[Paul Schacht]

If you’re taking ENGL 458-02 in fall 2014, share a few words about why you signed up for the course.

[Kristen Druse]

I personally signed up for this class because I haven’t really read much Dickens (excluding the abridged Great Illustrated Classics that I tore through as a kid), and he’s an author I would really like to be more familiar with. I also really enjoyed taking Brit Lit II and I like 19th century British writing in general, so I figured that there was a good chance that I would find this course pretty interesting.

[Hannah Sugarman]

I decided to take this class because after studying abroad in London and checking out the Charles Dickens Museum, I realized that I don’t know enough about Charles Dickens and would like to learn more! I have not read much of his work and most of my exposure to Dickens actually comes from musicals based on Oliver Twist, A Chrismas Carol, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood. I also enjoyed Brit Lit II and decided that this was an era that I wanted to learn more about.

[Nivedita Rajan]

I read ‘A Christmas Carol’ as a child, and soon after, had the opportunity to visit the Charles Dickens Museum in London. While I’ve always been fascinated with Victorian literature, Dickens in particular was the one author who managed to tap into the essence of London at the time; he managed to make this industrial city look and feel beautiful – from the grime of the Rookeries, to the opulence of the stately manors in the country. I think his descriptions in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Oliver Twist’ were what drew me to Dickens in the first place. He wrote with the awe of a child and the jadedness of an old man.

[McKennaMiller]

I signed up for this course because I don’t know much about Dickens’s writing and I would love to learn more. I was in another class taught by Professor Schacht and we went over A Christmas Carol, and I found the discussion to be very interesting. Dickens’s style of writing really resonates well with me, so I’m also using this class as an excuse to spend more time reading.

[John Panus]

When I was in 10th grade my English teacher assigned A Tale of Two Cities to my class.  I read the first 30 pages and decided that since the rest of the class was only reading the spark notes, I could do the same.  The next year I had a much more challenging English teacher who assigned Great Expectations, but this time I read the book from cover to cover – and I loved every page of it.  Great Expectations was the book that sparked my interest in literature and ever since I finished it I have wanted  to read more of Dickens’ work and learn more about the brilliant man behind the text.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by John Panus.

[Jenna Cecchini]

The first book that I was assigned to read in high school was Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. I had never been exposed to literature quite like it before, and I fell in love with it almost immediately. After that, I couldn’t stop reading Dickens! I tore through most of his other works and started reading other 19th century authors. I always tell people that it was Dickens who showed me how much of a true art form literature could be, and it was through his work that I began to really appreciate and love the material. When this course was made available, I jumped at the chance to take it and rediscover one of my first literary loves through a collegiate lens.

[Rachel Campbell]

Like most of the answers on here, the main reason I signed-up for this class was because I really don’t know anything about Dickens…which is really kind of sad and pathetic.  I vaguely remember trying to read “A Tale of Two Cities” when I was in 7th grade, but the only things I can remember about that book is that it was about the French Revolution and the famous quote: “It was the best of times;  it was the worst of times.”  I also have read/watched “A Christmas Carol”, and I remember going to see the play “Oliver Twist” when I was younger.

Despite my utter lack of knowledge about Dickens, I am really excited to take this course because I really like to dissect the works of a specific author as opposed to looking at multiple authors within a semester.  I feel you gain a lot more spending time on just one author at a time.

Another aspect that really intrigues me about Dickens is how he was concerned about social reform…especially since he grew up during the Industrial Revolution.  Definitely looking forward to learn more about this author!

[Audrey Buechel]

I signed up for this course because Dickens is pretty rad.

I first picked up the novel A Tale of Two Cities one summer because I had always heard it was one of the great Victorian classics and love literature from that time period– from that point onward I have been ever-so-smitten with his writings and the fictional characters and worlds he creates through his writings. Afterwards I decided to start reading Great Expectations  but never had the time to finish the novel– so I am excited that this course will give me an excuse to finally be able to!

I also read A Christmas Carol last fall for ENGL 170 (or what is now 203) with Professor Schacht and was really excited to be able to take a course delving more into the life and works of Dickens. Can’t wait!

[Alyssa Knott]

I don’t know all that much about Dickens but the works that I’ve read by him I really enjoyed so I’d like to learn more. I also think it will be a lot of fun to be able to discuss his life and work in a classroom setting besides the little bit we did in high school. Great Expectations was the first novel I read by him and I absolutely fell in love with the characters as well as the story and so for that reason alone I’d like to explore Dickens in a bit more detail over the course of a semester.

[Joseph Fennie]

I decided to sign up for the Dickens class because throughout High School, and even my first two years of college, I never experienced any of Dickens’ writings either through his written work or general literary connections. I feel as if Dickens plays a much larger role in western literature than I have been currently presented with, and I wanted to take this opportunity to experience the impact he has had.

[Hannah Glaser]

I chose this course because I don’t know much about Dickens; and as an English major I feel like I should have a pretty decent familiarity with his work. I want to get to the root of how Dickens’ books have become household names and what elements specifically create that connection with so many readers. I read A Tale of Two Cities in high school and Great Expectations a couple of years ago; but I’m not sure I got everything out of them that I should have, so I’m looking forward to another go.

[Erin Duffy]

I signed up for this course because I have an embarrassing lack of knowledge about Charles Dickens. Although I’ve made a habit of reading (or at least thumbing through) A Christmas Carol during the holidays, his other novels have never been high on my list of things to read, despite my love of Victorian literature. When I saw this course, I decided that it was the perfect opportunity to familiarize myself with Dickens and truly understand why he is a household name. I spent this past summer studying in England and, now that I’ve seen firsthand evidence of his influence, I’m even more determined to learn about his work.

[Klarisa Loft]

I decided to enroll in this course because Dickens and what he wrote about has always sounded interesting to me. I’ve loved the story of A Christmas Carol since I was very young, and later on enjoyed the children’s version of Oliver Twist (when I found out that we’d be reading BOTH of these books for class, I was ecstatic). Of course, there has always been the option to read Dickens on my own, but I believe taking an entire course based on him will help me to gain more insight on the time period and occurrences of the nineteenth-century by discussing it with fellow readers. Though I challenged myself immensely by enrolling in this course, it was an opportunity I didn’t want to pass up, and I look forward attacking some more difficult material on a subject that greatly interests me.

[Cassandra Ballini]

I signed up for this course because, like many other students in this class, I know very little about Dickens and, as an English lit major, this seems like an awfully conspicuous hole in my education. I’ve only ever read one book by Dickens (Great Expectations), and it was for a high school English class, so it wasn’t a very in-depth reading. I’m looking forward to learning more about Charles Dickens and his works of literature in this class. This will be the first time I’ve taken a course focused solely on a single author, so I’m interested to see how much more concentrated this course’s content will be.

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