Department of English

I come to my research interests by way of my interest in teaching. My focus on cognitive writing studies (and similar) emerges from a commitment to helping students use writing to examine their tacit attitudes toward and beliefs about writing, education, and themselves as thinkers and people. My graduate work borrowed from the theory behind Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to supplement current frameworks of writing-related thinking in cognitive writing studies, offering a more robust way of conceptualizing the individual student’s oft-unrecognized but powerfully influential core beliefs about writing and about themselves as writers.

I am currently pursuing connections between this work and other areas of writing studies, particularly transfer and Writing-Across-the-Curriculum/Writing-In-the-Disciplines (WAC/WID) research.

Also, my last name is pronounced "Ree-oh-pell."