The main part of my work as a Lecturer of French is being part of the regular teaching team for the FREN 101-102-201-202-301-302-401-402 language sequence (and their predecessors, for courses whose numbering is now different after curriculum and program changes).<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve also coordinated FREN 101 and 102, a large course with multiple sections and instructors: co-coordinating with Jacques Bodolec in 2012 (July-December), and coordinating from 2013 to December 2021. After that, I was on sabbatical from January to April 2022. As the coordination of multiple-section courses in our department is a rotating responsibility, from summer 2022 to spring 2026 I was a regular teaching-team member and for the language sequence my course creation work was smaller-scale course materials development (class slides, activities, assignments) and contributing to the collective, via Canvas Commons. I’ve now returned to coordinating FREN 101 and 102, starting with redesigning the course with new materials in summer 2026. Some updates about the course design process will be appearing through 2026-27 in Thinking about course design.<\/a><\/p>\n In my time at UBC I\u2019ve also developed materials for other courses, where I was part of the team but not coordinating or therefore designing that course: most recently FREN 201, 202, 401, and 402.<\/p>\n In 2025-27, I\u2019ll start to share some of these materials here, accompanied by reflection comments (what was I thinking, why did it seem like a good idea at the time, what worked, what didn\u2019t, what would I do differently next time, et mea culpa cetera<\/em>). Behind and under any part of a course, underpinning its design and weaving the parts together into a whole, are fundamental questions. Essential, quintessential matters; pedagogical and existential. What\u2019s the point of an assignment? Of assessment? Of a course? Of a university education in the literate humanities? Of learning? What are we doing? Who, where, when, how, why?<\/p>\n What follows below is the curated collection of resources that I\u2019ve selected, created, and organised from 2003 onwards. They range from the general (guidance and where to find further help, free online texts and research materials and communities) to the particular (guides for writing commentary on literature for a specific course and its specific readings). I have not necessarily checked all links recently\u2014this, too, is work for 2025-26 now that I have more time\u2014but even the most antique items in the repository are still useful and adaptable to other purposes, courses, and colleagues in other areas.<\/p>\n (at Meta-meta-medieval<\/a>)<\/p>\n Introduction The main part of my work as a Lecturer of French is being part of the regular teaching team for the FREN 101-102-201-202-301-302-401-402 language sequence (and their predecessors, for courses whose numbering is now different after curriculum and program changes). I\u2019ve also coordinated FREN 101 and 102, a large course with multiple sections and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1097,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-24","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/julietobrien\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/julietobrien\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/julietobrien\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/julietobrien\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1097"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/julietobrien\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/julietobrien\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/julietobrien\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24\/revisions\/134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/julietobrien\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\nResources<\/h3>\n
\n
\nfor teaching and learning<\/li>\n
\n(2018 version)
\nGeneral useful openly-accessible freely-available UBC information.<\/p>\n\n
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\n(2018 version)
\nA revision guide for beginners\u2019 French, general exam preparation and revision guidance, exam season guidance, and (local, UBC) exam practicalities<\/p>\n\n
\n
\n(2003-22)<\/p>\n\n
\n(2016 version)
\nThe original title of this resource was \u201cCriticism & commentary,\u201d but it\u2019s really about reading and writing as harmoniously-integrated activities within the larger whole that is a literary continuum and polyphonic collective; uniting all participants in a living textual network.
\nPremises and provisos:
\n(1) Commentary<\/em> is one of the core and ancient literary\/communicative forms, along with story-telling and translation; story-telling<\/i> is the living beating heart of this human trinity of curiosity, criticism, and creativity.
\n(2) Literature<\/em> in its broad\u2014inclusive, hospitable\u2014sense extends to \u201cany object that can be read, seen, interpreted\u201d and reading<\/i> is in the broad \/ Roland Barthes sense, to include perception by any of the senses, with \u201cmaking sense of\u201d as its purpose and \u201cinterpretation\u201d translated into expression via any of the senses.
