Introduction
This is a list of links to UBC Blogs archive sites for undergraduate courses designed, and course materials developed for them, while working at UBC.
Work planned or in progress for 2025:
- making UBC Blogs archive sites for courses designed between 2021 and now, which are housed on UBC’s learning management system (LMS), Canvas, and to which access is restricted to students who are registered in these courses
- sharing some course materials developed for other courses: that is, for courses that I didn’t design myself
French Language, Literatures, and Cultures
In the Department of French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies (FHIS) at UBC Vancouver. All courses at the 200-400 levels are taught in French; at the 200-level with occasional English if need be for more complex abstract explanations or longer deeper background context (history, geography, culture), as is appropriate for adults at a university; 100-level courses use more English, again as needed, as is appropriate for beginners.
Courses are listed in order of level, from 100 to 400.
Year references are usually to the academic year: for example, 2020 (winter session unless specified) = September 2020-April 2021.
Sometimes a term is specified: for example, 2020S1 = summer session term 1, May-June 2020.
There’s a lot of FREN 101 and 102, as I coordinated them for some time and designed four versions … not counting slight tweaks to the pre-existing course when I first started coordinating it or the multiple changes and redesigns just before, during, and just after pandemic lockdown.
- FREN 101 & 102:
Beginners’ French I & II
(2012-21)
(1) 2012: minor changes to previous version, no change to its textbook (Entre Amis), while planning a new version including department-wide consultation on a change of textbook. Co-cordinating with Jacques Bodolec, we used the previous institutional LMS, email, and a shared Dropbox. Created course syllabus and assignments.
(2) 2013-17: FREN 101 and FREN 102 course design and new textbook (Horizons)
(3) 2018-19: FREN 101 & 102 course design, and new textbook (Cosmopolite 1): up to April 2020, featuring the mid-March COVID-19 “pivot” and six weeks’ subsequent emergency onlinising
(4) 2020 FREN 101 & 102 based on the 2018-19 version but redesigned as an online (yet still synchronous) course during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown between spring 2020 and the end of summer 2021. Having previously used UBC Blogs to centralise the coordination of this large multiple-section course, for logistical reasons we moved to using UBC Canvas. Sample course description, syllabus, and learning objectives are also in a shared Dropbox folder.
2020S1 FREN 101 COMMONS: UBC Canvas institutional access if you have a UBC CWL (summer course designs are different, as the term is shorter and more intensive)
2020S2 FREN 102 COMMONS: UBC Canvas institutional access
2020W1 FREN 101 COMMONS: reused and redesigned for 2021W1
2020W2 FREN 102 COMMONS: UBC Canvas institutional access
(5) 2021 FREN 101 course design, and new textbook (Odyssée 1)
In 2021, teaching was … complicated … as we returned to classes on campus, but for practical reasons students could attend and participate in class in physical or in virtual person, so I taught both simultaneously, hyflex / multimodal. (2021W2 = no 102 course design as I was on sabbatical.)
2021W1 FREN 101 COMMONS and my own section, 2021W1 FREN 101-106: UBC Canvas institutional access
- FREN 215:
Oral French Practice
(2014-16)
Access restricted to registered users—course students and instructors—and with a twin Canvas site; this project was supported by UBC TLEF funding. - FREN 220_922:
Introduction to Early French Literature and to Textual Analysis
(2017) - FREN 221_204:
Introduction to Modern Literature written in French and to Textual Analysis
(2012) - FREN 320:
Advanced Studies in French Literature from 1000 to 1700
(2009) - FREN 333:
French Civilization I:
A historically-based approach to French civilization and culture from their origins to the Third Republic (1875)
(2013) - FREN 336:
The Francophone World in Images:
“Qu’est-ce que la bande dessinée ?”
(2016) - FREN 420L:
Selected Topics in French Literature:
“Éducations sentimentales: Perceptions masculines du féminin dans la littérature française des 18e et 19e siècles”
(2009)
Romance Studies and Medieval Studies
UBC’s Romance Studies is part of FHIS; Medieval Studies is an interdisciplinary program in the Faculty of Arts. Romance Studies and Medieval Studies courses are taught in English with original languages included for comparison; texts read and worked on in original or English depending on student programme and degree requirements.
Courses are listed in chronological order.
- RMST 221:
Literatures and Cultures of the Romance World I: Medieval to Early Modern:
“Adventures”
(2009) - RMST 221:
Literatures and Cultures of the Romance World I: Medieval to Early Modern:
“Mischief”
(2010) - RMST 221:
Literatures and Cultures of the Romance World I: Medieval to Early Modern:
“Intrigue”
(2011) - MDVL 302:
European Literature of the 14th to the 16th centuries:
“Criticism”
(2011) - MDVL 301A:
Medieval Studies: European Literature from the 5th to the 14th Century:
“The Liberal Arts”
(2016) - MDVL 310D:
Topics in Medieval Studies:
“Marvels”
(2017) - RMST 221B:
Literatures and Cultures of the Romance World I: Medieval to Early Modern:
“Animal Reading”
(2019) - RMST 201: Introduction to Literatures and Cultures of the Romance World I: Medieval to Early Modern
(2021)
UBC Blogs archive site coming soon (2025) - MDVL 301 / RMST 321 (cross-listed):
European Literature from the 5th to the 14th Century /
French Literature from the Middle Ages to the Revolution:
“A World of Marvels”
(2024)
UBC Canvas course site limited institutional access if you have a UBC CWL, UBC Blogs archive site coming soon (2025)
Most of the materials above are freely accessible (Creative Common BY-NC-SA), though some parts of some sites are only for students in that course (ex. online discussion) or for instructors teaching it.