Welcome to ENGL 2100 - Literature and the Humanities - Close Encounters of the Cultural Kind (Section 09F), for the Fall 2020 semester. I'm Dr. Joe Pellegrino, your instructor for the course. This email will be a bit lengthy, but it will contain all the information and links you'll need to get started this semester in the course.

Here are the topics I'll cover:
1. The course structure
2. Attendance verification
3. The course syllabus and schedule
4. Textbooks and course material



1. Course Structure
The course has 24 modules that present information on historical and literary periods, the authors we're covering, and the texts we're reading. Each module contains links to web pages and sites, a podcast about the text or period, and a quiz.

Modules
Course modules are located within Folio/D2L. You should begin your work on each module there. These will then bounce you out to external sites for background information and podcasts about the historical, cultural, and biographical information behind each text, and literary and thematic interpretations of each text.

The numbered modules all address texts and authors. The lettered modules are discussion prompts.

Each numbered module contains links to the background and interpretive material, a podcast on the text we're addressing, a quiz, and one or more discussion questions. You won't be answering these questions for each module; you'll eventually choose four of these questions in the lettered modules, one question for each of the big periods we're covering.

Discussion Forums
Throughout the course, you'll be responding to four discussion questions in the discussion forums, and then offering secondary responses to four initial posts done by other students. The forums themselves are arranged so that you have to post your own response first in order to see what others have said.

Podcasts
A page with links to all the podcasts is located at this URL: http://jpellegrino.com/teaching/ENGL2100/000-Podcasts.html.

Exams
We'll have two multiple-choice exams, one halfway through the course and one at the end of the course. These will be 33 questions each, with roughly 1/3 of the questions in these three areas: identification of a text, historical and cultural contexts for a text, and thematic concerns within a text.

Exams are available from midnight to midnight on the dates noted in the schedule. You may take the exam at any time on the day that is it available. Once you open the exam, you'll have one hour to complete and submit it.

2. Attendance verification
The U is verifying your attendance through a simple one-question quiz that they will place in the course site on D2L by Monday. You'll have to complete this quiz by Tuesday in order to verify your attendance. Don't blow this off; the U will drop you from the class if your attendance isn't verified.

3. Course syllabus and schedule
The syllabus and schedule are available online only, at the following links:

Syllabus: http://jpellegrino.com/teaching/ENGL2100/002-Syllabus.html
Schedule: http://jpellegrino.com/teaching/ENGL2100/003-Schedule.html

4. You'll need to buy one set of three textbooks:
The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Volumes D, E, and F (Package 2), 4th edition. Martin Puchner, et. al., editors, W.W. Norton, 2019. ISBN: 9780393265910

Some course material is available in the course site on D2L. There's a module called "Course Material" that has the texts you'll need for Whitman, Senghor, and Heaney. And just in case you can't get the textbook quickly, I'll also make a version of Candide available there. The translation isn't as good as the one in the Norton Anthology, but the notes are excellent (if I do say so myself).

Please take a look at the material on the course site, as well as the syllabus and schedule. If, after going through these, you have any questions, please let me know.

Dr. P