\n(3) Literature<\/em> is synonymous with communicative expression. Not as one kind of communication, but the other way around: what passes in other (non-literary) fields as \u201ccommunication\u201d is a more or less appropriately human, or humanly-appropriate, kind of literature.
\n(4) All writing has a right, duty, and responsibility to be beautiful, imaginative and innovative, and critical and creative. All writing can and should be literature.
\nThe present version of this resource is based on MDVL 302: \u201cCRITICISM\u201d<\/a> (2012) and MDVL 301A: \u201cTHE LIBERAL ARTS\u201d<\/a> (2016). I\u2019ve tweaked it slightly over the years. The \u201cwriting resources\u201d section is its most ancient archaeological layer, from a now-deceased ancestor site, The Rose of the Romance<\/em>\u00a0(2003).
\nResource categories:<\/p>\n\n
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\n(2017)
\nUne version, adapt\u00e9e aux besoins d\u2019un cours sur la bande dessin\u00e9e (FREN 336<\/a>)<\/a>, de plusieurs guides pratiques pour l\u2019analyse textuelle et litt\u00e9raire.
\n(This is a shorter French version of \u201cOn reading, writing, and commentary<\/a>,\u201d for a UBC Vancouver course <\/a>on\u00a0bande dessin\u00e9e<\/em>.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
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\n(2017)
\nLa derni\u00e8re semaine \u00ab m\u00e9ta \u00bb du cours ci-dessus : m\u00e9tamorphoses, adaptations, traductions, transformations, avenir ? \u2014 le m\u00e9di\u00e9val – le d\u00e9ploiement, et une lecture en 4D sur le vif \u2014 les expositions et les mus\u00e9es \u2014 en ligne \u2014 la critique et la th\u00e9orie, et les innovations qu\u2019y apportent les cr\u00e9ateurs de BD en r\u00e9-imaginant ces formes de penser et d\u2019\u00e9crire.
\n(Reading (and) comics, medievalised: notes from the last\u2014\u201cmeta\u201d\u2014week of that same bande dessin\u00e9e<\/em> course.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
\n
\n<\/a>(PDF, 2008-12)
\nPractical information for two medieval literature and culture courses that has student online discussion as a term-long regular assignment (RMST 221: \u201cINTRIGUE\u201d<\/a> and MDVL 302: \u201cCRITICISM<\/a>,\u201d 2012): on the practicalities of posting, grading via student selections for a portfolio and self-evaluation, and rules and limits (tl;dr = free, thoughtful and responsible, sensitive and sensible, adult speech)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
\n(2017):<\/p>\n\n
\n
\n(2003\u2013)
\nAs much as possible is freely available online. Used as a base for Canvas sites for French language courses at all levels from 101 to 402.
\nResource categories:<\/p>\n\n
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\n(2003\u2013)
\nFor teaching, learning, combinations thereof, and any other scholarly adventures; freely available and openly accessible online.
\nThe present version was mostly from 2009, with minor revisions in 2015 and 2020. This area of my main site is the core around which I built it, at that time as an archive of my first website: The Rose of the Romance <\/em>(2003), about medieval things, mostly literary, centred on 10th-16th c. CE western Afro-Eurasia; and context, scholarly communities, art, material culture, manuscripts, museums, libraries, bibliography, resources, lists of resources, lists of lists, etc.; especially around Old Occitan and Old French romance, hence the title. I built it as an old-fashioned classic website, a metasite repository of resources and curated collection of useful links. The Rose<\/em> started out as a place to gather references to online materials, projects, and hyperprojects. It was a tangent from doctoral work\u2014working on medieval superbooks and metabooks, and thinking about what it meant to be a book\u2014and what might pass as procrastination light relief that kind of still counted as background and contextual work so that I didn\u2019t feel too guilty about it (but still a bit guilty). Putting it publicly freely online felt better, as it might be useful to someone else, which would make it worthwhile.
\nResource categories:<\/p>\n\n
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