William I. Wolff

About Homework Assignments

The assignments that are listed on this page are to be completed before class starts the day they are due.

For Tuesday, July 15

Please read Chapters 3 and 4 in Electronic Literature, NIPPON (discussed in Ch 3), and the following works included on the Electronic Literature CD: Twelve Blue, The Jew’s Daughter, Lexia to Perplexia, and Oulipoems. Come to class with three questions that you think would be good to initiate the discussion. 

For Tuesday, July 8

Please read the following:

• Patchwork Girl by Shelley Jackson
• Koskimaa, Raine, "Visual Structuring of Hyperfiction Narratives"

Please come to class with a diagramatic sketch of your hypertext piece. Please make it as detailed as possible, not just a bunch of boxes with arrows. Try to map out connections, plots, plot intersections, plot diversions, characters, html file names for for each lexia, etc. The more detailed you are in the mapping the better your hypertext will be.

For Thursday, July 3

There is a considerable amount of reading for Thursday, consisting of theory and hypertexts. Take your time with it, as much of it can be quite dense and theory-heavy. Please read:

• afternoon: a story by Michael Joyce
• Chapter 2, "Imtermediation: From Page to Screen" in Electronic Literature (a complex, difficult chapter
• Jill Walker, "piecing together and tearing apart: finding the story in afternoon"

Read Walker first, as her discussion will help you when you try to navigate afternoon. Please also be prepared to discuss the basic premise of your hypertext piece, how you are thinking about its navigation scheme, and what overall point you are thinking of making with the piece.

We will be meeting in the Blackboard chat room, so please do not come to class.

For Tuesday, July 1

There is a considerable amount of reading for Tuesday, consisting of theory and hypertexts. Take your time with it, as much of it can be quite dense and theory-heavy. Please read:

• "Read Me" and Chapter 1 in Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary
• J. Yellowlees Douglas (1992) "What Hypertexts can do that Print Narratives Cannot" (.pdf)
• Stuart Multhrop (1997) "Pushing Back: Living and Writing in Broken Space" (.pdf version also available)
• The Unknown Hypertext by Dirk Stratton, Scott Rettberg, and William Gillespie
• The Ballad of Sand and Harry Soot by Stephanie Strickland

Please connect to the your Home Directory (also known as HDrive) by following the instructions at http://williamwolff.org/courses/connect-to-hdrive/.

For Thursday, June 26

Please read the following:

• John Slatin (1990), "Reading Hypertext: Order and Chaos in a New Medium" (available on Readings page)
• Robert Coover (1992), "The End of Books"
• Stuart Multhrop (1996), "Getting Over the Edge"
• Scott Rettberg, Chapter 3 from his dissertation (2002), "Hypertext: Linking, Nonlinearity, Referentiality" (.pdf)

And, to help ground our discussion of this theory, please read the hypertext Charmin’ Cleary by Edward Falco