Research

Dissertation Project

I am currently working on dissertation project which looks at the development and decline of public media campaigns from national organizations in rhetoric and writing studies. 

These campaigns include: 

• The Nework for Media Action from the Council of Writing Program Administrators

• The National Conversation on Writing from the Council of Writing Program Administrators

• The National Day on Writing from the National Council of Teachers of English

I became interested in this work after working on the Miami Writing Institute, which is an online aynchronous self-paced course developed by the Howe Center for Writing Excellence. As we were designing the Miami Writing Institute, we looked at other kinds of projects that attempted to connect with audiences outside of higher education. 

While there are many projects that speak beyond the bubble of higher education, I was intruiged by these national media campaigns that were developing in the 2000s-2010s. After doing some digging (and heavily relying on the waybackmachine), I realized that the majority of the artifacts and stories associated with these public media campaigns has already been lost to time, or is being lost to time. 

And I want to capture those stories. 

Other Research

• I am creating a digital open-access archive of artifacts related to these public media campaigns, as well as other early 2000s content that relied on emerging media. This includes digitizing interviews conducted by Peter Berkow for his telecourse English Composition: Writing for an Audience (2000) that was published by Annenburg Media and distributed by the PBS arm PBS YOU (Your Own University). 

• I have done work on disciplinary identity formation in rhetoric and writing studies that allows for rhizomatic development in contrast to Richard Lloyd-Jones's "writing as the center" (hopefully to be published soon!).

• I co-authored a piece with Jennifer Grouling about TA development in graduate programs, paying particular attention to how teaching mentors can impact TA development positively and negatively. 

• I co-authored a collaborative piece on how different disciplines use peer response in their courses, calling for a scaffolded progression of peer response throughout a curriculum. This piece was developed through a Faculty Learning Community I led at Miami University. 

Digital Projects

I've had the opportunity to make some really cool digital projects while in grad school. These are a few highlights.