Required Texts

Shelley Jackson, Patchwork Girl
Michael Joyce, afternoon, a story
Judy Malloy and Cathy Marshall, Forward Anywhere
Selection of shorter texts and hypertexts issued in class

Supplies
Computer discs
A writer's handbook (choose your own)
Patience and a sense of humor (not compulsory but it helps)

Course Description

A book is a book is a book, right? Not when it exists on a disc, displays on a computer screen, changes every time it's read, and co-opts the reader as co-writer. Welcome to NCLC 275 and the world of creative hypertext, where the literary traditions of the twentieth century meet the cybercultures of the twenty-first.

But the writers we'll study this semester don't simply create stories or poems. By abandoning the static page, and embracing the fluid, ever-changing screen, hypertext writers explore the teeming chorus of contemporary voices - electronic and textual, virtual and real - which defines who we are at the close of the millennium.

They cross boundaries between art and science and between history and identity. They turn fiction into poetry and poetry into visual art. They experiment with new forms to discover the new stories they will reveal.

This community emphasizes our creativity as readers and writers. It is not a search for the 'right' interpretation of Shelley Jackson, or Michael Joseph. Instead we investigate how individuals create meaning both from words and from the medium that delivers those words to us.

Do writers use characters, images, and voices to shape their ideas into one immutable story? Or does the writer provide only the raw materials and we, the audience, create a new story every time we read?

We'll also practice writing our own hypertexts (no experience necessary!) and we'll discover how to match hypertext style to creative goal. Once achieved, these skills of the sophisticated electronic reader and imaginative electronic communicator open new avenues to advanced work in your major and offer active citizenship in the public world beyond GMU.

Formal Writing Assignments

Individual Hypertexts
I'll be asking you to write three hypertext essays during the semester. Don't panic! As writing hypertext is a new medium for most of us, we'll spend class time learning both how to research and plan critical essays about literature and how to present our conclusions as coherent hypertexts. Each individual hypertext should contain 1000 - 1500 constructive words. I'm not looking for instant perfection as literary thinkers and hypertext writers. But I am looking for a willingness to read, to imagine and to create.

The writing of hypertext, like any other writing you complete, is a process. I'll ask you to submit a preliminary plan, a rough draft and a final version of each hypertext. We'll workshop each hypertext essay draft in class to give us more time to discuss critical readings of our texts and their presentation to an audience.

The workshop is only valuable if you have a rough draft to circulate to readers. If your rough draft is late or incomplete, your final grade for the essay will drop one letter. The final will drop a grade fraction (A- to B+, B to B-) for each day it is late. But you may claim one 'life happens' late draft or (not and) late paper. You may revise each hypertext essay once, if you wish to develop an idea further or improve your grade.

Collaborative Hypertexts
Hypertext cries out for collaboration - we can easily share ideas, annotate each others' analyses, and merge (if we want) into one single author, NCLC 275. Thus, we'll also complete two collaborative hypertexts, one at the beginning of the semester, and the other at the end.

Again, don't panic if you're unfamiliar with collaborative analysis and writing. The first will be a class-wide collaboration which we'll work on informally in class. We'll use discussion and writing exercises to build this collaboration step by step. The second will be a small-group research project (see below)

Research Project
As yet, hypertext has no inflexible body of theory, or rigid rules of interpretation. The field is sufficiently new that each one of us can contribute to everyone's understanding of the medium as a vehicle for literature and creative thought.

I'll be asking you to develop a small group research project and to create a hypertext presentation of your conclusions suitable for posting on the class web page at the end of the semester. You may write an analytical hypertext based on the class texts, a creative hypertext which develops ideas or themes you've drawn from the literature and theory we have read, or mix analytical and creative writing, as hypertext pioneers like Stuart Moulthrop and Nancy Kaplan do.

Reading Journal

The British novelist E. M. Forster once wrote, "How do I know what I think until I see what I say." Forster wrote to learn - about himself, his relationship to his society, the people whom he observed and met, his own aspirations. Most writers use journals in exactly that way, as an expression of thought in action.

Informal logs and reading journals and logs are crucial to studying hypertext. Remember that what is passed on the screen is also past in time, and may be difficult to retrieve. The logs and journals should constitute your own personal record, as you read, of your encounter with the assigned readings and you may write as informally as you wish. Again, I'll ask you to develop your journal as a hypertext, and we'll discuss ways of keeping a hypertext journal confidential in class. Your journals can be contradictory, fragmentary, provocative, ranting and beautiful. But they must be there.

Copy into the journal phrases and sentences you admire or which provoke ideas or reactions from you. Note down your own interpretations of paragraphs or sections, your ideas for class discussion or questions you want to raise. Write as you read. The journal should work as an active part of your reading process.

See the weekly schedule and journal page for more specific information on when and how many journals you should write. I'm planning to provide study questions to help focus your reading. I read journals once a week and offer one-to-one feedback on your ideas.

Grades

This class is graded out of a total of 300 points, divided as follows:-

Conferences

One-to-one conferences are your time: bring a list of questions, text you want to revise or requests for writing or research help. I schedule some conferences formally but I'm also available in the office every week, and I usually answer e-mail every day (not necessarily on week-ends, though).

If you don't understand an assignment, or are encountering difficulties with the readings, please don't wait for an official conference time, or try to find a solution via a quick question before or after class.

Drop by during office hours, make a specific appointment or send me a detailed e-mail. Most of my enjoyment in this class comes from my encounter with your ides. I look forward to talking to you.

Important Dates