatly appreciated.

Here are the notes for the last two days as well:

• 10-7: .pdf | .ppt
• 10-8: .pdf | .ppt

Next week we start In Cold Blood. The readings per night will get a little more hefty, so be prepared to spend some time reading this weekend. Check the agenda calendar to the right for the page per day breakdown. Though we are increasing page count, I will say that In Cold Blood reads pretty fast and is pretty engaging and not every detail is super important. Our focus will again be on the relation between our means of access and how it contributes to the story being told. I'll talk more about this book on Friday, probably.

A word about GoPost. I am pleased with the amount that everyone is contributing. You all are making thoughtful responses constituting complete thoughts. But, of course, there is always room for improvement. The biggest thing is that we are not making direct and specific reference to the text. While this is more admissable in class discussion where we might not have time to look things up, on your GoPosts, you should be supplying references to the text if not working from quotations. As the first paper approaches, this is simply a good habit to get into.

Finally, as I mentioned, this section is winding to a close so you should be starting to think about what texts you want to write about. I will present it in class as the due date gets closer, but if you want to start thinking ahead you can check out the writing prompt from the list on the right.

Hey all.
Class is just about to start, but I wanted to make sure I posted notes for yesterday and today before I leave town tomorrow.

• 10-1: .pdf | .ppt
• 10-2: .pdf | .ppt

REMEMBER: No class on Monday.

Also, if you are interested, the link is now up for electronic reserve. All the class readings are posted in .pdf, except for the novels.

Hey all, great discussion today! Looking forward to more tomorrow.

Some quick updates:

• Notes for today: .pdf | .doc
• there will be NO CLASS on Monday. Sleep in

Hey all, thanks for your attention today as buzzed through definitions of immersion. Here are the notes in .pdf and .ppt.

Also, thanks to Cameron for starting us off on a good note with today's question. We will certainly come back to those ideas tomorrow.

As for your small group discussions, here are some of my first impressions:

• Seems like the majority of groups found the book alienating, preventing readers from entry through style, author's interruptions, and generally the unbelievability of the story. We will talk about this tomorrow, particularly considering that in Coleridge's definition of "willing suspension of disbelief" he is talk about specifically about supernatural poetry, which means that this immersive concept is born from the unbelievable.
• Those groups that did find it immersive, tended to find that immersion began about the same time when DQ started to lose it. This brings up an interesting question about immersion, suggesting that a story might not be immersive wholesale, but at specific times or that we might space-travel to and from the fictional world throughout our reading.
• It was interesting to note a sort of anxiety about being immersed in the novel perhaps thereby being associated with the mad DQ. Definitely a topic to which we should return.
• With regard to the paragraphs you all submitted, I was hoping for a bit more detail and a bit more of an actual paragraph. Many groups listed bullet points or collected loosely related sentences that were often contradictory making it difficult to get a sense of how you all were approaching the question. Tomorrow, let's try to write these as a synopsis of what happened rather than a list of views expressed, if that makes sense. It was, of course, just our first attempt, and for a first try, not bad.

Hey all, nice work with the questions today. Keep it up!

Some updates for you:

• Posted the prompt for the questions project. Basically, it is exactly what I explained today in prompt form. Let me know if there are questions about what to do, how, and when. I have put everyone's due dates into the Google Calendar to help keep us on track.
• If you are interested, you can pick up today's powerpoint in .pdf and .ppt. Most of it is a description of the question project and there is a good portion we didn't get to, but please help yourself. If we use powerpoint in class, i'll post them here.
• Remeber, we are reading Don Quixote excerpts for Monday. I am looking forward to hearing what you all think! Before that, however, we will finish up our talk about Ryan and immersion that we started today.

That's all for now, I think. Enjoy the weekend!

This is the first post for English 242A: Reading Fiction, fall quarter 2008. Welcome.

Here is our first update:

• The website is finally online. Here, you will find handouts, schedules, and useful links. I will occasionally post anouncements about the course, readings, and assignments, so check back often. I have tried to keep the site pretty paired down; however, if need be, I might build out to give access to more resources.
• The syllabus is all printed for day one tomorrow. Unfortunately there are errors. That's why we call them tentative! Anyway, the most up-to-date info will always be on this site. An electronic version of the syllabus can be found to the right in three formats, all current.
• People looking to add the course, last I checked there were a few spots open. If they are gone when you look, just start coming to class and keep checking the roster. Generally there is some shifting the first week or so and you should have an opportunity to join without the code. Don't worry, if you are showing up, I'll get you in the course
• The course pack is at Ave. Copy already and should be available tomorrow afternoon. I will be dropping off a copy for e-researves by the end of the week. We will be reading several selections from longer works. For the most part, I will try to provide links to the full-text in case you are inspired to read whole novels, and they all deserve to be read. So, I'll begin here: for Thursday we will be reading from Don Quixote and I'll be talking about Marie-Laure Ryan's essay Immersion vs. Interactivity: Virtual Reality and Literary Theory. Obviously, you won't get through all of DQ. We will be talking mostly about Chapter I and how DQ loses his marbles.