Writing Studies Teacher & Researcher
Teaching
As an instructor, I take a reflective theory-practice approach to writing that is informed by my research on students' transfer of writing knowledge and practice. In particular, I strive to help students re-see their everyday writing practices as writing, to develop a vocabulary for describing these practices and their academic writing practices, and to craft a theory of writing reflectively, one enabling them to successfully navigate new and different writing situations. By teaching students to reflect on the writing that they already do outside of classroom spaces, I encourage them to understand writing and its practice more capaciously. Through these activities, students connect composition and rhetorical theory to specific writing practices that already are, or will become, meaningful to them.
Florida State University, Summer 2015 & Summer 2016
Graduate Courses
LAE 5370: Teaching English in College
While serving as the Assistant to the Director of College Composition, I also served as a graduate teaching assistant for Teaching English in College, a 6-week course I co-designed to prepare new graduate students to work as teachers in the Florida State University College Composition Program. This course provides students with foundational readings in writing studies, composition pedagogy, and response practices; TAs respond to these readings reflectively, writing journal responses and using blogger to compose QQCs (Question, Question, & Comment). The course also includes an internship component, for which TAs attend class taught by an experienced TA for 4 weeks and write journals about their experiences. TAs also write short reflections, lead a discussion session on a key text, compose a teaching philosophy, and design a digital portfolio.
-
Sample ePortfolio available to the right; just click the image!
Upper-Level Courses
ENC 3416: Writing and Editing in Print and Online
Florida State University, Fall 2016
Writing and Editing in Print and Online (WEPO) aims to help students develop (1) effective writing practices as they compose across a variety of spaces, specifically in digital, print, and networked spaces; and (2) effective assessment and editorial practices as they critically engage both their own texts and those created by their peers.
-
Course syllabus
Sophomore-Level Courses
ENC 2135: Research, Genre, and Context:
Collector's Edition
Florida State University, Summer 2016
The course operates on a few guiding principles, the first being that it focuses on teaching students how to assemble existing texts and ideas, using various modes in a variety of media, to solve writing problems in new contexts. The course challenges traditional notions of originality and
authorship, and instead equips students with the skills and knowledge to create new compositions from preexisting materials. In order to teach students how to assemble and compose effectively, the course utilizes 8 key terms that will guide the course of inquiry throughout the semester. These terms, which we will define, study, and utilize, are: genre, audience, purpose, assemblage, reflection, design, and modality.
ENC 2135: Research, Genre, and Context: Teaching for Transfer
Florida State University, Summer 2015, Fall 2015, & Spring 2016
This sophomore-level Teaching for Transfer course is designed with the goal of helping students to develop conceptual knowledge of writing that they can adapt in other writing contexts. To facilitate this work, students read about and discuss key terms -- with particular emphasis on genre -- and apply their knowledge of these terms in completing assignments. Additionally, students use reflective theory and practice to develop their own theories of writing and to consider how their work in the course supports their theories; these theories are what students carry with them to other writing contexts.
ENC 212: Persuasive and Analytical Writing
University of Maine, Fall 2011-Summer 2013
ENG 212 builds on the portfolio outcomes of ENG 101 by asking students to work with library and other research resources beyond that which is assigned and discussed in class. Students demonstrate what they have learned about assessing and using sources in a well-scaffolded research project that develops thematically from the specific materials used in their section. Students gain familiarity with some of the methods by which researchers and scholars produce and communicate knowledge in their fields so as to make informed decisions about writing their own research persuasively.
First-Year Writing Courses
ENC 1145: Writing about Writing through Reflection, Assemblage, and Remix
Florida State University, Fall 2014 - Spring 2015
This special topics course builds on the writing process work students began in ENC 1101 and aims to help them develop an understanding of writing and its relationships with key terms we spend the semester reading about, writing with, and discussing. Using these key terms, students write and recursively revise their own theories of writing, reflecting on what writing is and what it enables them to do within particular contexts. To the right, you can also view the collaborative zine that I made with friends, colleagues, and former students, which served as one of the major course texts. By selecting the white box and arrow in the upper right hand corner of the zine, you can make it full screen for easier reading.
ENC 1102: Materiality of Composing
Florida State University, Spring 2014
This course builds on the writing process work students began in ENC 1101, where they learned that writing is both personal and social. In this course, students learn how to write for a variety of purposes and audiences, and they also consider the materials and composing technologies with which they work. Students complete two multi-genre multi-media projects, and they engage in a variety of hands-on activities enabling them to explore the affordances and constraints of various materials and technologies.
ENC 1101: How We See Ourselves and Others
Florida State University, Fall 2013 & Summer 2014
This course helps students grow as writers and critical thinkers by encouraging them to investigate and write about communities that have played a role in shaping them as individuals. In addition to looking closely at themselves as writers, they’ll take a close look at others in the classroom and within the communities around them before turning to the larger communities they currently participate in or hope to join.
-
View a sample ePortfolio by clicking the image to the right.
ENC 101: College Composition
University of Maine, Fall 2009-Spring 2013
This course focuses on preparing students to develop reading and writing practices essential to their success in other academic disciplines. They also work to develop a reflective understanding of writing practices that will help them to repurpose their learning for success in other contexts. Students build a portfolio of work to be assessed by two outside readers at the end of the semester.
-
View the Taxonomy of Student Writing generated from student responses to the first reflective assignment by clicking image to the right.
Notes from our second day of discussing these key terms.
These are notes from the class discussion on key terms as we began work with our third project, a composition-in-three-genres.
Notes from our second day of discussing these key terms.
Digital Studio Consultant
Tutoring
Florida State University, Fall 2013 - Spring 2014
As a consultant in the Digital Studio, I assisted students and faculty from a range of disciplines in completing digital projects using a variety of programs and platforms, including Photoshop, InDesign, Audacity, Prezi, and Wix.