Welcome to English 100

In 1939, movie-goers were hit with an amazing spectacle. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and her little dog Toto were swept up by a tornado and blown into the magical land of Oz. Until the moment when she opens the door of the cabin and sees where she landed, every movie was in black-and-white, but when she opens the door, suddenly she is in a land where everything is in brilliant, vivid color. And Dorothy says to her little dog:

“Toto, I’ve a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.”

College might feel that way. It will be a huge change, but it will be a good one. (After all, Oz was in full color!) I will be writing this blog throughout the summer to help you adjust and get ready for this new land.

A few details about this blog:

• This isn’t an official AU site, and everything here is my own opinion. Because it’s not an AU site, anybody on the Internet can read it, so if you have a friend who is in another English class—perhaps even in another college—I have no problem with you sharing the address.
• The blog software puts the newest items at the top, but you can still read older items that have fallen off the opening page. Just click MORE POSTS at the bottom. Or you can use the Archive and Labels tool in the left sidebar. (If your browser doesn’t show the sidebar, click the little three-line thing ☰ in the upper left.)
• I have enabled comments on the posts, but comments will be moderated, so if you write something, it won’t appear for a while.
• I will be sending out invitations and a link to the blog several times during the summer. People get added to the course all the time, right up until about the second week of classes, and I want to catch as many newcomers as possible.

One more thing:

Almost everything we do in the course will come through an online Learning Management System program called Blackboard. You will not have access to that until the official first day of the course, so the information here is intended to get you going and fill in the gap. Do not panic. Your time will come.

Welcome to our class

—Curtis Allen