So this is more than a little geeky, but I "translated" the King story /plot that Forester gave into C++. It's all colorful thanks to some neat program I found, and if you want you can look at it at:
http://archetype.student.umd.edu/~matt/writing/deadking.html

Notice that it doesn't actually "do" anything. If you compiled it and ran it, it would just start then stop. It doesn't even include the library for putting things on the screen. However, I think it does convey the plot that Forester suggests, at least to humans.

Bravo, Matt. What you've done here is actually an example of a recent genre of writing known as "codework" which blends computational syntax and natural language for rhetorical effect. The fact that we can "read" this code, that it's intended for a human rather than a machine audience, speaks volumes about the ways in which the formalistic constraints of programming can in fact open up new possibilities for creative expression.

I have a question for the coders (and really, non-coders too) in the class. When you're coding, what exactly are you doing? I've always thought of it as modeling giving some model of the world to the computer and rules to manipulate that model. I'm just curious as to how others think of it.

I would compare coding to sculpting something out of a solid block of stone...you start with an idea of what you want and just start hacking away at it the shapeless form you start with until you arrive at the finished sculpture. An unfinished code structure is much like an unfinished sculpture; it just doesn't work, and no-one can tell what the hell its supposed to be except the person who made it.