University Teaching

Public Rhetoric and Community Engagement

More details coming soon!

Writing Across Differences: Rhetoric, Storytelling, and Public Engagement

English 100: Introduction to College Composition

This course is founded on the idea that writing and communication attune us to ourselves and to others. In doing so, language shapes how we relate to one another. We will learn skills of analysis to uncover how writing and rhetoric connects and divides us within our own classroom, in the university, and in communities. We will pay close attention to the relationships among individuals and communities, with specific focus on how communication in multiple modes—written, visual, aural, embodied—can be used to call attention to and design solutions for issues and problems in our communities. Students are engaging in public writing projects that make interventions in local communities. Below is a photo of one community project that involved students writing artist statements for a local gallery night at a disability organization.

Students interviewed blind artists to write artist statements that were displayed at a local gallery night at Wisconsin Council of the Blind and Visually impaired. Their statements were displayed in large print, braille, and audio recording. At Gallery Night, students were publicly acknowledged for their work and got to meet the blind artists they interviewed.

Tutoring Writing Across the Curriculum

English/L&S Interdisciplinary Courses 403: Writing Fellows Honors Seminar

An advanced-level undergraduate seminar for peer writing tutors that offers students the opportunity to explore current theory and research in writing and rhetoric studies and analyze disciplinary genres and conventions. Through the lens of access, students explored their responsibilities for and responsiveness to their peers, engaging foundational conversation in the field about linguistic diversity, racial inequity, queer theory, and multimodality. Students practice teaching methods for helping writers revise their writing. Students are required to design, implement, and deliver a research project focusing on important issues in writing and rhetoric studies, using original fieldwork methods. Some students continued their research by delivering presentations at local and national conferences (see photo below).

CCCCPhotoUndergrads — This is a photo of myself and two undergraduate Writing Fellows standing in front of their research posters at the 2016 National Convention of the Conference on College Composition and Communication. One student, Justine (on the left), conducted a study on a community outreach program, examining methods for teaching grammar to adult students from underprivileged backgrounds. Another student, Jordan (on the right), conducted a study in which she tested the influence of student disability disclosures on instructors’ approach to providing feedback on student writing.

Narrative as Argument: Composing the Stories of People and Places Around Us

English 200: Intermediate Composition

An intermediate-level college writing course that required advanced skills in academic reading, drafting, revising, editing, critical inquiry, and rhetorical analysis. With a specific focus on using narrative as a method for inquiry and argument, students completed projects including personal narratives that explore a concept, investigative narrative essays based on fieldwork methods, and multimodal narratives that address a community need. One student composed a podcast about food cultures in South Madison, an area of the city often construed as poor and dangerous, to motivate students to learn about its culture. Another student composed a promotional video for a local mental health organization featuring the stories of women who have experienced trauma.

Community Teaching

The Outlook From Here

I am the founder and facilitator of The Outlook From Here, a community-writing project in partnership with Wisconsin Council of the Blind and Visually Impaired. I facilitate a writing group connected to this project comprised of blind and visually impaired writers from across the state of Wisconsin that meets over the phone to generate story ideas and share feedback on writing.

Advocacy Workshops and other Outreach

Workshop on Disability Self-Advocacy at The Colonial Club, Sun Prairie, WI. February 2018.

Workshop on Disability Communication Strategies at Wisconsin Council of the Blind and Visually Impaired, Madison, WI, September 2017.

Presenter in “Healthcare in Diverse Communities” (an elective course). UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, March 2015, March 2016, March 2017, January 2018.