Matt Langer

December 4th, 2009

In the interests of full and up-front disclosure, here are some reasons why a student might plausibly decide not to remain enrolled in this section of English 67:
    (1) Your instructor is not a professional literary scholar. In fact, though my job title at the college says ‘Professor of English,’ I am not a professor, because I do not have a Ph.D.
    (2) Your instructor has taught intro lit courses before, but not for several years, and never before at a college this selective. The upshot is that there may be a certain pedagogical clunkiness about this section of English 67. You will, in effect, be helping me learn how to teach this class. The level of our discussions may have to be adjusted up or down, depending on how well-prepared you guys are and how quickly you catch on to the concepts and techniques of ‘close reading.’ Certain approaches might turn out to be a waste of time. There may be abrupt changes in the syllabus. Extra work may be added. Let me say that again: Extra work may be added.
    (3) Some other sections of E67 also survey literary nonfiction and drama. In here, we’ll be working only on fiction and poetry.
    (4) Your instructor has high standards for the written work you turn in. Take another close look at Course Rules & Procedures Items 4 and 7 on page 3 of the syllabus. I know that many professors say this kind of hard-ass stuff at the beginning of the term but don’t actually mean it or enforce it as the course wears on. I, however, do mean it, and I will enforce it—feel free to verify this with students who’ve taken other classes with me. If you want to improve your academic writing and are willing to put extra time and effort into it, I am a good teacher to have. But if you’re used to whipping off papers the night before they’re due, running them quickly through the computer’s Spellchecker, handing them in full of high-school errors and sentences that make no sense, and having the professor accept them ‘because the ideas are good’ or something, please be informed that I draw no distinction between the quality of one’s ideas and the quality of those ideas’ verbal expression, and that I will not accept sloppy, rough-draftish, or semiliterate college writing. Again, I am absolutely not kidding. If you won’t or can’t devote significant time and attention to your written work, I urge you to drop E67-02 and save us both a lot of grief.

Pomona College, English 67, Section 02, Spring ‘05 syllabus, Caveat Emptor, instructed by David Foster Wallace. (pdf)