1

Check out the website

Take a look around if you haven’t already. Think of it as a tour: Get an overview, or a lay of the land. Click on every link as if you are peaking behind doors lined up along hallways. Read as much or as little as you like. Get a sense of where things are.

Then come back here to continue when you’re ready.

2

Read About the Class

Start with the Home Page: have you read it? Then, in the upper left corner of the website, underneath the AAS logo, go to the About the Class tab. When you scroll over it, you will see five pages appear. Read each of them.

This is like looking at the cover of a book before opening it, and then reading the introduction. Note that in English we read from left to right whether in a book or on a website, on a single page or in something with many pages. Reading from the beginning, rather than the middle, will give you valuable information to use as you go forward.

Come back here to continue when you’re ready.

3

Plan to come here often

How will you get back to this website next time? Can you bookmark this site? Or mark it as a “favorite”? Whatever your plan is, take a moment now to make getting back to this site easy. Note: It’s handier to mark our Home Page than this page.

4

Schedule office hours with me

Our first appointment will be for one hour (60 minutes). At this meeting we will create a learning plan. Part of that plan will be to decide how and when to check in regularly.

Please use the Schedule an Appointment tab in the upper right of the website to make an appointment. If you have any problem, please email or text me so we can address it.

5

Prepare your work spaces

Studying online still requires both a physical space to work and an online workspace. Please have a notebook – dedicated to only your studies – with you when we meet. Listening and reading are not the only, or necessarily the best, ways to learn. Writing what we hear or see or think can help a lot. It helps to clarify what we think, it shines light on things we don’t understand fully yet, it can deepen our understanding, and it provides repetition.

(There’s a lot on this subject on the Internet. Here’s one article: https://notetakingexpert.com/why-is-note-taking-important/. And it’s on notetakingexpert.com, which I haven’t looked at closely yet, but could be worth visiting.)

As you are preparing your first assignments, also please create a folder on your device, or some other system for organizing your school documents. This is a place you can keep any assignments you are collecting. I strongly encourage you to NOT only keep your documents in “the cloud”. This is commonly considered “back up” of documents, and is handy to rely on in the moment, but what if you lose access to that “back up”? Have you saved your original on your own computer? Please consider how you can keep your own copies of your own documents on your own computer, device, or flash drive.

6

Create a Study Schedule

When we studied in the classroom, this class met 12 hours a week. We did everything in person, even if weren’t always working on the same thing, and there was no homework.

Studying at home, it’s important to find ways to read and write on your own, check in with me, and work with others – without me. We’re not going to be able to do it all in a Zoom class that meets nine hours a week. And, it goes without saying (but I’ll say it on the chance it’s useful), the more you’re able to do now, the more quickly you’ll accomplish your goal.

DIRECTIONS:

Check out examples of different kinds of study time at home and online.
Make a table like the one below, if it’s useful, to plan time in your schedule for each type of activity.

Here are some questions to think about:

When is the best time for you to do studying on your own (When do you have the most time to yourself? When do you have the most energy and/or access to technology? What other conditions help your concentration: Are you able to concentrate best after you’ve eaten? Is it easier for you to focus when the light in your room is bright?
How many hours a week can you currently devote to your studies? Is it enough? Is it too much? Is it realistic?

7

Send me a writing sample

It’s important for me to see some of your writing. No dictionary. No auto-correct. Just you and the paper or key board. Please give me at least half a page, the more the better. It gives me a chance to learn about you, and also to learn about your writing. Any format is fine. If you write on paper, just send a picture of it from your phone (to my email address).

What would you like me to know about you? What are your short- and long-term goals? Why did you decide to come to school at this time in your life? What interests or goals are you pursuing that bring you to this class?

Once you’ve completed the activities on this page, you’re ready to get started. You can see what we’re working on now by looking at the “top” entry under the Weekly Assignments tab.