You may be surprised to find computers so central to an English course. The reasons for this are pretty simple. First, I believe that the ability to handle written language confidently and flexibly (as a reader and as a writer) is central to English courses -- and to education in general. Second, I believe just as strongly that being comfortable with the tools we use for handling written language is important. And there's no escaping this: computers are the most important tool we have for that. Saying "I want to study English, or become an educated and literate person, but I don't want to deal with computers" is rather like saying, "I want to be a carpenter but I don't want to touch a power saw."

If you haven't had much contact with using computers for posting writing or editing and revising, or with the scholarly and academic functions of the Internet, let me offer you this reassurance: you don't need to have had a "computer literacy" course, or, indeed, to have extensive experience with computers at all; you'll have plenty of chances to learn what you need as we go. If you're already pretty comfortable with such matters, one of the main things you'll be doing early in this course is helping others (this course is, after all, mainly about sharing with others what you know or can learn; you show her how to save a file on her wiki page, and she may show you where the Academic Search Premier data base is, or how to find out about George Orwell or James Agee).

why you won't need to go to the bookstore:

This course does not use a printed and commercially published textbook. Instead of a traditional printed textbook, we use the resources of the library and the Internet. Common texts -- i.e., works everyone reads -- will be decided by the process of investigation and discussion I describe elsewhere in this document, and copies will be made available as needed.