Teaching

EBuckTeaching
Photo courtesy of Ball State Photo Services
FORDHAM University 

Courses Taught:

ENGL 5650: Special Topics in Writing Studies

This course will survey selected issues in writing studies, with an emphasis on intersectionality. Possible topics including public writing, community writing, theories in writing program administration, WAC/WID, all with attention to the needs of increasingly diverse university settings. May be repeated when topics vary but not more than 2 courses (6 credits) may be applied to the certificate.

ENGL 3046: Writing for Digital Spaces

This is a writing-intensive course that develops students’ understanding of writing beyond print. Students will study and practice composing with the tools, skills, and strategies available for writing online, and they will learn principles of public-facing, online communication by examining and producing popular forms of digital writing across a variety of mediums (social media platforms, websites, blog posts, online videos, advertisements, and many others)

This section of ENGL 3046 will focus on an emerging and important aspect of digital and media culture: influencing. More specifically, it will focus on using the wealth of resources available to us as New Yorkers to develop and craft specific genres of influencing.

Questions we’ll consider and explore as a class will include

  • What does it mean to be an influencer?
  • What are the cultural, material, and sociological impacts of influencing?
  • How do digital platforms like YouTube and Instagram uniquely enable influencing?
  • How might thinking as an influencer help to cultivate one’s own digital identity?

The semester will culminate with a portfolio-based project where you will develop your own influencer persona.

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

Courses Taught:

ENL 650: Topics in Professional Writing (Strategic Communication)

This special topics course will provide an introduction to strategic communication. Strategic communication is a rhetorical effort by which organizations, companies, and individuals engage publics in varied media environments. In this course, students will broadly explore several modes of strategic communication, including both qualitative and quantitative approaches.

English 642: Public Relations Techniques

ENL 642: Public Relations Techniques will provide in-depth exploration into the major genres of public relations writing, including press releases, pitches, feature articles, and PR on/in social media. Students will also have the opportunity to research and analyze PR strategies and develop skills attentive to emerging trends in the field

English 453: Advanced Writing Workshop

This capstone will encourage in-depth understanding of the question: who am I as an English/Comm major or minor, and what have I been prepared to do? We will explore various ways to represent and make legible your professional online identity, as well as examine the larger significance and value of pursuing a humanities degree .The class will culminate with the development of a multimodal portfolio that synthesizes your skill set(s) as a future Liberal Arts graduate of UMass Dartmouth.

English 367: Multimodal Writing

Exploration of the intersections of multimodal writing theory and practice. Students produce and analyze multimodal texts – documents that variously employ writing, images, audio, and video, often in combination. Students will use and critically examine a variety of digital capture and editing technologies. No previous technology experience required.

English 359: Tutoring Writing

Theories and dynamics of writing consultation and course-based tutoring. Readings theorize the writing process, conflicting ideas about writing itself, as well as writing center history, theory, and practice. The course is highly interactive, calling on students to use readings as the grounding for the critical examination of writing consultant practices, as well as the co-construction of classroom discussions and activities. Experiential practice in the writing center (equivalent to one hour per week) as a writing consultant is required.

English 352: Public Relations Writing

Development of a comprehensive understanding of the principles and purposes of public relations. This writing-intensive course explores rhetorical strategies used by individuals, agencies, corporations, and governments to reach intended audiences. Students gain experience in public speaking and writing press releases, brochures, speeches, and audio-visual press releases.

English 274: Digital and Media Literacy

Introduction to digital and media literacy. Introduction to foundational literacy practices in digital media analysis and composition. Students learn core concepts in digital media studies while also developing foundational skills in composing texts across genres and modes: written, visual, and aural. Students will also learn and employ various rhetorical tactics to develop skills in questioning and troubleshooting with technology.

English 265: Business Communication

Introduction to the communication skills required in business and industry. Students will learn how to prepare, produce, revise, and deliver business reports, professional communications, computer-supported presentations, and oral presentations.

English 237: Introduction to Strategic Communication

The introduction to principles and theories of strategic communication. Students will develop practices for researching, defining, and engaging strategic communication as a rhetorical effort to persuade and identify audiences in/through various media environments.

English 102: Critical Writing and Reading II

Course Theme: What makes something magical? What factors cause us to believe or disbelieve? What role might magic play in contemporary contexts? This class will examine these questions as related to specific magical artifacts (e.g., Harry Potter) but will also encourage an exploration of magic as a lens and mechanism for evaluating what is real.

English 101: Critical Writing and Reading I

Course Theme: Writing In/As Pop Culture: From Harry Potter and Disney to Game of Thrones and Hamilton, the fandoms that we claim affiliation to shape significantly our identities. The ways in which we publicly voice or perform these affiliations—through Facebook/Tumblr groups, fanfic, cosplay, or simply via binging an entire series on Netflix—ultimately alter our literacies and ways of interacting with others. As such, this section will explore the extent to which pop culture affects your communication, using various contemporary cultural artifacts as starting points for critical analysis and discussion.

Ball State University

Recipient of the 2015-2016 Doctoral Level Teaching Award, and the 2013-2014 Writing Program Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award.

Interview with the Ball State English department on receiving the Doctoral Level Teaching Award.

Courses Taught:

English 213: Introduction to Digital Literacies

ENG 213 investigates the complexities of what it means to be digitally literate by examining an important aspect of contemporary communicative practice: social media.  By exploring how we read (and write) using digital technologies, this course considers how social media specifically shapes discourse in the twenty-first century. ENG 213 thus asks students to compose in, research, analyze, and, above all, think critically about social media and its impact on how we engage with the digital landscape.

English 605: Teaching in English Studies (Co-taught with Dr. Jennifer Grouling)

This course is the second of the two required graduate seminars for new Writing Program teaching assistants. It asks students to read extensively within the field of composition, and complete an IRB-approved research study that engages with first-year writing. In this course, I delivered multiple lectures and helped to plan and facilitate course content

English 104: Composing Research

Applies the fundamentals of rhetoric to the research process: methods of research; the rhetorical nature of research; elements, strategies, and conventions common to research writing, including multi-modal presentations of new knowledge

English 103: Rhetoric and Writing

Rhetoric and Writing introduces and develops understanding of principles of rhetoric; basic research methods; elements, strategies, & conventions of persuasion used in constructing written and multimodal texts

English 114: Honors Composing Research (TA to Dr. Jennifer Grouling)

ENG 114 fulfills the ENG 104 requirement for honors students, with extensive emphasis on critical thinking, reading, and writing in response to literary texts. It includes instruction and practice in research methods and presentation of formal research paper.

University of Nevada, Reno

Courses Taught:

English 102: Core Writing II—Deconstructing Disney: The Myth of the Mouse

Research-based writing course focused through investigations of Disney culture and its relationship to representations of gender, ethnicity, and consumerism; assignments culminated in an argumentative research paper on a topic of the student’s choosing related to an aspect of Disney

English 101: Core Writing I

Genre-based writing course that explored writing assignments that interact with students’ lived experiences, including a narrative composition, an argument essay about a pertinent local or personal issue, a rhetorical analysis assignment, and a film evaluation; heavy emphasis on daily reflective writing and self-evaluation over three- draft sequences