Courses Taught

ENGL 1301: Essentials to College Rhetoric

• Fall 2021, 3 credits

• Fall 2022, 3 credits

  This course is designed to ground first-year students in the reading, writing, and rhetorical demands, and practices necessary for engaging in civic discourse and for success in college and beyond. This class teaches students to be both critical readers of complex texts and critical writers and creators of effective texts. This course assumes that the key to critical reading and effective writing is rhetorical knowledge. Rhetoric is foundational for this course because it helps you to understand how other people’s texts work and have effects on audiences and helps you to compose effective and purposeful texts yourself. Rhetorical knowledge prepares you to participate in and respond to a variety of writing situations, whether it be in public arenas, professional settings, personal situations, or future college courses. This course teaches you how to identify other writers’ choices and how to make your own choices across a variety of writing situations.

ENGL 1302: Advanced College Rhetoric

• Spring 2022, 3 credits

• Summer 2022, 3 credits

• Spring 2023, 3 credits

  This course is designed to ground first-year students in the reading, writing, and rhetorical demands and practices necessary for engaging in civic discourse and for success in college and beyond. This class builds on the work of English 1301 to teach students to be both critical readers of complex texts and critical writers of effective texts. English 1302 focuses particularly on inquiry, conducting research, evaluating sources, incorporating source material in your own writing, mapping out a conversation around an issue, and entering that conversation through your own writing. This course assumes that the key to researching, evaluating sources, and responding to writing contexts is rhetorical knowledge. Rhetoric is foundational for this course because it helps you to understand how other people’s texts work and helps you compose effective and purposeful texts yourself in a variety of genres, media, and forms.

ENGL 2351: Introduction to Creative Writing

• Summer 2023, 3 credits

• Fall 2023, 3 credits

  This course is centered around understanding the fundamentals and basic elements, as well as the reading and writing of fiction and poetry. Reading is an essential aspect of becoming a better writer. To facilitate this, we will not only be writing and revising our own creative work throughout the semester, but you will also be expected to read the required materials closely (assessed through class discussion and participation and reading responses), provide constructive, careful, and useful feedback on your classmates’ creative writings through workshops and verbal/written comments. Additionally, a complete and comprehensive final portfolio will be constructed to be turned in at the end of the semester. Our primary goals in the course are to hone our craft, experiment with new styles of writing, and create a supportive, collaborative writing community.

ENGL 3351: Creative Writing: Fiction (Synchronous & Asynchronous)

• Spring 2024, 3 credits

• Summer 2024, 3 credits

  This is a creative writing course designed to foster a generative environment where students of all majors feel comfortable expressing their stories in a variety of forms. We will specificallystudyshort stories and flash,thoughmanyoftheskillswestudywillhelp inall creative endeavors. By study, I mean discussions on craft, critical engagements with a variety of contemporary readings, and extensive writing activities. We will spend the bulk of our time reading the work of our peers, providing feedback where we can, and learning about our own voices in the process. This class will be focused on what some call “literary” writing, though we will challenge that troublesome term and many others throughout the semester.

ENGL 2307: Introduction to Fiction: Research in Historical Fiction (Asynchronous)

• Fall 2024, 3 credits

  This section of 2307 will introduce students to fiction’s generic conventions, and to strategies for critical interpretation, by exploring historical fiction. It explores the intersection of history and fiction through the lens of historical novels. We will examine how authors incorporate factual research into their storytelling to create compelling and authentic narratives. Our study will focus on several significant texts, including Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, and Weep Not Child by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o. Additionally, we will engage with a textbook on the craft of writing historical fiction, providing students with both theoretical and practical insights into the genre. We will note how and why the writers have chosen fiction rather than nonfiction, and what the ethics of recreating an era and its people include. Students will leave the course with an understanding of fiction’s key characteristics (including, for instance, plot, narrative voice, setting, and dialogue) and will develop this understanding through extensive critical writing.