Welcome to PoetryGenius! This will be our out of class venue for discussing many of the short stories that we'll be reading throughout our Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies seminar So, how are we going to do this?

Using PoetryGenius to annotate a text or comment on others' annotations is very simple. Just select/highlight the passage from the text that you'd like to annotate. You can then write something relevant to that particular passage, or even link pictures, videos, other texts, etc. This is not your term paper, but an extension of and preparation for our in-class discussions - thus, a bit of informality is perfectly okay!

At times, I might participate in the discussion, but my primary role will be that of supervisor, meaning that I will reject completely inadequate annotations, accept and upvote poignant ones, and provide just the right amount of input necessary for furthering the discussion.

A couple of things I'd like you to keep in mind:

a) Remember to work on our private versions of the texts, not on the public ones. You can find them all in my songs tab.

b) Rules of academic research still apply. If you quote someone else or paraphrase their ideas, provide reference. Do not simply copy other people's work!

c) Keep your annotations short and concise, but make them meaningful. No one-word annotations! No stating the obvious or paraphrasing the text!

d) Annotate only short passages from the text. Annotating entire paragraphs will force other students to use the comment function, since they cannot enter new annotations over existing ones.

e) Use complete sentences and proofread them. Completely inadequate annotations may be rejected.

f) Do not wait until the day before class to do the annotations! If everyone does this, there will be no actual discussion. Read the texts as soon as you can and annotate them immediately afterward so as to give other students the opportunity to comment on your thoughts.


If you have any further questions, feel free to email me!