English 219

William C. Dowling

The Great Pequod Disaster

Our course reader, containing all the materials for the course, is produced by Pequod Copy.

Pequod recently closed its New Brunswick office, where my students had always before picked up their course readers. (This is a picture of the reader for Spring 2009. Your reader for Fall 2011 term will have a similar cover.)

All is well, however. You can pick up your course readers at the RUTGERS UNIVERSITY BOOKSTORE on Ferren Mall.

Some of you may have problems getting the reader right away. (Pequod never prints up an entire consignment of readers until they know that the projected enrollment is going to be the actual enrollment.)

Most students will be able to get theirs when they go to the Bookstore. A few, though, will have to wait 1-2 days before the next batch comes in.

This is potentially a disaster because you have graded work due starting with our second class. Since I don't permit makeup work -- I explain why in the course syllabus -- this means that you would start the course with a zero on the all-important pensum sequence.

To prevent disaster, there are two things you must do. Here's the first: WHEN THE BOOKSTORE TELLS YOU THAT THEY'RE OUT OF READERS, YOU MUST LEAVE YOUR NAME TO RESERVE ONE FOR YOURSELF. The way this works is that the Bookstore ONLY asks Pequod to print down additional copies when they know that someone actually in the course will come in to pay for it. Otherwise they get stuck with an expensively-produced copy that remains unsold. If you don't leave your name, they won't send for your copy.

Here's something else. When you leave your name, be pressing about when your copy will be in. Say stuff like "Could you please tell me EXACTLY when my copy will be here? This is important: I'll be coming by at the time you tell me, and I will expect to find my reader here. Please don't make me waste a trip and keep coming back." Tug at their heartstrings, look like someone who might not make it through the night without a 219 reader. Then they will have it when you come in.

Please note that you have assignments due starting next class. If you have been unable to get a reader, ask a classmate who has a reader to permit you to xerox your pensum exercises and copies of the poems with which we start the course. That way, you will not start out the course with zero grades on your pensum exercises, and can save your "no penalty drops" for real emergencies.