General comment for all courses

In most cases, students who try to enroll in courses I frequently teach that have limited enrollment opportunities are first placed on a waitlist, even when there is considerable space still in the course.

If you are on the waitlist your best strategy is a) to attend the first sessions of the class and b) to state your interest in the course in an email to me using the keyword "enrollmentissue" (no spaces used—see the sidebar for how to email me). You can also email me and, if I have time, I can give you a sense of my intentions for that particular class (not for you as an individual but the general size of the class and so on.) You can try talking to me after that first class but as a practical matter I do not always remember our conversation since there are quite a few random things going on after class during those first few sessions. Just talking to me is risky; talking with me and following up with an email is much better. Use the keyword, above.

I try to rapidly determine the final enrollment of a class and can probably give you a "sense" of your status after the first two or so sessions of the course. However, since I work with the department on this it can take up to two weeks to settle all issues. In most cases whether or not you are a major, intended major or minor is very important, and when you will be graduating is important. However, beyond this there can be a wide variety of individual factors which I give due consideration. In some of my classes Jan Johnson makes most of the choices, but in communication with me. In other classes I like to take the lead.

Informal notice hastily written April 9 (for Telebears)

It seems likely that I will teach this class Fall 2012 since Professor Horton will be on leave. I have not taught this class in a few years but before that I regularly did, here and elsewhere. When I think about course content over the summer I will make changes but as taught in the past by me this is a grammar-intensive course. My latest iteration of this course was 2006 and at that time the course description read, in part:

Course content: This class is the first semester of department classes that introduce the reading of premodern literary Japanese (文語, bungo). The first segment of the semester takes up the topic of basic grammar principles of the classical language. The language is approached under the two broad categories of words (their functions, forms and unique meanings) and phrases (particularly determining relationships between phrases). This overview prepares the student for the second and third segments of the class when we read from original premodern texts (some poetry, mainly literary prose dating from the 10th to 17th centuries). More grammar is introduced when covering these works.

and by 10th to 17th centuries I mean primarily some Heian period poetry, a lot of the Hojoki, and some from Basho's Narrow Road to the Deep North.

Other headings on these pages:

• Is this course a good fit for you?
• Access to course details
• If waitlisted or unable to get onto a waitlist ...