Like Diotima, Socrates's rhetoric teacher (imaged in the cameo to the left), I think of learning to write as learning to think--particularly, learning to think of alternative possibilities and points of view. My teaching aims to identify students' unique perspectives and combine them to give all of us more tools to express our viewpoints to others.
Technical Communication
English 341, Technical Communication
This course is designed as an introduction to technical communication and fulfills a general requirement. Students learn the forms and functions of technical documents like resumes, manuals, and reports, with special attention to client needs and usability. Projects are designed for maximum applicability beyond the classroom.
TC151, Introduction to Visual Communication
The goal of this course is to develop basic graphical literacy. Students will learn a vocabulary for reading and writing space, color, proportion, and form as well as text. A central objective of the course is an awareness of the rhetoric and politics of the choices designers make when constructing graphics for an audience.
TC/HUMA 211, Introduction to Media Studies
The goal of this course is to examine the cultural impact of media from a historical perspective.
TC 251, Practicum: Introduction to Web Design
The goal of this course is to learn best practices for user-centered web design. DreamWeaver is the instruction vehicle, but we also learn some HTML, Photoshop, and Flash.
TC 411, Persuasive Communication
The goal of this course is to learn persuasive skills as applied to perhaps the most exigent rhetorical situation facing engineers and scientists today: the writing of grant proposals.
College English
English 103, College Grammar
This course is a review of rhetorical grammar for college writers, with a special emphasis on sentence rhythm and paragraph coherence.
English 111, College English I
This course is an introduction to academic argumentation. Students learn to consider audience when reading and writing. The syllabus focuses on key arguments used by academics: definitional arguments, evaluations, causal arguments, and proposals.
English 112, College English II
English 112 continues the work begun in 111 with a continued focus on persuasive argumentation and a capstone research paper.
English 589, Graduate Writing Seminar
The graduate writing seminar serves two purposes: first, to give graduate students a chance to workshop in depth a draft of a chapter or article they have already completed; second, to provide an orientation to the history, rhetoric, and politics of writing and doing research in an academic environment.
Linguistics and Literature, ENGL 436
Teaching