a few things to do before beginning 88v

• to use the multimedia materials you will have to download to your own

  Writers House staff

  George Blaustein, standing, third from right, is the person with the voice that recorded several of the poems in RealAudio format used in this course.

  computer a RealPlayer, if you don't already have one; go here to download a RealPlayer; if you are having trouble with this, go into the PennAdvance site and click on the technical support links there. If you ever have trouble with using a RealPlayer to view or hear a media file, call (303) 873-0005 any time day or night, or email helpdesk@advance.upenn.edu; more info about tech support here.

• now that you've tested your RealPlayer, view a 88v home page, the course schedule page, and the PennAdvance site; the latter is a site we will use only for our chat rooms

• learn how to navigate to the PennAdvance site and back again; learn how to use your "PennAdvance" password to get into the site and used the English 88 chat rooms. If you ever have trouble with the PennAdvance site, or with the chat rooms there, call (303) 873-0005 any time day or night, or email helpdesk@advance.upenn.edu; more info about tech support here.

• familiarize yourself with the instructor and the teaching assistant

• go through the course schedule, chapter by chapter:

  • put the dates and times of our live webcasts, indicated by this icon (), in your personal calendar now so that you can be sure to participate

    Bernadette Mayer at the Writers House, 1999

  • prepare for our webcasts by reading this document carefully - an overview of how the webcast works, how you can get help if you have technical problems during the webcast, etc.

  • look at the schedule of papers, indicated by this icon () and begin to plan out, roughly, which ones you'll write and which you'll skip

  • find some or all of the multimedia materials: you can do this by going through the schedule chapter by chapter, looking for the multimedia icon ()

  • tour the Kelly Writers House site

  • to get a sense of the writing scene at Penn and its influence on the way at least one students views his learning experience, see a short video about George "Chip" Blaustein on campus

  • as an aid to imagining our live webcast symposia, see this news report on the webcast of a panel discussion of William Carlos Williams's "To Elsie"