The next offering of English 88 on-line will run
from Monday, June 26, 2000 to Thursday, August 10, 2000.

This is an "on line" or electronic course--exciting and innovative--but it is not especially "high tech" or in any way limited to those who are sophisticated users of computers. You need only regular access to e-mail to participate.

Participants in this receive regular University of Pennsylvania/Ivy League course credit, transferrable to other colleges and universities, through Penn's College of General Studies.

Students who have taken English 88 on line include:

• alumni of the University of Pennsylvania from Michigan, Puerto Rico, and elsewhere
• juniors and seniors in high school--some considering Penn as a choice for college, others just wanting a high-quality university experience
• currently enrolled full-time Penn students
• a current Penn student studying abroad
• special students enrolled in Penn but unable to travel to Philadelphia for classes
• middle-school English teachers looking to keep up with new forms of American poetry
• & others

• e-mail discussions in large and small groups
• weekly live "webcasts" which participants view using a simple "realplayer" (downloadable free) on their desktops (to view any of the English 88 webcasts, recorded, click here)
• submission and return of papers by email
• most course readings available on the web, including some audio and a few video files (for a sample audio mini-lecture from the course--an introduction to the "New York Poets"--click here).
• regular live or "synchronous" office hours (in a chat-room like setting)
• virtual workshops & visits from emerging and eminent poets and poetry critics
• access to programs and the "literary scene" of Penn's innovative Kelly Writers House

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course offers a various, fast-paced "tour" of modern American poetry, from the first inklings of modernist experiment in Dickinson and Whitman through the "postmodern" poems of this very day. (Toward the end of the course we will be reading poetry so recent that it will actually have been

poet Robert Creeley on why, in part, he likes the poetic form of writing

"Oh yes, the sentence," Robert Creeley once told the critic Burton Hatlen, "that's what we call it when we put someone in jail."

written since the day the course itself began!) Students will learn, in a great variety of ways, how to define "modernism" and how to navigate a course from modernism to postmodernism. Through the marvels of the new media, we will meet some of the poets and critics whose work we are studying. We will also "affiliate" with the hot poetry "scene" of the Kelly Writers House (www.english.upenn.edu/~wh).

No prior knowledge of poetry is required. There will be few if any "lectures" through the semester; this is a course built upon discussions about the readings. Students will interact with the teachers and the materials in as many ways as the technology permits (which is to say, many ways). They will write frequent very short papers, submitted by email. They will be expected to be lively participants in the course listserv (electronic mailing list).

COST

The cost per student is the regular College of General Studies rate of $1,753, plus a $60 internet fee (for PennAdvance courses)--for a total of $1,813.

Penn alumni may receive a significant discount (please write Al Filreis at afilreis@english.upenn.edu for information about this).

                    Phone: 215-898-1684
                    Fax: 215-573-2053
                    Email: advance@sas.upenn.edu 

                    PennAdvance Program
                    College of General Studies
                    3440 Market Street, Suite 100
                    Philadelphia, PA 19104-3335 

• Filreis's modern & contemporary poetry web site
• "Verse Makes a Comeback on Campus"--a Philadelphia Inquirer article about this course in its on-campus version
• Al Filreis's web site
• the Kelly Writers House

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