Monday January 11: Welcome

I am happy to see your websites being posted on our Facebook page; thank you. As you post your links on Facebook, I will include the link on our Student Blog  page. Please do take some time to read each other’s websites with an eye on finding your writing team partners. Feel free to comment on each other’s pages.

I am also happy to see you asking and answering questions on our Group Face Book page; we are a very large group this semester; 55 students, so the Facebook page is a wonderful resource for communicating difficulties and finding solutions quickly.

There are two important elements of this course that are perhaps a bit unusual:

1. The opportunities to edit and rewrite your work before evaluation;
   1. After each peer review you are expected to return to the original document and revise your work accordingly
   2. Only your peer reviews and emails are evaluated as presented in the original documents – *all other writing assignments can be edited and re-edited as your skills improve before final evaluation
   3. At the end of term you will present a Web Folio and at that time your work will be evaluated.

*Please note: assignment 1:2, your letter of application, will be evaluated in order to give you an idea of where your writing skills are at the moment.

2. The peer review process;
   1. Timeliness is essential. Because we are using a peer-review process, if you post your assignment late, then your peer-reviewer will likewise be late.
   2. The purpose is to work in a professional environment together in which timeliness is an essential skill.

As you can see from our class schedule this is an intensive writing course that requires consistent and timely participation, so please do ensure you schedule yourself accordingly.

I’d like to introduce you to Jasmine Spencer, who will be assisting with evaluations this semester. Jasmine is a graduate student in the Department of English at UBC. Her main focus of study is Indigenous languages and literatures, especially stories and Indigenous theories of animals; she also takes an interest in west-coast poetry, ecocriticism, and translation theory. She has been TAing for three years at UBC and has also taught English in China and Mexico.

Our goal is provide you with an evaluation sheet after each Unit in as timely a fashion as is possible. We will occasionally send out evaluations in mid Unit when the assignments require more immediate feedback in order for you to proceed; such as your Report Proposals.

Enjoy.